The ability to live in our
own home and community is a prerequisite to aging in place. Yet lack of affordability and accessibility
are challenges to staying in home and community as long as one can in the later
years.
Home-less
This month Flyaway Productions presented Multiple Mary and Invisible Jane, a 30-minute aerial dance performance about the struggles of older
homeless women. As part of a trilogy about urban poverty,
this work was based on local investigative journalist Rose Aguilar’s article, “Old, Female and Homeless,” published in The Nation last year. Set against an 80-foot wall of the YMCA in San Francisco
Sleeping in chairs: “You
couldn’t lie down, you had to sit up.”
Carrying your stuff: “It’s
so hard to push pride aside to tell someone I was homeless . . . but people
notice it.”
Living on the streets is
dangerous, with homeless women experiencing high rates of physical, sexual and
emotional violence. A recent UCSF study
found much of the violence on homeless and unstably housed women was inflicted
by acquaintances and strangers. In this context, researchers found that social isolation protected them from experiencing violence.
Multiple Mary (Poppins)
umbrellas represent shelter. The
increase in homeless older women is related to the rising cost of living and
evictions.
After the performance, Flyaway Productions Artistic Director Jo Kreiter and dancers touch ground for Q & A session. Their goal is to give light and inspire compassion to the plight of the growing numbers of older women living on the streets of
Single Room Occupancy (SRO)
Chinese Historical Society of America (CHSA)’s exhibit, “Living in Chinatown: SRO,” featured artist Frank Wong’s miniature diorama and a life-size version of a Chinatown Single-Room Occupancy (SRO), and a panel discussion on affordable housing.
This Frank Wong miniature was inspired by a SRO containing all the possessions of a bachelor resident of the International Hotel at the edge of Chinatown. SRO housing,
originally intended for low-income, immigrant workers, are typically rooms
measuring 8 by 10 feet with a communal bathroom down the hall. San Francisco
has over 500 SRO buildings with more than 19,000 units located mainly in the Tenderloin, Chinatown, Mission
Life-size SRO contains bed, sink, and rice cooker. A 2010 survey found that more than half of
SROs in San Francisco
Tenants in SROs are being evicted to create vacancies for tourist rentals,
so it was disturbing to hear District Supervisor David Chiu talk about
investing in SROs and legalizing “in-law units as variations of SROs” to
address affordable housing crisis because he has introduced legislation to legalize
and regulate short-term rentals through online social networking
platforms like Airbnb, which has the
effect of removing SRO units intended for lower-income residents,
while flagrantly violating existing leases, local rent control laws and
prohibitions against converting residential units in buildings with four or
more units to tourist or transient use, and failing to pay the City’s 14% transient
occupancy or hotel tax. Further, these laws have not been enforced,
including the failure to collect an estimated $25 million in back hotel taxes.
CHSA hosted a timely affordable housing discussion with CHSA
Executive Director and former San Francisco Planning Commission President Sue
Lee, Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC) Executive Director Norman Fong, and San Francisco Planning Commission President and CCDC Community
Planning Manager Cindy Wu. Cindy talked
about families crammed into SROs for affordability with an average stay of 7 to 10 years until they have saved enough to move to Visitacion Valley
SRO residents work as
peer organizers through Chinese Progressive Association to improve living conditions in SROs. The
recent college graduate said last year's Ellis Act eviction of Lee family (elderly
couple with disabled adult daughter) from their low-rent apartment of 34 years
empowered her to fight for “just and fair living.” While some people consider SROs as transitional housing, they are permanent housing for others and thus worth taking action to improve habitability.
Last month, California Housing Partnership Corporation released its report, How San Francisco County’s Housing Market is Failing to Meet the Needs of Low-Income Families. It found more than 50% of extremely low-income households are elderly or disabled, and San Francisco is short about 40,845 housing units affordable to the poorest, which means a third of household income; in response, the Mayor’s Office of Housing said it was committed to supplying 10,000 units at below market rate, or just a third of the 30,000 housing units that the Mayor has promised to build or rehabilitate by 2020.
Affordable housing initiatives
Last month, California Housing Partnership Corporation released its report, How San Francisco County’s Housing Market is Failing to Meet the Needs of Low-Income Families. It found more than 50% of extremely low-income households are elderly or disabled, and San Francisco is short about 40,845 housing units affordable to the poorest, which means a third of household income; in response, the Mayor’s Office of Housing said it was committed to supplying 10,000 units at below market rate, or just a third of the 30,000 housing units that the Mayor has promised to build or rehabilitate by 2020.
At the top of San Francisco Planning and Urban Research (SPUR)’s 8 Ways to Make San Francisco Affordable Again is protect the existing rent controlled housing stock. San Francisco
Eviction Free San Francisco (EFSF), a direct action group for housing justice, has organized public protests against the displacement of long-time San Franciscan seniors by serial evictors. This rally and press conference outside San Francisco Superior Courthouse took place before the hearing that quashed the attempted Ellis Act eviction of seniors Patricia Kerman and Tom Rapp based on improper service of their eviction notice by their landlord Kaushik Dattani, who has used Ellis Act on 24 households in the Mission District.
Demonstrators carried signs, “ELLIS ACT IS ELDER ABUSE” and “STOP EVICTING SENIORS.” Earlier this month, the Ellis Act eviction of 63-year-old teacher Benito Santiago was rescinded after protests by anti-eviction activists.
Senior and Disability Action (SDA), winner of this year’s n4a Aging Innovations Award for advocacy, kept busy advocating for affordable housing.
At SDA’s July meeting on Housing, longtime community activist Calvin Welch and Housing Rights Committee Community Organizer Fred Sherburn-Zimmer discussed housing balance and anti-speculation tax legislation.
Angelica Cabande, Organizing Director of SOMCAN (South Of Market Community Action Network) presented Healthy SoMa (South of Market) about the impact of the 1990s dot-com resulting in gentrification and displacement of mostly seniors, veterans, homeless, low-income residents and Filipino community. Now this second tech boom is impacting not just SoMa and Mission Districts but the entire City of San Francisco . Between 2012 and 2013, evictions went up by 115%! Angelica discussed the need for Housing Balance between market rate and affordable housing, with public participation, in order to increase the City’s accountability for meeting its housing goals.
SDA University Organizer Pi Ra and Housing Organizer Tony Robles provided advocacy training on Protect Affordable Housing: Stop the Flipping Speculators at the International Hotel Manilatown Center. Tony’s uncle Al Robles was a poet-activist involved in the almost decade-long fight against eviction of the original I-Hotel Manilatown tenants to preserve low-income housing and their community.
Fred talked about support for anti-speculation tax (Proposition G), which is an additional transfer tax on certain multi-unit residential properties that are sold within 5 years of purchase: up to 24% then scaling down to 14% on the fifth year.
Calvin explained that San Francisco has a shortage of land available to build housing: of its 46.7 square miles, 23 square miles is developable (not beach, parks) and only 13 square miles zoned for housing. He also provided a history of San Francisco development, blaming today’s housing crisis on ill-conceived land use policies for the past 30 years that favored office buildings over housing, assuming workers would live in suburbs. But most people want to live in San Francisco , including tech workers in Silicon Valley. In fact, San Francisco’s population has grown to an all-time high of 837,442 in 2013. To address affordable housing, he favors policies designed to control housing costs and conversions, and investment in public and subsidized housing.
