Increasing Use of Digital Technologies Among Homeless-Experienced Veterans, 2022-2024

Veterans experiencing homelessness (hereinafter, homeless veterans), an important group in society, often have limited access to digital technologies, which may affect their ability to achieve social integration. Using data from annual national surveys of homeless-experienced veterans (HEV) from 2022 through 2024 (1992 in 2022, 2596 in 2023, and 2860 in 2024), this study compared their ownership of cell phone devices and computers or laptops and their use of the internet during a 3-year period. While we found no significant change in ownership of cell phones, we found significant increases from 2022 through 2024 in ownership of smartphones (from 69.1% to 72.3%) and computers or laptops (from 36.7% to 38.5%), as well as use of the internet at least occasionally (from 75.8% to 79.0%) and often (from 71.9% to 77.3%). We observed increased internet use among currently and formerly homeless veterans when we analyzed the samples separately. Together, these findings provide updated prevalence rates of digital technology use among HEV and highlight opportunities for technology-based interventions. More HEV are using digital technologies, but we estimate that more than one-fifth of HEV still do not have a cell phone or smartphone or use the internet at all. Although access to digital technologies has increased in this population, some gaps remain, and further research is needed on how to increase the uptake of new technologies.