Albany resident Tina Allen said she visits the CVS a few blocks from her Central Avenue apartment up to three times a week. She and her friends who live in Townsend Park Homes all utilize the drug store.

Cassell Johnson, who needs a motorized scooter to get around, said he’s comfortable there and has been using the store for decades.

“Twenty years," Johnson said. "They take care of me. Whatever I need — COVID shot, flu shot. They take care of me,” said Johnson.

CVS takes care of many of the seniors on fixed incomes in the complex, including Patricia Peterkin.

“Most of the senior citizens in this building rely on that CVS," she said. "They can walk there or they can get into their carts and ride there. If I don’t have the money for my medicine, they will void it. I trust CVS with my life because they are giving me the medicines to sustain me.”

That lifeline will close its doors forever on Thursday. It’s just the next in a long line of businesses to pull out of the area. Allen said she thinks she knows the reason.

“They haven’t said why, but we know why. We live here. We see...because of the drug program up the street.”

Peterkin added that CVS has been robbed three times.

"They wanna move. They wanna close it, but it’s not fair to us who have to use it.”

The seniors will have to find a new pharmacy, and even though there’s a small, privately owned one nearby, they said they want access to a national chain like CVS, Walgreens or Rite Aid.

For many of them, having no car to drive means paying to take a bus to another location. They can have their prescriptions mailed, but that will cost them as well, because the next closest CVS is more than a mile away.

Peterkin said it’s not affordable or feasible for many of the seniors to have to travel to get medicine or anything else they need.

“I am on a fixed income and I have to go to CVS a few times a month to get my medicines. That’s going to cost me money that I don’t have,” Peterkin said.

Allen added, “Key Bank closed and the church here. The nail salon we go to, and now CVS and now Trustco. Everything is closing, and it’s leaving us in a desert without any water.”