April Veneracion was former SOMCAN Director before becoming District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim’s legislative aide to focus on land use and redevelopment. April worked on the initial Housing Balance proposal that included mandated conditional use approval for developments if construction of units fall below the 30% below-market-rate unit threshold. However, the Mayor’s Office believed this would slow development so the "compromise" measure resulted in a housing policy statement (Proposition K) that sets a goal of providing 33% below-market-rate units and annually reporting on the cumulative ratio between below-market-rate and market-rate housing.
Building home and community
through design
The 2014 Architecture and the City festival theme, Home: My San Francisco
At
the San Francisco Chapter office of American Institute of Architects (AIA), Home Matters convened a panel for a conversation about The Future of Affordable
Housing: How Do We Create
Affordable Housing Beyond Just Shelter? Panelists included Russell
Krummow of Opportunity Nation,
Susan Neufeld of non-profit BRIDGE Housing,
architect Lisa Gelfand,
and neuroscientist Pireeni Sundaralingam.
Defining home as beyond shelter, it provides a sense of place and
relationships to feel connected and engaged as part of a community. Designing home with a view of the individual
as part of an ecosystem provides opportunities for interaction with the natural
environment (daylight, fresh air, healthy materials, spaciousness) and
access to resources like transportation and social capital to enhance emotional
well-being and health benefits.
Mapping the home: The roles of subjective and objective in the design process panel of architects and UCSF
neurologist Zachary Miller repeated theme of our brains responding to the built
environment, nature as healing and creating spaces that feel good to reduce
stress. However, hospitals (nursing homes) may not be
healing environments when the wrong science causes problems like sick building syndrome,
with sealed windows intended for infection control, but trapping indoor air pollution
that is worse than outdoor pollution from operable windows that allow natural
ventilation.
San Francisco 
I didn't buy an all-fest pass to this month’s 4th
annual LFFOA, but I attended Friday's Opening Night and Sunday's afternoon screening. With its mission to inspire, educate (including CEUs for MFTs and LCSWs) and entertain intergenerational audiences about the issues surrounding aging,
LFFOA builds community. Opening
Night featured Three Perspectives on Aging:
Burn the Clock (UK drama short
about septuagenarians who smoke, drink and have sex), Beauty Before Age (documentary about fear of aging in gay male community that values youth/beauty;
one older interviewee mentioned that he used physical attractiveness to
compensate for his emptiness because he was really seeking validation and
connection) and Fabulous Fashionistas (UK
documentary about 6 women, whose average age is 80 who show us that style and
attitude is not just clothes but knowing what you want like “live in color, don’t
wear beige—it might kill you,” being comfortable in “faithful clogs—Crocs,” and
making the most of whatever time is left including self-care and being
interested).
Community engagement
Aging in place is about
growing old in one’s own home, as opposed to nursing home placement, and
facilitating this process by making home safety modifications. However, this focus makes aging in place limited to physical and safety needs.
Aging in community is a more holistic approach that considers our need for connection. San
Francisco
Because loneliness is independently associated with functional decline and risk of nursing home
placement that jeopardizes aging in place, it’s important to identify
loneliness and interventions. Patrick
Arbore, Director and Founder of Center for Elderly Suicide Prevention and Grief
Related Services at Institute on Aging,
presented a talk about loneliness in gerontologist Hope Levy’s Staying Engaged for a Lifetime,
offered through City College of San Francisco at our Main Library.
According to the U.S. Census
Bureau, the number of Americans living alone in 2010 was 29 million – a 30%
increase since 1980. However, Dr. Arbore
mentioned that introverts, like himself, prefer solitude so we should not
assume that living alone means loneliness.
Instead, loneliness is a feeling of longing
and emptiness that is caused by the lack of emotional attachment and/or social ties – and thus a subjective
experience. Loneliness expert Louise Hawkley proposed loneliness has three
dimensions: isolation, connectedness and belongingness. Ageism contributes to feelings of being
invisible and ignored.
Loneliness interventions
include:
- ask about loneliness
- spend time with the person, in silence or in
conversation
- assist the person in keeping contact with
people important to them
- explore the nature of loneliness with the person
- develop community support for the person
Practice Oprah’s Just Say Hello! Dr. Arbore urged us to be more
welcoming and less suspicious in our fear-based culture:
- connect with people
- be as present as possible with people who are
lonely
- empathize with people’s losses and suffering
- EASE our way to social connection:
Extend yourself to others
Action plan
Selection – solution is quality, not quantity, of
relationships
Expect the best – we have more control over our
thoughts than we think
Afterwards, LFFOA Executive Director Sheila Malkind moderated a Q
&A with Beauty Before Age director Johnny Symons and Dazie Rustin Grego, 19-year-old who said “life is over after age 26” in
1997 documentary. Now a 37-year-old performance
artist, Dazie said he is more thoughtful, less about “look-ism, pretty doll
image” and he was just telling his truth at age 19 though this offended some
people.
LFFOA’s Opening Night was
also a celebration of Sheila turning age 76! In her interview with KALW’s Your Call host Rose Aguilar about What does it mean to be an elder today, Sheila said she wishes women would stop worrying about aging and stating their
age because we should be proud to get to that stage and do wonderful
things. Sheila is a fabulous fashionista
herself by embracing aging -- “no botox, plastic surgery” plus no hair dye!
Sunday afternoon screening
of Forget Me Not (Vergiss Mein Nicht), a documentary by
German filmmaker David Sieveking about the home care of his mother who had
Alzheimer’s disease, showed his use of music, travel, and reading his mother’s
diaries (revealing his professor father’s infidelity, which reminded me of the drama Away From Her) to maintain personal
connection. At times, his mother simply
wants to retreat in response to attempts to engage her in activities—scenes
that resonated with me because I can relate to just wanting down time at home. After all, home should be a place of
retreat—a break from the programmed activities of an institution like a senior
center, assisted living, nursing home, cruise ship, etc.
In Wendy Lustbader’s It All Depends on What You Mean by Home, her study of elders who did not feel at home after moving to continuing care retirement communities (CCRC) to receive supportive services, she found that discontented elders sought: 1) access to dignity, privacy and choice inherent in normal life (versus reminders to “keep busy” through a program of activities like staying at a perpetual resort), 2) the capacity to form significant relationships (versus age segregation that leaves one disconnected from the outside world), and 3) the means to contribute to other people’s lives (reciprocity versus being served all the time).
In Wendy Lustbader’s It All Depends on What You Mean by Home, her study of elders who did not feel at home after moving to continuing care retirement communities (CCRC) to receive supportive services, she found that discontented elders sought: 1) access to dignity, privacy and choice inherent in normal life (versus reminders to “keep busy” through a program of activities like staying at a perpetual resort), 2) the capacity to form significant relationships (versus age segregation that leaves one disconnected from the outside world), and 3) the means to contribute to other people’s lives (reciprocity versus being served all the time).
