BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Life-Course Epidemiology and Social Inequalities in Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1634259
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring the Multidimensional Impact of Homelessness on Health and Social InclusionView all 13 articles
Families Served During the First Decade of the Supportive Services for Veteran Families Program: A Descriptive Analysis
Provisionally accepted
Renae Wilkinson1*
Katelyn Long1,2
Richard Gregory Cowden1,2
Howard Koh2
Thomas Byrne3,4
Adrienne Nash Melendez5
Jack Tsai5,6,7- 1Human Flourishing Program, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States
- 2Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health, Boston, United States
- 3Boston University School of Social Work, Boston, United States
- 4VA Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital, Bedford, United States
- 5U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Homeless Programs Office, Washington D.C., United States
- 6The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, United States
- 7Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Homelessness impacts entire families, with potential intergenerational consequences. Addressing family homelessness provides both immediate relief and long-term societal benefits. While various programs exist to mitigate homelessness, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program offers a distinctive model for combating homelessness among veterans by supporting their families as well. We analyzed VA SSVF administrative data from 2014 to 2022, covering over 800,000 program entries from all SSVF beneficiaries in the U.S., to describe the sociodemographic profiles of SSVF veteran families-including children and adult family members of veterans. Families receiving SSVF assistance faced substantial economic and health-related challenges, including high unemployment, single-income dependency, and service-related disabilities. Children in these families represent a particularly vulnerable population, underscoring the need for targeted interventions to prevent long-term adverse outcomes. Our findings point to the role of SSVF in providing essential support for homeless veterans by also offering important services to their families. This broader approach offers lessons that may extend beyond the veteran community to address homelessness in individuals nationwide. Expanding coordinated, multi-agency approaches that build upon and modify the SSVF model could strengthen national efforts to reduce homelessness.
Keywords: family homelessness, Veterans, rapid rehousing, SSVF program, Homelessness prevention
Received: 23 May 2025; Accepted: 08 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wilkinson, Long, Cowden, Koh, Byrne, Melendez and Tsai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Renae Wilkinson, Human Flourishing Program, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.