Policy Analysis on US Veterans Homelessness

These variations are often attributed to the incomes, which are drastically falling in such areas and limited job opportunity plus other factors such as psychological issues. According to Kilbourne (2013), homelessness refers to a state in which a person lacks housing. Besides homelessness also includes those whose primary residence is supervised by either a private or a public facility, which offers temporary living accommodation, and those in transitional housing. According to, there were more than 553742 individuals in the US who homelessness on a single night in the year (Kilbourne, 2013, p. This represented a 0. There has been a substantial proportion of the homeless veteran population since the 1980s. This condition has however remained a puzzle since a majority of the homeless veterans seems to be more educated, older, have higher chances of marrying besides being in a better position of having health coverage as opposed to other homeless adults.

By virtue of having served in the army, this group of people has previous employment history thus should not find it hard in securing employment. These advantages should place the veterans at a lower risk of being homeless as compared to other members of the population. The pre-military, the military and post-military factors are the key contributors to the homelessness trends in the veteran population. About 41% of their population is between the ages of 31 and 50 years. The proportion of veterans between the age of 18 and 30 is only 5% while those between the ages of 31 and 50 years are 23%. The American homeless veterans served in the Second World War, Vietnam War, and cold war, Panama, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf. A higher percentage of the homeless veterans in the US served in the Vietnam War.

About 2/3 of them served the country in the past 3 years and a third of them were stationed in the war zone. During urbanization, between 1820 to 1850, homelessness sharply rose in the US. During this period, some of the primary causes of homelessness included the construction of railroads and telegraphs, which introduced pervasive societal changes. Besides those who worked in the mines, docks and mills had lower job securities, which often led to their inability to afford good shelter. This period was characterized by bumpy business cycles. Between (1870-1900), industrialization and civil war there was a significant spike in homelessness. This increasing divide characterized by rising survival rates have since led the veterans to feel more disconnected from communities. Homelessness constitutes one of the ignored and untreated symptoms of war.

The policies aimed at solving this problem should be aimed at addressing the drive isolations and the failure of the society to transition the service members after the home service. In the contemporary American society, the Veterans are still facing various challenges in readjusting to various economic challenges and homelessness. In Los Angeles, the number of homeless veterans was 6248 in the 2013 and about 5000 in 2015 (Tsai & Rosenheck, 2015, p. In order to have a long-term solution to this problem, the systemic etiology of the veteran homelessness must thus address via a holistic model, which is supported by a policy and engages key partners in finding the root cause of the problem References Byrne, T. , Montgomery, A.  E. , & Fargo, J.  D. Australian Economic Review, 50(2), 205-213.