Elderly Citizens Are Calling The Streets Home
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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Earl Johnson has been living in a tent off I-30 in Fort Worth for about 2 years. He says he is just a few years shy of 60 years old, the age group which homeless advocates consider to be an elderly population. "It's a bunch of them out here, and it's just hard on them man," Johnson says.
Statistics compiled by the Union Gospel Mission of Tarrant County reports people 60 and older make up 11 percent of their clients. Thirty-three percent are between 50 and 60.
Homeless advocates studying this trend say right now we're at the beginning of it, but they expect as the baby boom generation ages we can expect the number of elderly homeless people on the streets to continue to rise.
Don Shisler, president of Union Gospel Mission of Tarrant County says, "It's going to be a growing issue and it's going to be a large issue."
The problems according to Shisler have to do with specialized care. his group relies on a unique partnership with JPS Hospital to treat certain illnesses like dementia, Alzheimer's, heart conditions, diabetes and others.
Aside from the numbers and cases they see perhaps the most jaw dropping fact is how some elderly people are ending up on the street in the first place. Many families don't have the knowledge and the means to take care of an elderly family member. As a result many of end up being abandoned on the streets.
One woman admitted she dropped her grandfather off on the streets. She said she could not deal with him any longer.
Homeless advocates say they are doing everything they can to keep up with the needs of the elderly homeless population, but they still have a long way to go before they can adequately tackle the problem.
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