The organization that built an LGBTQ-focused senior housing complex on Laguna Street in the last decade secured funding earlier this month for a significant expansion on the other side of Market Street, with a new 15-story, 187-unit building.

There will, in the next few years, be even more affordable housing for LGBTQ+ seniors, as well as veterans, just a few blocks from the Castro neighborhood.

LGBTQ+ community service and senior housing organization Openhouse and development partner Mercy Housing announced this month that they have been awarded funding for a new project at 1939 Market Street by the state's Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) Program. The site, currently a surface parking lot at the corner of Duboce and Market streets, was acquired by the city in 2020 with the express intent of developing an affordable housing project there, and Openhouse and Mercy Housing won the right to develop it through a competitive process.

The 187-unit, flatiron-shaped building will include a mix of one-bedroom and studio units, and will be marketed to LGBTQ+ city residents aged 62 and older who earn 15% to 60% of Area Median Income.

The new building will join a mini-campus run by Openhouse that includes two other previously developed buildings at 55-95 Laguna Street, which were also built in partnership with Mercy Housing, and where Openhouse runs multiple programs for LGBTQ+ seniors, including an Aging and Disability Resource Center.

Architect Paulett Taggart tells ABC7 this week that the new building at 1939 Market will also include multiple common spaces in which residents can interact with one aother, to counter tendencies to isolation.

Also, Taggart adds of the location, "obviously one of the reasons for this location is that it is located near a lot of the other LGBTQ facilities including the other one run by Openhouse."

Mayor Daniel Lurie celebrated the new funding announcement, saying in a statement, "This is an important step for LGBTQ seniors who deserve stability, dignity, and access to housing in the city they call home." And, Lurie adds, "State support for this project moves us closer to delivering new homes on a key site and strengthens our commitment to our seniors."

Marcy Adelman, who cofounded Openhouse nearly 30 years ago, said in a statement, "Openhouse housing has always been more than bricks and mortar, but rather building and strengthening community by valuing and caring for one another, especially those in later life. With the addition of 1939 Market Street, Openhouse will exponentially expand the number of safe, accessible, affordable, and supportive environments where LGBTQ+ older adults can live and thrive in community. Well done, everyone!"

In addition to Openhouse's facilities, the Bay Area is home to several senior living communities geared toward LGBTQ+ seniors, including Santa Rosa's Fountaingrove Lodge, and Oakland's Lakeside Park.

San Francisco's queer seniors are reeling from the pandemic, as many continue struggling to find financial respite — for some, even sustenance — amid shelter-in-place. But a live-streamed drag show in support of them this coming Friday aims to offer both levity and monetary relief.

Those who make up our city's LGBTQ nightlife are as inventive as ever. Zoom and Twitch are now conduits for their creativities; philanthropic ventures, like the SF Queer Nightlife Fund (QNF), have been erected to raise fiscal support for furloughed and laid off nightlife workers. And a new joint venture from the QNF, Tenderloin (TL) Museum, and Openhouse — SF's largest senior living facility dedicated to LGBTQ seniors — is bringing a digital drag show to the masses in honor of queer elders.

On Friday, May 22, the three organizations will present Live Drag for our LGBTQ Elders, a live (and live-streamed) drag show where staple Powerhouse entertainers like Dulce De Leche, Per Sia, and Princess Panocha will perform in the courtyard of Openhouse. The event, too, will be virtually hosted on Zoom and Twitch by the maven-and-mother herself, Juanita MORE!, allowing the performances to be safely watched by LGBTQ seniors and the general public.

“When we demonstrate to our community that elders matter, it makes all of us better;" says Karyn Skultety, the executive director of Openhouse. "Younger LGBTQ [generations] live better lives when they are connected to the elders who helped create the world they live in today. An opportunity to financially support drag performers who have lost income due to the crisis, as well as bring visibility and safe, in-person entertainment to LGBTQ elders, Live Drag for our LGBTQ Elders is an opportunity to reflect upon — and unify with — intergenerational LGBTQ community members."

Put on in tandem with other celebrations for what would be Harvey Milk's 90th birthday, the show will kick off a series of happenings to pedestal his legacy.

Openhouse is encouraging those who can to donate — between "$9, $90, or $900," a numerical nod to Harvey's 90th — to the Live Drag for Our Queer Elders fundraiser. As of this article's publishing, the organizers have raised just over $1.7K of their $9K goal; the fundraiser is set to end Saturday.

For more information on the performing queens and the Live Drag for Our Queer Elders fundraiser, visit their Facebook Event page here. The QNF recently announced a second round of fundraising to disperse more single-installment grants for affected SF nightlife workers.

Curious minds — and those wishing to extend a financially sound olive branch — can scroll over to sfqueernightlifefund.org for more details.