Community Living Campaign (CLC)
uses the power of relationships to build connections of support that we need to
age in community. CLC’s Aging While Black Forum returned to Pilgrim
Community Church
(panel) and IT Bookman
Center
Senior
Assembly Member E. Anne Warren represents Older Californians in San Francisco County
Pilgrim
Community Church Pastor Harold Pierre recognized CLC Community Connector Deloris McGee for founding annual Aging While Black Forum and her community connecting
work to support healthy aging in place.
Deloris is retiring and leaving San Francisco
to return to her hometown in Mississippi San Francisco
What we mean when we talk about "affordable housing"
ReplyDeleteBy Liza Veale
5:14PM
Tue October 7, 2014
When we say “affordable housing” we're actually using a precisely defined concept. "Affordable", in this context, means housing that costs no more than 30 percent of a household’s income.
Here in the Bay Area, almost half of us are living in housing we can’t, by this definition, "afford". It's become so common, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the economy didn’t used to work this way.
The rising cost of housing in relation to wages, it turns out, is a symptom of the widening income gap. . .
Fifty years ago, one person’s minimum wage was enough money to keep a family in stable housing.
San Francisco has the biggest wealth gap in the country. That's why it also has the toughest housing market. When there’s such a big divergence in what wealthy people are making and what everyone else is making, the prices of housing get further out of reach. The market just won’t supply workforce housing when there’s so much demand for luxury, expensive housing. It won't, because it’s not as lucrative for developers.
That’s where the government steps in with subsidies. By subsidizing housing, developers will build and make their profits, but people who can’t afford that housing stock get helped out. Mike Pyatok says that helps keep expensive regions in balance. . .
In order to maintain its middle class, the Bay Area is trying to do a better job of providing subsidies for people who make the median income and even a little more than the median. In San Francisco, that number is about $68,000/year for one person, and a little more for bigger households. The way subsidies work is households pay 30% of their income, whatever that may be, and someone else foots the rest of the bill.
Supply and demand
In most Bay Area cities the need for subsidies really dwarfs the supply. Subsidized units make up about 8-9% of the total housing stock. The waiting lists are thousands of people long, and getting longer.
The main reason why the affordability crisis is getting worse is because the population growth of the Bay Area is seriously outpacing the production of housing. The region is projected to grow from seven to nine million people over the next 20 years. We’re making a game of musical chairs out of the housing stock. And when there’s a shortage, low and middle income people will be out-competed every time. . .
The state of California and lot of Bay Area cities have more tax revenue dollars to put toward affordable housing funds than they have in the past. But they’ve also got a new strategy: instead of just using taxes to subsidize housing, they’re taking the subsidy out of the developers' pockets. They’re saying, 'if you want to build 100 units here, you have to make 30 of them affordable, or below market rate.'
But that 30/70 ration is not an across-the-board requirement. There’s a political balancing act playing out right now – cities want developers to provide as much as they can, but they realize they can’t just take all of developers’ profits away. If they did, nothing would get built, including new affordable housing.
http://kalw.org/post/what-we-mean-when-we-talk-about-affordable-housing
The evolution of "affordable housing"
By Liza Veale
5:20PM
Tue October 7, 2014
We don’t build housing projects like we used to anymore. It used to be big, labyrinthine complexes like Marcy Houses in New York, Cabrini Green in Chicago, and Geneva Towers in San Francisco. Today, conversations about development have to do with mixed-use, mixed-income communities. Much of the change has to do with how cities now think about urbanism. And a lot has to do with how affordable housing gets funded.
http://kalw.org/post/evolution-affordable-housing
Absent after having stroke, senior served with eviction notice
ReplyDeleteBy Heather Knight
Updated 2:22 pm, Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Oh, the San Francisco Housing Authority. Its staff is always good for a “They did what?” article — but at least this one doesn’t end as badly as they usually do.
You may recall the sad story of Mary DiGuiseppi, a 94-year-old woman who has lived at Clementina Towers South of Market for 29 years. She lives on the 10th floor of the public housing high-rise for seniors and disabled people, and whenever the frequently malfunctioning elevators are both broken, she's stranded in her room.
In September 2013, DiGuiseppi was dropped off at Clementina Towers by a shuttle van after visiting her adult day care program. The elevators were both out, and DiGuiseppi was stranded in the lobby for 101/2 hours with no food, no water and no access to a restroom.
“I was in the lobby all alone, and I was frightened and cold,” she told The Chronicle later, noting the only help she got was from a security guard who put two chairs together for her to lie on. “It was very uncomfortable and painful.”
DiGuiseppi became one of 24 tenants to sue the Housing Authority for not fixing the elevators despite years of complaints. In April, Mayor Ed Lee said he found $5.4 million in his housing budget to get the elevators at Clementina Towers and other public housing projects fixed — though the ones in DiGuiseppi’s building won’t be completed for another year.
DiGuiseppi suffered a severe stroke about six weeks ago and after a brief stay at St. Francis Hospital is being cared for in a rehabilitation center in the city. Her husband and two sons are dead, and DiGuiseppi has no power of attorney in place. She failed to pay her October rent of $259.
On Oct. 21, a notice from the Housing Authority was taped to DiGuiseppi’'s door telling her she had 14 days to pay her back rent or she’d be evicted. Obviously, she wasn’t inside and wouldn’t have known she received it.
Her neighbor and friend Terry Bagby spotted the note, read it — and gave us a call. We contacted the Housing Authority, whose director Barbara Smith said it was a mistake. The 14-day notices are automatically generated by a computer when back rent is due — although we saw the notice, and it was hand-signed and hand-delivered, so it wasn’t exactly automatic.
“When you got involved, housing wanted to change their tune,” Bagby said. “They don’t like the media attention they get.”
Smith said the agency’s staff is now working with DiGuiseppi’s social worker to put a conservator in place to manage her money and pay her bills. In the meantime, the eviction is off the table.
“Of course we’re going to keep her apartment for her while she's convalescing — absolutely,” Smith assured us. “We have absolutely no intention of any kind of eviction against Miss DiGuiseppi.”
Smith even visited DiGuiseppi at the rehabilitation center. She visited her after the 101/2-hour elevator malfunction, too.
“We’re hoping she recovers and comes back,” Smith said.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Absent-after-having-stroke-senior-served-with-5853474.php
Seniors: Priced-Out in San Francisco
ReplyDeleteBy Samantha Kaplan and Shaminder Dulai
10/30/14 at 11:44 AM
Benito Santiago has lived at his home in the Mission for 37 years and is being evicted through the Ellis Act. The Mission district was quickly gentrified and has pushed many long time residents out. For nearly three decades Diego Deleo . . .At 80, he has evolved with the times . .
Diego Deleo has lived at has apartment in North Beach, San Francisco for 27 years and is being evicted through the Ellis Act. As a senior, a year ago he automatically received a one year extension for moving out but as his time runs out he is still trying to figure out where he will go. He’s one of the original San Franciscans, the ones who lived in the city long before the recent tech booms that sent property values soaring to make it one of the nations most expensive zip codes; and he’s feeling the pinch.
Deleo is among a growing minority of long time San Francisco residents under rent-control who are being displaced through evictions so that the properties they have long called home can be sold off to a younger generation of buyers flush with cash.
