The fastest-growing homeless population? Seniors
Their need for help has increased 84% since 2017
Norma Johnson cracks a faint smile as she adjusts her stylish cat-eye glasses.
She’s at St. Mary’s Center’s cafeteria in West Oakland, where older adults in interim housing or living on the streets can drop by for a free meal. But Johnson’s mind is elsewhere. Her treasured red leather rocking chair, along with most of her belongings, sits in a storage unit. She’s afraid if she doesn’t pay her $500 balance soon, the storage unit operator will auction everything.
“I gotta pull a rabbit out of my hat,” Johnson, 65, said on a rainy January day. “I don’t want to lose the things I do have. I don’t have a house, and now I won’t have,” she hangs her head before finishing that sentence.
Unexpectedly, Johnson finds herself in the middle of a budding crisis: aging without a home.
California accounts for about a third of the nation’s homeless people, and among this population, seniors are estimated to be the fastest-growing group. One key indicator is the state’s tally of people accessing homelessness services. From 2017 to 2021, California’s overall senior population grew by 7% but the number of people 55 and over who sought homelessness services increased 84% — more than any other age group — according to the state’s Homeless Data Integration System.
For comparison, the number of people accessing homelessness services across all ages increased 43% during this time period. Elderly people who are homeless include those who have been unhoused for a long time and are getting older. But they also include those who are part of a growing trend, research shows: people experiencing homelessness for the first time after age 50.
Those at increased risk of losing shelter tend to be older adults who live alone and on fixed incomes, with little to no savings. A main contributor, experts say, is that as California rents soar, seniors’ income streams, including Social Security benefits and Supplemental Security Income, have not kept up.
Black Californians long have been overrepresented in the unhoused population — representing about 6% of the state’s population but close to 30% of those accessing homelessness services, state data shows.