Karla was homeless after she split with her partner of 18 years and moved in with a cousin.
She was going to use her disability check to get an apartment. She had to sleep in her old pickup because she couldn't afford housing in Phoenix, where median monthly rents soared to over $1,200 for a one-bedroom.
One face of America's graying homeless population, a rapidly expanding group of penniless and desperate people 50 and older suddenly without a permanent home after a job loss, divorce, family death or health crisis, is Finocchio.
A caseworker at Arizona's largest shelter said they are seeing a huge boom in senior homelessness. They are being pushed into the streets by rising rents.
Policy makers from Los Angeles to New York are challenged to imagine new ideas to shelter the last of the baby boomers as they get older, sicker and less able to afford rents. It's important that there is more housing for extremely low-income people.
Aging homeless have medical ages greater than their years, with mobility, cognitive and chronic problems like diabetes, as they navigate sidewalks in wheelchairs and walkers. Many people were unable to work because of the Pandemic restrictions.
After hours at her telemarketing job were cut, Cardelia Corley ended up on the streets of Los Angeles County.
The single mother said that things went downhill after she put her child through college.
Corley traveled all night on buses and commuter trains to get a cat nap.
Corley said that he would go to Union Station and wash up in the bathroom. She moved into a small apartment in East Hollywood with the help of The People Concern.
A study led by the University of Pennsylvania shows that the homeless population of people 65 and older will triple in the next 30 years.
The Center for Vulnerable Populations at the University of California, San Francisco has shown how homelessness affects health.
A lot of the working poor are going to retire onto the streets.
Younger baby boomers, who are in their late 50s to late 60s, don't have pensions or 401(k) accounts. According to the census, half of both women and men ages 55 to 66 have no retirement savings.
The baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. All boomers will reach age 65 by the year 2030.
The aged homeless tend to have smaller Social Security checks.
Black, Latino and Indigenous people who came of age in the 1980s are disproportionately represented among the homeless, according to the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.
Many nearing retirement never got well-paying jobs and didn't buy homes because of discrimination.
Rudy Soliz, 63, operations director for Justa Center, which offers meals, showers, and other services, said that many people didn't put money into retirement programs because they thought Social Security would take care of them.
As of December, the average monthly Social Security payment was $1,658. Older homeless people have smaller checks because they work less and earn less.
Supplemental Security Income of $841 a month is available to people 65 and over with limited resources.
Many people who lose permanent homes are luckier than Castro.
Castro lost his apartment in New York when his mother died and he was hospitalized with bleeding ulcers. He lived with his sister in Boston and then at the YMCA in Cambridge for three years.
Castro received a subsidized apartment through a Boston nonprofit dedicated to ending homelessness among older adults. Residents pay 30% of their income to stay in one.
Castro pays part of his Social Security check. He is a volunteer at a food pantry and a nonprofit that helps people with housing.
He said that housing is a problem because they are building luxury apartments that no one can afford.
There is a problem.
Janie Har is from Marin County, California, and Christopher Weber is from Los Angeles.