At 84, Bill Wilson is hard of hearing but still spry, tooling around Bend on his bicycle.

He has earned his place in history as an Army combat medic caring for the soldiers who drove back the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. After his service, he earned a living for more than 25 years in sheet metal and metal fabrication.

But he receives only $881 a month from Social Security and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs combined – a yearly income only about $800 more than the federal poverty level for one person.

Wilson rides a bike because he can’t afford a car.

In Central Oregon’s tight housing market, with rental prices soaring, Bill is barely able to afford a place to live.

Like many Central Oregon sen-iors, Wilson is caught between a fixed income and the rising cost of living.

And despite help from state and federal veterans’ agencies, senior veterans like Wilson, who are too healthy to qualify for disability, also struggle.

Managers of affordable housing projects for seniors say the need is growing tremendously.

Rima Wilson, who is not related to Bill Wilson, said affordable housing is generally seen as an issue that affects families. Its impact on seniors is sometimes overlooked.

Rima Wilson is the project manager for Mountain Laurel Lodge in southwest Bend, a new affordable housing complex for seniors that will open in September in Bend. All 54 units are expected to be filled by then.

Demand has been so strong that the developers of Mountain Laurel are moving ahead with a second affordable housing project for seniors, dubbed Discovery Park Lodge. The 53-unit complex is planned for the NorthWest Crossing neighborhood on the west side of Bend.

”We have residents that have been homeowners and residents that are renters, and in both cases they’re getting priced out of the market,” Rima Wilson said. ”People just can’t afford to pay the rent.”

Bill’s story

Bill Wilson said he faced the prospect of homelessness early this month. He has since found a place to stay at The Vintage, an east Bend apartment complex for seniors.

Though he has shelter for now, his rent is $585 per month, plus electricity, for a two-bedroom apartment. A one-bedroom was not available, according to Stu Steinberg, vice president of the local veteran’s group that helped Wilson find a place.

That leaves him slightly more than $250 a month for toiletries, clothing and other items. Wilson has filed paperwork to get help with his phone line and for food stamps.

In the past, he said he has managed to receive up to $65 a month in food stamps. He gave up food stamps while he stayed at an assisted-living facility that served meals.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs pays for his medication, Wilson said.

”I’m going to have to see what my income does after a month or so, to see what I’m going to have to conserve on,” he said.

But he said things are looking up.

”I don’t have the threat of an eviction hanging over my head,” he said. ”It’s a lot better feeling more secure.”

Wilson moved to Bend in December 2004, with two relatives. He is divorced and has no children.

A few months after he moved in with the relatives, he said, one passed away and the other decided to move to Beaverton. The house went up for sale, and Wilson had to move.

He found respite at Harmony House, an assisted living facility that agreed to let him stay for half the normal rent while he filed for more help from the VA.

But because Wilson doesn’t require nursing care or a full- or part-time attendant, the VA denied his claim, he said. He filed again, and they denied it for the second time.

Finally, the management at Harmony House told him they couldn’t keep him unless he could pay the full rent – about $900 a month – and gave him a 30-day notice. He had lived there 18 months.

Wilson said he harbors no hard feelings for Harmony House, but found himself in dire straits.

”I didn’t know where I was going to go,” he said.

Most apartments listed in the classified ads were too expensive, and were snatched up quickly by other renters. He couldn’t turn to relatives in Beaverton or Ashland, who are elderly themselves.

”I felt I was going to have to live on the street,” Wilson said. ”Because I’m healthy, it (meant I was) going to have to live on the street.”

He heard about Central Oregon Veteran’s Outreach and got in touch with Steinberg, who helped him secure a new apartment.

”He saved my life, really,” Wilson said. ”Lifesaver, you bet.”

Seniors struggle

Wilson’s case is not unique among seniors, according to managers of affordable housing complexes for seniors – typically defined as those 55 and older.

”For a lot of them, (Social Security) is all they have,” said Janet Trantham, senior property manager at Bowen Property Management Co. The company owns and operates Reindeer Meadows, an affordable housing project for seniors in Redmond.

She said the hot housing market in Central Oregon virtually guarantees that seniors without significant savings will not be able to afford purchasing a house.

