More baby boomers are falling into HOMELESSNESS thanks to death of spouse, expensive medical emergency or soaring rents – and many are too frail to climb bunk beds in shelters

Baby boomers are becoming homeless in increasing numbers, with rising rents and mounting medical bills forcing seniors out of their homes and onto the streets, according to a new report.

Analysts from the Department of Housing and Urban Development said this The Wall Street Journal The fastest growing segment of the homeless population is people over the age of 65.

For the first time this year, the agency will reveal the number of people over 65 in their annual homeless count, which will be released in late December.

Hotspots for senior homelessness include Miami, Denver and Columbus, Ohio – cities on the cusp of what’s being called a “silver tsunami.” Many of those experiencing homelessness cannot even use shelters because they are too weak to climb onto a top bunk, which may be the only bed available to them.

“The fact that we’re seeing homelessness among the elderly is something we haven’t seen since the Great Depression,” said Dennis Culhane, a professor of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Rising rents are a big factor, and Florida is one of the hardest hit states with its large population of seniors.

Florida has no rent control laws, and an influx of people during the pandemic has driven up housing costs.

Half of the 20 metropolitan areas analyzed saw the strongest rent increases between January 2020 and June 2023 in Florida, according to Zillow data cited by the WSJ.

Among those forced from their Florida home were Barbara Throckmorton, 63, and her partner Duane Edward Winn, 55, who became homeless in Tampa in October 2022.

Throckmorton told the newspaper that her rent check was stolen and they were evicted from their home.

She was turned away from a homeless shelter because the only available beds were top bunks, which could not be given to anyone over 60 due to safety concerns.

She said they slept on the sidewalk for two nights.

“I thought I was going to die,” she said as she sat near the couple’s tent.

Throckmorton said the newspaper since she was in a car accident in the 1990s, she has been receiving about $900 a month in disability benefits.

Her partner, who worked as a contractor, is applying for disability benefits because he suffers from osteoporosis and has broken five ribs.

The couple received $280 a month in food stamps but had no refrigerator, meaning they had to buy non-perishable food and ice cream every day.

She thought they would be off the streets soon, but their belongings kept getting stolen, forcing them to replace and reset them.

She stays on the street.

Another Florida woman, Judy Schroeder, 71, told the newspaper that she became homeless after her Naples apartment building was sold and the rent increased from $875 to $1,399 a month.

She lost her part-time job at a liquor store and started couch surfing at friends’ homes — her husband died of cancer in the 1990s and they had no children.

She lived with a friend who went blind for a while, where she was a caregiver for her mentally ill son.

But when Hurricane Ian hit in September 2022, the house flooded. The woman and her son moved, but Schroeder stayed and developed pneumonia.

She shuffled through different situations, always looking for a home, but was often rejected because her income was not enough to meet the basic requirements.

“It’s a full-time job,” she says.

“I was on the phone seven to eight hours a day, calling, calling, calling, calling and calling.”

In late August, she finally found a place that accepted her as a resident, in a rural area north of Naples. She said she cried tears of exhaustion and joy when she found out.

She now pays 30 percent of her Social Security income on rent, with the federal Section 8 subsidy covering the rest.

“I’m not going to move anymore,” she said. ‘I can’t even think about it. I’ll stay here until the good Lord wants me.’

Margot Kushel, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, told the newspaper that many of the over-65s who became homeless felt betrayed by the system and were often forced onto the streets by a catastrophic event in their lives.

“It’s a very different population,” she said.

‘These are people who have worked all their lives. They lived normal lives, often working physically demanding jobs and never earning enough to put money aside.”