Almost two years after COVID hit, Tacoma’s senior centers remain closed. It’s taking a toll

Ron Yaden has spent a lot of time at the Point Defiance-Ruston Senior Center. Two decades ago, he would visit the center — which is near his longtime West End home — as a volunteer, helping people file their taxes. But after his wife passed away eight years ago, the retired City of Tacoma employee started going to the facility on North Baltimore Street for more than the opportunity to lend a hand.

Yaden, 77, was lonely, explaining that the senior center gave him a place to socialize, and “visit with other people.”

It’s been a big part of his life ever since, he said — including regular lunches, line dancing classes and ping pong matches — which is why it was difficult when COVID-19 took it all away back in March 2020.

“I think a lot of people were isolated. I felt isolated. You couldn’t couldn’t come here and do things,” Yaden said by phone from the Point Defiance-Ruston Senior Center on Thursday. “To me, the social part of the center is important.”

Nearly two years since the coronavirus pandemic took hold, Yaden could consider himself lucky. Tacoma owns three senior centers, but only his neighborhood location — which is operated by Franke Tobey Jones under an agreement that dates back to the 1980s — is currently open for in-person activities. Downtown, the Beacon and Lighthouse senior centers — which are operated by the Korean Women’s Association under much newer contracts for services - remain closed.

According to Tacoma Community Wellness Program Manager Vicky McLaurin, the city’s longstanding agreement with Frank Tobey Jones doesn’t include funding for program operations and facilities. In other words, Tacoma simply leases the facility to the nonprofit, which is best known for the large senior living facility it also operates in the area. “As such, the City does not determine the operation schedule or services that are offered at the Point Defiance site,” McLaurin said.

Kate Gray, the Point Defiance-Ruston Senior Center’s director, said the facility began gradually reopening in August, and currently offers a handful of in-person activities every week. Masks, vaccinations and social distancing are required, she told The News Tribune.

At the Beacon and Lighthouse centers, on the other hand, the city’s contract with KWA includes funding for services, giving the city “oversight over the programming” and responsibility for facility operations, McLaurin said. Both centers were ordered closed for in-person activity by the city in March 2020, in response to “health and safety concerns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” she indicated. Given the recent emergence of the omicron variant, there’s no current timeline for the centers’ potential reopening, even though current state and local guidelines would allow it.

While the centers remain hubs for meal distribution, and some services and programming have been made available online or via telephone, KWA spokesperson Kelsey Horne said the agency is waiting on a go-ahead from the city before returning to the way things were. In a pre-COVID year, the centers would serve thousands of aging Tacoma residents in-person, Horne said.

It’s an explanation that’s unlikely to satisfy everyone, including seniors who have recently reached out to Council members and city staff over the continued closures at the Beacon and Lighthouse centers.

But it also underscores the larger message, which is even more important:

It’s been a long, hard pandemic — particularly for a population with a heightened risk to COVID-19 — and after 21 months and counting, the struggle continues in countless ways.

Tacoma’s seniors need the city’s support and attention, now more than ever, and it’s not an obligation we can let slip through the cracks.

So what can Tacoma do? For starters, the City Council affirmed its commitment to Tacoma’s aging population by officially adopting the 18-page Age Friendly Tacoma Action Plan on Tuesday. By doing so, our elected leaders presumably set the stage for investments to come, including efforts to expand access to health care, information, housing and transportation for those 65 and older.

It’s a hopeful sign, but according to Fiona Mudgett, the Volunteer Services Program Coordinator for MultiCare Hospice, there are even more pressing and immediate needs to focus on — specifically related to the pandemic. With isolation as a root cause, Mudgett said that the last two years have likely affected local seniors’ physical and mental health for years to come. That’s a big reason why MultiCare volunteers have been calling roughly 70 potentially isolated seniors every week in hopes of mitigating some of the pandemic’s toll on this vulnerable population, she said.

“Studies have shown that the impact of isolation can be the equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. That’s the impact it can have on your health,” Mudgett said. “(Isolation) has been linked with a variety of physical and mental conditions, including high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s and death. … So we know it’s detrimental.”

Asked about when Tacoma seniors who depend on the Beacon and Lighthouse centers might be able to visit once again, McLaurin didn’t have a ready answer. All she could say for certain is that the city knows the continued closure is frustrating, and that no one has been forgotten. Until the time comes, McLaurin said she hopes that Tacoma seniors will take advantage of the online and remote services available to them.

“While we know that our community is ready to return to normal, we continue to find prudence in ensuring that our reopening considers what is best for our community and employees,” McLaurin said.

“We just don’t have a date yet,” she added. “But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”