A crowd of about 50 people— including senior citizens, social workers, and community advocates, gathered to protest the planned closing of a Catholic Charities-run elder day care program on Tuesday afternoon. The Haitian Elder Program, hosted at the Catholic Charities Yawkey /Haitian Multi-Service Center at 185 Columbia Rd, is slated to close today.

The shut down will impact 26 individual clients now enrolled in the program. But advocates say that it’s the latest in a series of moves away from the center’s original mission— serving Haitian immigrants and their families.

Among the roughly fifty people protesting outside the center held up signs that read, “Keep your promise to the Haitian Community,” and “The Haitian Community is asking for their share.”

The news of the closing came via a letter to staff and clients on July 10.

In the letter Joseph Burnieika, the director of Catholic Charities of Boston's Greater Boston division, said that “after a thorough review of the program,” they decided that they would no longer be able to financially support the program moving further.

This cancellation, he said, would not affect the other pre-existing programming of the center, including a food pantry, immigration legal services, adult education, and childcare services.

Catholic Charities is working to transition the HMSC seniors to alternate programs in the city. They arranged for the Senior Whole Health Program to provide a workshop that will inform the enrolled elders on how to manage, arrange, and secure healthcare services that they may be eligible to receive.

However, some of those present at Tuesday’s demonstration say that ending the program is part of an ongoing shift away from programming geared specifically to Haitians.

“As of now, the name of the Haitian Multi-Service Center is still on the building, but these programs have been shut down one by one,” said Roudnie Celestin, who said she worked at the center for the past two years. (A spokesperson for Catholic Charities said that Celestin did not work at the center.)

“There was a daycare downstairs that was named Konbit Kreyol, now that’s gone, and now it’s a daycare center that’s no longer for Haitians. We had Sante Manman, it was closed down. We had HIV programs, these are shut down. They’re taking away everything that the Haitians had in this building. So now we’re fighting, we’re asking the community to stand with us, so that we can get this program back and then we can get what the Haitians worked hard for to get in this building. These elders need our help, they have a family in the community and they want to keep it together.”

Editor's Note: A spokesperson for Catholic Charities told the Reporter that the Sante Manman program had operated with funding from the Boston Public Health Commission, which "redirected those funds to the community health care system." The spokesperson also said that the HIV/AIDS program closed after federal funding that was used to run it "expired."