Gregory Sovick spent a decade sleeping on the streets of Redding.
“The price of everything, I couldn’t afford it,” he said.
He’s not alone. In recent years, more older adults like Sovick — many with steady work histories — are being priced out and pushed into homelessness for the first time. Nationally, about 20% of the homeless population is now 55 or older.
Sovick, 64, ended up in Redding after a series of family deaths and financial losses.
"I just hung out with nothing else to do," he said. "Being without my tools, I couldn't work anymore."
Sovick grew up in East Los Angeles and worked for years as a dog groomer. While living on the streets, he brought in a little cash fixing bicycles and building bike trailers.
"I just made it out there as best I could,” he said. “Surviving that way, which wasn't very much of a survival."
Sovick’s story reflects a growing pattern across the country: older adults who once made ends meet now find themselves without a place to call home.
"I'm old enough that when I started in this work, we were like, ‘Oh, Social Security solves homelessness,’ and now it doesn't," said Dr. Margot Kushel, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative.
Kushel said in her research, she’s seen many people, like Sovick, who worked low-wage, physically demanding jobs with no money left over for savings.
"And then after the age of 50, something happened," she said. "They got sick. Their spouse or partner got sick. They couldn't keep up their physically demanding work. Their marriage broke up."
This kind of life disruption is more common than most realize. According to Kushel, almost half of them have never been homeless before.
The financial strain is severe — people over 50 are most likely to spend more than half of their income on rent, Kushel said.
Being older and homeless comes with special challenges. Sometimes housing options are physically inaccessible, like a third-floor walk-up, or there's just not enough housing available.
Government programs help millions of older adults with housing, but a 2023 study shows there just isn’t enough to go around — and in some places, people wait years for a spot.
All of this takes a physical toll.
Kushel said older homeless people have high rates of chronic disease and incredibly high mortality rates. One of her studies, published in 2022, found that homeless older adults die much earlier than expected — with death rates more than three times higher than the general population.
The study says the average age of death among these older homeless adults ranges from 42 to 52.
"These are people who've paid into Social Security their whole lives, but frankly, their rate of death is such that many will never live long enough to get the Social Security out," Kushel said.
Saving seniors from eviction
While some older adults lose housing entirely, others need help to make their home somewhere they can stay.
Hearts for Seniors focuses on this problem: helping older adults with whatever they need, whether it’s getting food or fixing up their house.
"When we hear about these seniors who are going to be evicted if they don't have clear pathways, we try to get teams that can go in and help keep them in their homes," said Stephanie Miller, the program's director.
A team of volunteers fans out to seniors’ homes, cleaning up the yard, installing a ramp or just providing company.
Miller said they serve 80 to 90 seniors each week in Jackson, Josephine and Lincoln Counties.
One of them is 82-year-old Bob Welch in Medford. He broke his hip falling on the unstable front steps of his house.
Hearts for Seniors helped him out.
"I come home from the hospital, and I had a yard full of carpenters building me a ramp," Welch said.
He speaks highly of their work and said the best part is the weekly hangout with “my buddy,” one of the volunteers.
'Domesticated' after 10 years
But for older people who do become homeless, finding their way back into housing can be difficult and tedious — as Sovick knows first hand.
After 10 years living on the streets, he was finally able to get a housing voucher and move into an apartment. He now spends his days drawing, painting and reading the Bible, joking that he’s “a domesticated male.”
But for thousands like him, stable housing remains out of reach.
"We need to look ourselves in the mirror as a society,” Kushel said. “We are letting our elders die out alone in the cold or the heat, deeply traumatized, deeply frightened, and die alone and outside. And that is unacceptable."
