America’s elderly homeless problem

Living on the streets can be a life and death struggle, and for the nation’s elderly, an entirely new set of challenges emerge.

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the percentage of homeless people over the age of 62 who sought shelter in the United States increased from 2.9 percent in 2007 to 4.7 percent in 2016.

That most recent numbers released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development paint an even grimmer picture. According to the Department’s numbers, there are now some 306,000 people over the age of 50 living on the streets. Those figures translate to a 20 percent increase over 2007. Homeless over the age of 50 now make up an estimated 31 percent of the nation’s homeless population.

Many of those elderly homeless have been on the streets for decades, having ended up in their current circumstance during the 1980s in the midst of sweeping federal housing cutbacks and a crack cocaine epidemic.

Many of them have lengthy histories of physical and mental issues, which can grow worse as they age. All of that translates into a huge strain on social service networks and those who care for the homeless.

The problems with increased elderly homelessness, and homelessness in general, are not uniform across the United States. The Department of Housing and Urban Development indicates that the national population of homeless actually declined two percent between 2014 and 2015.

However, a May 31, 2016, article in the New York Times points out that homelessness has been on the rise during the same period in major urban centers like Los Angeles, New York, Honolulu and San Francisco. Los Angles saw an increase in homelessness of 5.7 percent in 2015, and more than 20 per cent of the nation’s homeless now live in California.

While homeless people generally face a range of adverse health effects due to a lack of healthcare, access to proper nutrition and high stress levels, the issues are exacerbated among the elderly.

As chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease develop or worsen with age, so too do the risks and the strain on the health care system.

As a large segment of the population heads into old age, the problem is expected to worsen and the need to come up with more comprehensive solutions is likely to intensify.