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A new Utah study makes a case for why the military should keep better tabs on service members — even after discharging them for drug use or alcoholism.
Roughly one in four veterans who was without housing at the time of his or her first visit to a Veterans Affairs medical center had been booted from service for such misconduct, researchers from Utah State University and the University of Utah found.
"There's a step and a critical transition between the Department of Defense and the VA, where if we can get a sense of who's at greater risk, there's a chance to be proactive," said co-author Jamison D. Fargo, a Utah State psychology professor. "I think that's in the spirit of the military."
Researchers from USU and the U. teamed up for the study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The research could help caseworkers nationwide prevent veterans from going without shelter by intervening early with rehabilitation, mental health and housing programs, said co-author Adi Gundlapalli, an associate professor of internal medicine and staff physician in Salt Lake City's VA health care system.
The authors hope their findings will spur VA centers to check in with veterans more often and encourage them to apply for services after deployment.
"We're hoping it's a warm handoff" from the military to civilian life, Gundlapalli said.
Researchers considered records of about 448,000 active-duty service members who were deployed in Afghanistan or Iraq and separated from the military between October 2001 to December 2011.
That group doesn't include anyone with a dishonorable discharge, which prevents service members from receiving Veterans Affairs benefits.
Among the veterans studied, the overall rate of homelessness was 0.3 percent at the time of their first VA encounter. That rate went up to 1 percent within a year, and up to 2.1 percent within five years.
Overall, just 5.6 percent of active-duty service members separated from the military for misconduct, researchers found.
But the group of dismissed troops represents 25 percent of veterans who are homeless at the first VA encounter; 28 percent at the one-year mark; and 20 percent five years out.
Researchers pinpointed homelessness by looking at medical records that indicated a "lack of housing."
A leading cause of such homelessness, the team found, was substance abuse that started in the military.
Another issue is that many discharged troops were inadequately prepared for civilian jobs after deployment.
Several struggled after deployment because they no longer had the same structure they experienced in the military.
In Utah, the rate of long-term homelessness among veterans has gone down to zero, according to the state, with nearly all veterans in housing.
But as more service members return to Utah and other states, the issue remains.
"Bear in mind that the annual estimates are still in the 40-50,000 range nationally," Fargo said. "There remains room for improvements."
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