Canadian point-in-time counts show that, on average, 26 per cent of people experiencing homelessness are over 50, double the percentage in 2009. A University of Toronto analysis reported that 32 per cent of people using shelters are now over 50. Given how much homelessness ages people, anyone who is experiencing homelessness and over 50 is a senior.
About half of these unhoused older adults are recently homeless for the first time. The University of Toronto study blamed “insufficient income and a shortage of affordable and suitable housing.”
In an excellent Globe and Mail article, Rob Wipond notes that the average retirement income, after taxes, for individual Canadian seniors is $33,600. An individual working full-time, for a full year, on Ontario’s minimum wage, has an income, before taxes, of $35,200 a year. At that income, rent is only affordable at $880 a month, which is about half the average rent for a one-bedroom in Hamilton.
“For seniors with below-average incomes, it’s life-threatening,” Wipond wrote. “Imagine being 70 or 80 and suddenly being thrust out to live alone on the streets. How can we let this happen to our e
lders? It’s a collective shame upon our country.”
The solutions are many, including clawing back the financialization of for-profit rental housing that maximizes profits; reining in evictions for renovations and “mandatory service fees” that allow landlords to evade rent controls; building more non-profit housing that is all single seniors who rent can afford; and programs that help seniors stay in their homes rather than in high-cost retirement or long-term care homes.
The organization Generation Squeeze had also proposed starting to reduce Old Age Security for couples with taxable income earning above $100,000—instead of at $185,000—and using some of the $17 billion in savings to help seniors who really need the money.
Read the Globe and Mail article here by https://lnkd.in/gGuTPNh5, a related Homeless Hub article is here: https://homelesshub.ca/collection/population-groups/seniors/ and the Generation Squeeze proposal is here: https://www.gensqueeze.ca/fix_oas