Once again, don’t forget to attend the City Council meeting tonight at 6pm!

https://my.spokanecity.org/citycouncil/meetings/2022/04/11/legislative-meeting/

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Spokesman-Review

America’s homeless ranks graying as more retire on streets

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Spokesman-Review

America’s homeless ranks graying as more retire on streets

By Anita Snow

ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHOENIX – Karla Finocchio’s slide into homelessness began when she split with her partner of 18 years and temporarily moved in with a cousin.

The 55-year-old planned to use her $800-a-month disability check to get an apartment after back surgery. But she soon was sleeping in her old pickup protected by her German Shepherd mix Scrappy, unable to afford housing in Phoenix, where median monthly rents soared 33% during the coronavirus pandemic to over $1,220 for a one-bedroom, according to ApartmentList.com.

Finocchio is one face of America’s graying homeless population, a rapidly expanding group of destitute and desperate people 50 and older suddenly without a permanent home after a job loss, divorce, family death or health crisis during a pandemic.

“We’re seeing a huge boom in senior homelessness,” said Kendra Hendry, a caseworker at Arizona’s largest shelter, where older people make up about 30% of those staying there. “These are not necessarily people who have mental illness or substance abuse problems. They are people being pushed into the streets by rising rents.”

Academics project their numbers will nearly triple over the next decade, challenging policy makers from Los Angeles to New York to imagine new ideas for sheltering the last of the baby boomers as they get older, sicker and less able to pay spiraling rents. Advocates say much more housing is needed, especially for extremely low-income people.

Navigating sidewalks in wheelchairs and walkers, the aging homeless have medical ages greater than their years, with mobility, cognitive and chronic problems like diabetes. Many contracted COVID-19 or couldn’t work because of pandemic restrictions.

Cardelia Corley, 65, ended up on the streets of Los Angeles County after the hours at her telemarketing job were cut.

Corley traveled all night aboard buses and rode commuter trains to catch a cat nap.

“And then I would go to Union Station downtown and wash up in the bathroom,” said Corley. She recently moved into a small East Hollywood apartment with help from The People Concern, a Los Angeles nonprofit.

A 2019 study of aging homeless people led by the University of Pennsylvaniadrew on 30 years of census data to project the U.S. population of people 65 and older experiencing homelessness will nearly triple from 40,000 to 106,000 by 2030, resulting in a public health crisis as their age-related medical problems multiply.

Lovia Primous, 67, walks across the street from Ozanam Manor temporary housing for people 50 and up on Jan. 24, in Phoenix. A stroke started 67-year-old Army veteran Primous on his downward spiral, costing him his job and forcing him to sleep in his Honda Accord.

ASSOCIATED PRESS