ABSTRACT
This chapter provides insights from focus groups and interviews that have been conducted with poor and homeless elderly Floridians over the past four years. Most participants are from Central Florida, but a few are from Miami-Dade County. Data were collected in emergency and transitional homeless shelters, subsidized housing complexes for seniors, permanent housing complexes for the formerly homeless, and at feeding programs. The chapter highlights and dramatizes the many issues that poor and homeless elderly people across the nation face in their daily lives. It presents qualitative data with more quantitative studies dealing with the changing demography of the aged in American society and with the elderly homeless. Many stories similar to those recounted were also heard in focus groups and interviews with the elderly homeless in Miami. For many elderly homeless, homelessness comes after years of living in or very near poverty.
