Surviving on $1,800 a month in Social Security, she died looking for a place to live

This article was produced by the nonprofit journalism publication Capital & Main and is co-published here with permission.  

When I first met her, Joanne Marie Erickson had not left her apartment in weeks and she was just days away from being evicted from her home of 23 years. She sat on a tattered couch, while her cat Muriel wandered around her cluttered living room. She was alone, overwhelmed. “I think I’m falling apart,” she said.

I had hoped, naively it turns out, that my reporting would be enough to help her get the assistance she needed and find stable housing. But long waitlists, leads that went nowhere and promises of help that went unfilled continually frustrated her efforts.

She was evicted in February and died in May, while homeless, just days short of her 71st birthday. Erickson’s tragic end — homeless despite a lifetime spent caring for others — illustrates the urgent and complex challenge of providing support for aging Americans, many of whom will outlive their savings. For the millions relying solely on Social Security, a modest benefit at best, survival in high-cost cities like Los Angeles can be untenable. Layer on the inevitable decline of the body and, for some, the mind, and the prospect for many older Americans grows even grimmer.

Erickson’s life unraveled steadily for years — and then, after she was evicted, all at once.

When she was in her mid-60s, she left her last steady job as an occupational therapist.

She began falling in public places, at CVS, at the grocery store — her frailty the result of post-polio syndrome, which leads to the weakening of joints and muscles.

She struggled with depression, was unable to keep her home in order and, according to a neighbor, suffered a nervous breakdown early in the pandemic.

Then came the eviction notice. She sat in a Santa Monica courtroom in January, without a lawyer, sick to her stomach, as the judge ruled in favor of her landlord.

Living on Social Security: Is it possible to retire comfortably on Social Security alone? We asked seniors.

Like many who become unhoused, her challenges were complex: In February, her apartment was a maze of cardboard boxes, empty bottles and old food containers. It was as if nothing she had used had ever been discarded. She was estranged from her family on the East Coast and isolated.

In her prime, Erickson had been a dedicated caregiver with a love of travel that took her as far away as South America and Australia. She adored her cat, Muriel, whose name, she said, meant “bright sea” — and was often in conversation with her.

Erickson’s death highlights a deepening crisis for aging Americans who lack a safety net. In California, people over 55 are the fastest-growing group of unhoused individuals, with two million seniors struggling to afford housing, health care and other basic needs, with millions more nationwide. The problem is especially severe in high-cost metro areas in the West and Northeast, including Seattle, Denver and Boston, as well as in New York and Los Angeles. But housing costs outpace affordability for many seniors in areas including Dallas, Houston and Minneapolis-St. Paul. In New York, half of the aging population experienced food insecurity in the last year. ^I And the scale of these problems will almost certainly increase; the number of older adults in the United States is projected to grow from roughly 54 million in 2019 to over 94 million in 2060.

Without a greater investment in solutions that enable Americans to age with dignity in their communities, the challenges facing the aging population will only deepen, said Patti Prunhuber, director of housing advocacy at Justice in Aging, an anti-poverty organization. “Inaction will result in a growing number of older adults facing housing instability and homelessness,” she warned.

“Her bedside manner was incredible”

Erickson’s last job was at a geriatric rehabilitation center, where she worked for about seven years. Nikki Jursak, a former colleague, said her “bedside manner was incredible.” Erickson mentored younger therapists and listened to her patients, carefully reviewing their charts to ensure the therapy she prescribed did not cause unnecessary pain. When Erickson was in her mid-60s, the rehab center where she and Jursak worked was purchased by a new owner. Right before Christmas, Erickson was laid off, according to Jursak, who related her memories of Erickson to Barbara Davidson, the photojournalist who documented her eviction for Capital & Main. Erickson had provided me with a slightly different account of leaving her last steady job, saying she sustained an injury while helping a patient that left her unable to continue working. In any case, by the spring of 2023, Erickson had burned through most of her savings. She tried desperately to find work, applying for multiple jobs each day without success.

