Vet and HUD

KN: More BS from Obama's people.

How Does Washington D.C. Count America's Homeless Vets?

The Obama administration recently said that the number of homeless veterans dropped by 12 percent from 2010 to 2011. But getting accurate counts of the homeless is extremely difficult, and the government changed its counting methods during the year of the reported drop. Is the number of homeless vets really going down, or is the drop an artifact of murky statistics?

By Joe Pappalardo

Homeless U.S. military veterans stand in line to receive free services at a "Stand Down" event hosted by the Department of Veterans Affairs on November 3, 2011 in Denver, Colorado.

John Moore/Getty Images

It's extraordinarily difficult to get accurate statistics on the number of homeless people in the United States. That's why it's so interesting that Shaun Donovan, the secretary for Housing and Urban Development (HUD), announced in late December a double-digit percentage point drop in the national number of homeless veterans over one year.

"I'm thrilled to announce that we have evidence that this funding is making a real difference to getting homeless veterans off the street and into homes they can call their own," Donovan said during a press conference. "Thanks to the work done by HUD, and agency partners across the Obama Administration, the most recent homeless estimate shows veteran homelessness fell by nearly 12 percent in just one year."

Donovan attributed the improvement to billions in anti-homeless initiatives invested by the federal government since 2009. But what he didn't mention is that between 2010 and 2011, HUD changed the way it counts homeless veterans, and those changes could throw uncertainty on the veracity of the numbers. Last year, HUD stopped using statistical estimates and instead mandated that homeless organizations that receive federal money survey homeless people to determine if they are veterans. They also used figures supplied by local Veteran Administration (VA) programs instead of estimates.

The big question, then, is: Are we really seeing a substantial drop in the number of homeless vets? Or could the 12 percent decline in homeless vets be an artifact of 2011's new methodology?

After speaking to HUD officials, homeless shelters, and statisticians, PM found good and bad news. There has been very real local coordination between the VA and HUD to help homeless veterans. But the truth is that no one—not even HUD's number crunchers—is sure if the new method of counting homeless vets is driving the stats up or down. Furthermore, federal reports warn that drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the White House's proposal to cut overall troop levels, may lead to spikes in homelessness in young veterans, which local aid workers say is a growing problem. 

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