A no-fault eviction left 72-year-old Judith with few options. She has lived most of her life in the Massachusetts towns of Amesbury and Newburyport, but a housing shortage has fueled record-high home prices across the state and she could not find an apartment she could afford. The housing crisis is hitting older women in Massachusetts especially hard.
At UMass Boston, the Gerontology Institute found high housing costs have left most Massachusetts women over 65 “economically vulnerable” – the highest percentage of any state in the country. Here’s how Judith survived in her car for nearly a year, using water at a local cemetery to bathe and driving for everything she needed – from food to a bathroom.
Tamera Glenn writes on diverse subjects.
