More and More Seniors Are Among America's Homeless

[Nosy Bee-54]

heard many philanthropists ....... say they prefer to pick programs and uses ............. that tax money is wasted more and they have no control over use.

I prefer the way it is. Let philanthropists use their largesse as currently being done. I think there is more success/improvement at targeted situations.

 

[Don M.]

Of all the threads that I have read on this forum, this one is the most painful. It is simply so sad.

I am NOT optimistic about the financial future for many of our future retirees. So many seem to be consumed with "today" only, and do not think about the time when they will retire. If a person is going to have a decent retirement, they need to start setting something aside as soon as they can. Company pensions are increasingly rare, and Social Security will begin to run out of its ability to maintain it's present funding by 2035....if not sooner. The 401K/IRA programs are the BEST thing the government has ever done for the working class...but those programs only work IF a person is wise enough to take advantage of them.

 

[Aunt Bea]

I agree with DonM.

I would prefer that people learn from a very early age what it takes to prepare for a self-funded retirement and not pin their hopes on the wealthy or the taxpayers.

There will always be a group of people that need and deserve our assistance, but IMO self-reliance is the only sustainable approach to life in a free society.

 

[CrowFlies]

Gotta wonder if some of the drops in Texas' homeless population aren't due to migration by the desperate to states with less draconian laws and more forgiving social services.

YES.
low income people live in their cars if they can keep them, and they leave TX due to terrible med care and cost of living.

rising cost of living is affecting so many, from the young to the old. it is the ruin of this over populated country.
i doubt it will get better.
its like watching Maya2... this time on tv.

 

[CrowFlies]

during the 60s when the corp tax rate was about 70%..this country was waging a war And helping its own
people. the 'great society programs' helped me get thru college with a young kid. when i finished i was Also
Not in major debt of college loans. i sold my VW and paid the loan off and found another used car.
in college i usually worked waitressing lunches, some quarters i just worked, some qtrs i did school and work part time,
it varied on seasons and what i was up to.

today kids take out college loans to live on for four years and end up in Major debt ForEver.
why going to college should cost so much is beyond me.
over population means rich get richer and poor are poorer.

im really sick of seeing 'capitalism' and how it "functions". we shop for the rich and they buy yachts
to get away from the people they get the yacht money from.
a very unhealthy 'system'....or...con.
ive never liked it since i learned about it in 5th grade. it sounded like merican apartheid to me.

btw...i dont for a second believe the numbers on homeless here....half a million?..is that it?...surely they are Not counting
the huge numbers living in vehicles or on the roam.
those half million numbers have to do with the signed up homeless, the admitted homeless, those who actively seek something.
id bet there are Millions of homeless across just this country.

 

[OneEyedDiva]

The small town factory/mill/plant - a manufacturing entity - provided secure employment and chances for advancement for unskilled millions but NAFTA and the like sent America's industry out of the country leaving little but the service industry to employ the country's young and the service industry is low pay, little chance for advancement and no job security. Yes, there are 'made in America' industries but most are highly mechanized requiring few human hands.

20 years of that has brought us to today where there is a minuscule number of obscenely wealthy individuals, a slightly larger group of financially secure and a massive number of destitute or near so. The wealthy, as well as our own government, work philanthropically to help the disenfranchised in countries all over the world but ignore our own citizens. While we 're-build' abroad, our own nation crumbles.

Yesss!!!

 

[David777]

Wall Street, bank corps, real estate corps are the prime forces indirectly creating homelessness. Real estate inflation has been by far the major factor though media controlled by the wealthy tends to point elsewhere.

https://peoplesworld.org/article/ho...et-landlords-convert-family-homes-to-rentals/
snippets:

The new-found corporate interest in single-family houses can be traced back to the government’s failed answer to the near economic meltdown of 2008. Recall that in response to the Great Depression in the 1930s, under Roosevelt, the bailout went only to the homeowners for mortgage relief and not a penny to the banks. By contrast, under the Bush/Obama programs during the Great Recession, the majority of the funds went to the banks and hardly any trickled down to help homeowners.

Obama called his program the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), and it promised to help four to five million homeowners with a $75 billion allocation. But only 887,000 got relief, and some nine million people lost their homes in the next few years.

Francisca Mari, writing in the New York Times, answered the question of who got the foreclosed homes, in her headline: A $60 Billion Housing Grab by Wall Street...

“By 2016, 95 percent of the distressed mortgages on Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s books were auctioned off to Wall Street investors without any meaningful stipulations. Private-equity firms had acquired more than 200,000 homes in desirable cities and middle-class suburban neighborhoods, creating a tantalizing new asset class: the single-family-rental home. The companies would make money on rising home values while tenants covered the mortgages.”...

