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The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

moneywise.com

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Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#11

Post by myshpa »

jamesmurdza wrote: post #2

"In a 2020 journal article for the American Society on Aging, Kushel wrote that of all the homeless single adults in the early 1990s, 11% were aged 50 and older. By 2003, she says that percentage grew to 37%." When I read something like this I have to ask—Where is the data for the past 20 years?

The quote you've posted is missing current numbers. We're now at 50%.

"In a 2020 journal article for the American Society on Aging, Kushel wrote that of all the homeless single adults in the early 1990s, 11% were aged 50 and older. By 2003, she says that percentage grew to 37%.

Now, the over-50 demographic represents half of the homeless single adults in the U.S. — with no sign of their numbers slowing, leaving baby boomers (those aged 57 to 75) particularly vulnerable."

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#12

Post by wtcactus »

"In a 2020 journal article for the American Society on Aging, Kushel wrote that of all the homeless single adults in the early 1990s, 11% were aged 50 and older. By 2003, she says that percentage grew to 37%."

Society has been built for couples. With the major societal changes in the last 2 decades, we had an explosion of single people wanting to live alone, and the infrastructure is simply not prepared for it.

My parents were born poor (poor in a way you simply have no idea in the US) and were able to afford to buy a house (after a lot of work) because they were two working for a common goal.

It's a very complex problem. Most discussion around it is: look at what the investment funds are doing to housing, but, in reality, almost no new houses are being built (I'm speaking about my country here, but I suspect it's similar in a lot of places), and people aren't getting/staying married enough time to buy a house and build a family (which will also cause major problems down the line due to rapidly declining birthrates).

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#13

Post by leidenfrost »

0dayz wrote: post #5

That's very surprising, given that you typically hear about how it's the baby boomers who reaped the rewards and screwed over everyone else.

You know? This canned argument is being used in countries other than the us.

At first, I thought it did happen there, but it can't just be imported elsewhere.

Now this article gives me the idea that this is not an accurate assesment of reality by any means, but a circlejeck with the purpose of isolating boomers with younger people.

Old people tend to be conservative everywhere. Maybe this is not a calculated and coold blooded attempt to burn the bridge to next generations.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#14

Post by glimshe »

myshpa wrote: post #11
jamesmurdza wrote: post #2

"In a 2020 journal article for the American Society on Aging, Kushel wrote that of all the homeless single adults in the early 1990s, 11% were aged 50 and older. By 2003, she says that percentage grew to 37%." When I read something like this I have to ask—Where is the data for the past 20 years?

The quote you've posted is missing current numbers. We're now at 50%. "In a 2020 journal article for the American Society on Aging, Kushel wrote that of all the homeless single adults in the early 1990s, 11% were aged 50 and older. By 2003, she says that percentage grew to 37%. Now, the over-50 demographic represents half of the homeless single adults in the U.S. — with no sign of their numbers slowing, leaving baby…

Thank you - one thing that can be slightly misleading when reading this number is that 50% of the homeless adults are over 50. This doesn't mean (and you didn't say so) that 50% of the adults over 50 are homeless. It's not possible to know, by just reading this percentage, whether the homeless situation of older adults is getting better or worse in total numbers.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#15

Post by cyanydeez »

wtcactus wrote: post #12

"In a 2020 journal article for the American Society on Aging, Kushel wrote that of all the homeless single adults in the early 1990s, 11% were aged 50 and older. By 2003, she says that percentage grew to 37%." Society has been built for couples. With the major societal changes in the last 2 decades, we had an explosion of single people wanting to live alone, and the infrastructure is simply not prepared for it. My pa…

In America, it looks like real estate is becoming a victim of capitalism: companies buy properties, convert them to rentals, the collude with each other to "maximize" the value of those rentals. Then they claim the real problem is zoning codes so they can buy up more property just to expand their monopoly.

Homelessness is the a low water effect caused by inflation.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#16

Post by jongjong »

Part of the problem is government regulation. In some places, it's almost impossible to build new houses due to regulations. Some portion of the population wants to see house prices continue to increase and they will vote for politicians who will implement policies which will support that agenda. Of course this happens at the expense of another, also large portion of the population who do not own a house and have to pay higher rents.

I think we have a situation where part of the population is literally voting to appropriate wealth from another part of the population. Voting for more immigration which drives up demand for houses and voting for more regulations which constrain the supply of housing.

At the same time, those people who do not own a house are wising up to the scheme and so they increasingly refuse to work or provide value to society. Instead, they resort to their own financial schemes, illegal activity, freeloading government benefits; they've checked out from the system. Even those who would like to contribute increasingly find that they can't due to government regulations and their inability to amass enough capital to get started on their venture.

It seems that we are headed for an economic and political disaster. The government should not allow itself to be weaponized against part of the population for the benefit of another.

The other problem is related to the role of debt in modern society. It doesn't make sense that modern banking is centered around mortgages. The point of debt was to finance new business ventures to create economic value to empower people to provide as much value as possible; not to prop up massive financial schemes which jeopardize people's ability to keep a roof over their heads.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#17

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

0dayz wrote: post #5

That's very surprising, given that you typically hear about how it's the baby boomers who reaped the rewards and screwed over everyone else.

The wealthiest baby boomers, who already had a leg up, maybe. But remember baby boomers are just more populous than any other generation— schools had to be expanded just to educate them, hospitals had to grow just to heal them, suburbs built just to raise them. Of course as economic disparity hits, they will also be a broad chunk of homeless, even if proportionally they are more prosperous than other generations.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#18

Post by rpastuszak »

unglaublich wrote: post #8
0dayz wrote: post #5

That's very surprising, given that you typically hear about how it's the baby boomers who reaped the rewards and screwed over everyone else.

> who reaped the rewards and screwed over everyone else. Having an average net. worth of $1.2M [0] and _still_ having homelessness in your generation only confirms that attitude. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/08/baby-boomers-wealth-is-12-ti...

average ≠ median

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#19

Post by 3np »

glimshe wrote: post #14
myshpa wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote you've posted is missing current numbers. We're now at 50%. "In a 2020 journal article for the American Society on Aging, Kushel wrote that of all the homeless single adults in the early 1990s, 11% were aged 50 and older. By 2003, she says that percentage grew to 37%. Now, the over-50 demographic represents half of the homeless single adults in the U.S. — with no sign of their numbers slowing, leaving baby…

Thank you - one thing that can be slightly misleading when reading this number is that 50% of the homeless adults are over 50. This doesn't mean (and you didn't say so) that 50% of the adults over 50 are homeless. It's not possible to know, by just reading this percentage, whether the homeless situation of older adults is getting better or worse in total numbers.

Further, those numbers alone could also be very good: it could just mean that less people get and will get homeless.

That's of course not the case and the actual situation is not good, just sayin'. Good case of how you can spin statistics to tell a story.

Re: The elderly are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

#20

Post by 8jef »

jongjong wrote: post #16

Part of the problem is government regulation. In some places, it's almost impossible to build new houses due to regulations. Some portion of the population wants to see house prices continue to increase and they will vote for politicians who will implement policies which will support that agenda. Of course this happens at the expense of another, also large portion of the population who do not own a house and have to…

This
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