When San Francisco officials were formally presented last April with a plan to address the needs of the city's fast growing LGBT senior population, they vowed not to allow it to collect dust on a shelf in the bowels of City Hall.
Thirteen months later, much headway has been achieved in tackling the 13 areas of concern listed in the 120-page document, titled "LGBT Aging at the Golden Gate: San Francisco Policy Issues and Recommendations." It included 40 specific steps the city could take that would benefit its LGBT senior population, estimated to number nearly 20,000 residents age 60 or older.
"My personal view is a lot has been done," said Bill Ambrunn, a gay man and attorney who chaired the LGBT Aging Policy Task Force, which disbanded once its report was complete. "I think we absolutely achieved our goal of not producing just another report that collects dust."
Gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, who worked with gay District 9 Supervisor David Campos and bisexual former District 5 Supervisor Christina Olague to push for the task force's creation in 2013, told the Bay Area Reporter this week, "I think we have made good progress" on implementing the various policy proposals.
According to a report generated this month by the city's Department of Aging and Adult Services, identifiable steps have been taken to begin addressing all but one of the LGBT aging issues the task force identified, such as social support, health services, legal assistance, and access to affordable housing.
"I think we have done a good bit of work in just a short period of time," DAAS Executive Director Anne Hinton told the B.A.R. "Especially when you realize the time from when the strategic plan came out to today and anything that needed money had to go to the mayor and the board."
One of the bigger achievements occurred in April, when the city enacted first-of-its-kind legislation establishing a "bill of rights" for LGBT seniors living in long-term care facilities.
Hinton said she believes its passage "is a huge, huge thing. It is not about money, it is about good public policy."
The city's funding spigots, though, have been flowing for LGBT senior resources. Several city departments over the last year awarded contracts to Openhouse, a nonprofit agency that focuses on LGBT seniors. And for the first time, DAAS designated Openhouse as an aging and disabilities resource center and awarded it $80,000 to provide case management services in the current fiscal year.
Through a $220,000 two-year grant from the Mayor's Office of Housing, which it is splitting with the LGBT Community Center, Openhouse is also counseling LGBT seniors on how to access affordable housing opportunities in the city. It broke ground this spring on its own long delayed project to build 110 units of affordable housing as part of the 55 Laguna in-fill development.
Openhouse also won a $75,000 contract from the Department of Human Resources to develop "cultural humility" (a new definition for cultural competency) training to educate those working on aging issues specifically about LGBT seniors.
"I think that there has been a lot of progress to implement those recommendations," said Openhouse Executive Director Seth Kilbourn, who did not serve on the task force but whose agency had several representatives appointed as members. "I think the task force should be quite pleased for its work. It did a great job and I think the recommendations are moving forward."
The city's elected leaders and the heads of the various departments and agencies, said Kilbourn, "took very seriously, and do take very seriously, those very carefully researched and well thought out recommendations. The committee deserves a lot of credit for doing a thorough job and zeroing in on potential things the LGBT senior community needs."
The impact of that work, said Kilbourn, has been twofold.
"It certainly enabled Openhouse to expand our work," he said. "And it made the city more aware of LGBT seniors."
Ambrunn largely credited Wiener for taking the lead over the last year to implement the task force's report.
"I think that Scott Wiener has done an amazing service to our community by focusing on these issues," he said. "If it weren't for Scott nothing would have happened."
Housing a key concern
One of the more pressing needs for the city's LGBT seniors is housing assistance, whether it is support to age in place in their current homes or access to affordable housing units. In fact, the bulk of the LGBT Aging Policy Task Force's recommendations dealt with ideas for how the city could lessen the impact of skyrocketing housing costs for LGBT seniors.
Its suggestions ran the gamut from building more affordable housing for LGBT seniors and increasing eviction protections for them to providing rental and homeowner assistance and legal services to help them maintain their housing.
