Issues Affecting Vets

  • Do not have marketable skills
  • Low income/poverty
  • High unemployment
  • Aging
  • Physical health/Mental health (PTSD, MST, TBI etc.)
  • Alcohol and/or drug abuse
  • Dual Diagnosis
  • Domestic violence
  • Incarceration
  • Disabilities
  • Transportation
  • Inadequate knowledge regarding VA benefits
  • Lack of family & social networks
  • Female Veterans Lack child care service as well as other special needs and requirements.

Women Veteran Statistics

• Women represent a large and growing segment of America’s veterans population:

• Women make up approximately 1.8 million of the nation’s 23 million veterans.

• Women comprise 7.8 percent of the total veteran population and nearly 5.5 percent of all veterans who use Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care services.

• The VA estimates women veterans will constitute 10.5 percent of the veteran population by 2020 and 9.5 percent of all VA patients.

• Women veterans are one of the fastest growing sectors of the veteran population.

• The largest groups of women Veterans today are ones who have served in the OIF/OEF operations since 9/11.

• Women make up 11.3 percent of OIF/OEF veterans.

• 49.7 percent of female OIF/OEF veterans have enrolled for VA health care. Of this group, 47.8 percent have used VA health care 11 or more times.

• 47.3 percent of female OEF/OIF veterans who used VA care during FY 2002-2009 were under age 30, compared to 43.1 percent of male OIF/OEF veterans.

• Through late 2009, the number of female veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder nationwide reached 11,713, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

• The number of women in the military has doubled in the past 30 years, and they now comprise 14 percent of the active-duty force, 17.5 percent of the Reserves, and 20 percent of new recruits, according to an August 2009 report by the California Research Bureau.