There are investment vehicles that allow the wealthy to pool their assets as they do in equity/hedge funds, but restrict the money managers to investing only in real estate; they’re called Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). In the above quoted article, Mari’s research revealed that a strikingly large source of the funds for some prominent REITs was foreign—and from hidden sources:

“The REITs were funded with money from all over the world. An investment company in Qatar, the Korea Exchange Bank on behalf of the country’s national pension, shell companies in California, the Cayman Islands, and the British Virgin Islands—all contributed to Colony American Homes [a major REIT].”

Mari’s research uncovered an even more disturbing trend: University and government pension funds were investing in REITs that were converting America into a nation of renters: “Columbia University and G.I. Partners (on behalf of the California Public Employees Retirement System) invested $25 million and $250 million in the REIT Waypoint Homes.”...

One solution: Absolutely and completely prohibit future corporate or group ownership of single-family homes in any form: REIT, equity, hedge fund, or whatever.

The founding principle of capitalism is often said to be the survival of the fittest, which is the law of the jungle. Wolves take down the weakest in a herd so that the surviving strongest will pass on their stronger DNA. In the jungle, there is no justice.

 

[SeniorBen]

Wall Street, bank corps, real estate corps are the prime forces indirectly creating homelessness. Real estate inflation has been by far the major factor though media controlled by the wealthy tends to point elsewhere.

https://peoplesworld.org/article/ho...et-landlords-convert-family-homes-to-rentals/
snippets:

The new-found corporate interest in single-family houses can be traced back to the government’s failed answer to the near economic meltdown of 2008. Recall that in response to the Great Depression in the 1930s, under Roosevelt, the bailout went only to the homeowners for mortgage relief and not a penny to the banks. By contrast, under the Bush/Obama programs during the Great Recession, the majority of the funds went to the banks and hardly any trickled down to help homeowners.

Obama called his program the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), and it promised to help four to five million homeowners with a $75 billion allocation. But only 887,000 got relief, and some nine million people lost their homes in the next few years.

Francisca Mari, writing in the New York Times, answered the question of who got the foreclosed homes, in her headline: A $60 Billion Housing Grab by Wall Street...

“By 2016, 95 percent of the distressed mortgages on Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s books were auctioned off to Wall Street investors without any meaningful stipulations. Private-equity firms had acquired more than 200,000 homes in desirable cities and middle-class suburban neighborhoods, creating a tantalizing new asset class: the single-family-rental home. The companies would make money on rising home values while tenants covered the mortgages.”...

There are investment vehicles that allow the wealthy to pool their assets as they do in equity/hedge funds, but restrict the money managers to investing only in real estate; they’re called Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). In the above quoted article, Mari’s research revealed that a strikingly large source of the funds for some prominent REITs was foreign—and from hidden sources:

“The REITs were funded with money from all over the world. An investment company in Qatar, the Korea Exchange Bank on behalf of the country’s national pension, shell companies in California, the Cayman Islands, and the British Virgin Islands—all contributed to Colony American Homes [a major REIT].”

Mari’s research uncovered an even more disturbing trend: University and government pension funds were investing in REITs that were converting America into a nation of renters: “Columbia University and G.I. Partners (on behalf of the California Public Employees Retirement System) invested $25 million and $250 million in the REIT Waypoint Homes.”...

One solution: Absolutely and completely prohibit future corporate or group ownership of single-family homes in any form: REIT, equity, hedge fund, or whatever.

The founding principle of capitalism is often said to be the survival of the fittest, which is the law of the jungle. Wolves take down the weakest in a herd so that the surviving strongest will pass on their stronger DNA. In the jungle, there is no justice.

Interesting website. I bookmarked it.

 

[officerripley]

Interesting website. I bookmarked it.

Yes, indeed; thanks, David, for the website, I went ahead and subscribed to it.

 

[David777]

Yes, we myriad working class peons are being skewered and mislead with head down in holes in the sand, humming along to Happy Days, just as those elite powers and their media want us to.

 

[StarSong]

The founding principle of capitalism is often said to be the survival of the fittest, which is the law of the jungle. Wolves take down the weakest in a herd so that the surviving strongest will pass on their stronger DNA. In the jungle, there is no justice.

So true. Great article, David.

 

[SeniorBen]

One answer to the homeless problem is public housing, but then you have the issue of non-working people living better than people working minimum wage jobs and just barely getting by. I guess the answer to that is to require the tenants of the public housing to work in some way. Who knows.

 

[OneEyedDiva]

One answer to the homeless problem is public housing, but then you have the issue of non-working people living better than people working minimum wage jobs and just barely getting by. I guess the answer to that is to require the tenants of the public housing to work in some way. Who knows.

