Housing and Urban Development–Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Vouchers and Veterans’ Homelessness, 2007–2017

Objectives. To determine what role the 88 000 Housing and Urban Development–Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) vouchers for permanent supportive housing among US veterans distributed between 2008 and 2017 played in the significant fall in veterans’ homelessness over the same time period. Methods. Using a panel data set at the Continuum of Care level over the 2007 to 2017 period, we correlated changes in vouchers with permanent supportive housing units and measures of homelessness. To reduce concerns about omitted variables bias, we used a 2-stage least-squares procedure. The instrument is a Bartik-type shift-share variable. Specifically, for the cumulative vouchers received at the local level, we used the share of the nation's homeless veterans from the local level in the year before the HUD-VASH program multiplied by the cumulative number of vouchers distributed at the national level up to that point. Results. For each additional voucher, permanent supportive housing units increased by 0.9 and the number of homeless veterans decreased by 1. Conclusions. Our results indicate the HUD-VASH program worked as intended and veterans’ homelessness would have risen substantially over the past decade without the program.

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Evans, W. N., Kroeger, S., Palmer, C., Pohl, E. (2019). Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing vouchers and veterans' homelessness, 2007-2017. American Journal of Public Health, 109(10), 1440-1445. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305231