The image of a homeless veteran does not immediately bring to mind that of a female homeless veteran. But, the VA says that women comprise the fastest-growing segment of the homeless veteran population.
In its 2017 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimated that just over 40,000 veterans were homeless on a single night in January of that year. Of those, about 9 percent were women. From 2016 to 2017, the number of homeless female veterans increased by 7 percent, compared with 1 percent for their male counterparts.
In a 2016 report, the VA-funded National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans said the number of women identified by the program as homeless, or who accessed VA programs to end homelessness tripled to 36,443 in a five-year period ending in 2015. That figure, according to the center, is projected to rise by about 9 percent to nearly 40,000 by 2025.
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