Grim Outlook for Geezers as Poverty Rate Climbs

As Poverty in America's "Geezer Gal," [Ed. note: I never said that!] I volunteered to write perhaps one of the hardest posts of my blogging career — a look at poverty among the elderly.

I'm known for staring into the belly of the beast, but perhaps this is going too far. With fresh-off-the-presses poverty statistics pointing to a climbing poverty rate (now at 14.3 percent), my non-profit do-gooder self is way too close to the edge. But I'm not alone. Seniors, unless they're quite wealthy — say $1 mil+ in secure (whatever that is?!) investments — better pull out the sleeping bags from the basement or buy a little RV, like I did. Tragically, but undeniably, poverty's path easily leads to homelessness, especially for seniors with high risk factors: inadequate income/savings/retirement, health issues, strained family ties, unaffordable housing, not to mention the typical senior financial issues (pdf).

A couple weeks ago, while volunteering at the DuPage PADS shelter, I struck up a conversation with a woman standing forlornly by herself. "Addie," just a few months younger than my recently-reached 60, was annoyed. I asked why. "They're gonna make me leave tonight," she growled. As a former shelter director, I was puzzled since I hadn't seen her cause any problems.

"They say they have no room," she sneered, looking disbelievingly at vacant places in the hallway previously used as an overflow women's sleeping area. She sat down to eat, knowing that the pre-fall temperature drop would soon chill her bones. I know, as she does, that if you are homeless and can't stay at this shelter, part of a rotating cycle of shelter/worship places, then you're SOL.

Later I saw Addie standing in the hallway. "I'm just staying here as long as I can," she replied. "I'll be OK, but I'm worried about 'Jane,' because they're going to make her leave too, I think." WHAT? Jane, Addie told me, is 75.

Jane, with her previously stylish dyed dark hair, joined us, and said they found a spot for her — a thin mat on the hard floor for those who think this is a life of luxury. I asked Addie where she'd go. She told me about her past "camping" experiences, in the forest preserve with some other un-sheltered homeless folks. Summer isn't so bad for sleeping out. But the cops broke up their encampment. On nights that the rotating shelter doesn't operate, she finds an obscure park bench. Ouch.

The two gals got talking. In a different setting, like bridge club, this would look like a chat between two senior women in affluent DuPage County. They spoke of husbands, death and divorce breaking up their secure lifestyles, kids with their own lives — dysfunctional and not — that they don't want to burden, and the "joys" of sleeping in a communal environment.

I asked about health problems. They both have a long list. Sporadic medical care mean illness is common. I didn't probe about how they cope with being sick while living the highly-mobile lifestyle of the suburban homeless. It would be ugly.

Too many of my college-educated, hard-working, single — divorced or never married — friends are perched on the edge of poverty. Housing costs have continued to skyrocket. Senior housing, as with other subsidized housing, has years-long waiting lists. Health care, especially for those of us in pre-Medicare stages, breaks the budget. Car repairs, phone service, dentist visits and gas prices keep us from whooping it up. Get a job? Right.

And now we have proof positive that times are indeed getting tougher for those who are most vulnerable, contrary to the thinking of New York Times' Thomas Friedman, who says we're not matching up with the Greatest Generation. Really. What about today's humongous differences in "income equality, retirement security, and prosperity built on the purchasing power of a thriving middle class"?

Seems to me that impoverished geezers should team up with homeless families and gather in our nation's Capital where we could all just sit and wait. The ex-elected officials who will soon be displaced by insurgents would do well to stop by on their way home and get some survival pointers from Addie. She knows some good park benches.

Photo credit: Diane Nilan