San Francisco may have one of the country’s highest concentrations of queer people, but the LGBTQ communities north and south of the city also have community centers to meet people’s needs. One of those, the San Mateo County Pride Center, is reckoning with limitations as its fiscal sponsor seeks a merger to survive.
Southbound from San Francisco on Highway 101, the center at 1021 South El Camino Real in the city of San Mateo provides mental health and senior services, as well as peer groups for LGBTQ+ parents and gay men, plus a book club. The center just passed its eighth anniversary, having opened June 1, 2017.
The peer groups are virtual. The center reopened its doors post-COVID in March 2023, as the B.A.R. reported at the time.
The center’s executive director Francisco “Frankie” Sapp, a disabled, biracial, queer, transgender man, stated to the B.A.R. that the center has a budget of $1.5 million and that it serves 12,000 people annually.
Asked if it’s facing financial challenges from either canceled government contracts or donations drying up, Sapp stated that, “Interestingly, the Pride Center's financial sustainability has experienced little direct impact this year. Most financial changes to our program, as a fiscally sponsored one, have been secondary.
“We are doing our best to brace for future impacts as we just began the process of potentially becoming a 501(c)3,” he added, referring to the designation for stand-alone nonprofit organizations.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges on the horizon. Sapp continued, “Our total numbers served continues to grow each year despite our static number of team members, and various other resources. This is why working with partners and being supported by a parent agency, like StarVista, has been essential to helping us operate.”
However, StarVista recently announced that it will be merging with another, more stable, nonprofit partner amid its own financial woes.
“Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to achieve the financial and operational stability needed to be the reliable partner our staff, programs, and community rely on. This decision was not made lightly, and it reflects our deep commitment to ensuring continuity of care and minimizing disruption to those we serve,” stated StarVista acting CEO Shareen Leland. “The agency we are looking to merge with values the important, community-based work we do and believes that many of our programs will enhance their behavioral health services, ensuring our community continues to receive the care it needs and deserves.
“The merger process will take time, and the final outcome remains uncertain,” Leland continued. “In the interim, we are working closely with San Mateo County and our other key partners to ensure services continue with as little disruption as possible.”
Asked about this, Sapp stated, “The San Mateo County Pride Center will be impacted by this merger.”
“I know there has been a lot of valid fear and worry about the ‘end of StarVista,’ the uncertainty for its programs, and the potential loss of services for the thousands of clients served across the county,” Sapp stated. “Within the organization’s legacy are the great leaders, clinicians, and staff members that I have had the great privilege of working with, who are also worried about their programs, clients, and now, individual futures.”
Sapp added that the LGBTQ community is important to StarVista, and is itself resilient.
“It’s incredibly important to note that the current executive leadership of StarVista understands the value and importance of the Pride Center’s services,” Sapp continued. “This has also always been true of our primary funder, Behavioral Health and Recovery Services, the County of San Mateo, and the collective Board of Supervisors. So, while short-term cuts to some of our programs and services will be likely, I don’t foresee a possibility where the Pride Center’s doors will close. I do foresee a future when we will need our community to help us rebuild. But I know that, historically, our community knows how to answer that call.”
The B.A.R. asked Sapp on June 25 if clients had been informed about the StarVista situation. He stated, “There are multiple moving parts and factors, and many of the details about our programs and services are still being determined. We are keeping our clients and community informed as much as needed, which includes those directly connected to our services. However, we won't make a final public announcement about all effective changes until they are known.”
Asked last month how people connected to services were being informed, Sapp referred the B.A.R. to center manager Alex Lyman-Golding, who stated June 26 that, “I wanted to let you know that we are not yet ready to comment on the rest of your question at this time, since we are still in the process of receiving new information. Currently, we are strategizing on how best to meet the needs of our clients and community as the details about the StarVista merger, and the impact of the losses to our center become more clear. Our ideal goal is to ensure that clients have pathways to affirming support, and we will keep our community informed when details are finalized.”
On June 27, the center sent out a statement of reassurance to the Peninsula’s LGBTQ community via email.
“As you may be aware, after facing significant financial challenges StarVista (parent agency of the Pride Center) is pursuing a merger with a larger, more financially stable nonprofit organization,” it states, in-part. “We want to assure you that the Pride Center will not be closing. We remain committed to supporting you, our community, and are dedicated to prioritizing your needs as best we can.”
