Seniors are flooding homeless shelters that can’t care for them

BY CYNTHIA GRIFFITH | MARCH 17, 2023 | AFFORDABLE HOUSING

How are we turning a Blind Eye to this Devastation?

168,098 estimated Senior citizens are on the streets and that is the rough count, which is about 15% below reality. Seniors, those that have raised families, worked their entire life, now homeless, dying on the streets.

Introduction

The economic crisis of 2008, several irresponsible Presidents who cared for matters other than the American citizen, the Pandemic of 2020, and a prolonged yet unnamed recession with inflation that has crippled every class of American in this nation.

Now the effects are coming to light in a way that none can deny that the matters have been handled wrong and many are paying the price and the homeless cannot no longer be blamed and hidden away, for the landscape has changed.

Report after report, and segment of after segment of society is speaking up and yet not being heard, nothing is changing, tere is a new and very vulnerable group hitting the streets and the streets are killing them quickly, the senior citizen

Let’s look at His word as we start today;

Exodus 22: 22 to 24

^22-24“Don’t mistreat widows or orphans. If you do and they cry out to me, you can be sure I’ll take them most seriously; I’ll show my anger and come raging among you with the sword, and your wives will end up widows and your children orphans

Zachariah 7: 9 & 10

[This is the message that God gave Zechariah.] Well, the message hasn’t changed. God-of-the-Angel-Armies said then and says now:

“‘Treat one another justly.
    Love your neighbors.
    Be compassionate with each other.
    Don’t take advantage of widows, orphans, visitors, and the poor.
    Don’t plot and scheme against one another—that’s evil.’

What Say You…

This is grannie who bounced you her knee just a few years ago, this is your uncle from New York, your cousin that you met in 8^th grade, your long lost great aunt, how is it right for them to be on the streets

How is it that you read in the newspaper that government is working to house, feed, care for and get attention for the illegal in this nation, but our seniors are dying on the streets and without dignity, America has lost her way

Existing Shelters Not Equipped for This Population

Shelter after in many of the large cities around this nation are overrun with needs since the pandemic and the inflation crisis. The shelters are trying to come back from social distancing, if they have not given ad closed.

Now we have an explosion happening and shelters are not prepared and cannot handle this new segment, senior citizens. There have always been a few seniors out on the streets, but not to the tune of these number, we are in crisis mode and no one is paying attention.

Wheelchairs, walkers, adult diapers, oxygen requirements, recent heart attacks, diabetes, missing limbs, stolen medications are all problems the 60-year-old and above population on the streets are facing. The shelters cannot handle the increasing ‘normal’ homeless but now grandpa and auntie and cousin are in the mix, America is in trouble.

How has this Come to be

The population we see hitting the streets, losing their apartments, surrendering their homes due to inability to keep up with the mortgage and bills is the baby boomer, the last of which is jus t turning 59 recently. Their lives started in a fairly prosperous time, but there were major bumps in the road.

This group went through the economic turmoil of the recessions of the 73’s and 80’s, which hit any savings and retirement accounts pretty hard. Then as they came into the 2000’s the bubble of 2008 did some serious damage to this group and knocked them off their center. Then the pandemic and unadmitted recession, they have had their ups and downs and now they a growing homeless group

But the other changes in society during these years have added to the growing problem. The breakup of the core, traditional family, divorce and families moving for jobs and better pay, separation from grandma and grandpa. Kids leaving home and not staying in touch, church becoming less important, social group not formed because there is no time.

These are only some of the factors on how we got here

Respite Care or Hospice Care

“Treat and Street Them” is the method of the majority of the hospitals emergency departments, they are not designed or equipped to care for hundreds of homeless and sick that wander through their doors on a weekly bases, but what about the old ones?

Many of the hospitals in large, bust, overcrowded urban areas have helped develop Respite Centers, place where homeless can go and recovery, rest and get stronger, before they are ‘streeted.’ Not going to a nursing home, but streeted, sick, elderly and vulnerable.

With the increasing elderly population is that they are becoming palliative care, a term most know from end of life or when one does not want treatment any more. In this case palliative care is a little different, it is trying to help an aging population group for which there are no answers and none are equipped to care on the streets

Death Walks Among the Tents

In this article we read of a worker who walks the camps where the elderly are trying to stay out of the scorching heat of the sun and what is the job that the worker is doing? Checking on the welfare of the sickly and elderly in the tent and making sure none have died since the last checkup.

In the report one of the seniors in the camps tells the report that at least one dead body is removed each week from the tent, at least one, but I can tell you this for a fact, not 1 is an illegal, how, they are resting in air-conditioned hotel rooms, in total comfort

Death walks among the tents and doorways and underpasses of the freeway, we may have had our prejudices and mindsets of the homeless when we thought of the young, the addicted, and alcoholic, but what of the grandfather, the brother who is old, the auntie al alone, what is your thoughts now

Complex Care Facilities, Needed Now

Nursing homes and Assisted Living facilities are governed under strict rules and regulations and are not effective answers for the larger elderly homeless population. There a few notes in the stor of those that got into a facility and then when they ot better, stronger, they got kicked out, because regulation would not allow them to remain.

Then on the other hand you have the traditional shelters, which cannot handle the elderly, they need specialized interventions just to stabilize. Bunk beds, crowded rooms, no room for walkers or wheelchairs, inappropriate bathrooms and the list goes on.

So, what is the answer, not that the government or most homeless intervention groups will take the time to build one, but it is a specialized hybrid of the two, a Complex Care Unit for the elderly homeless person. They should not be allowed to suffer on the streets and they do not have the time left to turn their circumstances around, they need help but will it be found in time…

Conclusion

The generation after the Baby Boomers have been so busy enjoying the great benefits that the Boomers unlocked for them that they have lost their way. They have allowed wealth and riches and fame and glory take the place of family first at all times

Suddenly grandpa that is 2,000 miles away or auntie that lives around the corner hit a bad patch of health or financial downturn and they lost everything but their is no safety net and they nended up homeless

The shelters are not equipped for this age group, many nursing home and Assisted Living homes were lost during the pandemic, so where will this population live now that everything is lost? Is it right, ethical or moral for them to die out there, on the streets in worse conditions then an abandoned dag?