Staying Alive - The Plight of Our Older Homeless in Syracuse, New York

The purpose of this project is to explore the services needed by elders who first became homeless in later life. The U.S. Census Bureau projects the elderly homeless population will increase by 33 percent by 2020. Compared with younger counterparts, older homeless people are more isolated and refuse to use traditional services. Findings from surveys, observations and interviews suggest mobile outreach is an efficient strategy to reach out to homeless people. For my design, I focused on creating a mobile service system to help later life older homeless persons to connect to the housing and services and then assisting them back to life. A public bus service system I designed called "Sunshine” provides service connections to later life older homeless people. Even if some of them refuse to use regular services, "Sunshine" will help them to live better lives on the street.

Publication Date: 
2017
Location: 
United States