The renovation of a senior citizen center on the outskirts of Beijing was supposed to make life better for the elderly who depend on it every day. Yet since the restoration was completed earlier this month, life has only got worse, they say.

"We used to have pork, fried chicken and beef in the dining hall," said Guo Yude, a 72-year-old who relies on the Pingguoyuan Street Community Elderly Service Center for his daily meals. "Now we just have a couple of dishes with rice and vegetables and some soup."

In 2006, the local government began setting up community-based elderly service centers, like Pingguoyuan, located in Shijingshan district, to serve Beijing's large "invisible" elderly demographic - the parents of children who left their hometowns to seek better education and jobs in Beijing and moved in with their children after retirement. The centers help the elderly with tasks like cleaning and cooking as well as delivering meals, mail and basic health care.

Over the past several years, things had been going well at Pingguoyan. The elderly say they were close to the staff who would eat with them daily in the employee dining hall. Plenty of beds were available for naps in the afternoon. And the recreation hall was usually full of people playing cards and watching soap operas.

But since the renovation, the food is bad, residents say. Most of the 20 new dormitory rooms meant for beds are instead full of boxes while others have been rented out as office space to small companies.

The six staffers are not enough to care for the dozens of elderly who come to the center, plus make the weekly checks at the homes of hundreds of elderly people, said Zhang Weimin, the new director of the center.

"The population of China is expanding," Zhang said. "And so is the aging population of China."

Pingguoyuan is a case study of what experts say could be a challenge for China: who is going to take care of the elderly and where are they going to stay?

"Long-term care for the elderly, traditionally provided at home by adult children, is becoming less feasible in fast-paced cities like Beijing," Tsinghua University sociology professor Pei Xiaomei said.

Around 2.2 million, or 20 percent, of Beijing's population is made up of people 60 and older, according to the Beijing municipal committee on aging study. The committee will release a new study on development for aging people today, which is the Chongyang, or Double Ninth, Festival, a holiday for the remembrance of the elderly.

The city government plans to cover 70 percent of residential areas with community-based care centers by 2010, but progress has been slow.

One senior center, Ping Guoyuan, receives about 150 applications a month but can accept only five.

Ma Shubing is one of the lucky ones. The 75-year-old was admitted when the center first opened. Now he says he just hopes it won't close anytime soon.

"If it closes, we will have to cook for ourselves. We will have to take care of ourselves. We will have to suffer by ourselves," Ma said.

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