Ashkelon is a peripheral hub, a coastal city south of Tel Aviv and north of the border with Gaza, that offers resources to all the villages and kibbutzes in the area, as far west as Beersheva. The population of Ashkelon is 119,500, 32 percent new immigrants, the majority of whom are from the former Soviet Union; there is also a large community from Ethiopia. Thirty two percent of the population aged 0-19 is children and youth. The elderly, who comprise 22 percent of the population in Ashkelon are among the poorest in the country, 76 percent receive a government pension and of those ¾ or 75 percent receive an additional supplement from the government because their pension does not meet the nationally recognized minimum level of income needed to survive. Additionally, 30 percent of the senior population above the age of 60, or 6,480 seniors, is Holocaust survivors, dramatically underscoring both the profile of the nation’s poor and the poor conditions under which they live.