Ahiddenneed

Baltimore’s MCVET shelter provides housing, other services for the growing but oft-overlooked population of homeless female veterans

orine Vines’ downward spiral began in the Navy when, she says, a higher-up sexually assaulted her. She didn't report the incident, she says, but every day faced her rapist. She turned to alcohol and drugs to cope.

“I was having nightmares and dreams, and all I could see was him,” says the 56-year-old veteran, who served in San Diego, Calif., starting in August 1980.

Vines left the military in 1986, but her alcohol dependency, anxiety and depression followed, and only worsened with the untimely death of her 16-year-old son. Her addiction caused rifts within her family and made it difficult to keep a job, she said. Eventually, she became homeless.

But a turning point came in October 2016, when she visited the 24-hour service-intensive residential

Lhousing facility Maryland Center for Veterans Education and Training, or MCVET, where she quickly became a resident and student. She’s been sober ever since. “I'm not as mad at myself anymore. I can't explain it, but just being here, it feels like I'm getting my life back,” Vines said. “Even though I still miss my son, I know I don’t have to drink now. I don’t have to get drunk to make it through.”

The nonprofit MCVET, funded through the federal government, various organizations and private donations, has offered housing and a range of services for homeless male veterans since its launch in 1993. In 1997, it opened its doors to female veterans, serving as one of a handful of resources in the city — along with Veterans Affairs Maryland Health Care System, Project PLASE and Safe Haven — that work to meet their many needs. Serving these women often means addressing issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, unemployment, poor health, mental illness, domestic violence and military sexual trauma, or MST.

It’s difficult to quantify the population of homeless female veterans, but there are indications the number is growing. Locally, 10 percent of Baltimore’s homeless population as of January — or 276 people — were veterans, according to the Mayor’s Office of Human Services. Female veterans account for around 3 percent of the total veterans seen in the homeless services system, a number that has remained constant over the past three years, according to Terry Hickey, director of the Mayor’s Office of Human Services. Nationally, the number more than doubled from 1,380 in 2006 to 3,328 in 2010, according to limited U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs data analyzed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2011. The Virginia-based nonprofit Final Salute Inc., which serves homeless female veterans, has published estimates in recent years that there are