The Housing Crisis Seems to Be Hitting Some Veterans More Than Others

For generations of veterans, getting help achieving the American dream of homeownership was a built-in benefit of military service. After World War II, GI Bills began providing educational and housing subsidies to veterans and their families; and government-backed Veterans’ Assistance loans (mostly to white vets) helped them easily secure mortgages. As a result, today, even as a housing crisis wracks the country—and as an estimated 40,000 homeless veterans go unsheltered each night—veterans are more likely to own their home than civilians.

But zoom in, and you’ll find that the advantage breaks down by war. According to a new report from Apartment List, veterans who served post-9/11 are actually more likely to struggle to afford housing—far more than any group of veterans before them, and even a little more than the average non-vet American citizen. Nearly 35 percent of them are cost-burdened (meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing) and fewer than half of them own their own homes.