Minnesota officials announced in October that the state has reached “functional zero” for veteran homelessness — meaning homelessness among veterans is now rare, brief, and the systems that prevent it are holding.
Nationally, federal housing data shows veteran homelessness fell 56 percent between 2009 and 2025. The 2025 point-in-time count found 32,495 veterans homeless on a single night in January, 40 percent of them without shelter.
The number that matters is what happens after the count reaches zero. Twin Cities Catholic Charities, which serves Minneapolis and St. Paul, sets aside 34 of its 1,100 housing units for veterans and connects them with government housing programs. Chief program officer Keith Kozerski said functional zero means “the state or continuum of care has enough resources to meet the needs of veterans that may be homeless at any single time.”
But he is candid about the limits: about 20 percent of the veterans his agency houses return to homelessness. A 2023 study found 5 percent of newly housed veterans returned to the streets within six months, rising to 16 percent after two years.
“The men and women who show up at our doors sacrificed a great deal for our country and our communities,” Kozerski said. “We feel like it’s our obligation to honor that sacrifice.”
Functional zero is not the end of the work. It is the point where the work has to keep being done, quietly, every month.
Source: OSV News / The Catholic Sun, Nov. 11, 2026; HUD 2025 Annual Homelessness Assessment to Congress. Photo: Wilfredor, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Illustrative.