The AIDS Housing Alliance/San Francisco this year received $600,000 from the city to provide housing assistance to 61 seniors living with HIV. And later this month a city-funded LGBT homeless shelter, something the LGBT aging panel supported in its report, will open after years of bureaucratic delays.
The shelter's 24 beds, which will be open to anyone over the age of 18, will be named for Jazzie Collins, a transgender woman who co-chaired the aging task force and served on its housing subcommittee. Collins died in July 2013 at the age of 54 in the midst of working on the aging report.
Advocates, however, continue to call on the city to do more in terms of housing help for LGBT seniors.
"I'm disappointed that none of the housing recommendations have been taken up by the supervisors," said Tommi Avicolli Mecca, who identifies as queer and was the task force member who chaired the housing work group. "Why hasn't the city looked into ways to further protect seniors from evictions or how to provide more affordable housing for LGBT seniors, in addition to the 110 units that will be at 55 Laguna. Those are things we desperately need."
He added, "In terms of the housing recommendations, the Board of Supervisors gets an F."
Ambrunn agreed that the city isn't doing enough on housing for LGBT seniors.
"Tommi rightly points out housing has not been moved on in the same way," said Ambrunn. "Those were very big systemic issues that couldn't be resolved easily or quickly. So it is not surprising to me there is still more work to be done on housing issues."
Wiener concurred that the city has a "massive unmet need for affordable housing" for all residents, not just LGBT seniors. He pointed to the ongoing debate over Mayor Ed Lee's $250 million affordable housing bond he has proposed for the fall ballot as one of the approaches city leaders are considering.
More work to do
Housing isn't the only concern that requires further attention from the city, contend LGBT senior advocates.
As budget negotiations begin at City Hall over the 2015-2016 fiscal year, which begins July 1, Openhouse is working with the Shanti Project and Wiener's office to secure roughly $320,000 for an LGBT senior peer counseling and support program that would be focused on the isolation many older adults face, whether due to the loss of loved ones and friends or ostracism by their natural families.
The mayor this week proposed spending $200,000 on an education and awareness campaign about how dementia and Alzheimer's impacts the LGBT community. As the B.A.R. noted in March, by 2020 approximately 3,213 LGBT seniors in San Francisco are expected to be living with Alzheimer's, with an additional 2,142 LGBT seniors aged 65 and older predicted to be suffering from some form of dementia.
"There is a wave of folks coming down the road who will be confronting this terrible disease, and we want to make sure we are capable of dealing with it," said Kilbourn.
In terms of policy, Wiener continues to work on legislation that would require city departments to collect LGBT demographic data. Its introduction has been repeatedly delayed as city leaders work out legal and implementation issues.
"It is one of those where we want to get it right," said Wiener. "We are on a good path now and will get it done in the near future. It could be limited to seniors but now we are considering broadening it out to be for all human service programs."
After holding a meeting last month with LGBT senior advocates, DAAS officials, and the city attorney's office, Wiener is looking at introducing legislation that would mirror a bill authored by Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco).
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Disparities Reduction Act, AB 959, would require a number of state agencies to start collecting demographic data on gender identity and sexual orientation. It passed out of the Assembly Monday, June 1 and will now be heard by the state Senate.
Governor Jerry Brown in 2013 vetoed a similar bill, partly due to the cost associated with having to upgrade state forms and computer systems. This year Equality California, the statewide LGBT advocacy organization, has made Chiu's legislation its top priority.
San Francisco's department on aging is already asking users of its meal services and other programs it runs about their sexual orientation and gender identity, according to DAAS Deputy Director Shireen McSpadden. And as of June the Adult Protective Services system, which is provided by a statewide vendor, implemented gender status/sexual orientation questions that the city is now collecting.
It is one part of the multi-pronged approach underway in San Francisco to address the needs of LGBT seniors.
"I think, absolutely, the report and work the task force did has made changes in our senior community," said Hinton. "It is great to be in meetings and when people say to me, 'What are we doing?' I can point to the recommendations. The mayor's budget staff and the supervisors are asking, 'Where are you on this?' It has had a great deal of visibility."