MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Rising housing costs are pushing a growing number of older Americans into homelessness. Last year, 1 in 5 people who were homeless were over the age of 55. Some organizations are using a creative approach to help older people get stable housing and the medical care they need. Lynn Arditi of The Public's Radio in Rhode Island explains.
LYNN ARDITI, BYLINE: At age 82, Roberta Rabinovitz had no place to go. A widow, she had lost both her daughters to cancer. She'd lived with one of them and then the other, nursing them until their deaths. Then she moved in with her brother in Florida and helped care for him until he died.
ROBERTA RABINOVITZ: I found myself very depressed. And what's going to happen to me? Where am I going to go? I don't know what I'm going to do.
ARDITI: So last fall, she moved again - this time into her grandson's apartment in Burrillville, a small community in northern Rhode Island. She was recovering from lung cancer, sleeping on the couch. To take a shower, she had to climb a steep staircase, but she had nowhere else to live. Her only income was Social Security. And rents for a safer place to live were out of reach.
Rabinovitz once lived a middle-class life in the suburbs of Boston. But after her husband died, she was left with little savings. Like many women widowed in their 50s after children are grown, but long before Social Security kicks in, her finances had deteriorated along with her health.
DENNIS CULHANE: It's a national scandal, really, that the richest country in the world would have destitute elderly and disabled people.
ARDITI: Dennis Culhane researches homelessness at the University of Pennsylvania. For some seniors, a single incident can tip them into homelessness - the death of a spouse, a job loss, a rent increase, an injury or illness. Sandy Markwood is CEO of the national association USAging.
SANDY MARKWOOD: No one imagines anybody living on the street at 75 and 80. But they are.
ARDITI: For Rabinovitz, signing up for a plan with an organization called PACE changed her life. PACE stands for Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly. PACE health plans operate in 33 states. They enroll people 55 and older who are sick enough for nursing home care and then provide everything their patients need to stay out of nursing homes. PACE pools clients' Medicare and Medicaid money and uses it to pay for medical care, meals, housing and other regular expenses. Rising housing costs can be a problem for PACE. Robert Greenwood of the National PACE Association says programs around the country have to be creative.
ROBERT GREENWOOD: PACE programs are partnering with senior-housing providers, leasing apartments from housing providers and then developing housing themselves when it's appropriate.
ARDITI: In Rhode Island, PACE helped Rabinovitz move off her grandson's couch and into her own apartment in an assisted-living facility, one of four that PACE reserves for its clients. A few months later, she invited me in for a visit.
(SOUNDBITE OF KNOCKING)
ARDITI: Hi, Roberta.
RABINOVITZ: Oh, honey. How are you, then?
ARDITI: She ushers me into her studio apartment.
RABINOVITZ: This is my penthouse.
ARDITI: She's decorated it in purple, her favorite color. Medicaid rules allow her to keep $120 a month from her Social Security check for personal items.
RABINOVITZ: I wake up every morning and think, oh, I have to go to breakfast. Isn't that wonderful?
ARDITI: She's happy to have a home of her own. For NPR News, I'm Lynn Arditi in Providence, Rhode Island.
KELLY: And this story was co-reported with Felice Freyer as part of our partnership with KFF Health News.
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