One clear day in the small town of Monmouth, 69-year-old Susan Gallagher, a caregiver recently evicted from her home, drove a faded-brown 1998 Chevy pickup truck to a local church. Her pillow lay on the passenger seat, where she sleeps among her belongings, near a bottle of hand sanitizer, a box of tissues and a tiny parrot hanging from the rearview mirror.
She came here for a shower. Afterward, she sat at a table, her inhaler resting near the cane she uses due to falls that broke her ankles and her right foot. She has big goals: “I want to live to at least 103.” But lately, something bigger is on her mind.
“I wanna go home,” she said. “I just wanna go home.”
Here in rural Polk County, a short drive from Oregon’s capital, about 8% percent of homeless people who receive county government help are older adults like Gallagher. Taken together, they illustrate a brutal reality that stretches beyond the county line.
The people of Oregon are getting older, and a growing number are on the brink of homelessness, living in trailer parks, shelters and often on the streets.
Oregon recently joined 10 other states where people over the age of 65 outnumber children. As the state’s birth rate plummets, a greater percentage of its population is elderly than in Washington, California and Idaho. In its three most populous counties — Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas — the number of residents over 65 years old increased by about 69% from 2010 through 2024.
At the same time, homelessness among Oregonians over the age of 65 increased 12% in 2024. In addition, about one in four homeless people in the state — nearly 4,900 people — were over the age of 55. That total exceeds the national average.
With a growing number of people from the baby boomer generation reaching retirement age, experts anticipate this trend to worsen. It could have major implications for Oregon’s already strained social safety network and those who rely on it.
Many unemployed or retired older adults live off a fixed income, like Social Security, and receive federal benefits such as Medicaid or food stamps. But that’s seldom enough to get by in a state where the cost of food and utilities is increasing, and median monthly rental costs have spiked 15% since 2018, according to a recent analysis of apartment list data by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Now social services providers fear that recent federal changes to safety net programs, coupled with cuts to Oregon’s eviction prevention fund, could heighten pressure on older adults.
“Our shelters are full of wheelchairs and walkers, but people aren’t recognizing that,” said Stephanie J. Hooper, the president and CEO of AGE+, a nonprofit that advocates for older Oregonians. “Through no fault of their own, older adults are being left on the streets.”
Gripped by an affordable housing shortage, an unfavorable job market and steep costs for long-term care, Oregon’s aging and vulnerable live on the brink. One hardship — an expensive medical bill, a car repair, a rent hike or the death of a loved one — can push people like Gallagher onto the streets.
Gallagher used to live in her son’s manufactured home in nearby Dallas, Oregon. He died from health problems in 2020. “He hadn’t even hit 50 yet,” she said. “I ended up taking over because my name was already on it.”
She struggled to maintain the home while balancing her job as a caregiver for her sister. The landlord’s eviction filing cited “clutter” and a yard that grew “out of control.” When the police kicked her out around Christmastime last year, she quickly gathered her things, but couldn’t recover some of her late son’s belongings: his swords, his trading cards, his Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.
“I know that, if he were still here today, I would probably have it,” she said of the manufactured home. “We would still be in the house.”
Housing crisis pushes retirement out of reach
The housing crisis facing Oregon’s aging people is growing increasingly visible in communities beyond the state’s urban centers, prompting rural communities like Monmouth to help despite limited staff and facilities.
In a homeless shelter across the street from Western Oregon University, Angelita Amaya, 56, cooks barbecue chicken and chile verde, her brown hair pulled back with a red bandana. “This is who I am,” she said. “I cook every day.” She once worked for nonprofits and local government agencies, including homeless services, but now she stays in the shelter alongside her adult son.
“I used to help a lot of people get into homes,” said Amaya. “But now I’m on the other side.”
Before, Amaya lived in an apartment complex in nearby Independence. Financial challenges, among other issues, prompted her landlord to discontinue her lease, she said. She has congestive heart failure that has required multiple trips to the hospital. She uses a powered wheelchair to get around.
“This is the worst situation I have ever been in,” said Amaya, who has three adult children, one grandchild and another on the way. “I think it’s harder for me now because I am older. I am in a situation where I am not as mobile.”
