Most years Steve Wertheim at the United Way of Greater Cleveland's First Call for Help line has to drum up business from senior citizens. His staff heads to nursing homes and flu shot events to tell seniors about the 24-hour telephone referral service. But in 2007, Wertheim didn't bother. Staff stayed in the office to answer over 16 thousand calls from Cuyahoga County seniors. The biggest area of concern: seniors dealing with foreclosure.
Steve Wertheim: What we're seeing is disturbing. This is a group we really don't see that kind of problem with. In 2005, the number of seniors calling us for foreclosure was 59. This year it'll be 1200.
TAPE: (phone beep) 211 First Call for Help, This is Marty.
211 has seen a dramatic increase in the total number of foreclosure calls it now gets, but still, Wertheim says, the number of seniors looking for help stands out. Most scary to him are the nearly 200 Cuyahoga County seniors that called in 2007 looking for emergency shelter, a more than 60% increase from 2005. He doesn't know exactly how many needed shelter because of foreclosure, but he says its probably a factor.
Steve Wertheim: Seniors are renters as well and what we're running into now is renters being pushed out of homes and apartments because they are being foreclosed on.
Seniors looking for a place to live after foreclosure are directed to people like Debbie Arntz at the Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging. Arntz says demand for affordable apartments in Cuyahoga County's nearly 100 senior buildings has grown so much, many places now have wait lists from 6 months to 3 years long.
Debbie Arntz: We used to have directories for affordable apartments but we haven't been doing them recently because if we do them then the expectation would be that there would be vacancies but we don't have those vacancies anymore.
Few seniors though seem to end up on the streets. The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless says only 1% of Cleveland's homeless population is over the age of 62. That includes people like Hilda Meluch. She has no living relatives and lost the west-side property she lived in for 55 years after she defaulted on a refinance of her home.
Hilda Meluch: One of my neighbors brought me the eviction notice. I called them back and they told me they wasn't going to give me an extention and the sheriff would be there on November 16 at 1:30 in the afternoon. And I said, 'What in the world am I going to do?'
The 72-year-old moved in to the Senior Guest House at Fairhill on Cleveland's east side, the only emergency shelter for seniors in Ohio. Fairhill's Mary McNamara says 10% of the people who come to the shelter are there because they lost their home in foreclosure. McNamara sits on Meluch's bed and explains how they help clients like her.
Mary McNamara: If what she needed was just an apt that was market rate that might be easy. But what she needs is some assistance in getting into an apt that she can afford and theres a waiting list for that. Where do you go in that gap and who helps you in that grief - 55 years in one house and that first day here, we tried to recognize the loss that came with the property.
Hilda Meluch: I still miss 'em.
Meluch left all of her belongings and gave away her five cats because Fairhill has no storage. But the former clerical worker at Coopers and Lybrand is not looking back. She spent December making lots of phone calls to find a vacant and affordable apartment.
Hilda Meluch: Life isn't all that bad. It's going to turn around. And when I get in my apartment I'm going to throw a big party.
That party may be soon. After two months in the shelter, Meluch moves into a new apartment on Cleveland's west side later this mont. Mhari Saito, 90.3.