Joanne Erickson’s story shows the looming challenges for millions of seniors struggling with health issues, an unforgiving housing market an
Joanne Erickson’s story shows the looming challenges for millions of seniors struggling with health issues, an unforgiving housing market and little or no retirement savings.
When I first met her, Joanne Marie Erickson had not left her apartment in weeks and she was just days away from being evicted from her home of 23 years. She sat on a tattered couch, while her cat Muriel wandered around her cluttered living room. She was alone, overwhelmed. “I think I’m falling apart,” she said.
I had hoped, naively it turns out, that my reporting would be enough to help her get the assistance she needed and find stable housing. But long waitlists, leads that went nowhere and promises of help that went unfilled continually frustrated her efforts.
She was evicted in February and died in May, while homeless, just days short of her 71st birthday. Erickson’s tragic end — homeless despite a lifetime spent caring for others — illustrates the urgent and complex challenge of providing support for aging Americans, many of whom will outlive their savings. For the millions relying solely on Social Security, a modest benefit at best, survival in high-cost cities like Los Angeles can be untenable. Layer on the inevitable decline of the body and, for some, the mind, and the prospect for many older Americans grows even grimmer.
Erickson’s life unraveled steadily for years — and then, after she was evicted, all at once.
When she was in her mid-60s, she left her last steady job as an occupational therapist.
She began falling in public places, at CVS, at the grocery store — her frailty the result of post-polio syndrome, which leads to the weakening of joints and muscles.
She struggled with depression, was unable to keep her home in order and, according to a neighbor, suffered a nervous breakdown early in the pandemic.
Then came the eviction notice. She sat in a Santa Monica courtroom in January, without a lawyer, sick to her stomach, as the judge ruled in favor of her landlord.
