Millions of Seniors Struggle To Afford Housing, About To Get A Lot Worse, Rising Wealth Inequality: NPR

- 'Millions of seniors struggle to afford housing — and it's about to get a lot worse,' NPR, Nov. 30, 2023. Ed. 🏚

A few decades ago, Leslie McIntire thought she was doing everything right for a comfortable life. She was a tax accountant in Washington, D.C., and co-owned a not-for-profit bookstore. "I had good savings," she says. "I was quite happy, quite frankly, and I was preparing to go back to school." Then a car accident dislocated her hip and jaw, left her psychologically rattled and derailed her career.

McIntire held on in her rent-controlled apartment for a while, even after she was forced to go on disability and started burning through savings. She eventually realized she needed more help, but then had to endure a 3-year wait to get into the federally subsidized senior housing where she now lives.

And by the time I got in here, I was seriously considering going into a shelter," she says. "I paid my rent, my utilities. I had SNAP benefits for food. And I had $25 left over. And you just can't live on that in the long run." McIntire is 69, part of the baby boomer generation that is entering older age amid a historic affordable housing shortage and rising wealth inequality in the U.S.

She wishes she'd known earlier how difficult things could get.

"I think that's the main thing people need to know," she says, "that they need to be prepared beforehand for what's coming down the road." - A record number of seniors are burdened by high housing costs: A new report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies sounds a loud warning about what's ahead as the country ages rapidly, and how unprepared the U.S. is as boomers start to turn 80 within the next decade...

More, https://www.npr.org/2023/11/30/1215460460/housing-seniors-affordable-harvard-report-baby-boomers