LA Family Housing Receives $700K Grant to Combat Senior Homelessness using Shared Housing
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation awarded LA Family Housing $700,000 in support of a two-year pilot project that will utilize a multi-pronged approach to enhance the range of services provided through CES to chronically homeless seniors, and prevent older adults facing housing insecurity from entering the homeless system altogether.
Why focus on seniors?
Seniors are one of the most vulnerable and fastest-growing populations falling into homelessness. The 2019 Los Angeles Homeless Count found that homelessness among seniors (defined as age 62+) increased by 8% between 2018 and 2019 despite having housed 1,426 seniors during that period.
LA Family Housing has seen a growing influx of seniors in our participant population. Between 2017 and 2018, the number of seniors served across our programs increased almost 20%. We attribute the rise in homelessness among seniors to the fact that benefits and income for seniors have not kept up with rents. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) reports that from 2012 to 2017, average rents in L.A. County increased at three times the rate of the cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security income, and twice the rate of household income for seniors. Furthermore, there are 125,000 low-income seniors in the City of Los Angeles and only 7,800 affordable units for seniors.
As more baby boomers retire or find themselves unable to work, the issue of senior housing insecurity will continue to grow, overburdening an already at-capacity homeless services system. Research shows that the longer seniors remain homeless, the more severe their challenges with physical and mental health; and with more people than ever experiencing homelessness, the average length of time to obtain housing will only continue to rise. The unfortunate truth remains that once an otherwise low-acuity senior falls into homelessness, unless they are quickly sheltered, they will likely be stuck in a slow and overburdened system for years, compounding any existing health and mental health issues and rapidly raising their acuity-- all of which could have been prevented had they been diverted from homelessness in the first place.
Senior Shared Housing
Many seniors, whether unsheltered or housed, are on fixed incomes. For seniors experiencing homelessness who enter LAFH’s programs and are “low acuity” (meaning they require the least intensive support we provide, as their homelessness is likely caused by economic hardship), shared housing can be an excellent solution to their housing crisis.
The concept of shared housing has been around forever. When you live with your parents, get married, or go to college, you’re living in shared housing. 75% of people 65 or younger live in some form of shared housing. Because of the lack of affordable housing and a need to maximize available units, service providers have been discussing how to apply this fairly normal concept to what we’re doing in homeless services.
Read how one senior ended her homelessness through shared housing
Shared housing can particularly benefit seniors by mitigating the disconnectedness, social isolation and loneliness that often comes with aging. Additional benefits of include the sense of community building that comes from having increased contact with peers, and a sense of purpose that comes from feeling connected to their community.
Because LAFH takes an individualized approach to housing, there are several types of shared housing, including intergenerational arrangements, that may be considered as options for senior participants, including matching senior participants with senior participants, matching seniors with community members, or participants with senior community members.
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