“I couldn’t even hand out sausages at Costco,” she told me over the phone last February, laughing bitterly. “You know how bad you feel?” She blamed ageism. She remembered that when she was younger, she “could get a job in a day.”

Erickson’s declining physical and mental health likely contributed to her difficulty finding work. Erickson fractured her back once while lifting a patient and another time at home. Those injuries had left her frail and fearful. “I was scared to go out anymore, you know, because I never knew what was going to happen,” Erickson told me.

In 2020, Erickson suffered a “nervous breakdown,” according to her neighbor, Cindy Hardin. Erickson summoned police to her apartment complex because she mistakenly believed someone was hiding in her closet and threatening to kill her. She arrived at Hardin’s door two days later, half-dressed and her hair matted, requesting help. Hardin called 911, and Erickson subsequently checked into a rehabilitation center for about a week. After she was released, she was “kind of OK” for a while, said Hardin. Hardin was in contact with Erickson’s social worker, who would come and visit, she said.

The ‘MacGyver Housing Market?’: Americans cobble together solutions to find a home

Notice to vacate

Erickson’s eviction trial was scheduled for an overcast day in early January. On the long walk from the parking lot to the courthouse, she felt a wave of nausea. Stress typically went to her stomach, and she thought might throw up. She had no lawyer despite her efforts to find one.

At that time, she was $11,613 behind in rent. The hearing, over almost as soon as it began, resulted in the judge giving her 30 days to clear out of her apartment. If she didn’t leave, a police officer would be at her door, she said the judge told her.

In the coming weeks, Erickson reached out to friends, but did not always find those phone calls comforting. One friend asked why she had no 401(k) to fall back on.

“He’s living in New Zealand. OK, that was going to be my 401(k),” she said, referring to a pilot she had dated — and, at one time, hoped to marry. All she had for income was a $1,799 monthly Social Security check, just enough to cover the monthly rent on her one-bedroom apartment, which was $1,659. Like one in five older Americans, she had no retirement savings.

Another friend, also a former occupational therapist, was living in her car because she could not afford rent in Los Angeles. “Knowing what she’s going through, it just brings it home even more,” Erickson said. So did an impending storm — an atmospheric river that would bring days of unrelenting rain and cause California Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a state of emergency. As the rain beat down, she sat on her couch calling desperately through a list of social service providers and tenant advocates in an effort to get help.

In late February, weeks after the hearing, a “notice to vacate” was affixed to the door. That meant that she had five days to move out. With the help of volunteers, she packed up her belongings, a wrenching process. The disorder in her home made her feel ashamed, and so did what was said about it. “People kept calling me a hoarder,” she told me. “I’m just like, ‘Please stop saying that,'” she said. “My house isn’t dirty because I don’t care. It’s because I got hurt.”

Davidson, the photojournalist, spent hours documenting Erickson’s harrowing move. In one photo, Erickson’s face is contorted with grief. In another, she sits on a bench of the $124 per night extended stay hotel, where she would spend several weeks, whispering to herself over and over, “It’s going to be OK.” Davidson told me that in all her years of taking photos — including in war zones — this was one of the saddest moments she had witnessed.

After Davidson shared the photos with her, Erickson found herself unrecognizable: “It’s like the me who was me — confident and happy, 100 pounds lighter, hair always colored and cut, makeup always, size 6 — disintegrated and spiraled down to this,” she wrote in a text to Davidson. Despite her dismay at the photos, she approved of them. “Fear and depression will do this, and you captured it perfectly,” she wrote. (Texts quoted in this story have been edited for clarity.)

An “Angel” steps in to help

In early February, Erickson received a call from a woman who would become her advocate. Naomi Waka, a petite woman with a silver bob, possesses a rare combination of empathy and tenacity, qualities that she deployed in her quest to find Erickson stable housing.

