Help lags for homeless female veterans

"Many of the women we see joined the military because they were seeking safety from an abusive step-parent or some sort of sexual abuse," says Toni Reinis, executive director of New Directions, a residential self-help program for veterans in Los Angeles that has treated an estimated 500 female veterans over the past 13 years. "Often they find the military was not, in fact, a safe place."

For female veterans who find themselves on the streets, the problem of finding an adequate shelter is often compounded by fear of sexual abuse. Only a handful of veterans' services around the US have special buildings or floors for women, despite the fact that social workers say separate facilities for homeless female vets are crucial for their recovery. "When you talk to women veterans, you'll hear them clearly say, 'we want a place of our own.' They don't feel safe," says Marsha Four, director of homeless veterans services at the Philadelphia Veterans Multi-service and Education Center.

Many women who served in the military don't perceive themselves as veterans, which can also prevent them from seeking out services, says Ms. Beversdorf. She would like to see the VA undertake a broad-based campaign to educate veterans about their benefits.

One of them is Katye Gates, a veteran from Brimfield, Mass., who served in Iraq for 15 months – running a .50 caliber gunner on more than 180 army convoys. "When I first came back, it was weird because I'd go to vet centers, and it's nearly all men there. But I served my country."

Ms. Gates, a single mother who says she had "a hard time getting help" from the VA to find housing when she returned from Iraq, thinks that the department should institute a "buddy system" to pair up female veterans with others like them in their area.

The needs of women veterans stretch far beyond that for beds in temporary shelters, says Jack Downing, executive director of a VA-funded shelter in Leeds, Mass. "Everything has failed these women," he adds. "They need to be tethered to VA services for the rest of their lives. They need to be permanently connected to something if they are going to make it."

The VA has no permanent housing program for veterans; it only funds "temporary transitional" housing programs around the country. The Department of Housing and Urban Development provides housing vouchers to the homeless that are administered by local authorities. The problem, experts say, is there are not enough affordable housing vouchers for all who need them.

But "if a woman is a veteran, it actually helps," says Beversdorf, because being both female and a veteran elevates her status for housing over other applicants.

Increasingly, veterans are getting connected to services better than ever before, says Mr. Dougherty. "What we're finding is that the vet community is being aggressive about trying to find homeless veterans," he says, noting that many recently returned veterans contact the VA via the Internet if they face health or housing problems.

Beversdorf agrees that there is "a lot more help out there than there was after [the Vietnam War]," in which she served from 1969 to 1971.

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