Homeless Veterans

Idea for this visualization came from this article about the plight of US veterans with misconduct discharge.  The article mentions about the research that shows US veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq with general misconduct discharge have highest risk of becoming homeless, comparing to other discharge categories. 

This study is significant because it highlights the contradiction between the reality where the number of US soldiers discharged with misconduct is increasing and the federal government priority to end homelessness among veterans!  Let’s hope the federal policy will be amended to match the reality so that the veterans can receive some help. 

(Some of you might wonder if the veterans who were discharged with misconduct deserve to have benefits from the government as other veterans?  Maybe or maybe not.  But if the question were rephrased as “Do veterans who were deployed multiple times and served in combat but were discharged with misconduct deserve to have benefits from the government as other veterans?”, would that change your opinion?)