Homelessness among senior women in Collier County is spiking; grant awarded

Nancy Kelly doesn’t have regrets as she looks back at her 70 years and considers why she is living in a homeless shelter in Collier County.

She made mistakes but points to her adventures. A big one involved buying a recreational vehicle and traveling solo cross country from California to Naples.

She hit a spell of bad luck and is getting back on her feet.

She has St. Matthew’s House, the homeless organization in Collier, to thank for a roof over her head and extensions to stay beyond the 90 days that is the program norm.

“I just have to stay consistent in my mind,” Kelly said. “(Life) just keeps going forward no matter what.”

The Women’s Foundation of Collier County has given St. Matthew’s House a $30,000 grant to support the increasing number of senior women who are experiencing homelessness.

The Women’s Foundation is a fund of the Collier Community Foundation.

People over the age of 60 are now about 20% or more of the shelter population at St. Matthew’s House, Steve Brooder, chief executive officer of the nonprofit organization, said.

This age group faces the same challenge as younger people with increasing housing costs but very often seniors are not able to work to support themselves, he said.

That’s often the case for senior women who have relied on a spouse and the spouse has died, he said. The organization is seeing more older women who are newly homeless.

More: Collier sees big jump in homelessness due to Hurricane Ian and rising rents

More: Two East Naples seniors are first to benefit from new housing program after Ian

What will the grant be used for?

The grant will help with program support, where it costs $50 per day per resident, according to Hillary Lemaster, director of institutional giving and grants at St. Matthew’s House.

The organization’s Campbell Lodge on Airport-Pulling Road in East Naples has 34 beds for single women and six beds for single women at its Friendship House in Immokalee. The beds for single women are full.

In total, St. Matthew’s House shelters 400 men, women and children every night with a waiting list.

The number of total homeless in Collier went up this year to 703 individuals compared to 462 homeless in 2022. Hurricane Ian’s devastation Sept. 28 put a big dent in the limited affordable housing in the region.

The Homeless Coalition of Collier County has seen homelessness among senior women on the uptick for several years.

Of the total who were homeless earlier this year, 195 were senior citizens and 63 of them were women, according to Michael Overway, executive director of the coalition. It conducts a “point in time” snapshot survey every January.

Last year the coalition found 18 senior women who were homeless, he said.

Florida has the third highest homeless population among the states, behind California and New York. The state has 27,487 homeless, according to the Florida Coalition to End Homelessness.

More: Justin's Village expansion of affordable apartments in East Naples get OK from county.

The lack of affordable housing is a primary cause and has been for many years. The National Low Income Housing Coalition reported in 2019 that Florida had a shortage of 428,622 rental units available and affordable to low- income renters.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says 1.5 million low-income residents in Florida pay more than 30% of their household income on rent.

How Kelly ended up homeless

Kelly rolled into Naples in the spring of 2022 in a recreational vehicle she had purchased in California.

“I wanted to get my own home,” she said. “That was the only thing feasible that I could see that I could get and see if it worked to be fully retired.”

She had lived in Naples, via New Jersey, in the late 1980s when she was in her 20s and 30s. She worked as a waitress and as a certified nursing assistant.

Her dream was to be an actress so at age 44 she moved from Naples to New York and then California where she stayed for 18 years.  She got some work as an actress but didn’t share specifics.

“I called myself a background artist,” she said, describing her life in California “as a blast.” She also supported herself playing instruments on the streets in Los Angeles, where at times she lived in shelters.

After buying the recreational vehicle she headed out on the road, traveling the California coast before deciding to come back to Naples. She was hoping to retire.

On Dec. 7, 2022 she was driving the RV on Immokalee Road when it caught on fire. She knew instantly she was homeless.

She stayed with a friend until she could move into St. Matthew’s House in February this year.  She had given up her cat, which had survived the RV fire, in order to move into the shelter.

In the months since, Kelly has gotten a part-time job as a server at the Beach House senior community on Airport Pulling Road.

“I was overwhelmed in the beginning,” she said of the job. Now she enjoys it.

“It’s delightful there,” she said.

Her plan is to save up and get a room on her own. Her aunt helped her get a car, a convertible Toyota Camry Solara.

“How long do I have to work like a workhorse?” she said. “The goal is to get in my convertible and get a room. God and I, we are a team.”

“It’s really hard.”

Finding housing that is affordable for seniors is more challenging than for younger people getting back on their feet because they may have medical conditions or cannot work full time or even part time, Brooder said.

“It’s really hard,” he said. “We’ve had some success with the (homeless) coalition. A few landlords canter to elders, maybe we can put two to three women together in a home. It takes time.”

The case manager will help the senior women get on Medicare and some may not know they can qualify for Social Security disability, Brooder said. Some may be able to go into an assisted living facility.

“We really need senior affordable housing,” he said. “Our case manager helps identify what level of care or independent living they might be able to handle.”

Another avenue is reconnecting the senior women to family, whether locally or out of town, if there has been an estrangement to see if there are options there, he added.

“It’s getting more critical every day,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Collier County foundation awards grant to help senior homeless women