“….to promote recovery oriented care for Veterans who are homeless or at-risk for homelessness.“

The Center’s Preliminary Studies

This year, the Center will begin to design both population and program-based research.  Two studies will be conducted in VA’s Integrated Service Networks 4 and 8 in FY 2010 and 2011.  It is anticipated that these studies will be conducted nation-wide in the future.  The Center’s university affiliates, the University of Pennsylvania and University of South Florida , will be principals in these efforts and will collaborate with Center personnel to facilitate, conduct, and monitor the research.  It is anticipated that these two studies will be conducted nation-wide after the initial pilot and will serve as the foundation for the Center’s future research as well as serve to inform VA policy, homeless program design, and program services targeting.

Study one: Evaluating Housing Programs for Homeless Veterans (University of South Florida , Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute).  The purpose of this study is to:

• Evaluate community-based housing services;
• Define key features of the housing and associated services;
• Determine criteria that measure these features;
• Conduct assessments to describe the housing options.

Study two: Applying Administrative Data to Estimate the Prevalence of Veterans Among Homelessness Program Users and their use of VA-Funded Health Services (University of Pennsylvania ).  The purpose of this study is to:

• Estimate the prevalence of Veterans among the homeless population and their use of VA-funded health services;
• Identify characteristics of homeless program users reporting to be Veterans in the National Homeless Management Information System database;
• Collect program utilization data integrated with VA health data to examine health care utilization patterns and costs among homeless Veterans.

The Center: Overview

The Center’s Mission and Goals

The Center’s Program Cores