Problem with your solution is that public housing is already overwhelmed, including senior housing. I have a friend, in fact who used to be a neighbor who's so sorry she moved from here. She's been looking for an apartment for over two years. I notified her that applications were being taken for new buildings that just got finished. She's blind so her daughter submitted her application. A couple of months later they went in and they told her she was accepted...that was almost a year ago. Now she finds out that she might not get into the new development and still has to wait months! She put in an application at another building, not under public housing, still no word from them either. I was told by those who have been trying to get into public housing that waiting lists are 3 years long (for seniors). A non senior told me the housing authority in our city stopped taking applications altogether for non senior housing. From what I understand, getting into public housing is a problem in many areas.

 

[Lawrence]

It scares me to know about the homeless people I wish things were different. Me and my wife own our house and cars, so we have no monthly payments to make. We actually are saving money every month and help out our children when they are in a bind. I hope we never become homeless, maybe we would live in our camping trailer.

 

[OneEyedDiva]

It scares me to know about the homeless people I wish things were different. Me and my wife own our house and cars, so we have no monthly payments to make. We actually are saving money every month and help out our children when they are in a bind. I hope we never become homeless, maybe we would live in our camping trailer.

It's nice to know we can help our children and not have it be that they need to help support us. At least you have a back up plan if, God forbid, you found yourself homeless. But I hope that never happens Lawrence.

 

[SeniorBen]

Problem with your solution is that public housing is already overwhelmed, including senior housing. I have a friend, in fact who used to be a neighbor who's so sorry she moved from here. She's been looking for an apartment for over two years. I notified her that applications were being taken for new buildings that just got finished. She's blind so her daughter submitted her application. A couple of months later they went in and they told her she was accepted...that was almost a year ago. Now she finds out that she might not get into the new development and still has to wait months! She put in an application at another building, not under public housing, still no word from them either. I was told by those who have been trying to get into public housing that waiting lists are 3 years long (for seniors). A non senior told me the housing authority in our city stopped taking applications altogether for non senior housing. From what I understand, getting into public housing is a problem in many areas.

The obvious answer is to build more public housing, but that takes money. And will.

 

[OneEyedDiva]

The obvious answer is to build more public housing, but that takes money. And will.

Yes, you are right of course; that would be nice. But getting the zoning, maneuvering through the red tape, etc., etc. will not provide nearly the amount of necessary housing in an expedient fashion.

 

[Buckeye]

It scares me to know about the homeless people I wish things were different. Me and my wife own our house and cars, so we have no monthly payments to make. We actually are saving money every month and help out our children when they are in a bind. I hope we never become homeless, maybe we would live in our camping trailer.

They odds are on your side. Highly unlikely that you and your wife would ever be homeless. I have no data to back up my suspicions, but I would guess that seniors that end up homeless were living pretty much on the edge, so to speak, most of their life. I do not have any suggestions to solve the issue, but I do know that one thing is absolute in human nature: that which you reward, you will get more of.

btw - good on you for helping your kids. I assume you are also teaching them your life methods that allow you to help them.

 

[Knight]

Senior ben posted.
The obvious answer is to build more public housing, but that takes money. And will.

More public housing sounds simple & doable until you think about all the other issues that go along with putting a large amount of homeless people that need to do something to get thru their day.
More public housing & the utilities that will be used who pays for that? Housing is nice but upkeep & jobs by those living there should be available. Then there is how many units to build to care for the homeless population already in whatever place they are. Not unusual for homeless to gravitate to cities that seem accepting of their being there.
I don't think there is one answer/solution that can solve the various issues that bring people to the point in their lives to wind up homeless. Tossing money at the problem seems to me to be the popular political solution. I don't think I've ever read a report on the money spent to address homelessness. What I'm trying to say, like supporting foreign governments what actually reaches the people in need that the money was supposed to help.

 

[Buckeye]

There is lots of information on the cost of the homeless.
======
The National Alliance to End Homelessness calculated that, in 2021, the U.S. federal government enacted over $51 billion in funding for selected homelessness and housing programs. This, of course, does not include city, county, or private dollars invested in homelessness and affordable housing as well.
======
In the 2020-2021 San Diego budget, the city spent $64 million through its Homelessness Strategies Department, which oversees and develops homelessness-related programs and services. Most of this was spent on outside contracts, which likely include programs offered by homelessness service providers.

However, there is additional spending across the County through Housing and Health Services and other government entities. Right now, there is no one entity that calculates total spending
======
or this one:
According to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, the cost of building a 100-unit affordable project in California in 2016 was $425,000 per unit. Multiply that by 160,000 and you’re looking at a cost of $68 billion in California alone.

One estimate I have seen that overall we spend about $35k per year for each homeless person. The average retiree gets about $18k in social security benefits....

 

[officerripley]

The obvious answer is to build more public housing, but that takes money. And will.

