Senior Housing: More in Sarasota-Manatee living paycheck-to-paycheck, becoming homeless

Editor's note: This is part one of a three-part series on the growing economic challenges older people are facing in Sarasota and Manatee counties. Read part two here - Senior Housing: Older Sarasota-Manatee women suffer more economic hardship than men.

Mari-Anne Saunders faced a serious choice as she watched the balance of her savings account plummet earlier this year.

The 70-year-old retired family lawyer and her 79-year-old husband – living on Social Security income – were still grappling with $15,000 in out-of-pocket repairs to their Sarasota mobile home, damaged last fall by Hurricane Milton.

Their lot rent had doubled since the pandemic. And prices for food and car insurance were soaring just as the buying power of Saunders' retirement income from her native Canada dropped as the value of the U.S. dollar rose.

Saunders explored the possibility of relocating there with her husband – or to Costa Rica. But they opted against it due to worries about finding a new network of doctors.  

“Starting over at this age, we had to admit – really? Seriously? We’re not going to do that,” she said.

But securing a more affordable home in the area seemed impossible. Finally – still in great health – Saunders made the same decision many seniors in the area are facing.

“I had to get a job,” she said.

A mounting crisis

Saunders and her husband are part of a surging housing crisis for older residents in the United States – one that is particularly bad in Florida and expected to get much worse over the next decade, experts say.

As later portions of Baby Boomers continue to age toward retirement, they are doing so at greater economic disadvantages than their older counterparts, studies show. Many held jobs that failed to offer the generous pensions of the past. In retirement, they are left relying solely on Social Security, which has lagged well behind soaring costs of living.

The average Social Security payment in Florida is just under $2,000 a month.

Yet in Sarasota County, from 2022 to 2023, the average monthly housing cost for single households over age 65 rose 29%, from $989 to $1,276, said Aaron Neal, director of data analysis for United Way Suncoast.

That same year, 4,000 additional senior households slid below the ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) threshold – either in poverty or surviving paycheck to paycheck.   

Half of Sarasota County’s senior households are now living on the economic edge or have fallen into poverty, while across the state seniors have become the fastest-growing group of people to experience homelessness.

“A lot of folks think it’s never going to happen to them,” Neal said of housing insecurity. “They think Florida is the place for seniors.”

For many, he added, it might be the worst.

Everything on the table

That’s increasingly the case for those with long-time roots in the area who are now getting priced out, said Maria Barcus.

Barcus is the Elder Housing Initiative Coordinator with the Florida Supportive Housing Coalition.

The initiative was launched in 2023, as pandemic-era relief programs and eviction moratoriums started to expire. Workers with Florida’s Area Agency on Aging offices were calling, bombarded with cases of seniors in distress. As part of the coalition's work to address the crisis, it held an Elder Housing Summit in Tampa earlier this year with advocates and service providers from around the state.

Researchers are finding that the surging housing crisis for seniors has multiple parts, Barcus said.

There is the aging of people while they are homeless, she noted. But increasingly there are seniors who are becoming homeless for the first time in their lives – as well as a large pool of older residents still housed but at high risk of losing the roof over their heads.  

40% of all low-income, cost-burdened Florida households were 55 or older in 2023, according to the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies. That’s up from 34% in 2019 and 29% a decade ago.

Skyrocketing rents, homeowners insurance and repairs – along with other ballooning costs – are putting many retirement-age Floridians one emergency away from homelessness, Barcus added. Often the emergency that pushes them over the edge arrives in the form of a medical bill, a hurricane, or the death of a spouse.

Many seniors are stunned to find themselves in such dire straits.

“They may be low income, but they are people who have been working all their lives, they are not used to asking for help,” Barcus said. 

Yet given the fact that affordable housing options and federal vouchers have not kept pace with demand, many are indeed in need of assistance.

Statewide, between 2023 and 2024, the number of unsheltered people 55 and up grew three times as quickly as the general population experiencing homelessness, the coalition discovered in an analysis of Point in Time homeless counts.

In the Sarasota-Manatee region, as of 2024, residents over 55 made up more than a third of the unsheltered homeless population.

The coalition plans to create a statewide elder housing data clearinghouse to assist local governments, nonprofits and developers with the issue while proposing legislation on elder housing stability measures.

“Everything has to be on the table,” Barcus said.

Exploring options

Compounding the housing crisis for seniors were last year’s hurricanes as well as spiking costs of utilities and food, said Jenny Macias, director of program initiatives at the Senior Friendship Centers.

Visits to the nonprofit’s weekly food distribution in Venice nearly doubled in the first part of this year – from 561 people in December to almost a thousand in April, she said.

Case managers are now seeing more multigenerational households – parents and adult children pooling Social Security payments to cover expenses.

But some seniors don’t have relatives close by. Or if they do, they’re struggling, too.    

Case managers assist senior clients in exploring a move out of the area to be closer to family, or the possibility of a roommate. When that fails, many are forced back to work – if their health holds up.  

“But if you are not physically able,” Macias pointed out, “what do you do at that point?”

Back to work

Luckily for Saunders, she is in great shape.

Still, the prospect of returning to the workforce after so many years was a scary one.

The Women’s Resource Center and its Venice site manager Natalie Grzelak helped her navigate new technology and online job sites.

Overwhelmed, she cried through the hours-long process – but was proud of herself for mastering it in the end. Since March, she has been working with a young man with developmental disabilities, and she loves her job.

Even for seniors in good health, when it comes to affording their housing, the question remains: how long can employment be one of their only options?

“I’m thinking that there is not going to be a time when I don’t have to work,” she said.

This story comes from a partnership between the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Saundra Amrhein covers the Season of Sharing campaign, along with issues surrounding housing, utilities, child care and transportation in the area. She can be reached at [email protected].