Helping Hispanic seniors feel welcome

Second of two parts: Downtown Elgin's Senior Services program makes getting together more comfortable

ELGIN -- Virginia Olivarez's father, Antonio Rivas, never socialized at Senior Services Associates' facility in downtown Elgin.

The nonprofit agency helped Olivarez sort through her father's Medicare paperwork and other routine tasks caregivers must handle. But Antonio didn't speak English, so he never quite felt comfortable coming to any of the social activities offered at the South Grove Avenue center.

Hispanic seniors such as Antonio, who died three years ago, did not have many places to socialize until Senior Services began offering Miercoles Sociales ("Social Wednesday") in March 2008. Fifteen people came to the first event, organized by case manager/care coordinator Becky Bart. But attendance has surged over the last year, with upward of 60 people regularly coming out to events, she said.

Bart finds the social event has introduced more Hispanics to Senior Services.

The agency is seeing a huge increase in the number of Hispanic seniors visiting the center. In fiscal year 2006-07, 125 Elgin-area Hispanics participated in senior programming. That number grew to 186 in fiscal year 2007-08, said Senior Services program administrator Leslie Edstrom. Last year, the number increased to 289 Hispanics.

The increase reflects how quickly this population -- which includes American-born Hispanics and newly arrived immigrants -- is growing and is expected to become a large percentage of the nation's seniors in the next 20 years.

According to the National Hispanic Council on Aging in Washington, D.C., estimates show that Hispanics -- who now make up the largest minority group in the United States -- will represent a significant segment of the population by 2030, with a growth rate of 555 percent.

"By 2030, it is projected that the Hispanic elderly will comprise 11.2 percent of the United States elderly population and by 2050, 17.5 percent," the council's Web site states.

Senior Services had staff members who spoke Spanish, but it did not offer Spanish-language events until Bart began talking to Hispanic seniors and their families about their needs.

Bart's role required that she visit the elderly in their homes to help with different tasks ranging from housework to filling out paperwork. She began receiving feedback from the families of Hispanic seniors who were concerned that their parents or grandparents were isolated, depressed and lonely during the day, Bart said.

"We do have activities open to everyone, but they are in English," Bart said. "I invited" Hispanic seniors to them, "but they didn't feel comfortable and didn't know what was going on. I decided to create an event where they could socialize."

What has made such a difference is Bart's effort to draw people to the center.

"She really does grass-roots outreach into the Hispanic community and brings them in, and they have a wonderful time," Edstrom said.

Miercoles Sociales -- held the first and third Wednesday of the month -- is a "wonderful way to make that contact with the seniors in the community," she said.

Many elderly Hispanics are not aware of programs available to them, Bart said.

"A lot of them came to this country at an older age," she said. "The only people they interact with and socialize with is their family. They suffer from depression because they don't know anybody. There is nothing for them. This program has been great. They come here and make friends."

There are two types of seniors in Elgin's Hispanic community: U.S.-born Hispanics, and Hispanics who have lived here for decades or have just arrived, Bart said. Those in the latter category often do not qualify for Social Security or Medicare and live in poverty, she said.

Naomi Hernandez, who came to Elgin 35 years ago from Mexico, is one of the lucky ones. Hernandez, 77, became a U.S. citizen in the late 1960s and was able to work long enough to collect Social Security. But she has friends who came here late in life, never worked and must rely on their husbands' small pensions, she said.

Her husband, Julian, 80, is retired, and the two come every month to the luncheon, sometimes bringing along their 3-year-old grandson, Marcelo.

She understands the relief Hispanics seniors feel that the center is there to help with translation and with explaining government programs.

"Everything here is very good," Naomi Hernandez said. "They've helped us with doctor's appointments and the surgeries."

Francisco Soto Sr. and his wife, Maria, also are regulars at Miercoles Sociales. Maria is partially paralyzed. She came to the U.S. in 1970 and became a citizen. Her husband arrived in 1991 with their son, Francisco Jr., who is now their caregiver. The couple lives on the small Social Security check Maria receives. She has Medicare, and they receive food stamps, Francisco said.

"Here, they've helped him a lot," said Francisco Soto Jr.

His father sat at a table after finishing a game of bingo, announced in Spanish. He said there is no help for seniors in Mexico. If you don't have money, doctors and nurses can turn you away, the elder Soto said. It happened years ago to his family when his 6-month-old daughter got sick.

"I told the doctor I would give him a watch, and he said, 'We don't take watches; we only take cash,' " Francisco Sr. said. His daughter later died, he said.

Maria has gotten good health care here. The couple does not have much but lives in public housing due to Maria's medical condition.

Neither Maria nor Francisco Sr. had a job that offered pensions, 401(k) plans or other retirement programs. That is very common among the senior Hispanic population, Bart said, and it makes the programs offered at the senior center all the more important.

Francisco Sr. never imagined as a young man that he would be living this way in his later years.

"You just never think about it -- just think about living well," and you struggle to survive, he said.