Over the Rainbow

By 2030, every Baby Boomer will be 65 or older. Many of these older adults will live alone and on limited incomes, and many will have mobility and other health challenges. This so-called “silver tsunami” is here to stay, and the math is ominous. The nation already has a housing shortage—and a senior-care shortage. On the plus side, many of these older folks will be healthier and more active, engaged, and tech-savvy than their peers in prior generations. But since their housing needs and preferences will also differ from those of their predecessors, new questions and challenges will arise. On Century Lives: The Home Stretch, we explore signs of hope and inspiration in communities where housing innovations for older adults are already afoot. Older adults are the fastest-growing age group falling into homelessness: The population of unhoused older adults is expected to triple from 2017 to 2030. We discuss its roots in the shortage of housing in the U.S. and visit San Diego to learn about some solutions to the growing crisis of senior homelessness.

You can listen to Over the Rainbow online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Over the Rainbow is an episode from Century Lives by Ken Stern.

This episode is 35:10 long.

This episode was published on Mar 18, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Century Lives when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.