Filda Cordero is an older adult and says her health has deteriorated after being locked up in her apartment for more than a year. I used to go to a social center in Inwood before, but this site has not yet reopened.
And now he needs oxygen and uses a walker to walk: “When I was in that center I never needed oxygen. I never needed a walker. Because I danced until I got tired, I jumped, I shared with my friends. “
That is why Cordero joined other elderly people, employees and owners of adult social centers in a protest in front of the Mayor’s Office to demand its reopening.
In this regard, Elizabeth Ureña, director of the Golden Age Adult Social Center, details: “The members are vaccinated, they have the necessary education to deal with COVID and they already have the right to return to what is the new normal.”
The protesters are part of the city’s nearly 300 senior centers. In these enclosures they will socialize and participate in different free activities, such as painting and handicraft classes, physical exercises, and excursions. The service, which is covered by their health insurance, has become for some it is like a second home: “Everything is open and why not us? There we have breakfast, eat, play, walk, listen to music, they treat us well. Open The Door Please! We are tired of being stuck in the house. “
The administrators of these social centers for adults say that this isolation is leading some to death: “Loneliness killed our community. So, they went from a cane to a wheelchair; they stopped eating; they stopped taking the medicines; they stopped caring about life. Depression eats away at this community, “explains Doris Karpeh-Diaz of the Social Center for Adult Friends.
These types of senior centers reopened in the rest of the state in August; however, this is not the case for New York City.
“Seniors also deserve fun for the rest of our lives,” concludes Héctor Martínez, another of the protesters.
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