Melissa Harris-Perry: You're listening to The Takeaway, I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. The population of Puerto Rico is at its lowest point in 40 years. Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans have left the island for mainland US, an exodus that accelerated after the widespread devastation of Hurricane Maria in 2017. The remaining population on the island tends to be older. More than one in five Puerto Rican residents is 65 or older.
As we continue our ongoing series, Aging While Queer, we're looking at life for older LGBTQ+ Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico. I spoke with Wilfred Labiosa, executive director of Waves Ahead, an organization that supports queer elders in Puerto Rico.
Wilfred Labiosa: I lived in Massachusetts for over 27 years, and due to a family health situation with my mom and dad, I moved back to my homeland, to Puerto Rico. Here, in Puerto Rico, I noticed right away that there is a significant difference on treatment, not only from the health sector, but also in the housing sector, in all the different sectors that impact the lives of our LGBT elders and LGBT community as a whole.
From how you are left to wait for an appointment for hours at a time, to significant issues and discrimination in regards of housing, accessibility to food, et cetera.
Melissa Harris-Perry: As you made that transition and saw those injustices, tell me a bit about particularly the position of elders within the community given those inequities?
Wilfred Labiosa: Puerto Rico has been faced with an economical crisis for the last eight years, and right now, we have a supervision board given by the United States to Puerto Rico, enforced to Puerto Rico, to manage their economical crisis. Since then, you have seen the impact in each of the individuals' pockets, specifically, our elders. The elders have been impacted because the increase in medication co-pays, in medical visits, as well as in rents, et cetera.
The impact of the hurricanes at the fall of 2017 made it worse, and then the earthquakes, then COVID. It has been one situation after another that has impact the economical day-to-day expenses of our elders. Our elders that are LGBT, live for the most part alone, may or may not have a partner, and may or may not have children themselves. They're living not only in San Juan, but across the island that makes them hard to transport themselves into accessing services.
You see how the transportation starts to impact because the individuals have to pay extra to use one of these platforms to acquire a private driver in one of those companies. It starts then in the pharmacy, then it continues in the food. Because all of our export and imports have been impacted by the hurricanes, and then the earthquakes, and now COVID, really, the accessibility to products have lowered themselves.
Sometimes you go to the supermarket, and you may not have X or Y product, and when it gets to the supermarket, you have to pay double or triple the price that you would expect normally for that same product.
Melissa Harris-Perry: You began in responding to that by talking about the ongoing economic crisis, onto which, of course, fell Hurricane Maria, and the earthquakes, and the COVID pandemic, but these things didn't just happen. They are largely a result, or at least many would argue, of policy of the mainland US relative to Puerto Rico. I'm wondering as you look at that relationship, how you see where the responsibilities might lie for those economic crises and their disparate impact on LGBTQ+ elders.
Wilfred Labiosa: One needs to sit and really see that our elected officials, from the federal level to the local level, have impacted in the long run and now today, the policies and procedures and the income tax and the tax breaks that have been given to the rich and not to the everyday living citizen.
Here, in Puerto Rico, we have a Jones Act that really impacts, still until today, our pockets and especially our elders because the expenses go up, but the benefits that they have, the retirement could be or it could be social security, have not gone up. Really, the cost of living has increased because of all these politicians doing these policies, but the benefits and the earnings of these elders, that may not work any longer, keeps the same or have been lowered.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Tell me a little bit about your organization, Waves Ahead, and its mission.
Wilfred Labiosa: Sure. I developed this organization with other individuals here in Puerto Rico because we wanted to dedicate ourselves in supporting these marginalized and vulnerable sectors of Puerto Rico by providing them the aid necessary to stabilize them and to strengthen them.
The main focus is the LGBT elders. We are an affiliate of SAGE, and we manage SAGE in Puerto Rico, providing advocacy and services to the LGBT elders from our three community centers, focused on the LGBT elder, but also providing services to the LGBT general community, as well as the elder general community.
Our three centers, our goal is to be able to be in each part of the island, so that from the centers, we can provide them-- now during COVID especially, to their home, home-based services, as well as services by the platforms in computer or by the phone, or in a way, hybrid. If they feel comfortable coming to our centers, they can come; and if they can reach us, they can come; or we go to them.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about the specific mental health needs and concerns that you have experienced and seen as part of the work you've been doing with Waves Ahead.
Wilfred Labiosa: As a health care provider myself-- I'm a trained clinical social worker, I have seen the impact after the hurricane in our mental health, of everybody in mental health here in Puerto Rico. Many of us could go through a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder because it has been one after another. Interesting enough, we have developed a campaign to educate individuals to take away the taboo about mental health, that preventive ways to be able to take care of our mental health.
Statistics show, in Puerto Rico, that suicide attempts and death by suicide is largely over 80% in the older adult. It's very different in the States. In the States, this statistics is reflected among youth, because of the bullying, because of all the different stressors that happen in society, when you may come out of the closet, or your daily living as a young person. Well, those same stressors, and even to a higher level, are impacting the older adult here in Puerto Rico, and they are using more mental health services.
They're accessing emergency services because of their mental health, and they're unfortunately attempting suicide or dying by suicide. We want to promote mental health as a way to take care of it preventively.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Wilfred Labiosa is the executive director of Waves Ahead. Wilfred, thanks so much.
Wilfred Labiosa: Thank you. Gracias.
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