Hartford has elderly people experiencing homelessness. Here’s how the city and others hope to help. – Hartford Courant

Hartford — When Barbara A. Shaw implemented a new homeless outreach program for Greater Hartford less than two years ago, her team realized more than 12% of the individuals they worked with were over the age of 60.

So Shaw was pleased when the City Council recently accepted a $100,000 grant from the nonprofit North Central Area Agency on Aging for the Homeless Outreach Program for the Elderly.

As the Hands on Hartford executive director, Shaw said she understands how important these funds are for her new homeless outreach program to enhance services to the unhoused elderly community.

“We, as a community, wanted to try to put a special lens to think about the ways that we could target some older folks who are struggling with homelessness,” Shaw said. “And the grant that’s just been received by the city [will] help enhance some of the services we’re doing as part of the Greater Hartford Outreach team.

“Sometimes when you identify groups of folks who need some special services, it just helps you be more aware of their issues, to really be thinking of them in different terms, about the resources available to them in different ways. So we’re excited about that.”

The agency helps city residents with health needs, food and housing. The new grant is expected to enable help for about 40 people, according to city Director of Health and Human Services Liany Arroyo.

There were about 2,500 people experiencing homelessness in Connecticut during the 2021 point-in-time count, which is a hand count to measure the number of people living outdoors or in shelters during a single night in January. Also, in the third week of January 2022, there were more than 450 people in need of housing in Greater Hartford, according to data from the Coordinated Access Network.

Hands on Hartford’s Homeless Prevention and Outreach Manager Stephanie Boyce said of the unhoused seniors in the area that they helped from April to July, 45% were Caucasian, 42% African American, 3% American Indian, Alaska Native, or Indigenous, 16% Hispanic and 10% unknown.

Shaw said that in partnership with the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance and Wheeler Clinic of Hartford, the Greater Hartford Outreach go team goes out on its own or by referral. Once it is verified that an individual is homeless, the team works to get the person linked to shelter, housing and other resources.

To help those individuals who may be living in abandoned buildings or their vehicles, members of the team take referrals to help identify and verify their homeless status so that they can also become connected to resources.

Once they identify individuals, the team works to respond to any risk factors, such as health conditions, including hypothermia in the winter months or overheating/heat exhaustion in the summer months. The team also looks for signs of overdosing on opioids, in case they need to administer Narcan, along with providing information on overdose prevention. They also provide unhoused individuals water, umbrellas, ponchos and socks.

Some of the team’s targets for the unhoused elderly community include helping them to manage their health care, as they are more likely to have complex health issues; getting them a shelter bed, making sure that their mobility needs are met in shelters and housing.

“Then our job is to look to hook people up with the needed services beyond what can be delivered, say in the woods,” Shaw said. “Whether it’s medical, psychiatric, substance treatment and the like.

“The other [important] piece is to identify those who are either on a waitlist for a shelter bed and may not know that they have one that’s available for them or to get them on the priority part of the list. We look to get folks on the path to housing. Some of that is done if they go to a shelter … but folks can remain outdoors and have our staff who are the housing case management side help them with accessing housing vouchers.”

Shaw said that when it comes to shelter beds, seniors are prioritized as they can have special needs that other unhoused and younger individuals may not have.

“Anyone who’s getting older or has family who’s getting older [knows] that as we age, our health needs increase,” she said. “And sometimes mobility decreases. So in the folks that we’re seeing [that] live outdoors, we see more folks obviously with really complex medical needs, [such as] COPD, diabetes, high blood pressure, and more, along with folks who use walkers, canes or wheelchairs.

“There are some seniors who abuse or overuse substances, whether it’s alcohol or other types of substances. We know that the needs of this group for reducing risk more quickly is really important.”

One of the other main things that Shaw and her team are seeing is that there is an increased number of seniors over the age of 60 who have become homeless due to recently being evicted.

“One of the things we get concerned about with seniors is that the digital divide, that is not uncommon in lower income communities, becomes even more difficult or even that chasm becomes wider for some seniors,” she said. “While there are more seniors who are now using the internet and are comfortable with social media, doing benefit work on computers, there are lower income folks who have had sort of a digital divide alive and well in their lives for years.

“Then you add age to it. We need to make sure that we’re providing them lots of help doing things [such as] completing benefit related paperwork online, that we’re providing them … actual physical help doing that. And that’s during the process of accessing housing. After they become housed, we want to make sure that they’re able to have these important services going forward.”

Arroyo said that, now the funds have been approved, the city also will be working closely with the organization Journey Home, as it has a subcontract with Hands on Hartford.

“Journey Home is our coordinated access network entity, and they work closely with all of the organizations doing work here in the city,” Arroyo said. “Their primary partner and their Greater Hartford outreach team is Hands on Hartford, and that money will be provided to them to work on an operational plan.”

Arroyo said work on an operational plan will take place over the next six weeks as the grant starts Oct. 1.

“We will be taking time to work together to put that together to make sure that we have a solid plan on how to use the funds in the way that they are intended,” Arroyo said. “So for us we have committed to reaching 40 elderly individuals who are experiencing homelessness providing them with information, referral services and also providing them with housing counseling. That will be the work that Hands on Hartford will be on the ground doing, and then we will work with Journey Home about metrics.”

Journey Home Director of Development and Communications Sara Wilson said it’s wonderful to see an investment like this from the city.

“It’s fantastic that the city was very forward thinking with us. Liany is fantastic to work with. And she really has a heart for the population that we serve, and the city has been committed to this work forever,” Wilson said. “We’re born out of the vision of the city of Hartford from years ago.

“We have this great partnership with them. So we’re excited to see where this can go because we know … the population overall, not just the homeless, is aging. And so, you know, it’s wonderful to see an investment in this.”