Preventing Senior Homelessness

The cost issues in today’s society

I’ve recently been trying to help an 80 year old woman, who purchased her manufactured home, in a 55+ manufactured home community, 25 years ago.

She used to be happy and content in her home, but now she is undergoing serious stress because she is on the verge of becoming homeless. Why? For the same reason so many other people are suffering the same problems. Our economy is completely out of balance.

Background

When she purchased her home, her retirement income was easily able to cover site rent, utilities, and maintenance. However, over the past 25 years, annual site rent increases, utility increases, and everything else, were not reflected in the cost of living increases. The so-called Consumer Price Index (CPI) has remained very small compared to the actual changes in her person cost of living.

For example, the community I live in, which is also a senior community, has seen site rents go up over 18% in the last couple of years. Meanwhile, the CPI has been less than 2%. Unfortunately, there are many seniors who have lived here multiple decades, whose financial system has decayed to the point that they are now living month to month. Trying to balance the real changes in the cost of living to the not so accurate CPI used by…