Growing number of seniors have been forced to choose between groceries and a roof over their head

The first in a three-part series on the increasing number of senior citizens who are homeless on the Eastside.By Dan Aznoff / Special to the Bellevue Reporter

A tear ran down her cheek when Abby Durr was asked why more and more seniors are living out their lives on the street during what should have been the happiest times of the lives.

Durr spends her life surrounded by seniors. The Issaquah resident founded the Silver Age referral service that helps families find safe housing for aging parents and grandparents. She has seen too many seniors squeezed between the desire to maintain their independence and financial reality of living on the Eastside.

The social safety net created to assist the most vulnerable members of our community, said Durr, has left gaping holes that have allowed too many elderly residents fall into poverty.

“Sadly, seniors with limited incomes will only qualify for Medicaid assistance if they suffer from one or more health concern,” said Durr. “The high cost of housing on the Eastside limits how much seniors can spend on food and pay for medication.

“The result is that many of the most vulnerable seniors end up living on the street or on the backseat of their car.”

The lack of affordable housing has increased the number of homeless among the elderly population across the country by more than 33 percent since 2009, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The Crisis Clinic operated by King County estimates that the percentage of seniors among the homeless in communities east of Lake Washington has jumped by close to 50 percent in the past five years.

Almost 10 percent of the 105,000 calls to the Crisis Clinic last year were from older adults on the Eastside in search of basic human services, including rent assistance and protection from eviction. That is a 13 percent increase over the number of seniors who contacted the agency only two years earlier.

“Homelessness among seniors is a huge problem in King County, and a crisis that has been totally overlooked by cities on the presumably affluent Eastside,” said Kathleen Southwick, executive director of the Crisis Clinic.

Inordinate amount

The Eastside can be an expensive place to live, said Southwick. With limited incomes, many seniors do not have the financial ability to relocate to communities that offer a lower cost of living.

A report prepared for the AARP by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University found many seniors spend an “inordinate amount of their fixed incomes on housing.” The report blamed the declining availability of affordable housing for the elderly as the primary reason why so many seniors have fallen into poverty.

The situation will only get worse as the population continues to grow older, according to figures compiled by HUD, the federal department of Housing and Urban Development. One in every five residents of the United States will be at least 65 years old before the year 2030 and one in every eight Americans will be over 75 just ten years later.

HUD officials have estimated that the number of homeless seniors will double between 2010 and 2050 when there could be as many 95,000 senior citizens living on the streets across America.

The Harvard report also revealed that low-income seniors spend 40 percent less on food in able to pay rent or mortgage payments than their counterparts with affordable housing. In addition to fewer housing options that are within their budget, seniors on limited incomes often find the homes or apartments they can afford present challenges to their lifestyle, such as stairs that can be difficult to maneuver, door knobs and light switches that are hard to grasp and poor lighting for individuals with diminished eyesight.

The number of homeless seniors on the Eastside is actually much higher in the more affluent neighborhoods, according to Stephenie Velasco, outreach coordinator for the Housing Development Consortium of Seattle-King County.

“Seniors who have paid taxes and raised families on the Eastside are more vulnerable than they may appear,” said Velasco. “There are too many seniors without the resources or the support system to survive the financial impact from one illness or one stay in the hospital.”

Disproportionate number

David Johns Bowling, deputy executive director of Congregations for the Homeless in Bellevue, said men over 55 are “the most noticeable” group of newly homeless individuals served by the non-profit organization. Bowling explained that “A disproportionate number of elderly gentlemen have come through our doors for help because they have gone through divorce or the death of their spouse.”

Some men, he said, come to the shelter after the death of their own parent. Medicare can take care of the majority of medical bills for seniors, but a growing number of older men are being abandoned onto the streets by their own grown children.

“Adult children who can no longer cope with the stress or the expense of providing a home for an aging parent have literally dropped the parents off in front of our homeless shelters,” said Bowling. “Sadly, many of these newly homeless seniors suffer from dementia and various forms of mental illness.”

