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Photo by: U.S. Navy
A female U.S. soldier provides first aid to an Iraqi civilian. According to the DOD, some 15 percent of active duty and reserve soldiers, sailors, Marines and Coast Guard and Air Force members are women. According to the GAO, the number of women who end up homeless after leaving the service more than doubled from 2006 to 2010.
The Government Accountability Office said women veterans failed to receive housing referrals, usually could not access a shelter that served both women and children, worried about the safety of such shelters and sometimes weren’t even aware of the services that do exist.
What’s more, the GAO found, VA’s existing data on women veterans was spotty, making it hard to “plan services effectively, allocate grants to providers, and track progress toward its overall goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2015.
Read the report here.