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"I just cannot wait": Joy Community will welcome homeless Senior residents by summer
By Buffy Pollock / Rogue Valley Times
11:00 am Wednesday, April 16, 2025
11:00 am Wednesday, April 16, 2025
After a harsh winter and other delays, opening of tiny home village along Biddle Road in Medford is within reach A tiny home village for homeless seniors will welcome its first 10 residents this summer to rows of colorful homes, a cascading waterfall and space to grow produce and share meals with neighbors. Construction crews were on site last week in Medford running water lines and working to complete needed site work for Set Free Christian Fellowship’s long-awaited Joy Community.
Seniors are flooding homeless shelters that can’t care for them
Cities are building special shelters for the old, and shelters are hiring trained staff to handle a wave of aging baby boomers
By Christopher Rowland
The Washington Post
May 22, 2023 at 9:07 a.m. EDT
By Christopher Rowland
The Washington Post
May 22, 2023 at 9:07 a.m. EDT
PHOENIX — Beatrice Herron, 73, clutched a flier offering low-cost cable TV, imagining herself in an apartment, somewhere out of the Arizona heat where, like others her age, she could settle into an armchair and tune into a television of her own.
Instead, the grandmother and former auto worker can be found most mornings in a food line, or seeking shade under the awning of a mobile street clinic. At night, she sleeps on a floor mat at a homeless shelter. She laments the odors of human waste outside and the thieves who have victimized her repeatedly.
“My wallet’s gone,” she said. “My purse was stolen.”
She hardly stands out from the dozens of seniors using wheelchairs and walkers at a complex of homeless shelters near downtown Phoenix, or from the white-haired denizens of tents in the surrounding streets — a testament to a demographic surge that is overwhelming America’s social safety net.
Instead, the grandmother and former auto worker can be found most mornings in a food line, or seeking shade under the awning of a mobile street clinic. At night, she sleeps on a floor mat at a homeless shelter. She laments the odors of human waste outside and the thieves who have victimized her repeatedly.
“My wallet’s gone,” she said. “My purse was stolen.”
She hardly stands out from the dozens of seniors using wheelchairs and walkers at a complex of homeless shelters near downtown Phoenix, or from the white-haired denizens of tents in the surrounding streets — a testament to a demographic surge that is overwhelming America’s social safety net.
More seniors are becoming homeless, and experts say the trend is likely to worsen
New venture for Rogue Retreat founder: affordable housing for homeless seniors
The biggest year of the baby boom, 1957, saw 4.3 Million American babies born. They're turning 66 this year, and that explains the mass retirements of our time. There are other issues with such a huge senior population, including large numbers of them living homeless.
By many accounts, those numbers are growing, and Chad McComas, the founder and former director of Rogue Retreat, is working with that portion of the population now.
The new project is called Joy Community, aimed at finding or building low-cost housing for seniors. It's part of McComas's Set Free Services, run out of the church he started in Medford.
We get the overview of the homeless senior situation and the response when Chad McComas visits the Jefferson Exchange.
By many accounts, those numbers are growing, and Chad McComas, the founder and former director of Rogue Retreat, is working with that portion of the population now.
The new project is called Joy Community, aimed at finding or building low-cost housing for seniors. It's part of McComas's Set Free Services, run out of the church he started in Medford.
We get the overview of the homeless senior situation and the response when Chad McComas visits the Jefferson Exchange.
California's Aging Homeless Population
Some seniors have been homeless for years and are now growing older. But the increasing numbers also reflect another trend: those experiencing homelessness for the first time after 50.
Some seniors have been homeless for years and are now growing older. But the increasing numbers also reflect another trend: those experiencing homelessness for the first time after 50.