Jo Van Duyn, 78, grimaces in pain as she gets into her car recently after helping a homeless friend from the shelter, Christine Freeman, 59, move possessions into a storage unit in Santa Fe.
Jo Van Duyn, 78, walks to her bunk with her shelter-issued sleeping bag draped over her walker Dec. 18 at the Interfaith Community Shelter, formerly known as Pete’s Place, in Santa Fe. Van Duyn was thrust into homelessness after fleeing an abusive home. Her husband died of COVID in 2021 and she soon lost the pension that they both lived on.
Jo Van Duyn, 78, grimaces in pain as she gets into her car recently after helping a homeless friend from the shelter, Christine Freeman, 59, move possessions into a storage unit in Santa Fe.
At 78, Jo Van Duyn guesses she's the oldest person at the Interfaith Community Shelter.
"Some of the men are in their 70s, too, and will say, 'Well, I'm older than you,' and I go, 'No you're not,' ” she said on a recent evening at the Santa Fe homeless shelter as guests filed into the dining area.
Van Duyn became homeless in August, when a situation with a relative she described as abusive prompted her to leave the recreational vehicle where she had been living in Tesuque. That was the last in a series of incidents that led her to the gates of the shelter, at 2801 Cerrillos Road. Previously, she had lost her husband's pension after his death in 2021 from COVID-19, and she lost her job at a security company over the summer.
She needs a hip replacement, she said, limiting her mobility and her ability to work. She's had doctor's appointments and meetings with her case manager at The Life Link over the past couple of months, but she has spent much of her time at the shelter, where she knits, goes to art classes and socializes with other guests.
"I feel like I have a family now," she said.
Van Duyn didn't express self-pity over her circumstances but said listening to stories from other guests about how they landed at the shelter can be sobering.
"It's surely not because they're lazy, let me tell you," she said. "Some, it's just hardship, like me."
Jo Van Duyn, 78, walks to her bunk with her shelter-issued sleeping bag draped over her walker Dec. 18 at the Interfaith Community Shelter, formerly known as Pete’s Place, in Santa Fe. Van Duyn was thrust into homelessness after fleeing an abusive home. Her husband died of COVID in 2021 and she soon lost the pension that they both lived on.
Van Duyn is part of a growing population of homeless seniors in Santa Fe and across the nation. According to data from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, people 50 and older are the fastest-growing group of homeless people in the U.S., with their numbers expected to triple by 2030. A count on a single night in January 2023 found 138,098 adults over the age of 55 were homeless, the alliance reported.
Nearly 1 in 4 homeless people were over the age of 55, according to the organization.
It considers people their 50s "older adults" because those experiencing homelessness "have been found to experience geriatric conditions such as memory loss, falls, and functional impairments" at rates similar to those of people in their 70s in the general population, the alliance said in its report on homelessness among seniors.
Officials say the trend is occurring in rapidly aging New Mexico, where a growing number of elderly people have no place to call home.
“The number for seniors is gradually increasing — certainly in Albuquerque, certainly in Santa Fe," said Mark Oldknow, associate director of the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness.
Jo Van Duyn, 78, eats lunch recently at the Interfaith Community Shelter.
As the baby boomer generation continues to age, Oldknow said, he expects the trend to continue, bringing medical issues that likely will put additional strain on the state's health care and homelessness services. He and others fear providers, through no fault of their own, may not be equipped to meet the challenge.
Numbers of the aging homeless in Santa Fe are hard to come by. Data collection is difficult due to the transient nature of the population.
Still, Santa Fe Community Health and Safety Director Henri Hammond-Paul sees several indicators of an increase.
City park rangers, responsible for monitoring parks and open spaces for newly established encampments, have said they believe at least half the homeless people they encounter are 50 and older.
Data from those who use CONNECT, a Santa Fe city and county network that helps people in need navigate a range of community services and resources, points to housing as a significant need for the elderly.
In November, 292 seniors accessed services through CONNECT, Hammond-Paul said. Of those, 24% cited housing and shelter as needs. An additional 29% cited a need for income support or help navigating financial assistance.
Julie Sanchez, director of the city's Youth and Family Services, said keeping seniors housed remains a priority, but there are limited resources at the local level.
"There's some really good nonprofits that are doing the best they can, but I don't think it's enough to really keep people stabilized in their homes, necessarily," she said.
Jo Van Duyn, 78, helps her friend from the Interfaith Community Shelter, Christine Freeman, 59, move belongings to a storage unit in Santa Fe.
Sean Kinniry, an attorney for the Albuquerque-based Senior Citizens' Law Office who focuses on eviction and foreclosure cases, said New Mexico's affordable housing crisis is making it increasingly difficult for people on fixed incomes to make ends meet. He noted the vast majority of his clients rely on Social Security as their primary source of income.
“When what's coming in is fixed — it only gets slightly raised by a cost-of-living [increase] once a year — and the price of housing continues to escalate, there comes a point where that's just not financially doable," he said.
That's the case for Van Duyn, who said without a job or her husband's pension, she now relies on Social Security.
"It would take all I have to just get a rental," she said.
While renting is more precarious than homeownership, Kinniry said some of his clients fall behind on their mortgage payments when their loan servicer changes and they aren't aware of the switch, or when their spouse dies.
“With aging clientele, oftentimes the mortgage was supportable when both spouses were alive,” Kinniry said. “With the passing of one of the spouses and the loss of that Social Security benefit or other retirement benefit, then the surviving spouse has a very difficult time maintaining the monthly mortgage payment.”
Kinniry said he believes appropriating additional funding and creating incentives to increase affordable housing stock at the state level would go a long way toward stabilizing seniors at risk of becoming homeless.
Stronger protections for renters, including an increased time period for tenants to seek legal assistance and sealed eviction records, also "could help protect New Mexico’s vulnerable senior citizens immensely," he wrote in an email.
Jo Van Duyn, 78, tries to rest as she recovers from an infection in the respite room at the Interfaith Community Shelter on Monday.
City officials say they are taking into account an increased population of seniors in their plans for addressing a rising crisis of homelessness in Santa Fe.
Among the possible solutions: more Pallet shelter villages for the homeless or communities of small, individual housing units, with future sites targeting specific populations of the homeless. One such Pallet shelter site has been established at Christ Lutheran Church, 1701 Arroyo Chamiso Road.
"Understanding if that's going to be seniors writ large, or maybe subsets of seniors which are particularly vulnerable, is something that we're going to decide as this unit comes online," Hammond-Paul said.
Oldknow said he believes a dedicated shelter for seniors could be a cost-effective way of serving people with significant medical needs, instead of having them dispersed throughout the city.
That is in part the mission of Consuelo's Place. At any given time, half of the residents of the noncongregate shelter, established in a former college dormitory at the city-owned midtown campus at 1600 St. Michael's Drive, are 55 or older, and many rely on oxygen or other medical aids.
Rayna Bransford, 25, a Santa Fe native who began working as a case manager at Consuelo's Place earlier this year, said the city's homeless population has increased dramatically from the time when she was growing up.
"I never remember seeing homeless women, homeless elderly people, and now you do," she said.
Ericka Kidd, a program manager for services provided by St. Elizabeth Shelters and Support Housing at Santa Fe Suites, 3001 S. St. Francis Drive, said Consuelo's Place plays a crucial role in providing seniors with a safe place to live while they try to find permanent housing — but there simply aren't enough affordable homes in Santa Fe for people living on a fixed income.
One of the funding programs at Santa Fe Suites that prioritizes seniors has a long waitlist, Kidd said.
“It’s kind of depressing," she said. "It’s not going to get better, either, at least not anytime soon."
