Why More Seniors Are Being Pushed into Poverty, Isolation, and Life on the Streets
The chances that senior citizens like Pamela Marin, 70, will end up homeless are increasing across the country.
Marin, who lives in Denver, told Invisible People that she lost her home after her husband died in 2020. That event was like a trauma bomb for her family, she explained. Doctors diagnosed her with “severe grief” following his death. Soon thereafter, Marin was scammed out of $60,000 that her husband had left her. The scam caused her children to stop talking to her for a time, she said.
Without their support, Marin started couch surfing. She said she lived with her friends for about five months before they kicked her out for not being able to help with rent. Marin then lived in her car for nine months until the engine gave out.
“People don’t understand how hard it is for people when they don’t intentionally lose their house,” Marin said.
Marin’s experience illustrates some of the challenges that senior citizens are experiencing at a time when the federal government is gutting supportive services designed to help seniors in need.
According to the latest Point in Time Count data, more than 42,000 people over the age of 65 were homeless in 2024. That total represents an increase of more than 6% year-over-year.
Several factors are driving this trend. Like other people, senior citizens can become homeless because of a lack of affordable housing and medical care. There are also some age-specific reasons, ranging from the cost of assisted living to social expectations that a person’s children will care for them as they age.
Experts worry President Donald Trump’s administration has made the situation worse by passing a budget that will cut $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade. His administration has also sought to restrict funding for programs that promote Housing First or diversity, equity, and inclusion principles.
“It’s a national scandal, really, that the richest country in the world would have destitute elderly and disabled people,” Dennis Culhane, who studies homelessness at the University of Pennsylvania, recently told NPR.
Why Seniors Become Homeless
The growing number of seniors experiencing homelessness in America is caused by several factors.
One of the most prominent is the lack of age-specific care for seniors. A recent study by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living found that America has lost more than 62,000 nursing home beds since 2020. Another 20% of nursing homes have cut staff or closed wings and units because of staff shortages, the study found.
On top of that, America’s affordable housing crisis is causing many seniors to become rent burdened. Data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition shows that America has a shortage of 7.1 million homes affordable to people with extremely low incomes. More than two-thirds of these renters are considered “extremely cost burdened,” meaning they pay more than half of their monthly income on housing expenses.
Marin said she became homeless when she stopped being able to pay for her housing. But her journey from living unsheltered to living in a supportive housing unit reveals some of the lesser-known challenges seniors who access homeless services must overcome.
One such challenge is that most homeless services are not designed to help senior citizens. Shelters are a prime example of that. Marin said she avoided shelters because they are dirty and violent. A recent audit of Denver’s shelter system found pervasive issues such as discrimination and incidents of violence.
Solving Senior Homelessness
Estimates suggest that the number of seniors who are homeless will triple by 2030 because of the lack of affordable housing alone if experts do not take a proactive approach to solving the problem.
According to the Urban Institute, there are several steps local communities can take to reduce the number of seniors becoming homeless. For instance, community members can advocate for investments in public housing, which could be used to “more effectively deliver needed services in independent, affordable senior housing communities,” the Urban Institute argued.
Lawmakers could also create programs to help seniors stay in their homes, like expanding tax credits for cost-burdened adults or creating financial assistance programs for seniors to modify their homes.
Marin added that there also needs to be more age-specific services and shelter options for seniors. She said it was hard to see so many seniors sleeping outside during the winters in Denver because of how “deadly” the cold can be.
“There definitely needs to be more shelters because there are so many people sleeping on the outside,” Marin said. “But then there are not enough people to staff them. Not a lot of people want to be around the homeless. There’s a, what I want to call it, a fear of people who are homeless.”
Marin considers herself one of the “lucky ones” because she has a tiny home at the Monroe Micro Community operated by a local service provider called the Colorado Village Collaborative. She is also receiving other services at The Delores Project, an organization that Marin credits for helping her recover from the trauma of her husband’s passing.
In turn, Marin has started talking with one of her children again and has plans to meet her four-year-old great-grandchild for the first time this holiday season.
“I don’t want to be here, but without having connections to the right people in the right places, you can’t get that,” Marin said.
Tell Your Local Representatives to Protect Our Seniors from Homelessness
Growing old is nerve-racking enough just in terms of dealing with the decline in health, mobility, and cognitive capabilities. Our seniors should not have to approach these apprehensive years, fearing they will have to live and eventually die outside on the streets.
Please talk to your representatives about putting more safeguards in place to prevent senior homelessness and homelessness in general.