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A London research team is getting more than $1 million from the federal government to study homelessness and its fallout among women military veterans in Canada.
Led by Cheryl Forchuk, assistant scientific director at the Lawson Health Research Institute, the team has already begun travelling to communities across the country to interview women veterans who are either homeless now or have experienced homelessness.
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The study, the first of its kind in Canada, will run over four years. Its goal is to gather information to better understand the issue and to help shape programs and policies to care for homeless women veterans, with the military reportedly accounting for a disproportionate number of homeless Canadians.
The federal government is providing $1.2 million to fund the study.
Forchuk called the plight of homeless women veterans “an important and yet often invisible problem,” noting the study is the first in Canada to focus exclusively on women veterans.
“Gender matters, especially when we’re talking about female veterans who are homeless. If they’ve experienced sexual trauma or abuse or have children, and the only veteran housing available is a group setting for men, that will be an issue,” she said in a news release Thursday.
The Lawson Health Research Institute is the research arm of London’s two hospitals, the London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care, and works in partnership with Western University. St. Joseph’s Health Care includes the Parkwood Institute, home to a major veterans’ care wing.
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The researchers will gather demographic and other information, including about the history of housing and homelessness and services accessed by homeless women veterans. The locations where the team will go were chosen together with the Royal Canadian Legion and other groups serving veterans, focusing on areas with pockets of homeless women veterans, the health research institute said.
The study is an important step to help address “the unique challenges” faced by homeless women who served in the military and for the federal government’s efforts to end homelessness among veterans, said London North Centre Liberal MP Peter Fragiskatos.
The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada
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