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An improvised stove made from an old tire, burning firewood in the hallway, and a column of smoke that seeps into clothing, walls, and lungs: this is how the SAF 0204 Villanueva has been operating for five months in the Boyeros municipality of Havana, one of more than 1,400 community dining halls that the Cuban regime maintains 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 keep the service running without interruption for a single day.
The report, published on Tuesday by the state media, aims to showcase the "resilience" of the Family Care System (SAF), but what it actually describes is the extreme precariousness in which tens of thousands of elderly Cubans live, abandoned by a State that can no longer guarantee them even a gas stove.
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 were helping. But afterward, they no longer wanted to. They say they have a lot of inspectors coming down on them, giving them many fines. 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 —administrator, kitchen assistant, cook, and custodian— provide a service that this month caters to 84 elderly people, with three daily shifts: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
"We work from Monday to Monday, we don't have any rest," said Liliam de la Rosa Domínguez, their manager.
To fill the gaps left by the State, "El Río" relies on donations from the World Food Program —rice, oil, and peas—, support from ETECSA Norte as a "godmother" company, and bread donated twice a week by a private micro, small, and medium-sized enterprise at no charge.
"That bread isn't charged for, it's free. Right now we are affected by the flour situation, yet they keep eating 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 oldest 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. Massive emigration reduced the effective population to 9.74 million in 2025, more than 10% less than in 2020, leaving thousands of elderly individuals without family members to care for them.
Pensions, although the regime increased them in September 2025 to a minimum of 3,056 pesos, are a mockery in the face of inflation: a carton of 30 eggs costs around 3,000 pesos, which is equivalent to a full monthly pension.
99% of Cuban retirees cannot meet their basic needs for food, housing, and medication, according to a survey from November 2025.
Cubadebate itself, without intending to, 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 that the State extends to them."
This Wednesday, Cubans on social media lashed out at the state media for presenting the system with "inflated information" and accused the regime of glossing over a reality that its own photos —the wood fire, the smoke, the sooty walls— have managed to contradict.
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