Old people shows a high prevalence of depression and depressive symptoms, especially when they are residents in shelters. We studied 2 groups of elderly patients (60 or more years old): Residents of a shelter and outpatients. There were 36 olds in each group randomly assigned by age and gender. We found a prevalence of depressive symptoms of 5.6 % in the ambulatory group and 36.1 % in the inpatients. (p = 0.004). The incidence of major depression in both groups was nearly the same. We conclude that depressive symptoms arc frequent in the elderly specially those institutionalized.