A little over a year ago, Deleo received a notice from his landlord that he was being evicted from his home of almost 30 years through the Ellis Act, a controversial California State law which allows property owners to evict tenants if they want to leave the rental business. Meant to be used as a last-resort, the Ellis Act has been used more and more by new property owners who are looking for an easy means to flip a building.
“At my age it’s almost impossible to adapt to another environment of the city. This is my home,” says Deleo. On a fixed income, Deleo does not expect he’ll be able to afford to continue living in the neighborhood he calls home once he is forced to leave.
At just 49 square miles and surrounded by water on three sides, in the ‘City By The Bay,’ evictions like Deleo’s are becoming an unfortunate reality for a growing handful of residents who are falling victim to the booming Northern California economy.
Advocates for renters acknowledge evictions in a city with limited housing and high demand is nothing new, but the numbers in recent years, as well as the nature of the evictions, point to what many are deeming a crisis.
According to the San Francisco Rent Board’s annual report on evictions, 1,977 eviction notices were filed this year, a 417% increase from 2012. The highest they've been since the first tech boom hit the Bay Area in 2001.
“Unlike in years past, if a tenant is evicted from their home today in San Francisco, they are more than likely going to be evicted from the city as a whole,” said Erin McElroy, a housing rights advocate and founder of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project.
Vivian Montes de Oca has lived in her apartment in the Inner Sunset for 25 years and is being evicted through the Ellis Act. She has until May 2015 to leave her apartment. In response, tenants-rights activists like McElroy are fighting to stop the evictions and pushing for the passage of Proposition G, otherwise known as the ‘Anti-Speculators tax,’ set for a vote on the November 4th ballot.
If passed, the proposition would impose a steep tax on the sales price of multi-unit apartment buildings bought and re-sold in less than five years of purchase, a key window of time advocates say speculators are most likely to evict tenants and flip a property. . . .
"A lot of memories there. The move is not a picnic, not a good thing,” reflects Deleo. “But I accept it. What can you do? That's capitalism, that's reality."
http://www.newsweek.com/photos-priced-out-san-francisco-280028
S.F. police release video of 'savage’ killing of homeless man
ReplyDeleteBy Evan Sernoffsky
Updated 8:17 pm, Tuesday, December 2, 2014
In his 25 years at the San Francisco Police Department, Lt. Toney Chaplin says he has never seen a killing as brutal as the beating death of Tai Lam.
Police found the 67-year-old man dead Nov. 24 in his sleeping bag in an alcove at 137 Sutter St. in the Financial District. Lam — 5-foot-5, less than 100 pounds and homeless — had been viciously beaten by three suspects as he slept 5 feet away from the crutches he used to get around. . .
Police do not know what, if anything, motivated the attack, which alarmed advocates for the homeless.
“It is incredibly vulnerable to sleep outside,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, who directs the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco and did not know Lam. “Homeless people say they have to sleep with one eye open. It’s really common for people to come into our office who have been severely beaten when they were sleeping.”
Friedenbach said homeless attack victims come into her office about once a week, but that the number of attacks on city streets is “definitely a lot higher.”
“Most of the people who are without housing are disabled and elderly, like Tai,” she said. “All these are vulnerable populations that are unable to defend themselves.”
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/S-F-police-release-video-of-savage-killing-5930577.php
At Assisted-Living Home Set to Close, Holdouts Dig In as Services Dry Up
ReplyDeleteBy VIVIAN YEE
NOV. 28, 2014
In the eight months since the operator of the Prospect Park Residence announced it was closing the assisted-living residence, the number of people living in the building has dwindled to eight from more than 120. Most of the staff has left or been let go. . .
“They played games,” said Alice Singer, 90, a retired bacteriologist who is one of a small group of residents suing the operator of the residence over what many see as a campaign to harass the residents out of the building so that it can be turned into luxury condominiums, the latest casualty of Brooklyn’s housing boom. “They wanted us to leave, and that’s all there was to it.”
A judge has repeatedly ordered the building’s owner, Haysha Deitsch, to restore services while the court weighs whether the State Health Department should have let him begin closing it earlier this year. Mr. Deitsch’s company initially gave residents 90 days to move out, prompting many to leave, but the judge ordered last week that eviction proceedings not be started against those who remained.
When he announced the closing in March, Mr. Deitsch blamed mounting financial losses and a soaring tax bill. But then it emerged that he had sold the building in January to an investment firm, Sugar Hill Capital Partners, for $76.5 million. Sugar Hill sued Mr. Deitsch in August, claiming he had failed to meet the conditions of the sale, which included closing the residence. (The deal included a bonus for Mr. Deitsch if he reduced the number of residents to fewer than three within 16 months after the sale closed, according to court filings in the litigation between him and Sugar Hill.)
The residence is trying to surrender its operating certificate “not because of any financial difficulty in operating the facility, but in order to sell the building to an entity that will convert the building to unregulated housing,” wrote the judge, Justice Wayne P. Saitta of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, in his ruling last week. . .
Those who remain in the building hope to do so indefinitely, continuing, in their words, to “age in place” while other parts of the building are converted into condos. To them, their other options seem bleak: There are few assisted-living facilities in Brooklyn — none as conveniently located as the Prospect Park Residence — and moving can be especially hard on the elderly. . .
Most disturbing for those who remain is the food now being served: Nutritional meals, they said, have been replaced with fish sticks and hot dogs. . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/29/nyregion/at-assisted-living-home-prospect-park-residence-set-to-close-holdouts-dig-in-as-services-dry-up.html
Advanced Style film celebrates vivacious, in vogue seniors
ReplyDeleteThursday, December 11, 2014
Photographer Ari Seth Cohen and one of his favourite models, Joyce Carpati, join guest host Wab Kinew to discuss the street style of fashion-savvy seniors and why one need not look young to look great.
For years, Cohen has been taking pictures of older folks who literally stop him in his tracks -- and as the appetite for diverse images of aging grows, so too does his project. Advanced Style has gone from blog to book to feature-length documentary.
"We wanted to show a different picture of aging -- a really positive, joyful image of getting older," says Cohen, adding that society doesn't pay enough attention to those aging creatively.
Click here or on the listen button above full segment (audio runs 19:24).
http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2014/12/11/advanced-style-ari-seth-cohen/
COURT STOPS NORTH BEACH ELLIS EVICTION
ReplyDeleteby Randy Shaw on December 18, 2014
In another victory for long-term senior San Francisco tenants, on December 17 the San Francisco Superior Court quashed the Ellis eviction of North Beach poet Diego DeLeo. DeLeo’s case galvanized tenants. His victory marks yet another legal victory for longterm, elderly tenants facing displacement by speculator Ellis evictions.
The 79 year old DeLeo immigrated to San Francisco from Italy when he was 17 years old, and eventually settled in North Beach. He worked as a laborer, a cab driver, and a Senior Escort Crime Prevention Specialist with the SFPD before retiring.
He has lived in the North Beach neighborhood for over 40 years…
DeLeo received an Ellis Act eviction notice from Zacks Freedman, the law firm representing his landlord, Martin Coyne, in August 2013. Zacks Freedman is one of the City’s most notorious Ellis Act evictors.
