In light of opposition forces popping up this week to, yet again, publicly oppose a Wellness Center that will be serving frail and elderly senior citizens, I thought this article from the Washington Post was particularly timely, and tragic. It may be harder to view on WaPo without a subscription but here are some highlights:
In recent weeks and months, Phoenix; Louisville, Ky.; Tulsa, Okla.; Spokane, Wash.; and Santa Monica, Calif., reported big increases in their homeless populations. Many jurisdictions such as New York City and Los Angeles have mounted aggressive plans for housing the homeless, but a shortage of affordable housing, mental health and substance abuse treatment options have frustrated many of those efforts, experts say.
“We are seeing these increases all over the country,” said Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. “What we are also seeing is a real criminalization and villainizing of the homeless, which is something I haven’t seen in my 30 years in this field.”
…
“This is not a Washington, D.C., problem or a New York City problem. This is a United States problem, and it’s in every community around the country,” said Christy Respress, CEO and president of Pathways to Housing DC, a homeless service provider. “It’s impossible to find affordable housing, not just in cities but in the suburbs of the D.C. region, without some type of housing assistance.”
Tent encampments have become the most visible symbols of the homeless crisis in many urban centers. In the suburbs, the signs and impacts of homelessness can often be more subtle.
…
“We know the numbers of homeless baby boomers are going to continue to grow and people are going to be aging into homelessness for the first time due to a lack of affordable housing options,” Chapman said. “It’s very sad, but we’ve heard anecdotes from Loudoun County where adult children just can’t afford care for elderly parents, so they are just dropping them off at the shelter.”
Had it not been the efforts of the relentless opposition perhaps the Wellness Center could already be serving unhoused senior citizens with medical issues and give them some dignity in their last few years. But rather than use the time during the pandemic to catch folks as pandemic benefits began to go away instead our local provider of homelessness services (derisively dismissed as a “developer” as though they were going to bulldoze old office buildings for luxury housing) had to fight bullshit attempt after bullshit attempt which has culminated in this “historic” nomination.
So maybe folks will start having more empathy for homeless folks when they see the increase of little old grannies on the street, taking shelter where they can find it. But then again this is the same nation who does not feel moved to do anything when six year olds are left orphaned after an assault rifle massacre.
Blogging Bayport Alameda 
“It’s very sad, but we’ve heard anecdotes from Loudoun County where adult children just can’t afford care for elderly parents, so they are just dropping them off at the shelter.”
We’ve also heard anecdotes about razor blades in Halloween candy, satanic ritual abuse, swarms of killer bees from Africa any minute now, and lots of other balderdash & poppycock.
Comment by PT Barnum was way off, LOTS more born every minute — May 12, 2023 @ 7:22 am
The average age of homeless adults is now around 50 years old, often boomers who worked most of their lives and then aged out of the workforce with insufficient savings while home prices skyrocketed around them. This is a major change in demographics of the homeless population than 40, 30, 20 years ago. How cheap was it to get an apartment in Alameda in the 1980s, now people are getting hosed by corporate investors charging $4,000 per month. I damn well believe this anecdotal comment and if you don’t, you’re out of touch and PT Barnum was referring to you.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Aging-onto-the-street-Nearly-half-of-older-13668900.php
Comment by Observer — May 12, 2023 @ 7:49 am
1) Person in the homelessness business has no direct evidence, but has heard “anecdotes.” Anecdote is French for “bullshit.” Pics or didn’t happen, as the kids say.
2) Are some boomers getting squeezed? Sure, there are probably some who never saved a nickel despite being the most privilged generation in history. That’s on them. Move somplace cheaper where social security pays the rent.
3) two third of the federal budget is writing checks to boomers & older, and they still need more?
4) over 65’s are the wealthiest age bracket by far
5) If their kids are “dropping them off” it is at most a very infrequent occurance, not a trend whatsoever. Most likley reason is dysfucnctional behavior on part of parent or child.
Comment by heart strings bullshit — May 12, 2023 @ 9:28 am
1) Anecdotes means “bullshit”? I guess “anecdotal observation” means nothing in your world.
2) Fox News pull-up-by-yer-bootstraps mentality. You’re speaking in generalities but you know that does not apply to every single individual. Only 0.05% of all people are homeless. So is your sweeping statement 100.00% true? What if it’s only 99% true? That’s a lot of boomers who are not “the privileged generation.”
3) Yea, defense is already 50% of the federal budget. More bullshit from you.
4) The wealthiest generation AND one of the least employed (i.e. retired or unable to work or don’t have current skills in today’s job market.
5) At least you’re admitting it does happen. Again, less than 1% of people are homeless so by definition it’s not going to be a “trend” but just an uptick can overwhelm community resources.
Comment by NIMBYs Suck — May 12, 2023 @ 12:23 pm
When it comes from someone is the homeless business who can’t provide any facts other than “I’ve been hearing” which is what anecdote is, I call BS. Same as I do when Trump says that.
Federal Budget:
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/
Don’t read the discretionary part and yell “see I said half!” because discretionary is less than half of total. Read the “total spending part.” Defense is less than 20%, boomers and older are more than 60%
Comment by reality bites — May 12, 2023 @ 1:47 pm
3) two third of the federal budget is writing checks to boomers & older, and they still need more?
The Treasury breakdown by category is here.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/#spending-categories
The two largest boomer categories are Social Security at 19% and Medicare at 12%, adding up to 31%. Can you point out other categories with the 35% that brings it up to 66%?
Over my career my total payments including employer match into the social security and medicare as about $400,000. That’s nominal dollars, not adjusted to today’s dollars. So my part of that 31% is just getting my money back. Boomers who paid in less get less.
4) over 65’s are the wealthiest age bracket by far
Ya, I have more wealth today than I did at a young age. Duh.
Comment by Duh! — May 14, 2023 @ 2:21 pm
I was in the town of 10,000 in Oregon where I lived for 5 – 6 years until College. They have a huge homeless and drug problems. In a lot of these small towns meth and some other drugs are spreading rapidly which is something I didn’t know. The other problems was COVID’s – they couldn’t evict the tenants for not paying rent, a lot of tenants knew this so they just stopped so they paying. The landlords got around it by selling the house (different laws) or kept their properties vacant causing prices to go up. A lot of people worked remotely and moved to these small towns. Everyone wanted to know where all the people moving out of California went, they went to other places causing housing shortages.
Comment by Gage — May 12, 2023 @ 3:58 pm
Hmm this comment needs more vilification of homeless people to better present the scourge on society that they are. I give this 8/10.
Comment by Bay Farm Trumpers For Trish — May 12, 2023 @ 5:01 pm