Golden Years, on $678 a Month

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Golden Years, on $678 a Month

By N. R. Kleinfield, The New York Times

September 3, 2003

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times Her daily walk in Elmhurst, Queens, is free, but everything else costs money that Anna Berroa, 68, doesn't have, even with Social Security and a part-time job.

She trudged languorously along the thrumming streets of Elmhurst, Queens, lost in her early evening thoughts. The air was moist and still. She turned left on Justice Avenue, away from the crowds. She dislikes crowds. When she reached the Queens Center Mall, with its clatter of commerce, she turned around. Stores foster an undercurrent of tension in her.

Walking consumes time, and in the awkward caution of her life it drains her of troubled memories. She does this loop from her apartment every day. She derives comfort from one of the few things she can do that carry no price tag.

Anna Berroa is 68, and she is poor.

This is a doleful life that Anna Berroa never anticipated. It seemed to catch her unawares. One moment she was middle class, envisioning a placid old age, and then a series of untoward events ambushed her. Last year, Ms. Berroa received $8,136 from Social Security, and that was it. She has no savings, no investments, dim hopes.

Poverty is particularly frightful from the lens of old age, when there are few, if any, opportunities to enhance one's prospects and the only escape hatch seems to be death. "When you have nothing in the future, you don't dwell on that," Ms. Berroa said. "And since I had so many bad things happen in the near past, I don't dwell on that. Just today, 5 o'clock. Then 6 o'clock. Hour by hour."

All in all, the well-being of the elderly has been improving steadily for decades. The current generation of older Americans is living longer, feeling better, being more active and earning more money. Recent stock market losses and near-invisible interest rates have darkened the picture for many elderly, even forcing some to return to work. Still, the 2000 census shows that over the last decade, the poverty rate among those 65 and older fell to 10.2 percent from 12.7 percent.

But life for New York's elderly population is worsening. Researchers at the International Longevity Center-USA, an organization based in New York that focuses on aging, recently examined the subject. Victor Rodwin, who directs the center's World Cities Project, summed up the findings: "The message is that as the number of older people in the country in poverty has gone down, in New York City it has gone up."

While many elderly in New York are flusher, about 17.1 percent of the city's population 65 and older, or 160,000 people, are poor, an increase from 16.5 percent in 1990. When the Longevity Center study expanded the parameters to those earning 125 percent of the poverty line — $8,259 for a single person over 65 — it discovered that 34.5 percent live on meager incomes.

Advocates for the elderly fear that with the weak economy, the rising number of poor immigrants and the higher living costs, the problem will continue to worsen. Bobbie Sackman, a spokeswoman for the Council of Senior Centers and Services, a New York advocacy group, said the population of poor elderly was expanding as programs to help them were shrinking.

"A lot of the poverty among seniors is invisible," Ms. Sackman said. "These people are adults. You assume they can take care of themselves. They walk down the street with dignity. They're not going to tell you they can't pay the rent, they can't eat, they can't buy a gift for their grandchild."

Elderly women, who live nearly six years longer than men, are twice as likely to be poor. Many enter poverty from left field, tricked by wicked turns of fate.

Anna Berroa came here from Havana as a child, married a dentist, settled in Queens and had four children. Divorce came in 1965, but she managed to raise her children and get them started on their lives.

She remarried in 1983. Her second husband had a business putting in insulation. He earned about $50,000 a year. She held accounting jobs, the last as controller for a small medical company, but stopped working in 1993 when she suffered a nervous breakdown and couldn't get herself out of bed.

Her husband told her to just get better, they didn't need her income.

Wives usually outlive their husbands, but Ms. Berroa's second husband was 14 years younger. "I figured he would bury me," she said.

She didn't know he would get throat cancer (he smoked five packs of cigarettes a day), that it would invade his liver and bones. He was 50 when he died in 1999.

Her sense of their finances was limited. "I was an accountant, but he took care of all the finances," she said.