It represented Urban Green in its efforts to evict 98 year old Mary Elizabeth Phillips, and also represents real estate speculator Sean Whelan, who filed a lawsuit against an 83-year old Chinatown tenant after the tenant vacated an apartment he had lived in since 1964 as a result of Mr. Whelan’s Ellis Act eviction. Andrew Zacks represents Martin Coyne in a lawsuit against the City challenging Supervisor Campos’s enhanced Ellis Act mitigation payments ordinance enacted earlier this year.
The Superior Court ruled that DeLeo’s eviction notice was “fatally defective” because it identified DeLeo’s unit as being in the wrong building on the property. It also failed to state that the landlord was withdrawing all the buildings on the property from the rental market. Commenting on DeLeo’s victory, his attorney Steve Collier of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic said, “tenants should realize that they can defeat Ellis evictions. The more tenants challenge these evictions, the more speculators will realize that they cannot make a quick profit off San Francisco’s red hot real estate market.”
A String of Legal Victories
Since Mayor Lee tripled funding for Ellis eviction defense and the new resources took effect at the start of the year, attorneys funded by the new dollars have stopped a string of Ellis evictions. In August, Collier stopped the eviction of North Beach tenant leader Teresa Frandrich.
In March, Collier’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic colleague Raquel Fox defeated the Ellis eviction of two Latino families on Lucky Street in the Mission. Both units in that case involved elderly longerm tenants. THC’s Matt McFarland permanently stopped the eviction of 98-year old Mary Phillips, a victory that showed that landlord claims that they could not avoid evicting senior tenants are false.
Now that tenants have the legal resources to aggressively contest Ellis evictions, the cost to speculators has greatly escalated. Speculators are now looking at attorneys costs of no less than $50,000 and this is on top of tenant relocation costs…
Randy Shaw is Editor of Beyond Chron, which is published by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic
http://www.beyondchron.org/court-stops-north-beach-ellis-eviction/
Crisis line for seniors struggling for survival as grant ends
ReplyDeleteBy Steve Rubenstein
May 3, 2015
...All calls to the Friendship Line are important, including those from a forgotten, lonely grandma.
“We answer every call,” said Patrick Arbore, a grief counselor and the founder of the only crisis intervention line in California specifically for seniors. “We want to talk to everybody who wants to talk to us. It’s a lot better to prevent a mental health crisis than deal with it after it happens.”
The Friendship Line, a small room full of phones in the Richmond District that has received 100,000 calls a year since 1973, is a facing a crisis of its own. That’s because the state has decided to discontinue a $700,000 mental health grant. On July 1, there may be nobody to answer the phone.
Most crisis lines specialize in young people because, said Arbore, the world specializes in young people. Not the Friendship Line. An old person who begins to contemplate suicide is six times more likely to go through with it than a young person in the same state of mind, Arbore said.
“Older people,” Arbore said, “are less ambivalent about living.”
“In our society, the message is don’t get old,” he said. “How are you supposed to age gracefully when no one will let you do that?”…
Hearing a friendly voice
…None of the callers was suicidal, but nobody calls a crisis line if there’s something else to do. The more intense calls tend to come in the middle of the night, Arbore said, when the world is a darker place with darker thoughts.
The Friendship Line volunteers are trained to ask if the caller has planned how to commit suicide — the more detailed the plan, the more serious the threat. Volunteers are also trained to know when to shut up and listen.
Seniors won’t call something that bills itself as a “suicide hot line,” Arbore said, and they won’t send texts, either. He knows his customers.
Defunding a crisis line is shortsighted, he said. A call to a crisis line might cost the state a few dollars. If the caller phones 911 instead and gets an ambulance ride and an emergency room visit, that can cost the state a few thousand dollars.
One-time grant runs out
A spokesman for the California Mental Health Services Authority, which administered the discontinued grant, said the Friendship Line’s current funding was for three years only and that period had expired.
“Our limited funding levels restrict our ability to fund all the programs we would like to,” said spokesman Mike Roth. “It was a one-time grant for three years, and that’s it.”
Arbore said he is trying to raise money from donors to keep Friendship Line open after the state money runs out. So far he is about $600,000 short. Every dollar counts. Arbore reaches into his own pocket to buy the cookies and pretzels that volunteers munch between calls.
Nowhere else to turn
Besides taking calls, the Friendship Line conducts grief counseling group therapy sessions. No one is turned away for lack of funds.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Crisis-line-for-seniors-struggling-for-survival-6239763.php
Confined to Nursing Homes, but Longing (and Ready) for Home
ReplyDeleteBy KATIE THOMAS, SHERI FINK and MITCH SMITH
MAY 13, 2016
…Across the nation, many other Americans who could live elsewhere with help are unwillingly confined to nursing homes or long-term care facilities. Nearly 20 years after the Supreme Court ruled that disabled people requiring public support were entitled to live in their community, rather than in institutions unless medically necessary, the federal government and states are still far from achieving that goal. Because of budget cuts, inflexible rules, a patchwork of programs and a widespread failure to bolster alternative care …
“Those people are not in view,” said Eve Hill, the deputy assistant attorney general in the civil rights division at the Department of Justice…
Since 2009, the department has conducted investigations, brought lawsuits and settled with eight states over compliance with the court decision, which Ms. Hill said changed the assumptions of what people can do. “That requires us to unbuild something,” she added, “and to build it differently.”
Some states, including Minnesota, Oregon and Washington, have made real progress, taking steps like shifting more Medicaid dollars to home support, training caregivers to administer medications and paying family members who provide assistance. But in many others, government inaction and structural obstacles like a shortage of home health care aides have often made nursing homes the only option. South Dakota was singled out last week by federal officials who threatened to sue if the state did not fix its problems.
More than 1.4 million Americans live in nursing homes, but it is hard to know how many of them could move back home. Federal data suggests that about 155,000 nursing home residents have a low need for round-the-clock assistance. And about 217,000 people are of working age, another group that experts say could function well at home. But long-term care experts said that some residents who are sicker might also be good candidates to leave.
Sharon Overall of Fenton, Mo., 65, who entered a nursing home for what was to be a month of rehabilitation after injuring her spine, ended up spending 18 months there, losing her house, car and life insurance policies with nearly all her income going to the nursing home.
…A range of factors conspire to prevent residents from leaving. In many states, Medicaid programs restrict home health services, limiting the hours of care, for example. Waiting lists are common. Mentally ill people, for whom nursing homes are shelters of last resort, are particularly difficult to place. And everywhere, it seems, affordable, accessible housing for disabled people is in short supply.
Living at home is not the right choice for everyone, of course, even with assistance. Some people are too ill. Managing aides can be daunting, and family members might not be able — or willing — to care for relatives or share their homes, particularly when cognitive skills are impaired. For those without family, living alone can be isolating.
