Columbia Falls, MT – Two years ago, Kim Hilton and his partner walked out of their home for the final time. The house had sold, and the new landlord raised the rent.
They couldn’t afford it or any apartments in northwest Montana’s Flathead Valley on Social Security.
Hilton’s partner was able to move into her daughter’s studio apartment. There wasn’t enough space for Hilton, and they reluctantly split up.
They cried and hugged before Hilton got into his forest green Chevy Avalanche to drive off looking for a place to sleep.
Hilton quickly found out how hard it would be to survive at 68 years old. That first night, his insulin for his diabetes froze, rendering it useless.
Things didn’t get any easier. On the coldest nights, temperatures dropped to about minus 20 degrees F. Hilton kept the truck running, but eventually his fuel pump failed. He was in the cold.
Hilton is incredibly optimistic, but in that moment, his spirit broke.
“I just said I want to go to sleep and not wake up and I won’t have to worry about anything. I’ll just sit here and be a little popsicle in the truck,” Hilton recalled.
Hilton was one of tens of thousands of seniors who became homeless for the first time in 2022. A dramatic increase in the number of homeless seniors in all 50 states is overwhelming services for unhoused people.
Older Montanans are especially struggling because housing costs have skyrocketed since 2020 with the rise of remote work. The state has one of the fastest growing homeless populations in the country, according to federal data.
University of Pennsylvania researcher Dennis Culhane estimated that the number of elderly homeless people in the U.S. would triple between 2019 and 2030. He recently updated that estimate using federal data.
“We are on track to meet that prediction. In fact, the growth has been slightly higher than we predicted,” he said.
In 2022, there were about 250,000 people over 55 that were unhoused. The number of people over 65 jumped by a little over a third between 2019 and 2022 alone. About half of this population are homeless for the first time. Those figures come from Culhane’s research.
This “gray wave” of homeless seniors is overwhelming service providers trying to help.
Wendy Wilson is case manager at ASSIST, a non-profit that helps Flathead residents struggling to meet their medical needs. In the past, that meant helping them get free meals or finding a ride to the doctor’s office.
Increasingly, Wilson is helping older people like Hilton find housing.
“They have medical issues. It’s not easy for them to be living in a truck or at the homeless shelter when you have medical issues going on,” she said.
Wilson was able to get Hilton into a local shelter that has private rooms in early 2023. But his health went downhill fast after five months of living in his truck.
Hilton had several fainting episodes, said Sona Blue, who manages that shelter.
“It scared us because we have no medical care in this facility,” she said.
That’s not usual for shelters like this. The final time, Hilton took a bad fall, and they sent him to the ER.
The doctor who treated Hilton discovered he had developed pressure wounds from sitting for months in the same position in his truck. Because of the neuropathy from his diabetes, Hilton couldn’t feel the pain. Those wounds never healed and became infected, also a common issue among diabetics.
“He took a picture and said, ‘You see that white thing?’ I said, ‘Yea.’ He said, ‘That’s your heel bone,’” Hilton explained.
Hilton had one leg amputated. Going back to the shelter in a wheelchair wasn’t an option.
A handful of homeless service providers tried to help him find a place to go. They put him on all the waiting lists for the limited subsidized housing options in the area.
Wilson was able to get him one of the few slots in a Medicaid program that helps pay for assisted living. But it can take a year or more for units to open.
Wilson crossed her fingers Hilton would get lucky before his time was up at the hospital.
Seniors across the country are playing the same dangerous waiting game, said Caitlyn Synovec with the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council.
“Sometimes they can’t be safely served in a shelter because they have issues with incontinence or cognition. Then they’re more likely to be on the streets and their conditions worsen quite a bit,” she said.
They are also more likely to die on the streets than younger people. Communities are trying to find solutions.
Homeless shelters for seniors are cropping up in larger cities like Salt Lake. Montana recently got approval from federal health officials to use Medicaid funding to temporarily help people with medical conditions make rent.
That’s not enough, according to Synovec. She said the real solution is building more affordable housing so older Americans don’t become homeless in the first place.
Accessibility is also a huge barrier for older homeless people like Hilton. Because of his new wheelchair, he needed a ground floor apartment.
In late 2023, Hilton was able to get into a subsidized apartment. However, living alone was a struggle as an amputee. After his second leg was amputated due to more complications from diabetes, Wilson pushed for him to get into assisted living.
This fall, he finally got a spot in a facility that would take his Medicaid waiver. He was also able to get an electric wheelchair that would make it easier to get to doctor’s appointments in town.
“It goes fast for a wheelchair. I’m going to find out [how fast] when I go down to dinner. I’ll stretch it out, break it in,” Hilton said with a laugh.
Hilton is more than grateful to finally have stable housing, especially as he just turned 71 years old.
Wilson said it was one of the few times she’s been able to help a senior regain housing.
“It was a woo-hoo moment,” she said.
As long as the facility stays open and the Medicaid waiver program isn’t cut, she’s confident he’ll have made it through homelessness.
This story comes from NPR's partnership with Montana Public Radio and KFF Health News.
