Elderly Homelessness Essay

Although the time-worn atomic number 18 homeless for all sorts of reasons, in that location are some habitual causes of homelessness for everyone. The causes of ripened homelessness are mostly financial. The most common cause of homelessness is income. The elderly move back and do non make the same income as they did while working. Because their income is miserable, they imbibe Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to live off of. However, SSI is usually very low and not even above the poverty bill.The maximum SSI monthly make in Washington D. C. s $850 for an individual, which is well below the poverty line (NLIHC, 2007). These monthly benefits have to be used to remuneration bills, buy food, and yield for housing. SSI benefits do not inhabit very long because they are so small and the cost of housing usually diminishes the benefit before it outhouse go either further. The cost of housing is the second most common cause of homelessness among the elderly. It is hard to find affordable housing in umpteen areas, especially in busy cities. The cost of a one bedroom apartment in Washington D. C. was $1,134 (NLIHC, 2007). some of the elderly have a hard time paying for housing because SSI will only pay housing if the cost is thirty percent of their SSI benefit. Many of the elderly who are having issues paying for the cost of housing can apply for plane section 8 vouchers, but there is an ironic twist to this option. In order to chance section 8 vouchers to avoid homelessness, the person applying has to already be homeless. at a time the person is homeless, it will be very difficult to apply for section 8 because they put ont have a permanent reference point or a way to keep in contact with any agencies.Some of the other causes of elderly homelessness include physical and mental health. The bother with the health of the elderly is that most of them have some sort of infirmity that prevents them from being able to take carry off of themselves a nd their home. The elderly are much identically to experience a disruption in their ability to care or provide for themselves and their homes because they are not physically or mentally able to. Their health causes them to stop working and ultimately leads to receiving the low SSI benefits, like a vicious circle.One of the causes of homelessness is the lack of social support from family and friends. Many elderly masses become homes because they do not have anyone to sponsor them, whether financially or emotionally. They do not ask for cooperate because their family and friends whitethorn also be having financial issues and do not have stead in their home for the elderly person to live with them. Because of this many elderly people feel like a burden and are in any case ashamed to ask their friends and family for help and they are left to fend for themselves, which leads to homelessness.The last common cause of elderly homelessness is the fill outledge deficit that exists abo ut open operate. Many elderly people admit that they do not know which programs and services are available to them and which they are eligible for. Sometimes there are services and support that they are eligible for that they are unwitting of and they feel like there is nothing they can do. This usually leads to neat homeless because they ran out of time to apply for services and get help to prevent homelessness.Many of the elderly people who are homeless did not think they were eligible for services and many other elderly people were unaware of services that might be available to them. This is a vast problem because the elderly do not have the information they quest to prevent being homeless and they are not receiving the support and services that they are eligible for. These elderly people are falling into situations that they dont know how to get out of.