Still, about half of Medicaid spending on long-term care now goes toward services in the home or community, compared with less than 20 percent two decades ago, though that varies widely by state. Health care officials predict demand for in-home services will only grow as the population ages…
Many states have concluded that caring for people at home is more cost-effective…
…Federal rules now require nursing homes to ask residents at least quarterly whether they want to talk with someone about living in the community and, if so, connect them with a local agency…
…Accomplishing that has not been easy, state officials said: Each person needing support requires a network of people and organizations to address housing needs, provide assistive technologies and find grants and programs to cover these costs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/us/nursing-homes-medicaid.html
Aging in Place
ReplyDeleteBy JANE E. BRODY
May 2, 2016 5:45 am
…I suspect that most people are reluctant to think about changing where and how they live as long as they are managing well at the moment. Lisa Selin Davis reports in AARP magazine that “almost 90 percent of Americans 65 or older plan to stay in their homes as they age.” Yet for many, the design of their homes and communities does not suit older adults who lack the mobility, agility and swiftness of the young.
For those who wish to age in place, the authors of “70Candles: Women Thriving in Their 8th Decade,” Jane Giddan and Ellen Cole, list such often-needed home attributes as an absence of stairs, wide doorways to accommodate a walker or wheelchair, slip-resistant floors, lever-style door knobs, remotely controlled lighting, walk-in showers, railings, ramps and lifts. Add to these a 24-hour help system, mobile phone, surveillance cameras and GPS locaters that enable family members to monitor the well-being of their elders.
In many communities, volunteer organizations, like Good Neighbors of Park Slope in Brooklyn and Staying in Place in Woodstock, N.Y., help older residents remain in their homes and live easier and more fulfilling lives.
…growing number of empty-nested retirees are now moving to city centers where they can access public transportation, shop on foot for food and household needs, and enjoy cultural offerings and friendly gatherings without depending unduly on others.
One reason my friends and I are unwilling to even consider leaving our Brooklyn community is our ability to walk…and get virtually everywhere in the city with low-cost and usually highly efficient public transportation. No driving necessary.
…Throughout the country, communities are being retrofitted to accommodate the tsunami of elders expected to live there as baby boomers age. Changes like altering traffic signals and street crossings to give pedestrians more time to cross enhance safety for people whose mobility is compromised. New York City, for example, has created Aging Improvement Districts,…to help older people “live as independently and engaged in the city as possible,” Ms. Giddan and Ms. Cole wrote. In East Harlem, for example, merchants have made signs easier to read and provided folding chairs for seniors who wish to rest before and after shopping.
In Philadelphia, a nonprofit organization, Friends in the City, calls itself a “community without walls” designed to bring members closer to the city’s resources and to one another. It offers seniors a daily variety of programs to suit many cultural and recreational interests.
Also evolving is the concept of home sharing, in which several older people who did not necessarily know one another get together to buy a home in which to live and share responsibilities for shopping, cooking, cleaning and home repair. For example, in Oregon, Let’s Share Housing, and in Vermont, Home Share Now, have online services that connect people with similar needs, Ms. Giddan and Ms. Cole report…
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/aging-in-place/
To Stay in their Communities, Seniors First Need A Place To Live
ReplyDeleteHoward Gleckman, CONTRIBUTOR
MAY 27, 2016 @ 10:30 AM
…you can’t age in place without a “place.”
In a new report released this week, called Healthy Aging Begins at Home, the Bipartisan Policy Center made 30 recommendations for how government can improve access to quality housing for seniors. They include enhanced housing subsidy programs for low-income seniors, modest steps aimed at integrating housing with health care and supportive services, and encouraging greater use of technology to improve care at home.
Affordable Housing for Seniors
The BPC recommendations are important, though modest. Appropriately, they are mostly aimed at increasing the number of subsidized rental units for low-income seniors. BPC estimates that there are about 11.2 million “extremely low-income” households in the U.S., including 2.6 million with older adults, competing for just 4.3 million affordable rental units. On average, these households have total annual incomes of less than $18,000.Without either direct financial support or government subsidies to developers, it simply is not possible for them to find a place to live.
And it isn’t just about money. Less than 4 percent of housing units are physically accessible to people with moderate mobility limitations, BPC estimates.
BPC also suggested making some fairly modest ways to combine housing with services such as care management, and even health care. In the end, fully integrating such care for low-income seniors probably requires a broad rethinking of Medicare, Medicaid, and government housing programs in a way that dramatically increases the flexibility of these programs. BPC didn’t go that far, but it did endorse some limited experiments as well as expanding a program called Independence at Home which provides primary care to people with chronic disease living in their own homes.
Should Everyone Age In Place
It also urged local governments to provide greater regulatory flexibility for non-traditional community housing alternatives. For instance, older adults increasingly are experimenting with shared housing in informal group homes. But in many cities, it is illegal for more than four or five unrelated adults to live in a single home.
The recommendations failed to address some other critical issues, many involving seniors who are not poor enough to benefit from government housing programs. For instance, care for middle-income seniors living in suburban neighborhoods is a serious but rarely discussed challenge. Delivering services to a population that is spread widely through a suburban county is difficult, time-consuming, and costly. Those single-family homes can be hard to keep up, and unsafe for a frail elder. Public transportation is often inaccessible. And it can be lonely living in suburban cul-de-sac when your young-family neighbors are off at work or school all day. Aging in place isn’t always the right answer…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/howardgleckman/2016/05/27/to-stay-in-their-communities-seniors-first-need-a-place-to-live/#50f5b7ba40ae
The Future of Retirement Communities: Walkable and Urban
ReplyDeleteRetiring
By JOHN F. WASIK OCT. 14, 2016
…more older people these days are looking for a community where they can enjoy a full life without a car.
… “We realized ‘aging in place’ means a lot more than just a comfortable house,” Mr. Brown said. “So we began thinking more about ‘aging in community.’ That means an urban neighborhood where you can walk or take transit to just about everything you need.”
Then they discovered West Asheville, a vibrant, urban neighborhood that is brimming with trendy new restaurants, inviting shops and a number of bus routes into the larger city next door. Nearly every place they wanted to go was within walking distance, a major benefit for those who don’t want to drive everywhere as they get older.
... Eighty percent of retirees still live in car-dependent suburbs and rural areas, according to a Brookings Institution study.
Developments for independent retirees typically come in two flavors: isolated, gated subdivisions or large homes on golf courses, often in the same bland package of multiple cul-de-sacs. Both require driving everywhere, which is a problem for those who either don’t want to drive or can’t.
Enter a new paradigm: the walkable, urban space. It may range from existing neighborhoods in places like Brooklyn or San Francisco to newly built housing within city and suburban cores from coast to coast… The theme is simple: Get out and walk to basic services.
Walkability, though, is much more than a hip marketing pitch. It’s linked to better health, social engagement and higher property values.
…But there are many obstacles. Age-friendly communities within cities may require extensive infrastructure improvements, including wider sidewalks, bike lanes, more public transportation options and longer pedestrian signal walk times. Local officials may not want to rezone or invest in the improvements or even permit them.
Michael Glynn, a vice president with National Development in Boston, who has built walkable communities primarily for homeowners 75 and older, said he had faced many roadblocks in pursuing his projects.
“Towns are frightened by density,” Mr. Glynn said, referring to clustering housing units in downtown areas. “But if you build in the right, walkable location, it could do a lot of good for an 85-year-old.”
