Veterans whose behavior got them kicked out of the military have dramatically higher rates of homelessness than those who left under normal circumstances, according to a new study by researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Among VA patients who served in Iraq or Afghanistan between 2001 and 2011, 5.6% were discharged for misconduct. Yet these patients accounted for 28.1% of veterans who had been homeless within their first year out of the military, the analysis found.
The type of misconduct that resulted in discharge typically involved drug or alcohol use.
"This is one of the strongest — if not the strongest — risk factors for homelessness observed to date," said Jamison Fargo, a research scientist with the VA's National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans and co-leader of the study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.