Few rooms for low-income seniors
On verge of homelessness, man’s story highlights the lack of availability for some Valley residents
When Benjamin Cross was evicted from the rundown motel room he had called home for nearly seven years, his friends couldn’t bear the thought of him becoming homeless.
“You can’t put an 80-year-old man that has a walker out on the street during the day and into a shelter at night,” said Kathy Burns.
Burns and her husband, Len Biehl, took Cross, whom they had known for less than a year, into their Lower Macungie Township home in September, thinking he could stay a few weeks. Cross moved into their spare bedroom, ate at their table and, with Biehl and Burns’ help, began his search for a place to call his own.
Two months later, Burns, Biehl and Cross had grown closer but also frustrated after they encountered yearslong waiting lists as they searched for an apartment Cross could afford on an income of less than $10,000 a year from Social Security.
“We’re having problems now with lowincome affordable housing,” said Cross in an October interview in Biehl and Burns’ living room. “A lot of these facilities … the housing complexes, are no longer accepting applications.”
Although Cross was able to secure a grant through the Lehigh Valley Conference of Churches to cover his first month’s rent and
“You can’t put an 80-year-old man that has a walker out on the street during the day and into a shelter at night.” — Kathy Burns, about Benjamin Cross
security deposit, nearly every agency he approached turned him away because they had no room, he said. Market-rate housing was far beyond affordable, and the only subsidized apartment offered to Cross was on the second floor of a building with no elevator — a poor fit for his limited mobility.
About two weeks after Cross spoke about his frustration, his sense that he was imposing on Biehl and Burns led him to retreat again to a motel room, where he quickly burned through his meager savings and left his friends worried and upset.
Cross’ experience is symptomatic of an affordable housing crisis that forces thousands in need to wait for housing, doubled up with relatives or staying in emergency shelters, advocates say. For seniors, who may have special needs such as homes without stairs or accessible bathrooms, the hunt for suitable affordable housing can be even tougher. There are 1,686 public housing units reserved for seniors and disabled people in the Lehigh Valley, and several times as many people are waiting for a vacancy.
“The demand far outstrips the supply,” said Daniel Farrell, executive director of the Allentown Housing Authority.
For example, in Allentown there are 668 senior and disabled public housing units, and 96% were occupied in November. The vacancies were only temporary, because of the time it takes to prepare an apartment and screen a new resident after someone moves out, Farrell said. The waiting list for 147 apartments at John T. Gross Towers on West Allen Street has 1,171 applicants. The list for Central Park’s 71 apartments on Wahneta Street has 877 applicants, and the authority’s other senior housing properties have similar backlogs.
Public housing authorities also administer the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s housing choice voucher program — also known as Section 8 — that helps lowincome families, including seniors, pay rent in qualifying private rental properties. That program is also vastly oversubscribed, said Daniel Beers, executive director of the Lehigh County and Northampton County housing authorities.
The Lehigh County housing choice voucher program has been closed to new applications for nearly a year. The last time the authority opened the application process, it received 2,000 in 60 days, Beers said. And because voucher funding is not adjusted for inflation, it helps fewer people each year as rents increase, Beers said.
People 62 and older make up about 5% of the homeless population — nationally and in the Lehigh Valley — and the number of senior citizens living in emergency or transitional housing is
“The doctors told me they’d given up … called me a statistic and told my parents to make my final arrangements.” Benjamin Cross, on his childhood illness
increasing as the United States’ population ages. It rose 69% between 2007 and 2017, according to HUD’s Annual Homelessness Assessment Report.
In Lehigh County, among 815 people identified as homeless last year, 36 were senior citizens. In Northampton County, among 304 people identified as homeless, 17 were senior citizens, according to data collected by the region’s Coordinated Entry and Homeless Management Information System, a HUD-sponsored tool for tracking, assessing and aiding homeless people.
Advocates say there’s reason to believe the number of homeless seniors is undercounted. HUD defines homelessness as living in a place not intended for human habitation or fleeing domestic violence. People such as Cross, who move in with a friend or relative or bounce between other people’s homes, aren’t considered homeless by the federal government.
“Unfortunately the government doesn’t count couch-surfing as homelessness,” said Christine Rinker, executive director of Pathways, an agency operated by the Lehigh Valley Conference of Churches to assist those facing homelessness. “The government considers him housed because he is living somewhere that is for living as opposed to an abandoned building or a car.”
The day before Thanksgiving last year, Biehl peeked inside Cross’ motel room refrigerator and found only half a quart of milk, margarine and some lunch meat. That didn’t sit right with Biehl, who had befriended Cross while delivering his prescriptions from a local pharmacy.
Biehl told his wife about Cross the next day, as the retired couple hurried to prepare for holiday guests.
“Everything just got crazy, and she says, ‘Not for nothing, but why didn’t you go get Ben and bring him for dinner?’ ” Biehl said.
After dinner, they took a big plate of leftovers to Cross.
For the next nine months, Biehl and Burns looked out for Cross, making sure his pantry was full. They went to court with him when he faced eviction over the $3,300 in back rent he owed. Cross said he withheld his rent to get the owners to address problems, including mold and a lack of heat in his room.
Although District Judge Michael Faulkner ruled in favor of the landlord, Faulkner said he was sympathetic to Cross’ situation and reached out to landlords he knew. But nothing they offered was close to meeting Cross’ meager budget.