Sandy Riblett has been homeless for seven years, often shivering while sleeping in her car and barely scraping by on her late husband’s $894-a-month Navy pension.

“I was praying to God that I wouldn’t freeze to death this winter,” the 62-year-old said, thankful she found a temporary place to sleep in Ashland.

Riblett said she’s excited to hear about an idea from the former executive director of Rogue Retreat, Chad McComas, to create a small village in the Medford area specifically for the growing number of seniors who can’t afford a place to live.

“I would move into it like yesterday,” she said.

McComas, who runs Set Free Services in Medford and was the founder of Rogue Retreat, said Riblett is the kind of senior his new organization, Joy Community, wants to help.

“The fastest-growing population of the homeless is the seniors,” McComas said.

Riblett said she was offered a place to stay in Gold Hill for $400 a month, but that would eat up almost half her income. She’s applied for housing at the Salvation Army as well.

Riblett said she found herself homeless after the person she was a caregiver for in California died. She moved to Medford to live with her daughter seven months ago, but it didn’t work out.

McComas said his organization has already raised $20,000 for Joy Community. He expects to start small with 10 tiny units in a gated property.

On March 4, McComas hopes to raise awareness to the plight of homeless seniors by asking locals to take the “overnight challenge” by sleeping in their cars to get an idea of what local seniors endure. He’s hoping the event will help raise money for Joy Community. For more information, see setfreeservices.org.

In California, which has about a third of the nation’s homeless people, the number of people 55 and older who have become homeless has increased by 84% from 2017 to 2021, according to a Jefferson Public Radio story.

Like Riblett, these seniors who became homeless found their fixed incomes haven’t kept up with inflation, particularly soaring rental rates.

McComas, who has been offering homeless services for more than two decades in Medford, was ousted from Rogue Retreat last year over allegations that conversion therapy once was promoted at his church on East Main Street, Set Free Ministry. McComas has denied the accusation. Conversion therapy, sometimes referred to as “pray away the gay,” is a practice condemned by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people and is banned in Oregon for minors.

McComas started Rogue Retreat, which was created to help local homeless people and led to the creation of Hope Village, the Urban Campground, the Kelly Shelter and the Navigation Center.

McComas has continued to offer homeless services at Set Free, which offers hot meals, showers, clothing, a laundry facility and other services to people living on the streets.

His nonprofit organization, Set Free Services, has created Joy Community, whose goal is to create a small village dedicated to housing seniors who survive on modest retirement income and often live out of their vehicles.

“I wish I could tell you it is all planned, but we never had anything all planned at Rogue Retreat,” McComas said. “Even with Hope Village, we didn’t know where it was going to be.”

Hope Village off West McAndrews Road has 34 tiny cottages for people trying to find housing.

McComas said he is contemplating doing something similar at Joy Community, except he would like to see larger units with a bathroom and a small kitchen. To help run the new community and to give the seniors a sense of investment, McComas said rents would be about $200 a month.

He said he has been looking at some easily erected 20-by-20-foot structures built in Austin, Texas, which have a bathroom and small kitchen. Each unit costs about $50,000. McComas said he’s been looking at properties in the area where Joy Community could be housed and potentially expanded in the future.

Many of the seniors he talks with at Set Free are desperate for affordable housing.

“The fires in Paradise, Redding and Weed have burned down so many houses,” he said. “In this valley, we’ve got 2,500 houses lost during the Almeda Fire.”

Even if 500 new residences are built each year locally, it will take years to replenish the supply, he said.

The small units at Joy Community would be available to seniors who are struggling financially and don’t have addiction or mental health issues.

“We’re calling them ‘abandoned seniors,’” McComas said.

Typically, these seniors don’t have a family to fall back on, he said.

McComas said he knows of one man in his 90s in Medford who bought a mobile home 40 years ago.

“His check from Social Security is low, and 80% of it is going to pay the rent for the space he’s in,” he said. “It’s not going to be long until he cannot do that anymore.”

“The fastest-growing population of the homeless is the seniors.” 

— Chad McComas