WICHITA, Kan. (AP) A Wichita homeless shelter has
nearly three times more elderly people seeking refuge than it had a year
ago, and the director of a local faith-based organization that runs the
home sees that as part of an ongoing trend.
Many of those who seek housing help from Inter-Faith
Ministries have lost their spouses and are left with a pile of medical
expenses or credit card debt, said Sandy Swank, director of housing and
homeless services for the organization.
One elderly woman whose husband died didn't even know about some of the debt that became her responsibility.
"They end up losing everything," Swank told The Wichita
Eagle (
http://bit.ly/VLSC7b ). "They're pretty vulnerable. They don't
have a lot of experience, especially when the partner that's deceased
was in charge of decisions. So they're pretty clueless about what to
do."
A 2010 study by the Homeless Research Institute
projected the number of elderly people who are homeless would increase
by one-third nationally, from 44,172 in 2010 to 58,772 by 2020, and
would double to 95,000 by 2050.
Locally, Swank sees the numbers increasing.
Inter-Faith's winter shelter has served 13 people over 62 years old this
year, compared to last year's total of five.
"I've been working at Inter-Faith since October 1990,"
she said. "In the beginning, we'd have an occasional elderly person come
in, but if they came in, they came in with someone else. They always
had someone to look after them. In the last 10 years, we have seen more
elderly people, and each year it seems like the number increases."
Swank said there are some theories about why the
elderly homeless population is rising, with one of the most obvious
being the economy.
"Years ago, families did look after families," Swank
said. "Today, because of the economy, a lot of people are at risk
themselves. I think families can't afford to take care of each other
like they used to.
And we've become more mobile. We move away from our
families of origin. We're spread out."
Janis Cox, co-chairwoman of Advocates to End Chronic
Homelessness, an area faith-based volunteer group, said increasing
public awareness of the problem would be a good way to start addressing
it.
"Families are very stressed," she said. "With social
services being cut by the government and nonprofits not receiving more
donations, it just puts normal families under even more stress."
The oldest person at Inter-Faith's winter shelter was 83, Swank said.
One resident who recently ended up in Inter-Faith's
winter shelter after a visit to the Robert J. Dole Veterans
Administration Medical Center's emergency room was dropped off by a cab
on a Saturday night.
Swank was there when 78-year-old Dale Chilen arrived.
"He was so frail, in a wheelchair," she said. "I paid
the cab driver to get him to Safe Haven. He was too vulnerable anywhere
else. We're not a one-size-fits-all shelter, although sometimes I'd like
to be."
Chilen, who was born and raised in Kansas but most
recently had been living in Reno, Nev., said he "walked about 20 feet
and fell and broke my hip" at the beginning of the year when he arrived
in Salina. After a trip to a hospital, he went to a senior center before
eventually coming to Wichita.
On Wednesday, he started moving into a low-income
apartment for seniors with the help of Inter-Faith Ministries and the
Veterans Administration.
Chilen, a Korean War veteran, said he has been homeless "off and on" for 20 years.
"I hate to admit it," he said from his wheelchair, proudly looking at a brochure about his new apartment complex.
