ATLANTA — The Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it permanently housed 51,936 homeless veterans across the country in fiscal year 2025, marking the largest number of homeless veterans housed in seven years.
This represents an increase of 4,011 veterans housed compared to the previous year.
The Atlanta VA Health Care System housed 745 veterans locally, which is 157% of their planned goal for the fiscal year.
“This is life-changing and in many cases life-saving work,” said Kai D. Mentzer, executive director of Atlanta VAHCS. “We are proud of the progress Atlanta VAHCS is making to get veterans off the streets and are redoubling our efforts to continue this momentum moving forward.”
The VA’s success in housing homeless veterans is attributed to its “Getting Veterans Off the Street” initiative, launched in May 2025. It involved outreach surge events across the country to locate unsheltered veterans and offer them immediate access to housing programs, health care, behavioral health services and VA benefits.
Through this initiative, 25,065 unsheltered veterans were moved to interim or permanent housing. The VA says its new methodology for tracking housing placements, which began in 2022, ensures a more accurate count of the number of Veterans helped by focusing on individual Veterans permanently housed rather than total housing placements.
The VA says its staff and community partners assist veterans in finding permanent housing every day, often with subsidies to make housing more affordable. In some cases, Veterans are reunited with family and friends to end their homelessness.
President Donald Trump’s executive order established the National Center for Warrior Independence for Homeless Veterans on the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center campus. This center aims to provide housing and support for up to 6,000 homeless veterans nationwide by 2028.
Visit VA.gov/homeless to learn about housing initiatives and other programs supporting homeless veterans.
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