HUD's Move from Housing First Puts Low Income Seniors Last
Seventy-five year old Elaine Brown* is afraid to unpack. She’s moved four times in the past two years. The first time, the duplex where she lived in Stuart was sold. The second time, a tornado spawned by Hurricane Milton blew the roof off the Fort Pierce building where she had lived for eight months. After one night spent sleeping in the bathtub, she moved for the third time into a shelter, where she stayed for four months.
In February 2025, with help from Homeless Services Council (HSC), Brown moved for the fourth time into a one-bedroom apartment in Vero Beach and began making it into a home. Outside, a cheerful spring bunny ornaments the front door, and a welcome mat greets family and friends. Inside, second-hand furniture bought with a little money she received from FEMA creates a comfortable living room. A light green stuffed couch and some open bookshelves decorated with personal items fill one wall. A soothing beach scene—gentle waves and a bicycle leaning against a sand fence—hangs above the sofa. A big black cat eschews the corner where a rocking chair cozies up to an end table and lamp and lounges instead on a sunny card table in front of the window.
And then there are the boxes. “In January they stuck that note on my door,” she says, referring to a notice that HUD had inexplicably stopped paying its portion of her rent and she would have to move out. “Eleven months and I’m on the move again,” she explains. “I got a note on the door, you’ve got to get out because of the funding.” So, she started packing.
Brown is one of many women in Indian River County who live alone and survive on a monthly Social Security payment of less than $850. Through HUD’s Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) program, she pays no more than 30% of her income on rent, with HUD making up the difference.
She hasn’t always been dependent on housing assistance. She spent many years working in hospitality. “I was working in Lake Worth in a country club,” she says, “Cooking, bartending, serving. Hospitality was my whole life, all my life. That’s what I did.” In her mid-fifties, it became harder to find a job, and ultimately Brown was forced to rely on unemployment benefits. For two years, she was homeless and lived in her car, doing laundry at a friend’s house. She had friends and a social life, and “nobody knew I was homeless,” she says. Eventually, she sought help from the Shelter Plus Care program, a precursor to the PSH program she relies on today.
Even now, Brown would prefer employment. “I’d love to go back to work,” she says, “I really would. I like people.” Unfortunately, even if she could find a job and transportation (when her car broke down, she couldn’t afford to repair it), at her age, her body couldn’t handle it. “I’m 35 years up here,” she says, pointing to her head. “I’m ninety here,” indicating her back, which she broke along with several ribs in a fall while living in the shelter.
Without a car and unable to walk far enough to reach a GoLine stop, Brown is dependent on Senior Resource Association's Community Coach and the occasional Uber to get around. Community Coach provides door-to-door transportation for people who meet eligibility requirements. It runs Monday through Saturday, and rides must be planned two days in advance.
Grocery shopping is challenging; Brown can’t buy more than she can carry, and she’s still worried about having to move. “When I go to Walmart, I’m saying, Elaine, should I get boxes? Get some tubs?” She’d like to buy a vacuum cleaner, she adds, but it would be just one more thing to lose if she’s forced to move.
Brown's fear of losing her home is not unfounded. Although HUD ultimately sent the grant money enabling HSC to resume paying rent, TCPalm reported recently that HUD secretary Scott Turner is committed to shifting the agency toward a “treatment first” model. Other proposed rule changes involve work requirements and imposing time limits on housing support. Proposed budget cuts could also limit the funding available to assist people like Brown. “People don’t understand,” she says. “They think homelessness is because of drugs and alcohol and cigarettes and this and that.” Instead, she explains, “It’s just that life has become too hard.”
The uncertainty surrounding her housing makes life that much harder. “There’s so many problems with the thought of being homeless,” she says. “It’s every day you wake up, is today the day that note’s going to be on the door?” In addition to the anxiety, there are other challenges as well. Although she considers herself outspoken, Brown explains that other tenants in her situation avoid raising concerns with their landlords for fear of retaliation. Others endure less than optimal conditions because they are grateful to be housed at all and don’t want to seem unappreciative.
It’s also hard to make friends in a new town when you don’t have easy access to transportation. Brown is an outgoing woman who loves Motown and has fond memories of living as a youngster one train stop away from Yankee Stadium (even though she was a Mets fan). Her first husband played on a San Diego Padres farm team in Puerto Rico and is now a retired fireman living in New York. She hasn’t cracked the code for meeting people in Vero Beach yet. “There’s not much to do here,” she says. “I’m lonely four days a week.”
That’s not to say she’s entirely without friends. Some days, a gang of six youngsters Brown refers to as the “ET kids” swoop by on their bikes. The youngest, a little five-year-old girl, always has a very serious problem—perhaps involving potato chips or training wheels—to tell her about. Sometimes their mother sends them over to deliver a slice of pizza, or some lasagna or cowboy chili she’s cooked up.
Brown says she’s not planning to “to sit in a rocking chair and feel sorry for myself because I’ve got aches and pains and I’m old.” She hasn’t given up on finding new friends here. “I still look every day,” she says. “I talk to people in the supermarket and on the bus. You never know,” she says, “there has to be a friend” somewhere.
The people at HSC, on the other hand, “are like family.” Brown can’t say enough good things about them. After the tornado struck her home in Fort Pierce, looters came and took more of her things. Then, she explains, “Jennifer and Daniel [HSC employees] went down there and salvaged what they could for me.” She was deeply moved by their kindness. “It wasn’t about the things,” she explains. “It was the thought of it … They’re such wonderful people.” Brown pays their kindness forward—she carries Daniel’s business card when she goes shopping, so she can give it to people she encounters who look like they need help.
Brown doesn’t know what will happen to her if the funding stops. “I don’t want to be homeless,” she says, “I really don’t.” She’s concerned that “there doesn’t seem to be enough kindness here, enough caring.”
Should the worst happen, it will be up to those of us who call Indian River County home to prove her wrong.
*Name has been changed to protect her privacy