Capital & Main: Surviving on $1,800 a Month in Social Security, She Died Looking for a Place to Live

[Dennis Donovan]

Capital & Main - Surviving on $1,800 a Month in Social Security, She Died Looking for a Place to Live

Joanne Erickson’s story shows the looming challenges for millions of seniors struggling with health issues, an unforgiving housing market and little or no retirement savings.

By Jessica Goodheart
Photos by Barbara Davidson
Published December 23, 2024


Joanne Erickson

When I first met her, Joanne Marie Erickson had not left her apartment in weeks and she was just days away from being evicted from her home of 23 years. She sat on a tattered couch, while her cat Muriel wandered around her cluttered living room. She was alone, overwhelmed. “I think I’m falling apart,” she said.

I had hoped, naively it turns out, that my reporting would be enough to help her get the assistance she needed and find stable housing. But long waitlists, leads that went nowhere and promises of help that went unfilled continually frustrated her efforts.

She was evicted in February and died in May, while homeless, just days short of her 71st birthday. Erickson’s tragic end — homeless despite a lifetime spent caring for others — illustrates the urgent and complex challenge of providing support for aging Americans, many of whom will outlive their savings. For the millions relying solely on Social Security, a modest benefit at best, survival in high-cost cities like Los Angeles can be untenable. Layer on the inevitable decline of the body and, for some, the mind, and the prospect for many older Americans grows even grimmer.

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Erickson’s death highlights a deepening crisis for aging Americans who lack a safety net. In California, people over 55 are the fastest-growing group of unhoused individuals, with two million seniors struggling to afford housing, health care and other basic needs, with millions more nationwide. The problem is especially severe in high-cost metro areas in the West and Northeast, including Seattle, Denver and Boston, as well as in New York and Los Angeles. Yet even in historically more affordable cities in the South and Midwest, such as Dallas, Houston, and Minneapolis-St. Paul, housing costs now outpace what many seniors can afford. And the scale of these problems will almost certainly increase; the number of older adults in the United States is projected to grow from roughly 54 million in 2019 to over 94 million in 2060.

Without a greater investment in solutions that enable Americans to age with dignity in their communities, the challenges facing the aging population will only deepen, said Patti Prunhuber, director of housing advocacy at Justice in Aging, an anti-poverty organization. “Inaction will result in a growing number of older adults facing housing instability and homelessness,” she warned.

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Rest in peace, Joanne.