COVER STORY
FIXED INCOME
Affordable housing becomes key to getting by for seniors BY HANNAH HERNER
FIXED INCOME
Affordable housing becomes key to getting by for seniors
T
he vision of retirement may include a retirement fund, and a place to live that’s paid off, but that’s not the reality for many seniors. One in four seniors rely on Social Security for 90 percent or more of their income, and for about half of seniors, it supplies about half of their income. The 2020 Community Needs Evaluation let us know that one in 10 seniors in Nashville live below the poverty line. When seniors like Contributor vendors Vicky and Doyle become firmly out of the workforce, they rely on a monthly fixed income, and must stretch their dollars to support themselves. Vicky says her experience with homelessness got her used to pinching pennies. Getting into affordable housing after seven months on a waitlist was a game-changer for her. It meant that her rent was on a sliding scale based on her income. With $749 in Social Security
BY HANNAH HERNER income, plus $65 in child support she was owed for her now-grown sons, she pays $234 per month, always 30 percent of her income. While she was waiting for her SSI to come in, she was paying the lowest amount possible, $25 per month. Getting that income was a process that took about two years, she says. Income from The Contributor, and the unemployment income during the pandemic, was keeping her afloat. “You start writing everything down as far as everything that your money goes for. And, it just whittles away so quickly, and, and let's face it, I'm at an advantage right now because I got into affordable housing before SSI hit. I wasn't trying to find an apartment that I could afford. I was already in one that I could afford,” she says. Gretchen Funk, executive director of FiftyForward, which provides services for older adults in Nashville, including
financial counseling, sees affordable housing as a major key to financial stability for seniors. “A key to that is accessing either the Section 8 vouchers or the facility-based programs where you pay 30 percent of your income,” she says. “Really without that, people just cannot manage on the amount of income that they have. Because otherwise, if you're having a $700 income, in Nashville, more and more, there are few options left.” The federal government recently announced that baseline SNAP benefits would go up a bit overall (about 21 percent) — the biggest increase in the program’s 45 years. At the same time, extra benefits as a result of the pandemic are set to come to an end. For Vicky, that means a cut down to $58 from the inflated pandemic amount of $294 per month. Those extra SNAP dollars during the pandemic gave her a chance to stock up
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on some essentials and eat healthier. For example, she stocked up on Glucerna shakes that help control her diabetes. “I really wish that they would increase [SNAP] benefits for those on SSI, and Social Security and such. Because we can eat so much healthier, and we can improve our health,” Vicky says. But lots of seniors don’t bother with enrolling in SNAP at all. Outside of the pandemic boost, SSI and SSDI income can slide those benefits down to the lowest threshold of $14 a month. The program is moreso designed for families, which represent 71 percent of those enrolled in Tennessee. Bigger households get more money from SNAP. But having a bigger household disqualifies a senior from utilizing the public senior housing, like the spot where Vicky lives. Having one of her sons live with her there would be enough to get her evicted. Contributor vendor Doyle’s monthly
