28 October 2011 - As wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, federal officials are seeing a growing number of young veterans on the street, according to a joint homeless study by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Department of Veterans Affairs released Friday.About 13,000 of the nation's homeless in 2010 were ex-servicemembers between ages 18 and 30, a disproportionately large number of the nation's overall homeless veteran population, the study says.
"These findings are particularly concerning given the anticipated number of new veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq," the study concludes.
The Army expects to cut its forces by about 50,000 over the next year or two after pulling troops out of Iraq by December and continuing a drawdown of forces in Afghanistan.
The HUD-VA study noted that while young veterans make up only about 5% of the nation's veteran population, they constitute nearly 9% of all former servicemembers who are homeless. read more>>>
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