Many elderly Cubans are left to fend for themselves as the island’s economic crisis deepens, with church meals and meager state rations becoming the thin line between getting by and going hungry. On a recent afternoon, a group of elderly residents slipped through the wooden doors of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Old Havana and gathered for a modest meal of ground meat, rice, red beans and crackers topped with mayonnaise, finished with a cup of strong Cuban coffee. Before beginning their lunch, they chanted, “May the Lord bless from his height, the meal our belly will take with delight.”
Who Pays for the Collapse
Among the nearly 50 elderly people was Carmen Casado, an 84-year-old retired chemical engineer who attends without fail. Her monthly pension of 2,000 Cuban pesos is equivalent to $4 at the informal exchange rate that people use on a daily basis. She lives alone, has no children and does not receive remittances from relatives abroad. “This is a lifeline for us retirees with small pensions,” said Casado, speaking in a rapid-fire tone. “What we get from the bodegas alone is not enough.”
That line lands with the force of daily arithmetic. The state-run stores, or bodegas, provide free rations such as bread, rice and beans, but the article makes clear that these are not enough to sustain many older people. The church meal is not a luxury or a side project; it is a supplement to a rationing system and a pension structure that leave retirees exposed. The burden falls hardest on those who spent their lives as government employees — teachers, doctors, nurses, technicians, custodians, lawyers — and now face cuts to the basket of goods that have been subsidized for decades.
The elderly are among the hardest hit by the severe economic crisis on the island, which has worsened dramatically since the beginning of the year following an oil embargo imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. Most of the older residents now have to face not only shrinking material support but also the loneliness brought on by the growing emigration of young people. The article describes them as people who were young when Fidel Castro entered Havana and who lived through the Bay of Pigs invasion, the 1962 Missile Crisis, the Special Period following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the 2016 moment when U.S. President Barack Obama shook the hand of Raúl Castro.
What Survival Looks Like Now
Now, survival means selling cigarettes on the streets, lining up for a loaf of bread, and seeking free meals offered by churches and some state institutions. After lunch, Casado walked the four blocks home to tend to household chores she still performs without assistance. Her home is on the second and top floors of a 19th-century building that, like many in the capital, is falling apart. Born in 1942, Casado was a teenager when the revolution led by Castro triumphed. Her life has spanned the island’s most defining moments, from the 1962 Missile Crisis to the so-called Special Period following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
She also lived through the 1970s and 80s, when the island’s economy was heavily subsidized by the Soviets and when the Cuban system seemed to promise a brighter future. “This is our life; we were born and raised here,” she said. That sentence sits beside the material reality of the present: a monthly pension worth $4 at the informal exchange rate, state rations that do not cover the need, and church charity filling the gap where the apparatus falls short.
Even before the economic crisis worsened and before the wave of emigration over the past five years, Cuba was already one of the countries with the oldest populations in Latin America, a trend nudged further by high life expectancy and low birth rates. According to Cuba’s National Bureau of Statistics, by the end of 2024, almost 26% of the population was aged 60 or older. That is almost twice the regional average of 14.2% in the same year, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, CEPAL. The last five years have seen a population decline in Cuba of nearly 1.5 million, primarily due to migration. The number of Cubans residing on the island, which stood at 11.1 million, has fallen to just 9.7 million.
The Thin Line Between State and Church
The impact of the crisis and the exodus of youth is visible at a glance. Elderly people walk the streets alone, some rummaging through trash, others standing in long lines for the bread and rice provided by the ration book, the basic subsidized foods the state guarantees to every Cuban. The plight of the elderly is so critical that the government recently authorized private entrepreneurs to operate elder care services and residential facilities, a move marking a significant departure from the island’s traditional model of total state control.
That shift says plenty about the pressure on the existing system. The state that once claimed total control is now authorizing private entrepreneurs to step in where its own support is failing. Meanwhile, churches are running meals three times a week in the dining hall adjacent to the Church of the Holy Spirit, offering a modest but necessary form of mutual aid for people whose pensions and rations do not stretch far enough.
Casado insists that she is still privileged. She is mentally sharp and has no physical impairments — she doesn’t even use a cane — and manages entirely on her own. Her only medication is half a tablet for blood pressure, which, “so far,” remains available at the state-run pharmacies. Despite the poverty and loneliness, she continues to have faith in the government and blames the country’s woes on the United States. “We’re doing everything we can here to move the country forward,” she said. “But the thing is, we have a very powerful enemy, and he’s right there, right on our doorstep.”
The facts around her life tell a harsher story than the slogans do. Elderly people are being pushed into dependence on churches, ration books, and whatever remains of state support. The government has responded by loosening its own model and allowing private elder care operators, while the people at the bottom keep lining up for bread, rice, beans, and a meal that arrives three times a week.