Waka was then on medical leave from her job working as a compliance manager at a nonprofit housing developer. Even after she returned to work in late February, she spent countless hours contacting social service agencies and housing providers. They bonded over their shared East Coast roots and their love of their respective black cats. Erickson called her, in a text to me, “my angel.”

Waka’s concern about homelessness stretches back to the early 1990s, when she donated to activist Ted Hayes’ Dome Village, a collection of igloo-like shelters near downtown that was later removed after the property owner raised the rent.

Around that time, the city and county of Los Angeles created the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to tackle the crisis. Since then, “the problem’s gotten worse,” Waka said. Today, Los Angeles County has 75,312 unhoused people, according to the most recent count, a 66% increase since 2015.

Waka helped Erickson connect to a network of social service providers, potential housing opportunities and her local city council office. Erickson considered tiny homes, a shelter bed, senior housing nearby, a room in a private home and a shared living arrangement coordinated by a nonprofit. Yet, for various reasons, none of these options worked out.

A subsidy from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority covering back rent might have extended Erickson’s stay in the apartment. But, according to Waka and an email from Alexandra Brown, an employee in LAHSA’s problem-solving unit, Erickson’s landlord, Linda Light, turned the subsidy down. Light denied she was offered back rent.

There were lengthy waitlists for tiny homes in the temporary housing villages that have popped up in the last few years, and for apartments in sought-after affordable senior housing developments. The local pastor who offered her a rented room in an investment property he owned gave mixed signals as to whether it was in fact available. She would have had to part with Muriel, a deal breaker for her, in any case.

She did not want to stay at a homeless shelter, as she worried she would have to part with Muriel. (Many shelters do allow pets with some restrictions.) She did not want to take part in a shared living arrangement at a home operated by a nonprofit that would have required her to have a roommate and give up her cat. In both cases, she feared for her safety.

As she explored these options, Erickson contemplated living with Muriel in her car, a 20-year-old Volkswagen Beetle that had no heat or air conditioning. The thought terrified her.

Memories of decades-old traumas resurfaced: a patient had sexually assaulted her in her office, a group of men once surrounded her and smashed her car windows after work, and her move from Saugus, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles in the 1970s was prompted by a need to leave behind an abusive relationship. “I don’t need any more attacks in my life,” she told me.

Waka shared a 16-page text and email correspondence with Erickson that recounted her emotional ups and downs as both women unsuccessfully sought housing for Erickson. “With every single thing along the way, Erickson always had this hope,” Waka said, “and then there was disappointment.”

A terse email from the Los Angeles Housing Department that Erickson received a week before her death constituted one of those many disappointments. It suggested to her that she might have qualified for rental assistance — if she were still living in her apartment.

The Housing Department’s email read simply: “Confirming you no longer live in the unit on the application?” Erickson texted Waka to tell her that she had learned that she needed a landlord to benefit from rental assistance. “If you’re homeless, I guess you don’t deserve this,” she wrote.

Waka Texted Erickson: “I Hope You’re Okay.”

Despite her fears, Erickson never ended up living on the street. In April, she sent me this hopeful text: “Out of the blue a friend called and said I could spend a few days at her house,” Erickson wrote to me. “Your article might have a happy ending.”

That friend was Jursak, her former co-worker. She offered Erickson a room in her mid-city home and companionship in her final weeks. That helped ease Erickson’s worries but did not eliminate them.

She described her perch there as “temporary” in a text to me. Her challenges kept stacking up. She had been in a minor car accident that saddled her with a $650 expense she could ill afford. She was considering surgery because of back pain that she found unbearable. She was broken-hearted about the loss of her home and belongings.

Since her eviction, she had spent $3,800 on hotel rooms and another $1,500 on moves, she wrote to Waka. That did not count the $315 per month she needed to pay to keep her belongings in storage. “I am broke,” she wrote.

Waka was preparing an update of a GoFundMe page for Erickson when she grew concerned. Erickson had stopped responding to her texts. On May 9, Waka wrote to her, “I hope you are okay — please be in touch when u can.”

