Update on Emerging Research on Veteran Homelessness

Current population estimates suggest that 75,000+ veterans are homeless on any given night and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness over the course of a year. Homeless veterans now receive housing assistance and supportive services in a variety of VA and community programs that provide a broad range of alternatives to facilitate permanent housing solutions. As these programs have evolved, increasing research effort has been directed to evaluation of outcomes. A review of this literature reveals that the outcome paradigms have typically focused on mental health characteristics (e.g., serious mental illness, substance abuse) of veterans and program elements (e.g., transitional housing with mental health treatment support) as factors influencing outcome. More recent research in veteran homelessness has taken a broader view, recognizing the importance of more comprehensive assessment of the veteran receiving services and of the programs providing these services. There is now increasing recognition that the population of homeless veterans is heterogeneous and composed of subgroups with varying pathways of entry into homelessness, differing patterns of long-term outcomes with and without housing interventions, and complex interactions of risk profiles. In this symposium, we introduce current critical topics reflecting the recent research effort that recognizes the complexity of the homelessness condition in veterans. These presentations review the underlying issues and provide representative results of programmatic investigations of the factors related to the dramatically increased risk of suicidal behaviors in homeless veterans, characteristics of the growing older homeless veteran population, and more comprehensive approaches to the prediction of housing intervention outcomes.