Spend enough time at the senior centers in Red Hook and Sheepshead Bay, and you’ll be hard pressed to find people who think of themselves as poor.
Not that people aren’t living on fixed incomes, and not that anyone is wealthy. But despite reports that more elderly are living in poverty, these seniors still think they are better off than others.
Take Gertrude “Trudy” Holzendorf. The 88-year-old resident of Red Hook Houses can hardly contain her excitement. Her daughter, a registered nurse who lives in Queens, is coming to visit her in a couple of days, and the two are going to go shopping for the holidays.
“We’re going to go to IKEA, Fairway, Macy’s,” says Holzendorf, who used to be a sewing machine operator in the Garment District. Her bloodshot eyes grow wide, contrasting starkly with her dark, wrinkled skin. “I want to treat myself to a nice bra, like one of those padded ones that you see at Victoria’s Secret. ‘Cause you know, over the years the body changes. So I want a padded bra that gives me a little more, you know.” She makes circular gestures around her chest with her long fingernails and laughs out loud. “It would look nice, I think.”
At the RAICES Red Hook Senior Center and Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens’s Sheepshead/Nostrand Community Center—both in New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments—the elderly insist they’re not poor because they can support themselves: they have a place to sleep and can afford to buy their own food and clothing. In fact, they believe they are the lucky ones.
After all, Sonya Linton, 76, was born during the Great Depression. “We had tough times when I was younger,” she says. “My sister said we had no food.” Perhaps the only good part was the hand-me-downs. “I knew that when my sister was too big for that dress, my mother was going to put flowers and buttons on it, and it was going to be mine. And I would be happy as a jaybird.”
To Yvonne Maynard, 72, another resident of Sheepshead/Nostrand Houses, truly poor people are homeless. “I’m not really poor because I don’t have to go begging and asking people for help,” she says. “A poor person is foodless, clothesless, and I’m not in that category because I have clothes, and I don’t wait and go to the pantry for food. I can buy my own food.”
Louise Bryant, 75, agrees. “There are people poorer than I am. I always have something to eat. It’s not what you want, but it’s something.”
In fact, she considers herself rich because she is healthy. “I can walk, and that means more than money and anything in the world,” she says. “If you’re sick, then you can’t enjoy, so I’d rather be like I am now and just enjoy.”
Meanwhile, Trudy Holzendorf hopes the pain in her knee will subside before she and her daughter head for the stores. “Sometimes the pain hurts so bad I can’t even sit up,” she says, gently rubbing her swollen left knee, which has been bothering her for the past two months. She lives alone and comes to the center for the company and the occasional helping hand. “When I’m in need, when I can’t walk with my lunch tray,” she says, “someone brings me my tray and brings me water.”
She tries to spend as little time in her apartment as possible because the plaster on the walls of her living room has started to peel off, forming an unsightly gash. She moved the living room furniture to the other side of the room and has been waiting for someone from NYCHA to come and fix it. She’s been waiting since November 2010. “I’m just tired of looking at it,” she sighs.
Still, she considers herself blessed. She’s looking forward to her upcoming shopping trip, and she’s even thinking about indulging in a treat when they’re done: the apple pie at McDonald’s.
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