Walkable areas in mature cities, though, may be unaffordable for retirees who are interested in paring their overall housing costs. Some of the most walkable cities are among the most expensive: New York, San Francisco and Boston top the list compiled by Walkscore.com, which also rates individual neighborhoods.
New York’s Little Italy and Flatiron Districts; Chinatowns in Boston, San Francisco, New York and Washington; Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square; and Chicago’s Near North and West Loop all scored well.
Although the price tags for these neighborhoods can be lofty, there is a financial upside. They promise higher home equity down the road, if you can afford to buy there…
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/15/business/the-future-of-retirement-communities-walkable-and-urban.html
Home Sharing: A Win-Win for the 50+
ReplyDeleteBy Nancy A. LeaMond On November 22, 2016 @ 12:16 pm In Where We Stand
AARP recently conducted a survey to find out where people want to live when they retire. You may think a warm-weather climate topped the list, but the No. 1 place was right where they are now. More than two-third of respondents — 69 percent — said they want to stay in their homes and the communities where they currently live.
Staying put has a lot of benefits — you’ll be near your friends and the social activities that you’re used to, you can keep your doctor, and if children and grandchildren are nearby, you can spend more time with them. But there can also be significant financial obstacles. Owning a home — especially if it’s a larger family home — comes with a lot of costs. After retirement, affording mortgage payments, insurance, maintenance and property taxes becomes much more difficult.
For a long time, it was expected that by the time you hit retirement your mortgage would be paid off — eliminating that expense from your monthly budget. But a number of studies show that that’s no longer the case for a growing number of retirees. According to the data from the National Health and Retirement Study analyzed by the Urban Institute, the proportion of Americans over 65 with mortgage debt has increased from 16 percent in 1998 to 24 percent in 2012. And the dollar amount of monthly mortgage debt has also gone up. The federal Consumer Financial Protection Board reports that between 2001 and 2011 the median mortgage debt for seniors went up by 82 percent to about $79,000.
To help defray these costs, a growing number of older Americans are seeking out alternative living arrangements. For some, this could mean selling the family house and setting up prefab living units in the backyard of an adult child or caregiver’s home. Others are turning to the “sharing economy” — either opening their homes to full-time housemates or renting out rooms to short-term paying guests. In Portland, Ore., a service called Let’s Share Housing hosts an online database of homeowners and potential housemates. The business was launched in 2009 with the older population in mind, and by 2013, 80 percent of its client base was boomer women. With the support of Vermont’s Area Agencies on Aging, two nonprofits — Home Share Vermont and Home Share Now — matches Vermonters looking for housemates with those looking for affordable homes. The service includes help negotiating everything from appropriate rent to whether the housemate will be expected to do household chores.
Many older homeowners interested in shorter-term arrangements are turning to companies like Airbnb, the online community marketplace that specializes in one-time travel rentals. In fact, the 60-plus demographic is one of the fastest-growing host demographics for company. In terms of economic impact, Airbnb reports in a new study that its older hosts have collectively earned $747 million by renting out rooms through the service. More than half — 58 percent — of its hosts 60 and older say that this additional income helped them stay in their homes.
While technology is facilitating home sharing in the 21st century, the concept really isn’t new. In fact, the U.S. census has counted “roomers and boarders” for over 100 years. The numbers peaked at 3 percent of the total household population during the Great Depression. So today’s trend is really a “back to the future” way of living.
As I’ve written before, participating in the sharing economy may not make sense for everyone, and some have concerns about safety and privacy. The AARP Bulletin online has a good overview of some of the major sharing economy services that includes what to watch out for, whether you’re a provider or a consumer.
http://blog.aarp.org/2016/11/22/home-sharing-a-win-win-for-the-50/
Can America’s Aging Stay in Their Homes?
ReplyDeleteMIMI KIRK
Jan 3, 2017
The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies recently published a report with stunning statistics on housing and aging. By 2035, one in three U.S. households, versus today’s one in five, will be headed by someone 65 or older. This will also mean an American population with one in five people over 65—almost 80 million people—up from one in seven today. That’s an increase of more than 30 million people over the next 20 years.
Many of these Baby Boomers, the report notes, intend to “age in place,” or stay in their homes or communities. This is where the report sounds an alarm: In many ways, we’re just not ready. For example, only 1 percent of housing stock is currently equipped with no-step entrances, single-floor living, wide halls and doorways to allow a wheelchair, electrical controls reachable from a wheelchair, and lever-style handles on faucets and doors—“universal design” elements that help occupants age in their homes. The report highlights accessibility challenges, as well as other hurdles for an aging population: affordability, the need for in-home care, and the potential for isolation.
The growth in the older population will mean an increase in the number of low-income adults. … more older renters and single heads of household, who are even more likely to need financial assistance. Millions will find it difficult to afford changes to their homes to enhance accessibility—or even to stay in them.
… need for in-home care will only increase. By 2035, the number of households with a person with a disability will reach more than 31 million—an increase of 76 percent over current numbers. Twelve million of these households will have someone who needs help with self-care, such as bathing and eating, and another 27 million will have an occupant who has limitations when it comes to household activities such as driving, cooking, and cleaning.
…nearly half of all adults will age in low-density places, which may lack public transport or nearby neighbors and services.
A few programs are working to meet these challenges. Johns Hopkins University’s Community Aging in Place–Advancing Better Living for Elders (CAPABLE) five-month research study, for instance, helped Baltimore residents on Medicare or Medicaid stay in their homes more comfortably and safely by assigning them a nurse, an occupational therapist, and a handyman to make adjustments, such as installing handrails. …now expanding to Michigan, where it could ultimately be integrated into the Michigan Medicaid waiver program.
…AARP…is spurring interest in home design for older residents through such initiatives as design competitions. The 2016 Redefining Home: Home Today, Home Tomorrow contest challenged architects to take $75,000 and alter an existing house in Memphis to make it more conducive to aging in place. The New York City firm that won used much of the funds to widen hallways and remodel the bathroom and kitchen, but it also created an open, light-filled space in front of the house to serve as a meeting area for neighbors...
State and federal tax credits can help older residents make adjustments to their homes.
…For housing yet to be built, residential building codes that mandate features such as wider hallways and no-step entryways can aid future occupants…. some developers are building multigenerational homes, in which aging parents live in a first-floor space and their adult child and their family live in a larger, connected two-floor space…bring relief from loneliness and supply built-in care.
…constructing new housing in more central areas, such as in downtown suburban centers, could also help with isolation…
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2017/01/can-americas-aging-population-stay-in-their-homes/512009/
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ReplyDeleteNEW SRO LAW’S SURPRISING SUCCESS
ReplyDeleteby Randy Shaw on April 25, 2017
It’s been over a month since San Francisco strengthened its law protecting SRO housing, and it’s already working… designed to stop the common but illegal practice of renting residential SRO rooms to tourists by the week. Now the law is crystal clear that residential units cannot be rented for less than 32 days.
I wrote in January that “no measure will more quickly or dramatically expand the city’s affordable housing stock this year.” I predicted it would return “hundreds and perhaps thousands of single room occupancy hotel units to the residential market.”
…Since it took effect on March 17, hotel after hotel that previously advertised weekly rentals now say that they have a minimum one month’s stay.