She was not the only one unsettled by Erickson’s silence. Jursak, who was visiting family in Oceanside at the time, was growing worried after not hearing from Erickson for two days. She enlisted a neighbor to knock on the window of the room where Erickson was staying. There was no response.

On May 8, Jursak drove home to Los Angeles. “It was awful. My husband came with me, and when we went inside [her room], she was there, lying on the bed,” Jursak said.

If Erickson Had Held On a Little Longer

If Erickson had held on a little longer, she might have found a home for herself and Muriel. Just a week after her passing, Andy Hayt, a friend in her final months, said he’d found a San Diego landlord willing to rent her an apartment for under $1,000.

In late August, two and a half months after Erickson’s death, Waka received a text from the assistant manager at Citrus Crossing, a brand new senior housing complex in Glendale, announcing that Erickson had been chosen in a lottery for an apartment. Studios there rent for as little as $485 per month, an amount Erickson could have afforded. Pets are welcome.

Her death certificate lists cardiovascular disease as the cause of death. But Hayt believes it was the consequence of her eviction and subsequent homelessness. “It’s not like it was a car accident. It’s not like she had an untreatable cancer or an addiction or something,” said Hayt. Hayt is not wrong to think that there are health consequences associated with eviction and homelessness. Being evicted raises the risk of death by 40%, according to a study by the Eviction Lab.

Light, Erickson’s former landlord, saw her demise somewhat differently when I reached her in November. She seemed genuinely shocked to learn of Erickson’s death and said she was “very, very sorry to hear” about it, but Light, who is a Santa Monica real estate agent, added, “It’s not surprising given the condition she was in.”

In her view, Erickson was resistant to getting support offered to her. “Everyone tried to help her, but she was unwilling to get help,” she said, referring to herself and to neighbors in the complex.

If he hadn’t been able to help Erickson find a home in life, Hayt could at least offer her one in death.

Hayt made available a niche at Eternal Hills Memorial Park, a cemetery in Oceanside just north of San Diego. So, on a bright October day, Waka drove from her home in L.A. down the 5 freeway to Oceanside.

It had taken months of effort — a court petition, a permit application and a trip to the Los Angeles County Cemetery to retrieve Erickson’s remains, all of which had left Waka weary. (Had she not intervened, Erickson would have been buried in a common grave with the unclaimed dead — something Waka was determined to prevent.)

When Waka arrived at the Eternal Hills cemetery, signs bearing the name “Erickson” directed her to the columbarium where the ashes would be laid to rest. Waka was Erickson’s sole mourner, aside from me and Davidson, two journalists who had been documenting her journey. Still, the cemetery staff rounded out the group, and stood solemnly with their heads bowed as Waka spoke.

“Joanne, at least you have a place to finally call home,” Waka said, choking up. The sun shone brilliantly on the well-tended lawn. A single pink geranium was planted in the earth below what would eventually be a tile engraved with her name.

Driving away from the cemetery, I asked Waka how the experience of trying to help Erickson had changed her. “I guess I feel more angry, hardened,” she responded.

She no longer felt hopeful about her ability to help those struggling to find stable homes; it seemed too arduous. “No matter what we as taxpayers are willing to do, it doesn’t make a difference.” In less than a month, Los Angeles County voters would decide on Measure A, a sales tax increase expected to raise over $1 billion annually for shelters, housing and other services for the homeless. She said she would likely not vote for it.

Waka’s disillusionment about the city and county’s effort to combat homelessness is not uncommon.

Over the past eight years, Los Angeles voters have supported an alphabet soup of ballot propositions intended to address the region’s homeless crisis. They include proposition HHH, a $1.2 billion bond in 2016 for homeless housing, which initially saw delays as the unhoused population grew.

The plan to build 10,000 units in any case fell short of addressing the housing needs of the homeless population. Measure H, a 2017 sales tax increase, has helped tens of thousands find housing, but it has focused on those already homeless, leaving relatively little support for those at risk.

“They Have Not Focused Enough on Prevention.”

