SF Aims to Add LGBTs to Housing Wait Lists

As LGBT seniors, youth and people with HIV and AIDS find themselves increasingly priced out of the city, San Francisco officials are aiming to increase the number of LGBT people on wait lists for affordable housing units.

The Mayor's Office of Housing recently awarded a $220,000 two-year grant to the LGBT Community Center and Openhouse, which provides services for LGBT seniors, to fund programs that will help LGBT applicants navigate the often confusing wait list system.

Currently, there is no central database for people seeking affordable housing to use. Instead, they must seek out below-market-rate units, whether to purchase or rent, on a project-by-project basis.

The process is "not simple or straightforward," said gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, who pushed for the funding allocation.

"I had a serious concern not enough people in the LGBT community know how to access the city's affordable housing program," said Wiener. "A lot of LGBT people, frankly, haven't given a lot of thought to get on to wait lists for affordable housing. Those wait lists can take a long time to clear."

Wiener said he hopes the LGBT nonprofits will use the money - $110,000 per year - to spearhead affordable housing education efforts similar to those that have been successful in other minority communities who have a longer history assisting people in need of BMR units.

"I have seen other communities do a terrific job educating their community members and getting people on waiting lists, particularly the Chinese community and the Russian community," Wiener told the Bay Area Reporter. "I concluded we needed to make an investment in helping the LGBT community emulate the success of the Chinese and Russian communities in educating people and helping people get on the waiting lists."

The funding will allow the two LGBT nonprofits to expand their current housing programs. Since 2011 the LGBT center has been helping LGBT people navigate through the process to buy BMR units.

As the B.A.R. noted in a 2013 article, the center's housing program has organized bus tours for clients to visit available BMR options. Now, instead of working solely with prospective homebuyers, the center will also be able to assist people looking for affordable apartment rentals.

The services run the gamut from financial literacy and addressing credit scores to making sure clients have their necessary paperwork in order.

"The goal is twofold, to make sure people in the community know about affordable housing opportunities and can access them," said the center's executive director, Rebecca Rolfe, "and to also make sure people know when they enter a lottery, and if they are selected through the lottery system, they are really eligible to become tenants in the various options."

As for Openhouse, it is building 110 units of affordable LGBT-friendly senior housing at the former UC Berkeley Extension campus a block away from the LGBT center. Officials with the agency have long expressed concerns about having LGBT seniors already in the city's housing wait list pipeline before the first units at the 55 Laguna redevelopment site become available in 2016. Any senior, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, will be able to apply for them.

The agency is working collaboratively with the LGBT center, said Rolfe, on educating LGBT seniors about the various housing options they can access.

"There are different options available for seniors that are not available to the general population. They are looking at making sure LGBT seniors know about, and have access to, specific senior housing options," explained Rolfe.

In its October email to clients, Openhouse noted it "assists community members with housing workshops, housing resource groups, and other housing opportunities as they become available."

The agency hosts housing workshops four times a month, with the next one scheduled to take place Friday, November 7. The meetings help participants learn how to apply for housing through the lottery process, understand how placement on waiting lists works, and explains the screening process used by property owners.

"We are expanding our housing workshops to get the whole senior community much better educated on how affordable housing units work," said Seth Kilbourn, Openhouse's executive director. "We are on a full-on campaign over the next year to expand that outreach and make sure any LGBT older adult in the city who wants to learn about affordable housing at 55 Laguna will be able to do so."

Even people who are not facing a housing crisis currently, but may need to move sometime in the future due to an eviction or mobility reason, should get themselves on the wait list now, said Wiener.

"Even if someone is stable in their housing it may make sense for them to put their name on the list," he said. "This is not just for seniors but other age groups and people who can benefit from affordable housing."

Brianna Varner, 39, a transgender woman who moved to the city six months ago from Houston, Texas is just the sort of LGBT resident Wiener hopes the funding will benefit. Currently housed in a shelter, Varner has worked with a case manager to get herself on at least one housing wait list.

The system is "perplexing," Varner told the B.A.R. "It is kind of hard to do."

She said she would take advantage of the LGBT nonprofits' housing programs.

"If I could benefit from it and if it would help me, I would go participate in it," said Varner. "I would like to have my own apartment because I have never had one and stuff like that."