LOS
ANGELES — They lean unsteadily on canes and walkers, or roll along the
sidewalks of Skid Row here in beat-up wheelchairs, past soiled sleeping
bags, swaying tents and piles of garbage. They wander the streets in
tattered winter coats, even in the warmth of spring. They worry about
the illnesses of age and how they will approach death without the help
of children who long ago drifted from their lives.
“It’s
hard when you get older,” said Ken Sylvas, 65, who has struggled with
alcoholism and has not worked since he was fired in 2001 from a
meatpacking job. “I’m in this wheelchair. I had a seizure and was in a
convalescent home for two months. I just ride the bus back and forth all
night.”
The homeless in America are getting old.
There
were 306,000 people over 50 living on the streets in 2014, the most
recent data available, a 20 percent jump since 2007, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. They now make up 31 percent of the nation’s homeless population.
The
demographic shift is mirrored by a noticeable but not as sharp increase
among homeless people ages 18 to 30, many who entered the job market
during the Great Recession. They make up 24 percent of the homeless
population. Like the baby boomers, these young people came of age during
an economic downturn, confronting a tight housing and job market. Many
of them are former foster children or runaways, or were victims of abuse
at home.
But
it is the emergence of an older homeless population that is creating
daunting challenges for social service agencies and governments already
struggling with this crisis of poverty. “Baby boomers have health and
vulnerability issues that are hard to tend to while living in the
streets,” said Alice Callaghan, an Episcopal priest who has spent 35
years working with the homeless in Los Angeles.
Many
older homeless people have been on the streets for almost a generation,
analysts say, a legacy of the recessions of the late 1970s and early
1980s, federal housing cutbacks and an epidemic of crack cocaine. They
bring with them a complicated history that may include a journey from
prison to mental health clinic to rehabilitation center and back to the
sidewalks.
Some
are more recent arrivals and have been forced — at a time of life when
some people their age are debating whether to retire to Arizona or to
Florida — to learn the ways of homelessness after losing jobs in the
latest economic downturn. And there are some on a fixed income who
cannot afford the rent in places like Los Angeles, which has a vacancy rate of less than 3 percent.
Horace
Allong, 60, said he could not afford a one-room apartment and lives in a
tent on Crocker Street. Mr. Allong, who divorced his wife and left New
Orleans for Los Angeles two years ago, said he lost his wallet and all
of his identification two weeks after he arrived and has not been able
to find a job.
“It’s
the first time I’ve been on the streets, so I’m learning,” he said.
“There’s nothing like Skid Row. Skid Row is another world.”
The
problems with homelessness are hardly uniform across the country. The
national homeless population declined by 2 percent between 2014 and
2015, according
to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Some communities —
including Phoenix and Las Vegas — have declared outright victory in
eliminating homelessness among veterans, a top goal of the White House.
But
homelessness is rising in big cities where gentrification is on the
march and housing costs are rising, like Los Angeles, New York, Honolulu
and San Francisco. Los Angeles reported a 5.7 percent increase in its
homeless population last year, the second year in a row it had recorded a
jump. More than 20 percent of the nation’s homeless lived in California
last year, according to the housing agency.
Across
Southern California, the homeless live in tent encampments clustered on
corners from Venice to the San Fernando Valley, and in communities
sprouting under highway overpasses or in the dry bed of the Los Angeles
River. Their sleeping bags and piles of belongings line sidewalks on
Santa Monica Boulevard.
Along
with these visible signs of homelessness come complaints about
aggressive panhandling, public urination and disorderly conduct, as well
as a rise in drug dealing and petty crimes.
“There
is a sense out there that some communities are seeing a new visible
homeless problem that they have not seen in many years,” said Dennis P. Culhane, a professor of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
Beleaguered
officials in Los Angeles, Seattle and Hawaii have declared states of
emergency, rolling out measures to combat homelessness and pledging to
increase spending on low-cost housing. Honolulu has imposed a
prohibition on sitting or lying on sidewalks in the neighborhood of
Waikiki. San Francisco has cleared out some encampments, only for them
to sprout up in other parts of the city. Seattle has tried to create
designated tent camps that are overseen by social service agencies. (Continue Reading)
Full Article & Source:
Old and on the Street: The Graying of America’s Homeless
2 comments:
I am reminded of those new little bitty houses that are being built to house the homeless and give them a head start. One state, I can't remember which, found it was cheaper to give the homeless apartments than let them stay on the street. That's forward thinking!
Boomers are the largest population and the thought of so many homeless people in our country - then land of the free and home of the brave - is a national shame.
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