America's homeless ranks graying as more retire on the streets

(MENAFN- BreezyScroll)

Karla Finocchio's journey to America's homeless began after she divorced her 18-year partner and moved in with a cousin.

After back surgery, the 55-year-old planned to utilize her $800-per-month disability payout to find an apartment. But she was soon sleeping in her old pickup, guarded by her German Shepherd mix Scrappy, unable to afford lodging in Phoenix, where median monthly rates for a one-bedroom jumped 33 percent during the coronavirus outbreak to over $1,220, according to ApartmentList.com.

Finocchio is one face of America's graying homeless population. It is a rapidly growing group of destitute and desperate people aged 50 and above who find themselves without a permanent home as a result of a job loss, divorce, family death, or a health problem during a pandemic.

“We're seeing a huge boom in senior homelessness,” said Kendra Hendry. Hendry is a caseworker at Arizona's largest shelter, where older people make up about 30% of those staying there.“These are not necessarily people who have mental illness or substance abuse problems. They are people being pushed into the streets by rising rents.”

Academics predict that their numbers will nearly treble in the next decade. Thereby, putting pressure on policymakers from Los Angeles to New York to come up with new solutions for housing the last of the baby boomers as they become older, sicker, and less able to afford skyrocketing rents. Advocates claim that considerably more housing is a requirement, particularly for the very poor.

The aged homeless navigate sidewalks in wheelchairs and walkers. They have medical ages higher than their years, with mobility, cognitive, and chronic ailments such as diabetes. Many people caught COVID or were unable to work due to pandemic restrictions.

“It's so scary,” Finocchio whispered, tears welling up in her green eyes as she sat on the cushioned seat of her rolling walker.“I don't want to be on the street in a wheelchair and living in a tent.”

Finocchio had never been homeless before. She's now staying at Ozanam Manor, a Phoenix-based transitional shelter managed by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul for adults 50 and older looking for permanent accommodation.

Finocchio stays in a college-style women's dorm at the 60-bed shelter, with a single bed and a little desk where she keeps Scrappy's photo. Finocchio's brother has a dog with perky black ears.

Lovia Primous, a 67-year-old Army veteran, began his downhill spiral after suffering a stroke, which took him his job and forced him to sleep in his Honda Accord. After recovering from COVID-19, he was referred to the transitional shelter.

“Life has been hard,” said Primous. Primous grew up in a once-segregated African American neighborhood of south Phoenix.“I'm just trying to stay positive.”

After she lost her telemarketing job, Cardelia Corley landed up on the streets of Los Angeles County.

Corley, who is now 65, shook to meet so many people who also had jobs. It includes a teacher and a nurse who had lost her home due to illness.

“I'd always worked, been successful, put my kid through college,” the single mother said.“And then all of a sudden things went downhill.”

Corley slept on buses and commuter trains all night to grab a catnap.

“And then I would go to Union Station downtown and wash up in the bathroom,” said Corley. She recently moved into a small East Hollywood apartment with help from The People Concern, a Los Angeles nonprofit.

The share of homeless people 50 and older in emergency shelters or transitional housing increased from 22.9 % to 33.8 % in 2017, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's 2017 Annual Homeless Assessment Report. Because HUD has modified the methodology in the reporting and now groups older persons in with all adults over 25, more precise and recent national numbers aren't accessible.

According to a 2019 study sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, the number of adults 65 and older experiencing homelessness in the United States would nearly triple from 40,000 to 106,000 by 2030, resulting in a public health disaster as their age-related medical problems arise.

Dr. Margot Kushel, the director of the University of California, San Francisco's Center for Vulnerable Populations, said that her research in Oakland on how homelessness affects health revealed that nearly half of the tens of thousands of older homeless people in the United States are on the streets for the first time.

“We are seeing that retirement is no longer the golden dream,” said Kushel.“A lot of the working poor are destined to retire onto the streets.”

This is especially true for younger baby boomers without pensions or 401(k) funds, who are now in their late 50s to late 60s. According to the census, about half of both women and men aged 55 to 66 have no retirement savings.

