New housing serves homeless female veterans

The Department of Veterans Affairs says women make up about 5 percent of homeless veterans.

DAYTON (AP) — Carisa Dogen is an Army veteran. She’s also homeless and has slept in parks and scavenged for food in trash cans.

“It’s real tough, especially on nights when it’s cold and rainy,” Dogen, 38, said as she sat inside The Other Place, a homeless shelter. “I got accosted a couple of times by males. Walking the streets and stuff, it’s hard and it’s scary.”

Dogen is among the 7,000 to 8,000 homeless female U.S. military veterans as estimated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She is among the few who are hoping to benefit from new housing specifically for female veterans, an initiative homeless advocates say falls far short of what is needed.

A 27-unit renovated apartment building for female veterans on the Dayton Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus was completed in August. It is expected to be filled by mid-November.

The facility is one of the largest of about a dozen around the nation, said Peter Dougherty, director of homeless-veterans programs for Veterans Affairs. Run by a private housing agency, it will give veterans access to medical services, day care, job training, and drug and alcohol counseling.

The homeless female veteran is a relatively new phenomenon because only recently have so many women been in the military, said Todd DePastino, a historian at Waynesburg University in Pennsylvania who wrote a book on the history of homelessness.

Nearly 11 percent of U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are women. Women make up about 5 percent of homeless veterans, up from 3 percent 10 years ago, according to the VA.

“It’s a national embarrassment,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

More women are showing up at the door of Swords to Plowshares, a San Francisco group that provides housing and other services to homeless veterans.

Tia Christopher, the group’s coordinator for women veterans, said a 25-year-old Army veteran who served in Iraq recently came to her for help. The woman was sleeping on a couch in the home of her mother and stepfather.

“There is high risk she’s going to be homeless with a substance-abuse issue, and I can’t get her in anywhere,” Christopher said.

Christopher herself had only a car and $500 when she left the Navy. She lived with her grandmother until she could find a job.

There are several reasons veterans become homeless, advocates say.

Repeated deployments make it difficult for veterans to keep their finances in order and for reservists to hold on to their civilian jobs.

Fallout from military service — which can include post-traumatic stress disorder — can seriously damage family and interpersonal relationships. Those stresses can lead to withdrawal and depression, which can make it difficult to land a job. The lack of income makes it hard to pay rent or a mortgage.

Few Veterans Affairs facilities offer residential mental health treatment specifically for women with post-traumatic stress disorder, said Amy Fairweather, director of the Iraq veterans program for Swords to Plowshares.

“The services are really behind the curve,” she said.

The VA has 15 such facilities that can accept women.

The VA estimates that 154,000 veterans were homeless on any given night last year, about a 20 percent decrease from the 195,827 in the agency’s 2006 estimate.

Dougherty said the number is down in part because the department has beefed up its housing programs. About 19,000 veterans were in traditional VA housing last year, up from 4,000 in 2000.

He said the VA gives funding priority to groups that specifically serve women and the number of sites for women-only programs has increased as a result.

Female veterans without housing often resort to shelters. Out of 500 VA-run homeless shelters, 300 can accept women. But only 22 have programs that address female veterans specifically or have living arrangements separate from men.

In programs that serve both sexes, women are usually in the minority and are often uncomfortable discussing physical issues, such as sexual trauma, Dougherty said. As a result, some don’t make progress with their problems.