”It’s kind of ridiculous to try and buy a home, especially if there’s only one income,” Trantham said. ”Even for two incomes, it’s difficult.”

Both state and federal agencies offer low-interest home loans to veterans who want to buy a home, according to a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

But neither the state agency nor the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs offers any sort of ongoing rental or other housing assistance unless the veteran in question needs nursing care.

Trantham said she expects to see more and more seniors struggling to pay rent as more people move to Central Oregon to retire.

She said Reindeer Meadows, a 50-unit complex, is usually 98 to 100 percent full.

The senior population in Des-chutes County matched general population growth from 2000 to 2005, of 20 percent, according to a May 2006 report from the Oregon Department of Human Services.

But from 2005 to 2015, the 65-and-older population is expected to grow 63 percent, and from 2015 to 2025, that population is projected to swell another 60 percent.

Total population growth for that same time period tops out at 27 percent.

Trantham and Rima Wilson, of Mountain Laurel Lodge in Bend, both said seniors often have specific needs that younger renters don’t have.

Safety and security is a key concern for most seniors, they agreed. At Reindeer Meadows, all of the apartments are contained within the same building with few outdoor entrances.

The Vintage, where Bill Wilson lives, is similar. All visitors must be buzzed in by a resident inside the building.

”Another big issue for seniors that’s a little different than a family market is opportunities for socialization and minimizing that sense of isolation,” Rima Wilson said.

She said Mountain Laurel is working with the Central Oregon Council on Aging, Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers, the Bend Sen-ior Center and other organizations to ensure seniors have access to services and activities that fit their needs.

”Seniors are a population that, because they’re on a fixed income, are more likely to be moderate and low income and have difficulty finding housing,” Rima Wilson said.

”Oftentimes, with families as well as seniors, people have a sort of negative image of people who need affordable housing,” she said. ”But we’re taking people who have been teachers, professionals. Their pensions aren’t enough.”

Little help for veterans

And for veterans like Bill Wilson, who served honorably in the military but were not injured or disabled, military pensions aren’t enough.

Wilson said his wartime experience doesn’t weigh on his mind, even though he remembers it vividly.

”Mortar shells (were) coming down all around like rain,” he said. ”Never got a scratch.”

His military pension from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is reduced because he receives a Social Security check, meaning his total income never rises above the limit set by the federal agency.

In other words, every dollar a veteran receives from Social Security or a private pension means one less dollar from the VA.

The federal agency could not be reached for comment.

Steinberg at Central Oregon Veterans Outreach said he wants to see pension payments locked in, regardless of income.

”These old vets, their pensions should not be reduced because they worked at some minimum-wage job all their life and get $581 from Social Security,” he said.

”Older vets should have some kind of guaranteed minimum income that allows them to live comfortably,” Steinberg said. ”And when I say comfortably, of course I don’t mean extravagantly. You can’t live on $881 a month.”

The department does cover medication. In an emergency, though, Wilson said he would go to St. Charles Medical Center-Bend instead of trying to go to the VA facility in Portland.

”I’d say, you send the bill to the VA, and you may get your money, you may not,” he said.

Steinberg said the federal government used to provide housing facilities, known as domiciliaries, for aging veterans who didn’t need nursing care but still needed help finding a place to live.

The closest one used to be in White City, outside of Medford, he said. It has since turned into a drug treatment center.

According to the federal VA Web site, domiciliaries from homeless veterans still exist in 26 states, with 1,781 beds. But the same site estimated that on any given night, more than 250,000 veterans nationwide are homeless.

The state runs a center known as the Oregon Veterans’ Home in The Dalles, a 151-bed assisted living facility that specializes in veterans with Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and other conditions. To be eligible, however, the veteran must ”be in need of skilled or other nursing home care,” according to the state veterans affairs Web site.

Steinberg said Central Oregon Veterans Outreach has plans to open transitional housing for homeless veterans eventually, but those plans will take some time to realize. Currently, the outreach group does not have the financial resources to help veterans with rent.

”With these old vets like Bill, we keep hearing from the government, ‘Oh, they’re the greatest generation because they saved the world from Nazi scumbags and the Japanese,’” he said.

”But apparently when they’re old and healthy,” Steinberg said. ”They’re not so great.”