Posted on September 23, 2019 by Michelle Skidmore
(Sept. 24, 2019) — A recent M.S.W. grad and Applied Demography master’s degree seeking student is using her research to raise awareness of the issue of homeless women veterans. Lily Casura M.S.W. ’19 has written extensively on the plight of female veterans who became homeless.
Using government data, Casura estimates that of more than 2 million women veterans in the U.S., roughly 10% are living in poverty. Of those, Casura estimates that 13% to 15% are homeless “right now.” She reckons the nationwide number of homeless women veterans “not as high as 50,000 but close.”
In addition, Casura found that about 40% of female veterans had experienced homelessness. Of those, one-third had been homeless within six months to a year after they left the military. “They weren’t prepared,” she says. “They didn’t get the right training, they didn’t have any savings, many were victims of sexual trauma.”
Far from acting defensively, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs welcomed her research and has begun to factor it into their strategies and programs for dealing with homeless veterans.
Read more from The Dallas Morning News .
— Michelle Skidmore
