The corporate media has railed against the elderly, endorsing dying early. This was visible in the campaign for the pro-corporate health plan Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) in which the New York Times spearheaded this narrative. The result of Obamacare was to contribute to a decrease in life expectancy. One of the chief architects of Obamacare, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, openly advocated for a reduction in life expectancy.
“The watchdogs at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole.” Washington Times
Growing number of elderly homeless in the US
Nearly a quarter of a million people 55 or older are estimated by the government to have been homeless for at least part of 2019.
According to the Washington Post, “People 55 and older represented 16.5 percent of America’s homeless population of 1.45 million in 2019, according to the most recent reliable data.”
According to a 2022 University of Pennsylvania Study by Rebecca Brown, an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine, and several coauthors from the University of California San Francisco, over one-third of the homeless population are now single adults over 50, triple the figure in 1990 when it stood at 11 percent.
The government makes little effort to count the homeless. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, the only federal source of information on homelessness disaggregated by age, delayed its release of the second part of their Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress by two years, making it difficult to get an idea of the scale of homelessness among the elderly in real time.
The latest information on homelessness with respect to the elderly is from 2019, though advocates of the homeless have noted that there is evidence that it is growing, pointing to numerous examples.
The largest shelter provider in Arizona, Central Arizona Shelter Services (CASS), is rushing to open an over-55 shelter in a former Phoenix hotel this summer with “private rooms and medical and social services tailored for older people.” The provider says that it served 1,717 elderly in 2022, a 43 percent increase compared to 2021.
In Orange County, California, a Medicaid plan, CalOptima Health, is creating a 119-bed shelter which will serve as an assisted-living facility for the elderly, according to Kelly Bruno-Nelson, executive director for the plan. Bruno-Nelson stated that the current shelter system “cannot accommodate the physical needs of this population.” Seniors are staying in respite centers for months in San Francisco, California, Portland, Oregon, and Anchorage, Alaska, that were intended for a short-term stay only. In Boise, Idaho, shelter operators are hiring staff with backgrounds in long-term care to help elderly homeless living for long periods in hotels.
Elderly homeless contract chronic diseases much earlier than younger people, as well as suffering from geriatric problems. Poor access to care due to homelessness, and the threat of having their medications stolen or going bad outside, stress from having to weather the outdoors, as well as generally unsanitary conditions, and the difficulties created by the anti-homeless laws being passed around the country, all contribute to poor health outcomes.
A Journal of the American Medical Association study titled, “Factors Associated With Mortality Among Homeless Older Adults in California: The HOPE HOME Study,” detailed how, over an average of 55 months, unhoused people over 50 years died at a rate 3.5 times greater than their housed counterparts. The findings are consistent with previous studies in other parts of the country.
Dennis Culhane, a professor and social science researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, said that the population of homeless seniors 65 and older would double or even triple from 2017 before peaking around 2030.
This increase is driven by poverty. One half of renters over 50 spend more than 30 percent of their household income on rent, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.
As the American Society on Aging Generations journal noted, “Low-income people who spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent are unable to save money, leaving them vulnerable to losing their housing when they face setbacks, such as a job loss, sickness, or death of a spouse or partner.”
In other words, homelessness is a class issue. The financial elite that both parties represent, and the upper middle class have no reason to worry about becoming homeless. The workers on the other hand, such as the homeless former autoworker that the Post interviewed, are the ones which this malady overwhelmingly affects.
Poverty, combined with the bipartisan destruction of the social safety net, spiraling inflation driven by profit-gouging (not wages) and the US-provoked war with Russia, as well as extortionary rent, are leading to thousands of the elderly being kicked out onto the streets.
The ruling class has no response to the increase in homelessness among the elderly. Indeed, hardly any media coverage is to be found on the topic. As it doesn’t fit into the categories of race or gender, the Democratic Party wing of the political establishment finds it more convenient to merely remain quiet on the topic.
The plans to attack Medicare and Social Security under the phony pretense of fighting debt, while dumping literally over a trillion dollars into American imperialism’s war machine—not to mention the nearly unlimited bailouts sunk into the pockets of the financial elite—shows the real disdain for the elderly.
If anything, the response given by the ruling elite is to step up the attacks on the elderly, foster reactionary sentiments against them (as a burden to society and the young), and ultimately to reduce life expectancy.
The corporate media has railed against the elderly, endorsing dying early. This was visible in the campaign for the pro-corporate health plan Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) in which the New York Times spearheaded this narrative. The result of Obamacare was to contribute to a decrease in life expectancy. One of the chief architects of Obamacare, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, openly advocated for a reduction in life expectancy.
The aim of the ruling class is to extract as much profit from workers as possible while they are of working age and then for them to die quickly so they don’t subtract from profits and funds for warfare. Putting the elderly out on the streets will contribute to a higher mortality rate. It is another indication of the bankruptcy of capitalism that it is not just incapable of preserving life for the elderly, but actively hostile to it.
I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith and spirituality, demonize the police and protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war. TULSI GABBARD
THE OBAMA-BIDEN-HOLDER HISPANICAZATION of AMERICA… first ease millions of illegals over our borders and into our voting booths!
How the Democrat party surrendered America to Mexico:
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/07/james-walsh-hispanicazation-of-america.html
“The watchdogs at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole.” Washington Times
New York City Sues Counties That Refused To Accept Migrant Buses
New York City is suing counties in the state that refused to accept migrants from the city, as Democratic mayor Eric Adams's administration struggles to manage the influx of migrants bused in from the southern border.
Thirty-three counties and one town are named in the suit. The localities filed emergency orders to keep migrants bused in from New York City from staying in their hotels. Adams last month announced the plan to bus migrants out of the city, despite his 2021 campaign pledge to keep New York a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants. Adams on Monday claimed New York City has supported 72,000 migrants but can't continue to support all of those who have arrived.
Counsel for the Adams administration Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix said the emergency orders are "misguided and unlawful" filings and are "premised on false claims" that migrants pose a danger. The city's suit comes after a report last month detailed how hotel staff in New York City encountered migrant children with alcohol and weapons throwing "ragers" in rooms but staff were told not to intervene.
Adams first called for busing migrants to surrounding counties last month. Localities quickly declared emergencies, including Rockland and Orange Counties, which were slotted to receive hundreds of migrants to fill their hotels. Both counties are named in the suit.
Adams earlier this week announced a new "vision" for residents of New York City to house migrants in their homes.
"It is my vision to take the next step to this faith-based locales and then move to a private residence," Adams said Monday, adding that funding for housing migrants could be paid to residents. "They have spare rooms."
In recent months, Adams has said "there is no room in New York" for additional migrants and publicly blasted the Biden administration's handling of the border crisis.
Republicans in the House last week drafted a resolution to condemn Adams for his plan to house migrants in public schools.
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