Houston’s aging Latinos fight loneliness at Denver Harbor center

For the past eight months, instead of sitting at home watching television, 62-year-old Ricardo Cantero has hobbled into the Denver Harbor Community Center every weekday morning and forgotten about his physical ailments. He has cancer, and he relies on a cane to stay mobile.

But when he plays bingo, dances and chit-chats for hours with dozens of friends at the growing community of elderly Latinos who rely on the center, he says he seems to forget he's sick at all.

"I would like to invite all (older Latinos) to come here and enjoy themselves, let loose," he said in Spanish. "This place will fix you."

Earlier this year, the U.S. surgeon general described high rates of loneliness among Americans as an epidemic that has profound physical and mental health impacts: a 29% increased risk of heart disease, a 32% increased risk of stroke and a higher risk for anxiety and depression. Older adults are at higher risk, according to University of Colorado Boulder research, because more than half of them still spend more time at home and less time socializing than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The senior health and wellness program at the Denver Harbor Community Center has been filling the gap for aging residents in this predominantly Latino east Houston neighborhood, offering a vibrant social network largely built by word of mouth.

Run by BakerRipley in the city-owned community center, the program provides various physical and cognitive health activities, meals and groceries and other assistance for residents 60 and older. The Denver Harbor senior program is one of the nonprofit's largest in the city , with about 240 registered residents and a daily attendance of around 115.

An open invitation and warm welcome

Emma Gallegos, an attendee since 2015, said the community that has grown around the program is a valuable resource for an ailing population in Denver Harbor and other parts of Houston. She said many seniors there are sick, have lost their spouses to time or feel lonely because their adult children and other relatives are busy with work and their own kids.

Just having someone to speak to during the day helps many of her peers.

"We use each other as psychologists," the 77-year-old said. "Even if you don't have a degree in psychology, you listen to them and they listen to you. We know when they need help"

Creating these social connections is a main goal for the program, said Skyra Johnson of BakerRipley's health and wellness division. Although most of the program's seniors are from Denver Harbor or Hispanic residents coming from other parts of the city searching for community, Johnson said, many don't see each other outside of church.

"For a lot of seniors, the safest place for them is their home, something that they paid for and worked so hard for," said Skyra Johnson, "But in that time of solitude, they have no one else to speak to. A lot of seniors pick up the phone for a telemarketer just for somebody to talk to them."

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The program has also been inclusive to non-Hispanic seniors.

Fifth Ward resident Annette D'Arceneaux, who is of Nigerian and Welsh descent, said the group has accepted her and other Black seniors in the program since joining in June. Despite not knowing Spanish, she figured she'd get along with the predominantly Hispanic seniors in Denver Harbor because "we all look the same color."

The 60-year-old said staffers began reciting the bingo numbers in both Spanish and English so she could follow along, and she's made friends with Spanish speakers with the help of her new bilingual friends. D'Arceneaux, a self-proclaimed pool shark and avid gardener, has even sparked friendly rivalries with some of the older Hispanic men in the program who keep challenging her at the center's billiards table.

"I have no problems with anyone," she said, "and I love coming here."

Lifelong connections and community

At the heart of the program is its director, lifelong Denver Harbor resident Diana Oviedo.

She found comfort in volunteering at her nearby community center after getting divorced almost 20 years ago, first with the food distribution services there and later with the senior programs. Oviedo had a knack for volunteering because she's bilingual and knew Denver Harbor well, but she said being around others from her community also helped her heal.

When BakerRipley hired her to lead the program full time five years ago, Oviedo saw it as an opportunity to give back to the neighborhood that supported her during her rough patch.

"What can I say? I love my seniors," she said teary-eyed. "I tell them they're my kids. ... For any little thing, they're calling me. I sit with them and they tell me all their stories. And I hear every single one of them. My door is never closed for none of them."

The program's attendance has ballooned in the years since she took over, Oviedo said. She's built the network using her roots in Denver Harbor, spreading the word through churches and with aging residents she's known since childhood.

"I knew some of them when I was little and now they come here," she said. "They went to my quinceañera; they even went to my wedding."

Among Oviedo's lifelong connections is Nina Garcia, who was born in Reynosa, Mexico, but has lived in Denver Harbor since 1958. Garcia, who has lived on the same street in the neighborhood since moving there, remembered meeting Oviedo as a little girl and her parents, too.

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The 75-year-old was first encouraged to make friends at the community center by her daughter about a month ago because she was feeling down at home. She's dealt with bouts of depression since her mother died in 2010, Garcia said, and her daughter worried she would get sick without social connections.

Garcia has flourished since joining the other seniors at the community center. When the Chronicle visited this week, she was dancing with some of the friends she's made, participating in the group craft activities and hugging Gallegos as if they'd know each other for a lifetime.

"My daughter told me, 'Mom, you're going to make friends and feel much better. You're going to have other people to talk to,'" Garcia said, recounting her first time visiting the community center. "One day I said, 'OK, take me to the center.' ... Now, I don't want to stop coming."