They sacrificed to care for family and ended up on the street

06/03/24 at 03:00 AM

They sacrificed to care for family and ended up on the street 
Wisconsin Public Radio; by Kat McGowan; 5/29/24 
... A son or sibling or niece gives up their own apartment or full-time job to look after a relative who needs help. They share expenses, maybe living off of a benefits check. But when that family member passes away or moves to a nursing home, the social security or housing subsidy stops coming. The caregiver is in mourning, out of a job and out of a place to live. “These were folks who had left behind something to go care for mom, and then the bottom falls out,” says Margot Kushel, a homelessness researcher and professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco. Her team documented this pattern in their intensive surveys and in-depth interviews of older homeless Californians. ... Kushel envisions one brighter possibility. Given the extreme shortage of capable home caregivers, both in California and nationwide, people who have played that role for family could be recruited to do the same job for others, helping to build this essential workforce. “If you’re caregiving for 15 months for your mom, for instance you probably have transferrable skills,” she says.
Editor's Note: Pair this with recent articles we posted on 5/30/24, "The real cost of cancer: 49% of patients carry $5K+ in medical debt" and "56 percent willing to dip into retirement savings to be family caregiver: survey."

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