Boston’s older vets face unique challenges on the issue of homelessness

Boston’s older vets face unique challenges on the issue of homelessness

One weekend each year, hundreds of Boston’s military veterans stroll from booth to booth at the Stand Down for Veterans event, learning about life-changing resources: Where to seek help for a toothache; how to retain a lawyer; how to find an apartment.

At this year’s event, held Friday at Boston City Hall, they also learned about resources aimed at preventing homelessness. Those resources have already had a notable effect, said Andy McCawley, president and CEO of the New England Center and Home for Veterans, which organizes the event.

“When I got here in 2011, I think the number of veterans experiencing homelessness in Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was double what it is now,” McCawley said. “We’ve made great strides in reducing that.”

That observation is backed up by data: Since 2011, which was the first year that veteran status was included in the city’s annual homeless census, the number has dropped by 46.5%.

But in recent years, there has been a small but concerning uptick.

There was a 5.5% increase in homeless veterans from 2022 to 2023. And in the latest Boston homeless count, the number of veterans dealing with the problem went up 20%: from 190 to 228.

Unique housing vulnerabilities

One reason veterans struggle with homelessness is a loss of identity when returning to civilian life. That’s something Joe Tocci, who now works with VA Boston, felt when he was discharged from the Marines in 2008.

“Going through those struggles, those problems, those difficulties, eventually made me succumb and really look at the whole picture and what I was going through and realize that ‘I do need support and I do need help,’” he said.

Locally, people on the ground have also seen other issues leading veterans to homelessness.

Daniel Nagin, faculty director of the Veterans Legal Clinic at Harvard’s WilmerHale Legal Services Center, said some of the veterans who are most at risk are those who left the military with a less than honorable discharge — a demographic he sees frequently. But more recently, he’s also seeing older veterans showing up in need of help.

“These are folks who might be experiencing homelessness for the first time in their lives or being at risk of homelessness for the first time in their lives as an older member of our community,” he said.

Another vulnerability veterans face is that the physical and mental impacts of service — like PTSD or the effects of exposure to toxic substances — don’t always show up immediately. For some people, they manifest only years, or decades, down the road.

That’s something that David Sykes, who supervises the veterans program at Pine Street Inn, has seen. He, too, is noticing a trend of older veterans in Boston needing services.

“Here at the house, I want to say our average age used to be like 44 or 45, but I think our average age is up towards 60 now,” he said.

Sykes says while older veterans may have benefits like Social Security, those funding sources may not cut it when the cost-of-living increases.

“We just had a gentleman here who was living in a relative’s home and the taxes went up or something,” he said. “The next thing you know, they’re trying to take the home. This guy came to us. He’s in his 80s. And they put him out of his house. Lifelong family house, he got put out of it.”

A call for empathy

Katie Guay, a social worker with VA Boston, which is helping organize Friday’s event, is familiar with the mix of factors making older veterans particularly at risk.

“You see a combination of veterans who are aging and they’re not able to increase their income in any way and then you have the housing market that’s so out of control and not affordable,” she said. “And then there’s a lack of elder housing, right?”

Federally, the Housing and Urban Development’s Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program has been credited with decreasing the number of veterans dealing with homelessness nationwide. And just last month, Gov. Maura Healey signed the HERO Act, which expanded the eligibility of veterans in Massachusetts and increased their benefits.

For Joe Tocci, something as simple as having compassion and empathy for veterans who may be struggling is key.

That may be especially important as advocates continue to help veterans in need — both younger and older — before they experience homelessness.

“And I think the more that we do that personally, it’s not a save all, but it can help a lot more,” Tocci said. “Because I know when I came home, I was stuck in a rut. I was just a bad habit waiting for something bad to happen.”

Esteban Bustillos is a reporter for GBH News.