![Veterans Affairs grants more cash for veterans as women fall through the cracks](https://globalnews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20220420150424-62605e42bbacb0e2ffe846b8jpeg.jpg?quality=85&strip=all&w=720&h=379&crop=1)
Veterans Affairs grants more cash for veterans as women fall through the cracks
Global News
According to a scientist from McGill University, women who have served in the Armed Forces represent a disproportionate number among Canada's homeless veteran population.
According to Canada’s Department of National Defense (DND) as of 2022, just over 16 per cent of Canadian Armed Forces members were women.
That includes both the regular force and reserves.
But according to associate professor Dr. Deborah Da Costa, a scientist in McGill University’s Department of Medicine, women who have served represent a disproportionate number of the homeless veteran population.
“I was shocked when I was writing this study to see that, really, we have very little evidence-based research in the Canadian context,” she declared.
Women represent thirty per cent of veterans who use shelters, she said, and they tend to be younger and more vulnerable.
“As veteran women working with the majority males, the kind of discrimination and harassment that they experience on a daily basis, you have to be hard as nails,” she pointed out.
Da Costa stressed that women are more at risk for homelessness, depression and PTSD.
She is about to launch a three-year study across Canada into the problem.