It looks like there are more homeless veterans in Maine. But the numbers don’t tell the whole...

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At first glance, statistics on the number of veterans in Maine who are homeless seem to point to a troubling trend.

From 2008 to 2015, the number of homeless identified as veterans jumped 70 percent in Maine, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which annually organizes a census of the country’s homeless populations on one night.

The actual numbers are low compared with bigger states: There were 89 homeless veterans in Maine in 2008, and 151 this year. But that spike still contrasts with a smaller overall veteran population here in Maine, as well as a drop in the number of homeless veterans across the country, as highlighted in a recent Pew Charitable Trusts report.

California, New York and Texas, for example, are among the states showing huge gains in getting homeless veterans off the streets, according to Pew.

Nationwide, the number of homeless veterans dropped by 27 percent, to 47,504, between 2011 and 2015, according to Pew. That roughly coincided with a ramp-up in federal funding for programs targeting homeless veterans, from $399 million in 2009 to $1.37 billion in 2014.