Retirement used to be a central pillar of the American Dream, but it is now out of reach for many people like Amaya, who cannot afford to live in an assisted living facility.
During the 2008 financial crisis, many Americans suffered major losses to their retirement savings. Today, one in five people lacks retirement savings, according to a 2024 survey by the American Association of Retired Persons, or AARP.
Then, about twelve years later, the pandemic rocked the nation’s labor force and social safety net, leaving many aging people struggling to find jobs in a market that is increasingly favoring online work. Those pressures have made it harder for many people to find financial stability, particularly those who had blue-collar jobs throughout their lives and are now physically unable to work.
Often, they’re reliant on a fixed income that is trailing costs in Oregon’s expensive housing market. More than one in five Oregonians receive monthly Social Security payments, which is about $1900 a month on average, according to AARP. Nearly 82,000 received Supplemental Security Income, which is $967 per month, according to federal figures from 2023.
“That has to cover everything, food, housing, medicine,” said Allison Nasson, a legal fellow at the Oregon Law Center. She has traveled to communities throughout Eastern and Southern Oregon, serving as an attorney for homeless people, many of whom are older.
“These are just insurmountable barriers, because the math just doesn’t work, and older Oregonians are losing their housing and unable to get into new housing as a result,” she added.
Meanwhile, housing production has stagnated. Through the first six months of this year, local governments have issued 6,715 housing permits, according to preliminary federal figures. If that trend continues, it would be the third consecutive annual decrease, the lowest annual total since at least 2012, and far below the goal Gov. Tina Kotek set when she took office of boosting production of 36,000 units a year.
“No one should lose their home after a hardship — or simply because of unaffordable housing prices or lack of options,“ Kotek said in a statement to OPB Monday. ”Seniors with fixed incomes are especially susceptible to this. Turning the tide on the homelessness crisis is a moral and economic imperative for Oregon and I will not take my eye off the ball any time soon."
Over the past two years, Kotek has backed multiple bills “to break down barriers to construction and invest in affordable housing,” Roxy Mayer, Kotek’s press secretary, said in an email Monday. Kotek “understands that to turn the tide on homelessness, Oregon must build enough homes. She has been laser-focused on solutions to create a healthy housing market.”
Yet too few homes in the state are what older adults need, experts say: studios, one-bedroom apartments and other affordable housing located near services like grocery stores, public transit or doctors’ offices.
“When you don’t have income, when you don’t have the types of housing available, and you just don’t have enough housing, I think that those are the reasons why we see so many people on our streets and so many older adults, becoming housing insecure,” said Bandana Shrestha, Oregon state director of AARP.
“Oregon has crossed that historic threshold in terms of our population,” Shrestha added. “There are just more older adults than children, and that changes everything for us. We need to think about housing, our community, and our care differently.”
Shelter programs face layoffs
Many of those older adults arrive at facilities like the one in Monmouth, which is run by Church at the Park, a nonprofit that’s provided shelter services to houseless people in Marion and Polk counties since 2020.
Its hallways lead to rooms with space for 20 residents, where plastic bags filled with candy and snacks donated by local university students sit on the furniture. Games like Monopoly and Clue rest on a shelf by the kitchen, the scent of bacon lingering in the air.
Opened three months ago, it’s a clean space with a large world map hanging near a bulletin board beside the front door. In black letters surrounded by flowers, one sign says: “Chase Your Dreams.”
As homelessness and evictions have increased across the state, Oregon lawmakers this year passed legislation funneling large sums of money to prop up shelters like this. The nearly $205-million bill established a state-funded program backed by Kotek.
But a more than $1 billion reduction in the overall housing budget — including sweeping funding cuts for eviction prevention — is prompting some homeless services groups to cut programs and lay off staff.
The state’s housing department was one of many agencies that saw reductions during the legislative session after lawmakers learned this year that they would have far less new money to spend than anticipated, in part because of federal trade tensions and slow growth in the state’s economy.
Church at the Park, for example, cut 29 positions — including 16 layoffs — after losing one-fifth of its operating revenue. Among those laid off were two outreach staffers who worked in rural corners of Polk County.