“Los Angeles County has done a pretty good job of trying to get older adults housed once they become unhoused,” said Prunhuber of Justice in Aging. “But they have not focused enough on prevention, and if you are trying to rescue people, and you’re not dealing with the fire hose that’s opening at the front end that’s causing people to newly enter homelessness, you have a structural problem.”

That is changing, according to Prunhuber, who emailed me later to say that the city and county are both increasingly “seeing that greater attention and resources need to be devoted to the prevention piece.”

In 2023, Measure H allocated just 3% of its funds to prevention, but Measure A, which voters approved last month — in spite of Waka’s opposition — extends the sales tax and increases the amount dedicated to eviction defense and rental assistance. Homeless prevention is a key goal of Measure ULA, a tax on high-value property sales, that the city’s voters supported in 2022 and that landlord and taxpayer groups have sued to halt.

In Waka’s view, the city and county should have been more creative in their efforts to help Erickson in any case. Why couldn’t the city have supplemented her income for a time “so that she could have at least paid for the motel and not bounced around like that” until her housing came through? she asked.

Waka’s idea isn’t far-fetched. A basic income program for homeless adults piloted in Vancouver has shown promise, with another underway in Denver. Benjamin Henwood is professor of social policy and health at the University of Southern California and co-author of a Los Angeles Economic Roundtable paper that advocates cash housing grants for the unhoused.

He said there’s no solid evidence against direct grants, though skeptics worry about misuse of “temptation goods” like drugs or alcohol.

Writing about Erickson’s tragic end, I have been struck by its complexity — was it poverty, health issues or both that led to her homelessness in her final months?

Unable to pay rent, she was evicted, but her mental and physical health challenges may have kept her from seeking help sooner to prevent disaster. Prunhuber framed the plight of many older adults in this situation succinctly: When housing is scarce, she said, “somebody’s going to end up without housing, and it’s likely somebody who has both economic and other vulnerabilities,” she said.

I spoke to Randy Frost, a professor of psychology at Smith College and an expert on hoarding disorder, which appeared to afflict Erickson. He said that people typically develop the condition early in life, but it does not become a problem until they grow older. “By then, the house is so full and their behavior has become so ingrained and rigid that it’s difficult to change,” he said.

There is treatment for hoarding, including support groups in the Los Angeles area and an intensive treatment program at UCLA. But many are resistant. For those with the disorder, there is “some recognition of the problem most of the time, even though it sometimes looks like there isn’t. But there’s a lot of things preventing them from being able to do anything about it,” Frost said.

As the population ages, the number of people affected by hoarding disorder is projected to rise. It currently impacts 2% of the population, but that figure triples to 6% among seniors, according to a U.S. Senate report on hoarding among older Americans published in July. The disorder puts sufferers at risk of eviction.

And evictions are rising in Los Angeles. Last year, landlords in Los Angeles County filed more than 44,625 eviction notices, up from 40,572 in 2019, the year before the pandemic, according to Kyle Nelson, senior policy and research analyst at Strategic Actions for a Just Economy. The elderly are less at risk of eviction than other groups, but they tend to owe more back rent when they do fall behind. This is the firehose that Prunhuber spoke of.

“An Afterlife Without Pain.”

Shortly before she died, Erickson sent a text to Davidson, the photojournalist, that provided a glimpse into the kind of compassionate caregiver she once was. Davidson was bereft as she prepared to put down her beloved rescue dog, whose health was declining. Erickson, amid her own struggles, offered comfort.

“Sometimes I think it hurts us more to say goodbye,” Erickson wrote.”[Our pets] seem to know that crossing the bridge will bring them peace and [allow them to] be free of pain. But they will never forget how much you loved them and the good life they otherwise might have missed.”

She finished her text to Davidson by saying, “Think of the great times you had and that will get you through. You’ll feel a sense of peace that the last gift to her was an afterlife without pain.”

Copyright 2024 Capital & Main

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Living solely on Social Security, she ended up homeless