“Loneliness is already the number one problem residents face in nursing homes,” says Steve Blay, co-founder of Friends Across the Ages, an organization that pairs nursing home residents with volunteers-with long-term friendship and community engagement in mind. Roughly half of the Sunshine State’s 2,993 deaths have involved residents or staff members at long-term care facilities, according to the Florida Department of Health. Along with the typical factors that contribute to loneliness in aging populations, LGBTQ seniors face increased risks, including lack of children, estrangement from family, ostracism by peers, and the loss of friends and partners during the peak of AIDS crisis in the 1980s and early 1990s.īy Lillian Wolf 86, retired military veteranĮnglebaum’s loneliness stems, in part, from isolation measures put in place by his facility and by the state of Florida to stem the spread of coronavirus. That can be especially concerning for LGBTQ seniors in the United States, who are more than twice as likely to live alone and experience social isolation than non-LGBTQ seniors, according to SAGE, an advocacy group for LGBTQ elders.Įven before the pandemic, about 50 percent of LGBTQ seniors reported feeling lonely or isolated as they age, according to a survey by AARP. This mental state can be experienced both while separated from other people or while in a crowd, and it can exacerbate health conditions, including anxiety, depression, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Loneliness, psychologically speaking, is different from mere solitude. “There is no one here for me,” says Englebaum. Even though he is out to his friends at the residence, he is the only gay man at the facility. He takes the occasional socially distanced walks on the grounds, where he delights in spotting invasive iguanas basking on the lawn.Įnglebaum, a former social worker who has seen LGBTQ freedom grow since he took part in the Stonewall Riots in the summer of 1969, has never felt lonelier. Because of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, Englebaum spends most of his time alone in his room, where he reminisces about going to the movies every week with his late husband. After a lifetime of living openly as a gay man, Elliot Englebaum, 73, has become a shut-in at his assisted living facility in Hollywood, Florida.