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An improvised stove made from an old tire, burning firewood in the hallway, and a column of smoke that permeates clothing, walls, and lungs: this is how the SAF 0204 Villanueva has been operating for five months, located in the Boyeros municipality of Havana, one of over 1,400 community dining halls maintained by the Cuban regime to feed its most vulnerable elderly citizens.
According to a report from the official Cubadebate, liquefied gas has not been delivered for five months, and the cooks have had to improvise to avoid interrupting the service even for a single day.
The report, published on Tuesday by the state media, aims to showcase the "resilience" of the Family Attention System (SAF), but what it actually describes is the extreme precariousness in which tens of thousands of elderly Cubans survive, abandoned by a State that can no longer guarantee even a gas stove for them.
The SAF 0204 Villanueva serves 129 diners. Bárbara Mediaceja Hernández, director of Services at the Boyeros Commerce Branch, acknowledged that private businesses in the neighborhood stopped collaborating since December 2025.
"Not here. Until December of last year, they used to help. But then they stopped wanting to. They say they get too many inspectors coming down on them, and they get fined a lot. I understand them, but the truth is that they don't help," he admitted.
In the SAF "El Río," located in the Plaza de la Revolución municipality, the situation is not very different. Four workers —an administrator, a kitchen assistant, a cook, and a custodian— provide a service that this month caters to 84 elderly individuals, with three daily shifts: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
"We work from Monday to Monday, we have no days off," said Liliam de la Rosa Domínguez, their manager.
To fill in the gaps left by the State, “El Río” relies on donations from the World Food Program —rice, oil, and peas—, the support of ETECSA Norte as a "godparent" company, and the bread that a private micro, small, and medium enterprise donates twice a week free of charge.
“That bread is not charged, it's free. Now we are affected by the flour supply, yet they continue to eat their bread,” Liliam pointed out.
This survival chart is set against a backdrop of a demographic and social crisis with no visible way out. Cuba is the most aged country in Latin America: by the end of 2024, 25.7% of its population was 60 years or older, with peaks of 29.1% in Villa Clara and 28.1% in Havana.
Mass emigration reduced the effective population to 9.74 million in 2025, over 10% less than in 2020, leaving thousands of elderly people without family members to care for them.
Pensions, although the government increased them in September 2025 to a minimum of 3,056 pesos, are a joke in the face of inflation: a carton of 30 eggs costs around 3,000 pesos, the equivalent of a full monthly pension.
99% of Cuban retirees do not meet their basic needs for food, housing, and medicine, according to a survey from November 2025.
Cubadebate itself, unintentionally, summarized the tragedy: "For them, the SAF is often the only thing they have. It is the only hot meal of the day. It is the only hand the State extends to them."
This Wednesday, Cubans on social media criticized the state-run outlet for portraying the system with "inflated information" and accused the regime of glossing over a reality that its own photos — the wood stove, the smoke, the soot-covered walls — have helped to refute.
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