According to the census, baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, now number over 70 million. By 2030, all of the baby boomers will be 65 years old, with the oldest in their mid-seventies.

After years of working off the books, the elderly homeless receive reduced Social Security checks. In a recent poll, a third of the 900 elderly homeless adults in Phoenix indicated they have no income at all.

Teresa Smith, CEO of the San Diego group Dreams for Change, has noted a shift in the homeless population's age. The organization manages two secure parking sites for people who live in automobiles.

Because of the shame associated with homelessness, Susan, who stayed at one lot, only spoke if her last name was not there.

While caring for her mother, the 63-year-old had renal cancer, and the couple lost their two-bedroom apartment after her mother died. Cancer has now to be in remission.

Susan and her dog slept in her car in a secured parking area. It had a bathroom, showers, a communal refrigerator, and a microwave.

She was in shock to see an elderly man living in a car there, and she described it as“just wrong.”

Residents, on the other hand, took pleasure in the neighborhood. Thus, grilling dinners together and even surprising one of their number with a birthday cake.

Susan was recently assisted by Dreams for Change in obtaining a one-bedroom apartment with a housing voucher after months of waiting.

“I feel like I'm at the Ritz,” she added, referring to the washer and dryer, patio, dishwasher, and bathtub.

The sight of elderly people sleeping in cars and abandoned buildings should alarm everyone, according to Donald Whitehead Jr., executive director of the Washington-based advocacy group National Coalition for the Homeless.

“We now accept these things that we would have been outraged about just 20 years ago,” said Whitehead.

According to Whitehead, the homeless disproportionately consist of Black, Latino, and Indigenous individuals who grew up in the 1980s at a time of recession and high unemployment rates.

Because of discriminatory real estate practices, many people approaching retirement were unable to find well-paying jobs or purchase homes.

“So many of us didn't put money into retirement programs, thinking that Social Security was going to take care of us,” said Rudy Soliz, 63. Soliz is the operations director for Justa Center. It offers meals, showers, a mail drop, and other services to the aged homeless in Phoenix.

Jennifer Molinsky is the project director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies' Aging Society Program. She agreed that the federal government should do more to guarantee that elderly Americans are living in good houses.

“The younger boomers were hit especially hard in the Great Recession, many losing their homes close to retirement,” Molinsky said.

Longer-term shelters for the elderly are helping to get some individuals off the streets, at least temporarily.

Last year, the Arizona Department of Housing awarded a $7.5 million block grant to the state's largest shelter for the purchase of an old hotel. It is to house up to 170 elderly individuals who were without a place to stay. Phoenix contributed $4 million to the upgrades.

The hotel is likely to open by the end of the year, according to Lisa Glow, CEO of Central Arizona Shelter Services. It manages the state's largest shelter in downtown Phoenix. Residents will stay for approximately 90 days while caseworkers assist them in locating permanent homes.

“We need more dignified, safer, and comfortable places for our seniors,” said Glow. Thereby, noting that physical limitations make it difficult for older people at the 500-bed shelter downtown.

Nestor Castro, 67, was fortunate in comparison to many others who had lost their permanent residences.

Castro was in his late fifties and living in New York when his mother died. He was in the hospital with bleeding ulcers, resulting in the loss of their apartment. He first stayed with his sister in Boston, then in a YMCA in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for more than three years.

Castro received permanent subsidized housing through Hearth Inc. It is a Boston group eradicating homelessness among older individuals, just before Christmas last year. To live in one of Hearth's 228 units, residents must pay 30% of their monthly income.

Castro supplemented his income with part-time work and a portion of his Social Security cheque. He also helps out at a food pantry and a housing-assistance organization.

“Housing is a big problem around here because they are building luxury apartments that no one can afford,” he said.“A place down the street is $3,068 a month for a studio.”

Mark Hinderlie, CEO of Hearth Inc., believes that significantly more housing for the elderly needs to be created and made cheap; especially as the number of graying homeless individuals continues to rise.

“It's cheaper to house people than leave them homeless,” Hinderlie said.“You have to rethink what housing can be.”

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