When Father Claude DuTeil started handing out peanut butter sandwiches to his unsheltered neighbors in Chinatown in 1978, he was 58 years old. This month, IHS celebrates our founder’s legacy on the anniversary of that first act of care, with a day of service at two of our shelters this year.
The irony weighs on me. DuTeil was practically a senior himself when he began serving neighbors who had nowhere to turn. Today, kūpuna are increasingly the ones on the other side of that exchange, aging into homelessness in a way we did not see a generation ago.
On Oʻahu, kūpuna age 60 and older now make up 19% of people experiencing homelessness, according to this year’s Oʻahu Point-in-Time Count. Nationally, homelessness among older adults is projected to nearly triple by 2030…