…Such rapid owner compliance with any new land use measure is rare. San Francisco is still trying to get owners to comply with owner move in eviction laws, 37 years after their initial passage.
Last week, Peskin and Jane Kim introduced legislation to again strengthen enforcement. Their measure cleverly removes incentives for owners issuing OMI notices to pay tenants for waiving the owners legal obligation to occupy the unit. It does so by imposing vacancy control on the units, which prevents owners from using OMI evictions to get higher rents. These “buyouts” put more money in the pockets of tenants and their attorneys but they encourage sham OMI evictions.
When the city strengthened the SRO law in 1990, the new law was widely ignored. Fortunately, the revamped law gave nonprofit organizations like the Tenderloin Housing Clinic (which I head) the right to sue directly to stop illegal hotel conversions; roughly 25 lawsuits and injunctions later we got the level of SRO compliance that we have already seen without litigation with the new law.
Why Rapid Compliance?
There are four explanations:
First, while SRO owners opposed the law they recognize they must follow it. SRO rents have sufficiently risen (try finding a room without bath for under $1200 per month) that they can do quite well without relying on illegally renting residential rooms to tourists.
Second, Internet advertising is easily detected so owners felt they could easily be found in violation if they promoted weekly rentals.
A third, more cynical but not necessarily less accurate explanation is that the hotel industry plans to sue to overturn the new law and does not want the court to see it was being widely violated. My organization was notified by attorneys for some hotels that they planned to sue, and so rapid compliance could be part of this legal strategy.
The fourth possibility is that the effective date of the law was so close to the start of the May I “summer” tourist season that SRO owners did not want to get a violation for renting weekly that could jeopardize their right to rent 25% of their residential rooms to tourists until September 30 as the law allows. If this is the chief reason, we could expect to see illegal weekly advertising starting October 1.
Big Picture: The Law is Working
In the big picture, several hundred residential SRO rooms have already been returned to residential use.This is great news for those seeking housing in San Francisco who find themselves priced out of apartments.
SRO owners have talked about responding to the law’s passage by operating more like apartments in requiring security deposits and last month’s rent. If the marketplace supports such additional upfront payments, then such changes are fine by me.
…San Francisco is a better city when its SRO’s are filled with permanent, longterm tenants. These tenants are driving improvements in the Tenderloin and along Sixth Street, and are the group most likely to be down at City Hall protecting these neighborhood’s interests.
http://www.beyondchron.org/new-sro-laws-surprising-success/
The City’s unaffordable ‘affordable’ senior housing system must change
ReplyDeleteBy Betty Traynor and Wing Hoo Leung on March 13, 2019 1:00 am
As elder San Franciscans we join together to bring attention to an inconvenient truth about so-called ‘affordable’ senior housing in San Francisco. The truth is that most ‘affordable’ senior housing being built is unaffordable to a majority of seniors who need housing.
The city policies and practices that have created these barriers must be changed.
A recently opened senior housing development on Laguna Street stands as an example of The City’s disappointing approach to senior housing. According the city’s announcement, the lowest rent at the building is $1,000 a month. This may not seem like a huge amount in today’s increasingly affluent San Francisco. But for tens of thousands of seniors this is an impossible sum. According to a recent report published by the city, the median income for a single senior is only $1,825 a month. Based upon HUD standards (rents should not exceed 30 percent of income) maximum rents even for middle income seniors should be $547 a month. Lower income seniors need even lower rents.
Why does the city set ‘affordable’ senior rents higher than what most can pay? The problem, we have learned, is that the city sets affordable rents for seniors based upon the same formula that it determines affordability for younger residents. This makes no sense because the overall median income for a single person is $6,900 a month — more than four times higher than the median for seniors.
City policies ignore this inherently unequal reality. While some seniors may be able to continue to work into their seventies, most of us are retired and cannot return to the workforce because of health and other challenges. We must rely on fixed incomes and ever shrinking savings to survive.
The city’s housing policies and priorities also do not reflect the others challenges faced by seniors. The housing crisis has made seniors more vulnerable to displacement and made it harder for them to find appropriate housing. Long time senior tenants are too often targeted for evictions by speculators and landlords. And we hear repeated accounts by other seniors looking for housing being told by landlords that they are looking for younger workers and students who can afford higher rents.
For these reasons we believe it is time for San Francisco’s affordable housing programs and policies to change and reflect the reality of senior incomes and needs. For many seniors, the possibility of qualifying for affordable and accessible senior housing is our only hope to remain in a city in which we labored and still love. Until San Francisco changes its policies and practices most seniors will continue to be left behind.
Betty Traynor is the President of the Board of Senior and Disability Action. Wing Hoo Leung is the President of the Community Tenants Association.
http://www.sfexaminer.com/citys-unaffordable-affordable-senior-housing-system-must-change/
SF to spend $5M to protect seniors, homeless from coronavirus
ReplyDeleteFunding will pay for more cleaning, meals in SROs and shelters
JOSHUA SABATINI
Mar. 9, 2020
San Francisco will spend $5 million to better protect seniors living in single-room occupancy hotels and homeless residents staying in shelters from catching COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Mayor London Breed announced Monday.
The funding will pay for expanded cleaning in homeless shelters, SROs and permanent supportive housing. It will also pay for increased meal deliveries to those living in SROs, where many low-income seniors live, to reduce the need for tenants to leave home.
The announcement comes after San Francisco confirmed five new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 13 cases. The City announced its first two cases four days ago on March 5.
Breed’s announcement said that “The City will fund roving cleaning crews to provide rigorous cleaning in congregate settings” and that “additional janitors will move amongst the City’s shelters, resource centers, and Permanent Supportive Housing that contract with the City.”
The additional funding also comes with a new Public Health order issued by the Department of Public Health establishing minimum cleaning standards for privately-operated SROs and city-funded homeless shelters and resource centers.
“We know that many of our most vulnerable residents—those who could get very sick or die if they contract COVID-19—are living in congregate and semi-congregate settings like shelters and single-room occupancy hotels,” Breed said in a statement. “We have to do more to keep these places clean and work to keep people healthy as this disease spreads within our community.”
“This emergency fund and this Public Health Order are part of our work to respond aggressively to the challenges presented by COVID-19 each and every day,” Breed continued. “Everyone should continue to follow the best health practices, and we will continue to do the work to deliver more protections for those in need.”
Owners of the SROs will have access to some of the funds to help them meet the mandates of the public health order. The City will also establish a team through the Emergency Operations Center to inspect the premises.
Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the Department of Public Health, said that seniors and those with underlying health conditions are most at risk of becoming severely ill or dying if they catch COVID-19.
“That is why we are recommending that people over 60, or with certain underlying health conditions, stay home as much as possible,” Colfax said. “For vulnerable people in SROs or shelters, this investment will help them limit their outings, by assuring that food and shelter is available, and that congregate settings are clean environments.”
Supervisor Aaron Peskin, whose district includes many SROs and a large senior population, supported the plan.
“These are the City’s next steps, informed by meaningful community input and a close collaboration between the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors that will help ensure the public’s health is protected,” Peskin said in a statement.
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/sf-to-spend-5m-to-protect-seniors-homeless-from-coronavirus/