Founder of elderly assistance center helped thousands over decades

Patrick Arbore, who turned a one-man suicide help line into the renowned Center for Elderly Suicide Prevention and Grief Counseling at the Institute on Aging in San Francisco, died on May 27. The cause of death was cancer. Arbore was 75.

By the time of Arbore’s death, the initial home-based help line founded 50 years ago in 1973 had evolved into a nationally accredited Friendship Line that handled 350,000 calls from lonely or despondent adults last year and receives regular funding from the state of California. And the Center has provided in-person grief support and other counseling for thousands of individuals.