Concurrent Breakout Session: Innovations & Challenges in Serving Homeless Women Veterans: Lessons from the Department of Labor’s Homeless Veteran Reintegration Program (HVRP) Grantees

Session Recording

This session will explore promising practices and challenges related to serving homeless women Veterans. These insights were gleaned from a series of listening sessions with DOL HVRP grantees as they work to provide employment assistance to Veterans with significant barriers to employment, many of which are associated with mental illness associated with trauma. We will present an overview of the process and methods used to gather the information. Then we will examine a few of the challenges faced by homeless women Veterans, such as the complexities posed by children; trauma experienced as a result of homelessness, military sexual trauma (MST), and/or intimate partner violence (IPV); and, stigma related to homelessness and veteran status, among other factors. We will also discuss the grantees’ promising practices, including implementing trauma-informed care on an individual and organizational level to the extent that it is becomes an integrated part of service procedures; extensive networking and collaboration with local, community, state, and federal partners; and other successful means of assisting women Veterans transition out of homelessness and into stable housing and gainful employment.