An Army of Homeless

Between 150,000 and 200,000 vets are estimated to be homeless on any given night, and about a million more struggle to pay the rent each month.

In 2005, about 2.3 million veteran renter households had low incomes. An estimated 1.3 million, or about 56 percent of these low-income veteran households, had housing affordability problems, meaning they were paying more than 30 percent of their household income for rent, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

An Army of Homeless
San Francisco,CA,USA
AFFORDABLE HOUSING FINANCE • January 2009

One out of four homeless males is a veteran

BY DONNA KIMURA

Paul Livingston was just 18 and fresh out of high school in 1979. He and his older brother applied for the same job. The factory hired his brother, so Livingston joined the Marines. He served for three years. Now 47, he’s made some mistakes and had some hard luck. He was about to be on the streets when he recently got a room at a new development for homeless veterans in Kent, Ohio. The first in his family to enter the military, Livingston has two sons serving in the National Guard, with the youngest recently returning home from Iraq.