How a Generation’s Struggle Led to a Record Surge in Homelessness

When his mother moved to a nursing home in 2009, Anthony Forrest was a struggle-laden man of willed cheer with rising health problems, declining job prospects, and no place to go. She paid the rent on the Washington, D.C., apartment they shared. He slept on the couch.

Only a niece’s warning that she was turning in the keys forced him hurriedly to pack. He stuffed his clothes into two trash bags, caught a ride to the gentrifying neighborhood of his youth, and slept in a parking lot.

Mr. Forrest’s displacement in late middle age began a homelessness spell that has lasted more than 15 years, and it epitomizes an overlooked force that has helped push homelessness among elderly Americans to a record high: the loss of parental aid. Without it, “I hit the skids,” said Mr. Forrest, now 70. “That’s when I became homeless.”

Throughout their lives, late baby boomers like Mr. Forrest — people born from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s — have suffered homelessness at uniquely high rates, for reasons many and varied. Their sheer numbers ensured they came of age facing fierce competition for housing and jobs. They entered the work force amid bruising recessions and a shift to a postindustrial economy that pummeled low-skilled workers.

Rents soared. Housing aid faltered. Crack, especially in poor neighborhoods, left many in their prime grappling with addiction and criminal records.

Now the death of parents in their 80s or beyond is extending the tale of generational woe, leaving thousands of people newly homeless as they reach old age themselves. In four years, the number of unhoused people 65 or older has grown by half to more than 70,000.