Growing Housing Hardship Among the Elderly

Abstract

This chapter overviews the current housing context facing the elderly in terms of the increasing pressures on economically and vulnerable elders. The focus is on forces that aggravate the vulnerabilities especially of the very poor and very old who live alone in large urban environments. Key trends that have been of growing significance during the 1980s are reviewed with focus on the erosion of federally subsidized housing programs for the aging. This is followed by a discussion of the forces affecting the availability of affordable housing and the precipitants of homelessness among elders in one major city, Chicago.