A convo I had with a realtor a few years ago:

Me: So many of the new (and the few that are affordable) single-family housing divisions have all 2-story homes which are not good for the elderly. I wish they would build more single-family housing that's suitable for the elderly since there's no way I'll ever be able to get my husband to live in any kind of multi-family setting.
Realtor: I agree with you; they should build more for the elderly but not going to happen; single family housing that's suitable for the elderly (i.e., single story, etc.) is too hard to re-sell.
Me: Really? Why?
Realtor: Because (and I can tell you from first-hand experience) any home buyers that are middle-aged or younger do not want to live in an area with even a few "old people." This happens to me all the time: I'm driving prospective buyers to look at a home and if they see one head of gray or white hair, they frown & say, "Are there a lot of old people living in this neighborhood? Because I do NOT want to live in an area with grumpy old people who'll be complaining about the noise my kids make and I myself don't want to hear sirens every day because some old person is having chest pains!" And no matter how much I beg them to look at the house & tell them how nice it is, they won't even look at it and want to move on to the next on the list. And this happens all the time.

I think this is sad but didn't really surprise me to hear it.

 

[dseag2]

A convo I had with a realtor a few years ago:

Me: So many of the new (and the few that are affordable) single-family housing divisions have all 2-story homes which are not good for the elderly. I wish they would build more single-family housing that's suitable for the elderly since there's no way I'll ever be able to get my husband to live in any kind of multi-family setting.
Realtor: I agree with you; they should build more for the elderly but not going to happen; single family housing that's suitable for the elderly (i.e., single story, etc.) is too hard to re-sell.
Me: Really? Why?
Realtor: Because (and I can tell you from first-hand experience) any home buyers that are middle-aged or younger do not want to live in an area with even a few "old people." This happens to me all the time: I'm driving prospective buyers to look at a home and if they see one head of gray or white hair, they frown & say, "Are there a lot of old people living in this neighborhood? Because I do NOT want to live in an area with grumpy old people who'll be complaining about the noise my kids make and I myself don't want to hear sirens every day because some old person is having chest pains!" And no matter how much I beg them to look at the house & tell them how nice it is, they won't even look at it and want to move on to the next on the list. And this happens all the time.

I think this is sad but didn't really surprise me to hear it.

The other challenge is that builders want to build the largest possible home on the smallest lot to make more money. When we moved to Dallas we were looking to downsize. We looked at an absolutely beautiful home with a great finish-out, but it was huge and had things like a Media Room that we didn't need. Our real estate agent was very well connected and was kind enough to let us chat with the builder of that home. He basically confirmed that land was too expensive and he could not build a smaller home on it and make a profit.

 

[CrowFlies]

i know a traveling nurse who told me how the old guys are not getting help. ive been helping a homeless guy living
in his truck the last year at least that ive known him...who was initially told "no".. SS wont help you.

this is despite his work career despite his Three heart stint surgeries one last fall. his mistake im told was
believing them, the "no". he didnt know to find a lawyer to work his Disability case.
he took the "no" and moved into his truck.

i finally called a lawyer ad in a nearby city, talked with them about this man and his history and his "no" problem,
how he does Not understand the 'system' or how to fight it. with his permission i sent them his email addy
and phone number since he doesnt get reception in many areas but has wifi at the library.

i was with him when he had his first phone conversation with this law outfit, it went well. they took his info
and they took his case. he now has a lawyer to help him get the SSdis he deserved a number of years ago.

with that im reminded of the number of people considered 'homeless' across this country. they are known people,
known names. IOW...if you havent applied for something, havent signed up for something, if you just
go live in your truck..You are Not Counted. you are not part of the 'homeless' numbers.
i find that pretty scary.

id say there are far more homeless out there than is recognized, and seniors are definitely falling into that
category. no one can survive on the measly SS they get and no one in charge seems to notice or care
and it pisses me off.

i knew a mom who was getting 1500mos on some kind of SS...her RV rent was half that and going up
yearly. then was huge medicare payments then car ins then...she couldnt afford food. we'd buy her a 100$ gift card
for the grocery store so she would not run out of food.
i dont know how anyone can exist on $841 mos.

so many people here are starving and homeless and ignored. meanwhile....every rich person is now writing
a book for more money! they dont seem to have enuff yet.

this inequity is very harmful if you dont have 44billion lying around.

 

[CrowFlies]

and i agree...we did not have these kind of problems when the rich were paying their share of US tax.
its been downhill along with their tax rates the last 40years.

 

[carouselsilver]

Well even if you can't open the link...this an excerpt from the article as shown in the OP:
“These are not necessarily people who have mental illness or substance abuse problems. They are people being pushed into the streets by rising rents."

This movie touches upon this issue, and very well done, I might add:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9770150/reference