Prevention of homelessness: A comparison of risk and protective factors for veterans and non-veterans

Recent policy and legislation efforts have focused on the prevention of homelessness among Americans (e.g., the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and its “Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Program”). The Obama administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have made the prevention and ending of homelessness among Veterans a priority, and recently established the National Center on Homelessness among Veterans. In the context of these initiatives, this paper reviews structural and individual risk and protective factors for Veterans and non-Veterans. Some differences are found at the individual level, such as gender issues and the influence of issues specific to Veterans (the impact of combat exposure/post-traumatic stress disorder, maintaining housing/employment during, between, and after deployments). Greater differences are found at the structural level (e.g. service system, availability of resources, and “political will” to prevent homelessness). As the majority of individual level risk and supportive factors are similar (and structural level factors less similar but still comparable), this paper offers recommendations for applying findings from community-based studies and practices to the Veteran population. Additionally, this paper also has recommendations for taking advantage of the opportunities provided by recent initiatives of Department of Veterans Affairs to learn more about effective practices in preventing homelessness that can then be applied nationally.