Chaplain Matt Smucker, who helps manage the shelter, is trying to figure out what to do now. Smucker says that roughly half the people who seek the program’s help are older adults. He fears it will take longer for his staff to support people in the region’s hard-to-reach areas.
“Heading into winter, my concern is that there’s going to be a lot more people who are vulnerable, without somebody to call who can respond right away,” said Smucker.
Lawmakers took some steps to tackle this issue this year. For one, they passed a bill to create a state program to boost housing for older people and those with disabilities, pledging $24 million for the construction of facilities like studios and one-bedroom units.
Another bill dedicates $3 million toward making homes more accessible, with upgrades like ramps or grab bars. They also passed a bill that aims to cut red tape and speed up the construction of so-called “middle housing,” including townhomes, duplexes and cottage clusters.
“I think we are not prepared, and that’s the reason we started during this session to try to figure out what the heck we need to do with the housing piece,” said Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, the chair of the House Committee on Housing and Homelessness.
“The safety net is fragile at best,” Marsh said. “And the pressure on it is going to be more and more. The need for support for these seniors is going to be growing and we need to figure out what that social safety net looks like.”
However, a bill that sought to create a task force to develop a statewide plan to support the state’s aging population died in a legislative committee. The bill, which called for $80,000 in state funds, was one of many that failed this session as lawmakers contended with slimmer revenue than expected.
“People are still not rising to act,” said Hooper, of AGE+. “This demographic shift doesn’t have to be a crisis, but it’s going to be if we keep ignoring it.”
‘Eventually there comes a breaking point’
In July, Congressional Republicans passed the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” which sought to fulfill President Trump’s campaign promise of enacting tax cuts on tips and overtime pay and increasing the standard deduction and child tax credit, among other things.
At the same time, it slashed social safety net programs like SNAP and Medicaid, which Republicans say are wasteful and poorly managed.
Kotek is “deeply concerned about the Trump administration’s proposed $11.8 billion cut to the Oregon Health Plan, our state’s Medicaid program, which serves 1 in 4 Oregonians, including seniors who rely on Medicaid-funded nursing home care,” Mayer, the governor’s spokesperson, said Monday.
In addition to expanding affordable housing, the governor is working to increase access to mental health and addiction services “directly benefits seniors by helping them age in place in homes they can afford and that meet their needs,” Mayer said. But many social services advocates argue that the recent changes by the federal government could make things even harder for older people.
“I think there’s some magical thinking that somehow we’re gonna solve this problem, but we’re gonna do it for less,” Rick Russell, a pastor at Mountain View Fellowship and the director of a safe parking program in Redmond, where half of the program’s 28 residents are over the age of 55.
“We’re losing ground as it is, and now we’re dialing back resources for this,” he said. “It’s completely the wrong direction.”
Similar trends are being reported at the Church at the Park program, which serves about 600 people at its shelters each year.
In 2024 alone, the program’s shelters served 319 people over the age of 55, compared to 484 during the program’s first four years combined. At one point last December, there were 350 people of this age who were on the waitlist for a shelter bed.
“There was this huge spike lately in the number of older folks,” said DJ Vincent, the group’s founding pastor and director.
“With this population, the story is just the economics of rents rising over time,” he said. “Eventually there comes a breaking point.”
Angela Constantin knows that breaking point.
Born and raised in Texas, the 59-year-old used to work at the front desk of a Gold Beach hotel. Then, in 2022, her daughter died from a fentanyl overdose, the latest tragedy since her husband’s death from cancer in 2010. She relapsed. Since then, she has carried a heart-shaped container with her daughter’s ashes, which she hopes to spread down by the river in Salem.
“I’m trying to figure out, how did I get to this position?” said Constantin. “How did I even get to the point where I don’t even have an income?”
Now Constantin sleeps in the shelter in Monmouth, where she is receiving case management. Her roommate is 68. She’s applying for a job as a janitor at the university across the street while waiting on four housing applications. “I struggle with my faith all the time,” she said, her voice cracking as tears welled in her eyes.
“I want my own house,” she said. “My own income. My own way of transportation. I wanna be able to go out and enjoy life, because right now I don’t feel like I’m enjoying anything.”