How St. Matthew's House in Naples is navigating the growing issue of senior homelessness in Collier County

On one day every January, a Point-in-Time — or PIT — Count is conducted in counties to document the number of people who are experiencing homelessness on a single night. The PIT Count in Collier County this past January found a 230% increase in the number of people over the age of 60 who were homeless as compared to the previous year. Overall, there was a 52% increase year over year of homeless individuals in Collier County.

There are a number of overlapping factors leading to the increase: starting with high housing costs, plus the impacts from Hurricane Ian and to some degree the Covid-19 pandemic — all topped off with high costs due to inflation.

This spike among seniors got the attention of the Wall Street Journal, and they recently published a feature story highlighting the growing crisis of homelessness among the senior population and used Collier County and Naples as one example….

Read the full story on WGCU/PBS here.