homelessness rate rises for elderly

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broken ed

broken ed

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I think it might be actually higher than that, because we homeless seniors are often very savvy at staying invisible. We've worked hard all our lives. We've served our country in many ways. We've raised families. We've been made redundant at our jobs, often just months from retirement, and denied our pensions. We've dealt with health crises that decimated our life savings, or emptied our savings to pay for the care of family members. We've been priced out of the housing market, forced into our vehicles. But we're experienced at living, at making do with what we have. So we quietly move into our vehicles, and only come to light when parking regulations shove us into the limelight.

The Dire Wolfess
 
I agree that the numbers are likely much higher.

We need more federally subsidized housing, in my opinion, for seniors and for the working poor.

As we baby boomers age, this problem will just get worse.
 
I'm trying to get out of my lovely subsidized senior housing. It was a great blessing when I was flat broke and destitute, and moved in here five years ago. People here live like they're waiting to die, and quite a few have died since I've been here.

If you go into the center of the building where the community room is, you're being inundated with 20 to 30 wifi connections all at the same time. (I live on the edge, so get fewer than that).

It really is a nice apartment with a good view. I might miss it... but that won't keep me here. This is my big opportunity to travel. I don't want to be tethered to an apartment, paying rent.

I just spent almost a year exploring alternative housing of many types, and decided what I need to live in is a van. The van will be my bedroom (with an ensuite) and the world will be my living room. That's all the shelter I need.

My mother lived in an RV for quite a few years, and now I'll be traveling too. It feels natural. It doesn't feel like homelessness.
 
rMoxadox said:
I think it might be actually higher than that, because we homeless seniors are often very savvy at staying invisible.  We've worked hard all our lives.  We've served our country in many ways.  We've raised families.  We've been made redundant at our jobs, often just months from retirement, and denied our pensions.  We've dealt with health crises that decimated our life savings, or emptied our savings to pay for the care of family members.  We've been priced out of the housing market, forced into our vehicles.  But we're experienced at living, at making do with what we have.  So we quietly move into our vehicles, and only come to light when parking regulations shove us into the limelight.

The Dire Wolfess
Click to expand...

I agree with you and WomderingRose,,, I'm sure the numbers are much higher. We (seniors) are good are blending into the background.
 
I also feel numbers are higher.
Many fall below the radar of being counted in some stupid percentage.
 
What Moxadox says reminds me of what I read about the Great Depression. Literally millions of people simply dropped off the rolls. Forever. No more appearance in the public record. Starvation was real back then. I remember reading contemporary accounts of people simply being dead by the side of the road. And of course violence and addiction skyrocket in hard economic times, taking more down. That's why, last I read, Russia after the Soviet Union's break-up had the average age of death of men go down to 47.

And I agree with others too -- the numbers are likely far too low. The government -- or whoever does the counting -- gets to decide who and how to count. That's why we had politicians claiming huge decreases in unemployment at the same time they decided simply to stop counting people unemployed longer than six months. You can't lose the game if you can keep redefining the rules so that you're still winning!

Same thing has happened in Britain with gun, knife, and other crimes, which have gotten classified as other types of crimes so as to fudge the numbers and make things look better. Heck, TV's The Wire got that right too, with the effort to push cases off to other departments and ring up false numbers in various ways. That kind of way of doing things is just everywhere.

But the politicians will always try to claim something marvelous has happened under their tenure.
 
The operative words in the OP here are "sheltered homeless seniors", a number that can be counted with some accuracy. Of course the uncounted, the unsheltered, continue in life such as it is.
 
Exactly, Rmie & Ding. It's scary to see that just as the chronically/permanently unemployed are simply not counted, and so, magically, don't exist, so the unsheltered elderly homeless don't exist. I was horrified to find whole societies of elderly homeless folks in Oregon, living in minimal shelter in the forest, eating whatever, and not much of it. I found a disabled jazz guitarist who lived by pedaling his bicycle up and down the Coastal Highway, staying at the State Parks for $5/night, 3 night limit at each. His Social Security came to $575/mo, and that's how he made it work. Sort of. But he's not on any list of homeless. In turn, he showed me camps of elderly and disabled people who lived in the woods, sleeping outside. He considered himself a rung above them.

The Dire Wolfess
 
I used to deliver free meals to the elderly, disabled, and shut-ins. A lot of them were in pretty bad shape. I remember one fellow dressed in rags who lived in old abandoned junkyard, in a very tiny trailer that looked like it might have been abandoned too, with no electricity and wheels sunk into the mud so it wasn't at all level anymore. It aggravates me to hear political pundits and opinion-makers telling us how great everything is and that it's constantly getting better and better. The DOW or S&P 500 just went up? Oh woo hoo.
 
That’s a social issue. Not government issue. Likely 20 churches within five miles of this guy. No one helping ?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
It's a consumer driven society issue that starts programming you before you start thinking for yourself. Those that can't produce, or buy, are spit out. Older cultures had embraced Elders...we warehouse/try-to-keep-the-maintenance-down them/us.

Screw 'em, I'm fortunate enough to be able to put together something that'll sustain me till my last days. Just a rig, a dream and a monthly check but I'm FREE as I know how to be. My only link to the matrix is the check and, if I had to, I could produce enough, for myself and barter, to make up for it unless physically impossible.
 
Goshawk said:
That’s a social issue. Not government issue. Likely 20 churches within five miles of this guy. No one helping ?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

This isn't a theocracy.  Not yet, anyway.  

If we're at a point at which we have to rely on churches to ensure society is running properly, that's criticism enough in and of itself.
 
Churches were where the needy got help before the government stepped in and took over.
 
It is what it is, we have to prepare, adapt and create our own reality
 
Many churches still help those in need, be that stranded motorists, those needing a rent payment, food, foster children, donations gathering for disasters and homeless shelters, etc.

They are still a safe harbor, in many ways, tho I don’t go to church I know this to be true.
 
Dingfelder said:
I used to deliver free meals to the elderly, disabled, and shut-ins . . . I remember one fellow dressed in rags who lived in old abandoned junkyard, in a very tiny trailer that looked like it might have been abandoned too, with no electricity and wheels sunk into the mud so it wasn't at all level anymore . . .
Click to expand...

You were the man on the scene.  What did you do?
 
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