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The United States is in the throes of an unprecedented homelessness crisis that is about to be made drastically worse by Donald Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ (OBBBA) signed into law earlier this month, housing campaigners have warned.
Older Americans, including those on low incomes reliant on social safety net programs, are especially vulnerable to becoming homeless once the billions of dollars of cuts laid out in the new legislation come into force.
Researchers were warning of a homelessness cliff edge for seniors even before the new legislation’s cuts, attributable to factors such as the ongoing cost of living crisis hitting those on fixed incomes in retirement hard, as well as soaring rents and a dire lack of affordable or subsidised housing at a time when the population is ageing.
Recent data shows that rents in 2023 were unaffordable for 22.6 million households around the country while one study from Harvard calculated that a third of people over 65 were “cost burdened” due to high rent and utilities bills, putting them at greater risk of later-life homelessness.
According to survey data, over the past two decades, the number of seniors spending more than half their income on housing has doubled from 5.2 million to nearly 11.7 million, putting huge pressure on household budgets.
Homelessness rates in the US hit a record level in 2024 with more than 770,000 people unhoused on a given night (up 18.1% from 2023), according to the most recent government figures.
Homelessness was once rare among older adults but people over 50 are now the fastest growing cohort among the unhoused, with many experiencing homelessness for the first time and the number expected to triple by 2030.
Against this backdrop, housing advocates contend that the passing of the OBBBA, a 900+ page mega tax and spending law that includes historically high cuts to social safety net programs essential to millions of seniors, constitutes a ticking time bomb for elder homelessness and will exacerbate destitution.
Monica Davalos, senior policy analyst at the California Budget and Policy Center, says older people already struggling to get by will find their problems compounded. “Fundamentally folks just don’t have enough to meet their needs,” she says of the precarity many older Americans face. The OBBBA cuts, including slashing access to government health insurance, will “create even more housing vulnerability,” she concludes.
For many older people, especially those from low-income backgrounds or with a history of poverty, cuts to federally-funded assistance programs will mean they are stretched to breaking point, not only swelling the number of older people who fall into homelessness but with the knock-on effect of overwhelming already strained housing and financial support services, Davalos adds.
People were “falling through the cracks,” even before the new cuts, most of which are due to take effect after the November 2026 mid-term elections.
States, including California, which has battled with addressing an entrenched homeless problem for years and according to most recent data accounts for 24% of the nation’s homeless population, will no doubt try to mitigate some of the fallout triggered by the OBBBA, Davalos says, but the “unprecedented” scale of the federal funding cuts will make it exceptionally difficult.
Jesse Rabinowitz, communications and campaigns director at the National Homelessness Law Center, (NHLC) says the impact of the OBBBA cannot be underestimated.
The Maga budget, just like the Trump administration in general, is catastrophic for people experiencing homelessness and is harmful for most people in this country
Jesse Rabinowitz, National Homelessness Law Center
Rabinowitz says that while there is stiff competition around which aspects of the Act will do damage to average Americans, it is vital to put the spotlight on the repercussions for vulnerable older people as soon as possible. “We are in a new era.”
He warns that the legislation “puts us on a course for disaster” if its impact isn’t mitigated. Coming on top of a rapid upwards homelessness trajectory among the older generation, including a surge in people experiencing it for the first time, the situation is “urgent,” he says.
We have to let folks know that this is their parents and grandparents, who have worked their whole lives to save for retirement are now going to be on the streets for the first time in their lives
Jesse Rabinowitz, National Homelessness Law Center
The OBBBA has been shrouded in controversy from the get-go. The scale of cuts to social programs (and defunding of others plugging the gaps, such as Planned Parenthood) have garnered significant condemnatory attention. So too has the fact that it unleashes a massive transfer of wealth from the average taxpayer to the wealthy, billionaires and corporations in the form of tax cuts and tax breaks.
Throughout its tortuous route through Congress (the final version passed in the Senate by one vote, when the Vice President, JD Vance cast the decider), critics stressed repeatedly that many of its provisions would needlessly harm millions of Americans, especially the poorest and including seniors.
Bernie Sanders, the long-time progressive senator from Vermont, was among the many who slammed the Bill, calling it the “most dangerous piece of legislation in the modern history of our country”. It was, he added, “a gift to the billionaire class, while causing massive pain for low income and working class Americans”.
The law is on course to add more than $3.4 trillion to the US national debt over the next decade, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, (CBO).