The statement continues that, “Sadly, however, the Pride Center will be operating in a reduced capacity. As such, we will unfortunately need to shift and limit some of our current programs and services. Currently, we are strategizing on how best to meet the needs of our clients and community as the details about the merger and the impact of the losses to our center become more clear.”
San Mateo County District 5 Supervisor David Canepa told the B.A.R. in a July 2 phone interview that, “We have no intention of shutting down the [LGBTQ] center. We put a lot of resources and money into it. Continuing to see that it delivers services is important.”
He continued that while he is not personally privy to these conversations, he knows “conversations are taking place among nonprofit providers” and that “it’s too early to begin” discussions about what happens if the proposed merger fails.
“We want to make sure the social safety net services continue to be provided,” Canepa said. “We’ll get there. I don’t know if we’re there yet. … There may be an announcement in the next several weeks.”
Caminar, a behavioral health organization that supports 41,000 youth and adults across seven counties, provides similar services to those provided by StarVista. Asked if Caminar would consider a merger, a spokesperson stated to the B.A.R. in late June that, “Caminar is always exploring ways to strengthen our impact and better serve our communities, but at this time we have no updates to share.”
For more information, go to sanmateopride.org .
Marin County
The newest LGBTQ center in the area opened just this past May. That would be the Marin LGBTQ+ Center, which is located at the Marin Multi-Cultural Center at 709 Fifth Avenue in San Rafael. Marin County had been without a center after the Spahr Center’s abrupt closure in February 2024. As the Bay Area Reporter noted in May, the center has no executive director and is all-volunteer, with a special focus on providing space for trans and queer-identified youth through its QNest program.
That focus is because trans youth are bearing the brunt of the transphobic and homophobic backlash to LGBTQ civil rights that has grown in recent years and accelerated with the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term in January.
The center’s website states that QNest is, “a new program where youth can come together to work on creative projects, develop new skills, and find support in a welcoming environment.” The program is open-ended. Gatherings might be focused on advocating for trans rights, while other sessions might be dancing, co-founders Mila Eliaschev, who is queer, and Lara Valencia, a lesbian, previously told the B.A.R.
The Reverend Jane Adams Spahr, a lesbian and retired Presbyterian minister for whom the former center was named, told the B.A.R. in a recent phone interview that everything is working out better than expected at the new organization.
“It’s phenomenal. It’s exploded,” Spahr said. “People are turning out and resisting, which has been so important across the country. In challenging this incredible repression, people are longing to be together, and longing to stand up for one another.”
Spahr said that 15 people have already agreed to volunteer for the center in having a presence at the Marin County Fair on July 5. The center will also be participating in the San Francisco Pride parade on June 29, which Spahr said will be “very exciting.”
For more information, go to marinlgbtqcenter.org .
San Jose
San Jose, the largest city in the Bay Area, has long been served by the Billy DeFrank LGBTQ+ Community Center at 938 The Alameda. The center opened in 1981, according to its website.
Gabrielle Antolovich, the president of the center’s board, told the B.A.R. that like the North Bay center, it is also 100% volunteer-led. That “ended up being a good thing during COVID because we didn’t have complications with employees whose jobs couldn’t be done at home.”
“Coming out of COVID, it still felt unstable in the world,” Antolovich, who is nonbinary and genderqueer, said in a phone interview. “It’s not like everyone said, ‘Oh we're back to normal.’ No. It changed people.”
A big part of the center’s work is to try to "break the isolation and loneliness,” which is why it hosts discussion groups and a rainbow bingo every Wednesday.
“You have to concentrate – it helps people forget their anxieties,” Antolovich said of playing bingo.
The center also provides diversity trainings and workshops for those interested. It doesn’t have any government contracts for services.
“If we ran a nonprofit purely on federal funding, we’d be dead in the water,” she said. “During COVID we did a lot of strategic planning and felt there was instability going on. We didn’t want to be dependent on government funding. … We’re so glad we made that decision based on what we saw.”
The center is “looking for different ways to raise funds” but is not in “panic mode,” Antolovich added, saying they are thinking of hosting a rummage sale or having potlucks to bring in donations.
“Those who go will give you $20 … and it feels good to me because anyone can show up who wants to and, in the end, it evens out rather than having a $10 entrance fee,” Antolovich said.
Antolovich didn’t answer a follow-up emailed question as to how many clients the center serves annually, though its website says “each week over a thousand people visit” it. The center had a budget of $223,036 in Fiscal Year 2023-24, according to its latest IRS Form 990. It had a surplus of $59,028.
For more information, go to defrankcenter.org .