The most recent assessment of the men served by the Congregations for the Homeless indicate that almost one-quarter of the residents in the shelters and subsidized housing operated by the organization were listed as seniors. Men 55 or older accounted for 15 percent of the homeless men who take advantage of the day center operated by interfaith consortium.

The numbers were even more dramatic at the Sophia Way shelter for homeless women in Bellevue, where more than 36 percent of the homeless women were classified as seniors. Board member Karina O’Malley said the average of age of residents in the subsidized apartment complex is 51.

“Most of these women are here because of an unexpected medical bill or some other financial disaster that turned their lives upside down,” said O’Malley. “Except for the last five minutes of their stories, I can see parallels to my own life in many of these women.”

Carol Mullin, the director of emergency services for Jewish Family Services said seven of 10 people who rely on the food bank operated by the agency are senior citizens.

“We do not limit who takes advantage of the food bank, how old they are or where they live,” said Mullin. “But we have been able to track their ages. The number of seniors who come to our food bank has been rising steadily over the past few years, but the numbers has jumped dramatically in the past 18 months.”

The woman who manages the food bank for Jewish Family Services reviewed the number of seniors who rely on weekly visits to food banks throughout the county “did a double-take” last year when she noticed the “astounding” increase in the number of seniors, said Mullin.

“If the 2014 trend continues, food bank usage will blow past last year’s record and exceed last year’s numbers by an extra 90,000 visits to food banks,” said exclaimed.

That increase would equate onto more than 63,000 additional visits to food banks per year by seniors in Seattle and East King County.

One Night Count

Redmond City Councilman Hank Myers has participated in the annual tally of homeless individuals done each January in King County known as The One Night Count. Myers agreed with the assessment by Bowling that the recent surge in the senior population among the homeless is a reflection of increased poverty created by the lack of affordable housing.

The One Night Count in King County last January found 3,123 people on the streets without basic shelter, an increase of over 14 percent compared to the previous year. That number did not include the 2,906 people in overnight or emergency shelters or the 3,265 people who live in transitional housing programs. The King County Coalition to End Homeless estimated there could be as many as 9,300 men, women and children who make their home on the streets on any given night.

Volunteers who participated in The One Night Count in 2014 simply counted bodies. The survey did not breakdown the number of the homeless by age.

“Prior to the past few years, the number of seniors living on the streets was relatively low because—frankly–most people on the street don’t live long enough to become senior citizens,” said Myers. “The elderly who are an entirely new segment of the homeless population and represent a new challenge to serve.”

A mortality study by the National Council of Healthcare for the Homeless confirmed Myers’ theory. The average age of death for men living on the street was only 50, while the age for homeless women was closer to 57. Both results were influenced by the fact the homeless are three-to-four times more likely to die at an earlier age than the general population due to an increased exposure to disease and violent crime.

Redmond Police Chief Ron Gibson said the numbers of homeless has increased, but that is often difficult to determine the age of any individual without speaking directly to that person.

“We see the fogged windows of a car parked behind a shopping center and know there are homeless people living inside that car,” said Gibson. “But it is impossible to know exactly how many or how old anybody is without disturbing their privacy.”

In addition to his duties on the city council, Myers serves as the executive director of Eastside Friends of Seniors, a non-profit group based in Sammamish that is dedicated to preserving the independence of the elderly population by matching volunteers with seniors in need of routine home maintenance and transportation to medical appointments.

The mission of Eastside Friends is to give seniors the ability to age in place.

“Keeping seniors in their homes is far better for their livelihood and less costly to the taxpayers of the community,” said Myers. “Helping seniors with the day-to-day responsibilities they need to maintain their independence is far less expensive than moving them into an assisted living facility.”

Myers summarized the situation by saying, “Living on the streets is tough enough if you’re young and healthy. Not having a warm place to sleep when you’re old can be a death sentence.”

Content authorized by the Eastside Human Services Forum and generated by DAJournalist.

Dan Aznoff is a freelance writer and member of the Bellevue Network on Aging.