There’s an ‘epidemic of loneliness and isolation,’ but solutions are within reach

When his wife, Diane, died two years ago, Stanley Goldstein was shattered.

“I couldn’t even go in the house,” Goldstein told me.

I thought he meant it figuratively, but Goldstein went on to say he literally could not bring himself to enter the Palmdale, Calif., home he had shared with his wife, who’d been suffering from Parkinson’s.

“I was living in a Suburban,” he said. “I mean, here I had this 3,000-square-foot house, and I’m living in the parking lot of the supermarket.”

Goldstein, 74, a former teacher, recovered enough to seek some companionship. He met another woman, but she soon became a stranger to herself.

“Alzheimer’s,” he said. “It came on real quick.”

About a year ago, at a coffee shop, Goldstein shared his despair with a friend. who recommended he check out the Sherman Oaks East Valley Adult Center. It was the beginning of his turnaround.

“I met more people here in two weeks than in 23 years in Palmdale,” said Goldstein, who drops in for lunch, hooks up with friends and participates in a conversation group with a couple of dozen people.

And what do they talk about?

Loss and depression, current events, the state of the city.

The arc of their lives. I learned about Goldstein from Beverly Ventriss, the president and chief executive of Valley InterCommunity Council, which runs the adult center. She shared the story of an Army veteran, now deceased, who lived alone and waited patiently each day for someone from VIC to deliver a meal to his door, then played his harmonica as a thank you.

“An isolated older adult can lapse into depression, which has become the single most significant social determinant of declining health,” Ventriss said.

The U.S. surgeon general recently amplified that message, citing an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation” that has grown even as the COVID-19 pandemic has waned, increasing the risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia and premature death. In announcing a campaign to rebuild social connections, Dr. Vivek Murthy laid out a national strategy that sounded a lot like what VIC — a nonprofit that operates on government funding, grants and donations — has been doing for years in the San Fernando Valley.

The council runs four centers in partnership with the city of Los Angeles, like the one where I met Goldstein. (The others are in Van Nuys, Pacoima and Northridge.) Every year, thousands of people take advantage of VIC’s meals and transportation, medical screenings and social, educational and recreational activities. Ventriss says taking meals to the homebound is a critical part of the mission, but she strives to draw people to the adult