B1: Senior Homelessness: The Concern and The Solutions
Tuesday, June 17 | 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM
This continuing education program is sponsored/conducted by LeadingAge New Jersey, dba LeadingAge New Jersey & Delaware, and is in compliance with N.J.A.C. 8.34-7.3 to provide licensed nursing home administrators (LNHA) and certified assisted living administrator (CALA) education credits accepted by the Nursing Home Administrators Licensing Board. This education activity may only be used for continuing education credit and not to meet academic college credits.
This continuing education program offers continuing education credit for Affordable Senior Housing Managers and Resident Service Coordinators to be submitted to HUD. Education covers federal/state senior affordable housing policy, ethical concerns, fair housing compliance, HUD Handbook training, financing green retrofits, supportive services, and solutions for aging properties and residents.
The session will begin by providing an overview of the scope of senior homelessness, including its rising prevalence due to factors such as increasing life expectancy, rising healthcare costs, limited affordable housing, and the lack of financial resources for many older adults who are living on fixed incomes. The panel will also explore the unique challenges seniors face when experiencing homelessness, including mobility issues, health concerns, and fragile social safety nets that fail to meet the needs of this population. The next series of questions should highlight homelessness prevention strategies, such as early intervention programs designed to help seniors stay in their homes and avoid eviction. Legal aid services, rental assistance programs, foreclosure intervention programs will be discussed as vital tools to prevent homelessness before it starts. The importance of comprehensive case management and supportive services, such as mental health care, substance abuse treatment, and access to healthcare, will be emphasized as crucial components of an effective prevention strategy. The conversation will then highlight long-term solutions, focusing on creating stable housing options for seniors who are already experiencing homelessness. Panelists will discuss the role of permanent supportive housing (PSH), which pairs affordable housing with essential wraparound services like healthcare and social support. Successful models of supportive affordable housing, senior-specific shelters and transitional housing programs will be highlighted. This also presents the opportunity to advocate for increasing the overall supply of housing to bring down housing costs for seniors to afford a new accessible home or an apartment near services that meet their needs.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the scope and causes of senior homelessness
- Explore prevention strategies to keep seniors in stable housing
- Gain insights into effective public policies and funding mechanisms
Speaker Information
Executive Director, New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency
As Executive Director of the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, Melanie Walter leads the State’s independent agency responsible for affordable housing and homeownership production programs, overseeing a diverse portfolio of single and multifamily financing and policy initiatives – in other words, the state’s housing bank. During her 3.5 years in this role, Executive Director Walter has modernized and expanded NJHMFA’s operational, financial, and programmatic activities, using extensive stakeholder outreach and data driven decision-making to reshape and expand the state’s housing production capacity. Through this work, ED Walter and her team have substantially increased the availability of high-quality affordable housing across New Jersey, financing more than 27,000 new multifamily units and supporting >10,000 first-time and first-generation homebuyers. In fact, today, one in 10 NJ renters, and 1 in 6 NJ low- and moderate-income renters lives in a building NJHMFA financed. Immediately prior to assuming the helm at NJHMFA, ED Walter served as Director of the Division of Local Government Services and Chair of the State’s Local Finance Board. Before that, ED Walter, A William and Mary educated attorney, represented numerous state entities as a Deputy Attorney General in the NJ Division of Law.
Executive Director, Supportive Housing Association of New Jersey
Kate Kelly joined the staff of Supportive Housing Association of New Jersey (SHA) in 2021 to spearhead the Integrated Community Project and began leading SHA as Executive Director in January 2025. Throughout her career she has brought people together, increased the engagement of people with lived experience, and strengthened engagement among all sectors, individual, civic, and service organizations in communities. SHA is statewide, membership and nonprofit organization, founded in 1998, whose mission is to promote and maintain a strong supportive housing industry in New Jersey serving people with special needs. Before joining SHA, Kate’s recent efforts at the Housing Alliance of PA increased voter engagement and prior work with Partnerships for Strong Communities in Connecticut increased supportive housing opportunities. Her nine years as public policy associate at Monarch Housing included directing public policy, advocacy and public relations dedicated to ending homelessness and expanding the supply and accessibility of affordable housing. Kate holds a Bachelor’s in Government from the University of Notre Dame and a Master’s in Social Work from the UCONN School of Social Work.
Director of the Office of Homelessness Prevention, New Jersey Department of Community Affairs
Michael Callahan is the Director of the Office of Homelessness Prevention at the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. Leveraging his deep experiences in the homelessness services, nonprofit, and tech sectors, Michael and his team at OHP are driving equity in the state’s homelessness prevention and services ecosystem through programming grounded in end-user experience, equity-focused analytics, and the democratization of housing policy and services planning. He received his doctorate in social work from the University of Pennsylvania and holds a part-time research faculty appointment at Monmouth University’s School of Social Work.
