Can We Get Ready for the Senior Population Boom?

Reporters are well known for their hysterics and exaggeration, but this is the plain truth: San Diego is not even close to ready for the coming population boom of seniors. 

Some of the statistics are starting to find a place in our consciousness. The share of old people is growing much faster than other groups. In just a three-year period, between 2020 and 2023, San Diego’s 65-plus population grew by 9 percent, while every other groups shrank, as Axios reported. Very soon we’ll have more old people than young. American society has never been proportioned in such a way and the proportions are only going to get more and more lopsided. We are in the early days. 

The people retiring today don’t have as much money and assets as they did 20 years ago. Home ownership, which grants stability and equity to the old, is declining more rapidly in California than most places, because homes here cost so god-awful much. Among those lucky enough to own a home, the percentage of people who have paid it off by the age of 65 is also going down.  

Roughly, two in five San Diego seniors don’t have enough money to meet their basic needs.

These factors are creating the first and most logistically-daunting problem: Old people don’t have anywhere to live. The share of homeless San Diegans who are 55 or older is 30 percent right now and that percentage is growing steadily.  A few years ago, an apartment complex for seniors opened in Ramona with 62 units reserved for people with moderate income or less. More than 5,000 people ended up on the waiting list.  

This is a problem rooted in the material world, one that could in theory be solved if we were willing to marshal the money and resources to do it. Humans have solved that type of problem many times. The existential challenges of aging particular to the United States are no less obvious and perhaps even more problematic. They are also in part responsible for the current state of affairs. 

Old people are nearly invisible in our culture. We show reverence to youth, beauty and commerce, and so it should be no surprise that we treat old people like expended resources and look past them like ghosts.

This is not exactly the same within all subcultures. Some elders have a place in the family structure until their death. Asian and Latino women, for instance, are nearly twice as likely to not live alone as elder White and Black women, according to one study. 

But America has a way of changing immigrants, just as much as immigrants have a way of changing it.

Take the phenomenon of elder orphans, people who live alone and have no relatives nearby or support group, the least visible of all seniors. The San Diego Seniors Community Foundation estimates that there are at least 130,000 elder orphans in the county now. One study found Black and Latino elders (as well as another category that included American Indians, Asians and Hawaiians) were more likely to be elder orphans than White people.

Class was the real leveler. People with low income were “associated with increased likelihood of being categorized as elder orphans,” the study found.

San Diego isn’t ready for the senior population boom, but the question is whether we can get ready. The task ahead is both monumental and surprisingly simple.

Paul Downey is 66 years old and a legend when it comes to aging work in San Diego. He recently retired as the head of Serving Seniors, which provides all kinds of help for people with little income. I spoke to him while he was on a road trip visiting national parks.

I asked if he could wave a magic wand, how we might change our future.

“Instead of viewing old people as a problem, we have to view them as a resource,” Downey said. “We’ve never in our history had this amount of collective wisdom. If we are smart and figure out how to tap into that wisdom and experience, that willingness to stay active and involved in the community, we can make everyone’s lives better, not just old people.”

This sea change is perhaps most necessary on an intangible level. Seniors are full of wisdom and stories — they have lived through all the same interpersonal dramas, tragedies and joys as young people. We should highly value all of that, seek it out and see it portrayed in our media. 

But tapping into our senior population’s value could also provide concrete solutions to some of our most pressing dilemmas.

The childcare crisis in San Diego has been documented over and over to the point that it feels unsolvable. Meanwhile, seniors are struggling with loneliness and a lack of purpose.

What if we created facilities that served both populations? Old people could simply spend time at these places, fostering a multi-generational sense of community or they could volunteer as much or as little as they like — assuming they are able and willing (and pass some sort of vetting process.)

Here’s another easy one: housing. Who in San Diego is holding onto homes with extra rooms? Old people. Who needs extra income? Lots of old people. Who needs company and a place to live? Old people.

Elder Help, another local nonprofit, deals with exactly this. They match people looking for a home with elders who have extra space.

The results are, not surprisingly, life changing for the people involved.

Nearly 90 percent of clients “feel their quality of life is better,” Elder Help reports. Roughly 74 percent “feel safer at home.” And 94 percent “believe they are more likely to remain independent.”

I don’t know how many crises this can fix. Seniors may not be able to save us from climate change or the ravages of unbridled capitalism, but seeing elders as a resource changes the possibilities for the future on a profound level.

The American myth tells us that if we work hard we will get everything we deserve. But the seniors of today are unmasking this story. The question the rest of us must answer is whether we are willing to invest in those two out of five elder San Diegans who don’t have enough money to live a quality life.

“The window is still open to maybe get ahead of the biggest demographic shift in history but it’s closing rapidly,” said Downey. “If we don’t start taking action we’ll awake up in 2030 and 2035 and say where did all these old people come from and why didn’t we plan for this.”

In the meantime, go sit with the next old person you see. Tell them your story. Listen to theirs. Get some free therapy. You’ll both be better for it.