VA houses largest number of homeless Veterans in seven years; VA Palo Alto health care helped house 646 Veterans locally

That number is 4,011 more Veterans than VA housed last year.

The nationwide numbers include 646 Veterans permanently housed by VA Palo Alto health care.

This is VA’s best national performance since it began tracking the number of individual Veterans permanently housed instead of the total number of permanent housing placements, ensuring a more accurate count of the number of Veterans helped.

VA began using this new methodology in 2022, and when applied retroactively to 2019, the numbers look like this:

• FY 2025 – 53,839 permanent housing placements and 51,936 Veterans housed
• FY 2024 – 51,124 permanent housing placements and 47,925 Veterans housed
• FY 2023 – 48,059 permanent housing placements and 46,051 Veterans housed
• FY 2022 – 41,208 permanent housing placements and 39,868 Veterans housed
• FY 2021 – 39,637 permanent housing placements and 38,401 Veterans housed
• FY 2020 – 45,397 permanent housing placements and 44,048 Veterans housed
• FY 2019 – 49,462 permanent housing placements and 48,133 Veterans housed

In May 2025, VA took bold action to reduce Veteran homelessness by launching its Getting Veterans Off the Street initiative, in which every VA health care system across the country hosted dedicated outreach surge events to locate unsheltered Veterans and offer them immediate access to housing programs, health care, behavioral health services, and VA benefits. Getting Veterans off the street helped move 25,065 unsheltered Veterans to interim (emergency and transition) or permanent housing.

“This is life-changing and in many cases life-saving work,” said Jean Gurga, VA Palo Alto director. “We are proud of the progress VA Palo Alto is making to get Veterans off the streets and are redoubling our efforts to continue this momentum moving forward.”

These efforts complement President Trump’s May executive order to establish a National Center for Warrior Independence for Homeless Veterans on the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center campus. The National Center for Warrior Independence for Homeless Veterans aims to provide housing and support for up to 6,000 homeless Veterans from across the nation by 2028.

Every day, VA staff and community partners across the country help Veterans find permanent housing – such as apartments or houses to rent or own – often with subsidies to help make the housing more affordable. In some cases, VA teams and partners help Veterans end their homelessness by reuniting them with family and friends.

Visit VA.gov/homeless to learn about housing initiatives and other programs supporting homeless Veterans.

For more information, contact Laura Hutcheson at Laura.Hutcheson@va.gov.