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Older Homeless Persons

In the United States, older homeless persons—those age fifty and over—often seem invisible. Public policy generally focuses on younger homeless people or on social categories in which the aging are subsumed without special notice, such as disabled individuals and veterans.

For purposes of studying homeless populations, researchers have set the aging marker at anywhere from age forty to sixty-five. However, a growing consensus holds that the “older homeless” should be defined as age fifty and over. Indeed, at that age, many homeless persons look and act ten to twenty years older.

Although the proportion of older persons among the homeless has declined since the 1980s, their absolute number has grown. (As for the actual percentage of aging Americans who are homeless, estimates vary widely—from about 3 to 28 percent—due to heterodox methods and definitions of aged status.) In any case, the proportion of older homeless persons can be expected to increase dramatically as more baby boomers turn fifty. Thus, with an anticipated doubling of the fifty-and-over population by about 2030, a comparable increase in the number of older homeless persons is likely. The current low estimate of 60,000 would grow to 120,000, while the high estimate of 400,000 would mushroom to 800,000.

Factors Contributing to Homelessness in Older People

Homelessness generally results from a concurrence of conditions, events, and risk variables. The flow chart in Figure 1 depicts these factors in four categories, summarized below.

  • Personal risk factors may accumulate over a lifetime. Except in the case of extremely vulnerable individuals, homelessness is likely to occur only when several of these personal risk factors coexist.
  • Systemic factors play a critical role. In most instances, such variables as the availability of lowcost housing and the income to pay for it are the ultimate determinants of homelessness.
  • Enculturation factors—that is, a person's adaptation to the street or shelter—may further sustain and prolong homelessness.
  • Programmatic factors can prevent or terminate homelessness, depending on the timeliness, quality, and availability of the service intervention.

Individual Risk Factors

The principal risk factors found to increase vulnerability to homelessness among older individuals are described below, based on studies conducted in the period from 1983 to 1998.

Figure 1.Model of Homelessness and Aging

Gender: The ratio of older homeless men to women is approximately 4:1.

Race: African-Americans are overrepresented among older homeless populations—and they are even more so among their younger counterparts.

Fifty to sixty-four age range: Because of the entitlements available to persons at age sixty-five, the risk of homelessness drops at that age. Indeed, the proportion of elders over sixty-five among the homeless is roughly one-fourth of their representation in the general population. Conversely, persons between fifty and sixty-four are overrepresented among the homeless, close to double their representation in the general population.

Extremely low income: Older homeless persons are likely to come from poor or near impoverished backgrounds and to spend their lives in similar economic status. More than three-fifths worked in unskilled or semi-skilled occupations. Median current income is roughly one-half the poverty level.

Disruptive events in youth: About one-fifth of older persons have had disruptive early life events such as the death of parents, placement in foster care, and so forth. Similar rates hold for younger homeless persons as well.

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