Older adult homelessness is rising quickly, and no single system can solve it. As communities grapple with solutions, lessons are emerging about how homelessness response, aging services, and health care can come together to build an age-competent safety net.

In March 2026, Homebase convened From Urgency to Action: A Regional Summit on Older Adult Homelessness in Philadelphia. The goal was to accelerate a shared, cross-sector response to the challenge of older adult homelessness. This document was created to share lessons and themes emerging from the summit as well as the research and interviews that informed the summit’s design.

Homebase created this Continuum of Interventions for Older Adults Experiencing or at Risk of Homelessness based on research and conversations with people with lived experience of homelessness, practitioners, policy makers, funders, and other experts, and with input from attendees of From Urgency to Action: A Regional Summit on Older Adult Homelessness, held in March of 2026. Thank you to all who contributed! 

The Continuum outlines the ways that older adults may intersect with housing instability and homelessness and the types of interventions that key sectors can deploy to improve outcomes for older adults, depending on the specific setting, population, and needs. 

On March 24th, Homebase held From Urgency to Action, Homebase’s first summit on the topic of older adult homelessness. Throughout the day, we heard from providers, government agencies, and people with lived experience of homelessness in the Mid-Atlantic region, who have touched this issue in some way. Over the course of the day’s panel presentations and group discussions, Homebase team member Garen Nigon developed a few takeaways, five of which are shared here.

A conversation with Robin Kahan-Berman, Vice President of Occupational Therapy at Project Renewal, a New York City-based nonprofit that provides housing, health care, and employment opportunities to New Yorkers who have experienced homelessness. The organization is on the leading edge of incorporating occupational therapy (OT) across its shelters and housing programs, including its Helping Older People Engage (HOPE) initiative. In this condensed interview, she explains the power of OT to increase the chances that clients stay housed even as they encounter the health and cognitive challenges associated with aging – and the journey to build and sustain such a substantial OT practice within the homelessness sector.

Cross-sector collaboration is essential to addressing the growing crisis of older adult homelessness. The partners listed in this document represent organizations working at the intersection of homelessness, aging, and healthcare—each bringing unique capabilities that can help prevent housing loss, support older adults in crisis, and create pathways to long‑term stability. Together, these systems form the broad network needed to effectively prevent, resolve, and ultimately end homelessness for older adults.

This factsheet provides an overview of what the numbers are saying about the growing crisis of older adult homelessness in the U.S. It is intended to serve as a starting point for conversations between systems - including homelessness response, health care, and aging - and to underscore the need for alignment across systems to address the unique needs of this population.