2022 PIT Count Shows Largest Drop in veteran homelessness in 5 years
Nov. 2. 2022
Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) announced preliminary results for veterans of the 2022 Point-in-Time Count (PIT). Results of the report showed an 11% decrease in veteran homelessness since 2020. (The 2022 PIT Count is the first full PIT Count since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began. In 2021, many communities did not conduct unsheltered counts in order to stop/slow the spread of COVID-19, resulting in an incomplete picture of veteran homelessness in America.)
The report shows that in 2022 the number of veterans without permanent housing was 33,136-down from 37,252 in 2020. This decrease represents a 55.3% drop in veteran homelessness since 2010 and a 11% drop since 2020, which is the biggest reduction in 5 years.
The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans is pleased to see the return of double digit decreases in veteran homelessness, especially considering the challenging environment created by the COVID-19 pandemic and our nation’s housing affordability crisis. This would not have been possible without NCHV member and non-member providers working tirelessly on the front lines throughout the pandemic to ensure veterans had housing.
We are grateful to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development for their renewed focus on addressing veteran homelessness at the Secretarial level. Our gratitude extends to Congress for heeding our warnings that a lack of investment and programmatic change during the pandemic would be disastrous for veterans facing housing instability.
However, as the COVID-related social safety net disappears in many communities, we demand Congress take action to ensure veterans are not forgotten. Congress must pass S. 2172, the Building Solutions for Veterans Experiencing Homelessness Act, to make pandemic-era flexibilities permanent. Further, we demand Congress continue pandemic-level appropriations for all federal programs for veterans experiencing and at-risk of homelessness because veteran homelessness is an emergency, with or without a pandemic.
NCHV looks forward to the release of additional detailed data to help us better understand this progress by location and subpopulation. Progress that perpetuates inequities among subpopulations, whether race, gender, age, disability, or other characteristic, fine-tuned to ensure that the veteran’s innate characteristics do not make them less likely to obtain housing.