She knew he had a 401(k) plan, but not how much was in it. It was his surprise, he would tell her. He was right about the surprise. It held $10,000, a fraction of what she had imagined. There was $30,000 more in savings and a $25,000 life insurance policy. They rented an apartment that cost $1,000 a month.

In March 2001, looking to improve her finances, Ms. Berroa sank $5,000 into Microsoft options. When she sold them months later, they were worth $700.

She hunted for work. Her age scared off employers. By the fall of 2002, she was down to $10,000. That September, her oldest granddaughter became severely depressed, and Ms. Berroa used her remaining money to help pay for care.

The girl seemed to improve. Then she jumped in front of a train in New Jersey. She was 19.

Ms. Berroa had to abandon her apartment, cram belongings into a storage locker. She moved in with friends. She applied for subsidized housing for the elderly but was advised that the wait could be two years. She went on Medicaid, which paid for her medication for depression and high blood pressure, and was given food stamps. Her children helped when they could. Five close friends died within the space of six years.

In December, she stopped at the Elmhurst-Jackson Heights Senior Center and threw herself at the mercy of a good-hearted woman named Lucy Garcia, the associate director. A part-time trainee job was available for $100 a week, and Ms. Berroa got it. "She was in bad shape," Ms. Garcia said. "You don't want to feel you're no longer good for anything."

A few months ago, Ms. Berroa got wind of an elderly woman wanting to rent out a room. She crowded a haphazard mixture of furniture into the room. Some of her clothing was stuffed in garbage bags on the floor, remnants of her former life.

"If I did one thing in my life, it was shopping," she said. "It was my favorite pastime."

Now she never shops; she has bought no clothing other than pantyhose in nearly two years.

She has lived in the apartment a little more than three months. The woman charges $450 a month. She pays $115 for the storage locker, $125 for telephone and cable service. Around $200 goes for necessities not covered by food stamps. On weekdays, she gets free breakfast and lunch at the center for the elderly. Still, when the month is over, nothing is left. "My entertainment is the television," she said. And she surfs the Internet on her four-year-old computer.

The income from her part-time job allows her to eke by, though it will mean she will lose her food stamps and her Medicaid status will change.

As it is, her life is bare-bones. She often hangs around the center until 7 in the evening, after everyone has left, because there is no place she wants to go. Weekends are hard. The center is closed. On Sundays, she often visits the Salvation Army church in Jamaica. She donated her piano to the church, and by attending the services she gets to play it.

July 4 was her birthday — 68. She spent it alone, in her room. The highlights were the calls from her children. A friend asked her to dinner, but she felt funny because she knew she couldn't reciprocate, so she declined.

She crossed the room and sat down. What frightens her is that her life is unsatisfactory now, and she could live 20 or 30 more years. Except for her depression, she is in good health. What happens if she deteriorates, needs more prescriptions, can't even work part time?

"I knew my life would be more frugal when I got older," she said. "But I didn't think it would be this bad. I was healthy. I could work. How could I not keep having a life? I don't expect life will be better. I just hope and pray it doesn't get worse."

A leaden morning at the Elmhurst-Jackson Heights Senior Center. Lunch was soon, the big draw. It's a largely immigrant population, many of them also teetering on the edge. One woman, 101, comes every day.

Ms. Berroa does whatever needs doing — answers the phone, translates, checks on bills.

The other day, a depressed woman wanted to talk. She had been laid off, with severance for six months. For nine months, she had looked for work. Her savings were nearly gone. Ms. Berroa sympathized. She didn't mention that she was even worse off.

"I feel sad, but I'm not angry," she said. "I wish it hadn't happened. I wish I had planned it better."

Suddenly it was after 5 and the center was quiet. She gathered her things. She walked over to her apartment and stepped out of her work shoes and into flats. Then she embarked on her ritual walk.

She headed toward Woodside, away from the crowds. She bumped into someone from the center. "Nice day," he said.

"Yes," she said. "Nice day."