Related: SF Queer Nightlife Fund Launches to Bring Financial Relief to the Community

This Is Giving Me Life Today: Drag Queens and Musical Theater Artists Performing From Their Living Rooms

How You Can Support San Francisco's Queer Elders and LGBTQ+ Nightlife Workers in the Age of Coronavirus

Image: Facebook

Public health emergencies tend to expose the cracks in our society — this time, particularly, around our ability to help SF’s queer elders and those who make a living in the city’s gay nightlife scene amidst times of crisis. In the age of COVID-19, here’s how you can support those two cohorts.

The Castro, more or less, went dark yesterday; 1015 Folsom recently dropped their entire March calendar; Openhouse, a provider of services to SF LGBTQ+ seniors, suspended all senior programs and group activities. The GLBT Historical Society moved its planned 35th-anniversary party — online.

Know you’re not alone in your hellacious anxieties about what’s to come of this coronavirus pandemic. But, alas, now’s not the time to wax oh woe is me; count your lucky, burning celestial orbs, if you’re fortunate enough to still have both your health and livelihood intact.

With today’s advent of technologies, even twiddling your despondent thumbs can lend to a bout of benevolence and well-wishing. (Fun fact: actively participating in gratitude and charity bolsters the production of feel-good chemicals in the brain [endorphin, oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine], improving your overall sense of well being and sense of self.)

Things could be a hell of a lot better, sure. Let’s face it: we have a president who won’t yet take accountability for his own actions and his administration’s hand in our COVID-19 catastrophe.

But! Let’s be gracious — tender, charitable — to one another, San Francisco, and bestow some unapologetically queer love from a socially-distant stance. Here’s a rundown on how you can directly help illuminate the lives of those among us left in uncharted darkness.

Our Queer Elders

Reach out to someone in the community. Sincerely ask questions like: How are you doing? Anything I can help you with? I’m here and willing to hold space if you need to talk. One of the kindest, most important things you can do is acknowledge someone’s humanity, importance, and presence. You could, in fact, be saving a life — or helping extend one.

Help them secure Congregate Meal Program assistance. The City of San Francisco Human Service Agency (HSA) just switched over to only providing takeaway meals at HSA senior centers. Consider offering an elder in your life, queer or not, a ride to pick up said no-cost meal. A full list of locations can be found here.

Ask Openhouse for ways to help. Open House is still in need of volunteers and support with outreach assistance. Try calling (415)-296-8995 to speak with an employee or getting in contact with them to learn about specific ways to help.

Help them navigate applicable financial assistance programs offered by the City of San Francisco, as well as relevant tenant right laws. Juanita MORE! has done a phenomenal job rounding up certain local government programs and tenant legislation that traditional renters and residents of SROs — which are increasingly now occupied by seniors — can reference below:

• The City is working on a moratorium on evictions for tenants who can’t pay rent because of the COVID-19 outbreak
• The City announced a $5 million package to clean shelters and single-room-occupancy housing to comply with Minimum Environmental Cleaning Standards
• Details are forthcoming, and we are working to extend these protections to commercial tenants as well
• Your landlord cannot engage in price-gouging during a state of emergency
• If you receive a notice for a rent increase over 10%, contact the SF Rent Board right away

Our Nightlife Entertainers and Workers

Embrace Venmo — and tip a queen. Joe Wadlington did the Lord’s work and wrangled up local drag queens who would appreciate a few (digital) dollars thrown their way. Find those regal beings — and their Venmo usernames — in the tweet reel, below:

Donate to someone on this COVID-19 Financial Solidarity Google Doc. Kind, effervescent soul Doe Taryn has created an open Google Spreadsheet that those financially affected by the coronavirus — gay, straight, fluid; male, female, non-identifying — can, without judgment, write in at and ask for help. Read through the litany of testimonies, and send funds to the appropriate Paypal, Venmo, and CashApp accounts you see fit.

Inform them of employment-related financial assistance programs they can utilize. Admittedly, those who make living through completely self-employed means might struggle to find SF-aided solvency, but most of us have a side-hustle — that’s backed by an employer. Juanita MORE!, again, has done us all a favor and compiled a digestible scroll to reference. See below:

• San Francisco’s Paid Sick Leave Ordinance requires employers to provide paid sick leave to all employees (including temporary and part-time)
• The Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement has a multilingual paid sick leave hotline at (415) 554–6271
• Employers are required to maintain health care benefits if you take leave to care for yourself or your dependents
• Unemployed workers have access to health care through Covered California and undocumented workers still have access to health care through Healthy San Francisco
• If your employer has reduced your hours or shut down operations due to COVID-19, you can file an Unemployment Insurance (UI) claim
• If you’re unable to work because you are caring for an ill or quarantined family member with COVID-19 (certified by a medical professional), you can file a Paid Family Leave (PFL) claim
• PFL provides up to six weeks of benefit payments
• There will be more support announced in the coming days
• See more City and State resources for workers here

Wash your hands. Be compassionate, boundlessly patient, and empathetic toward members of our city and community. Take responsibility for the amount of human contact you have, wave and say “Hi!” to your neighbors. Don’t be a dickhead and board a plane leaving SFO whilst feeling unwell — with COVID-19-like symptoms — to hookup on the East Coast.

We’ll all get through this together, with the support of one another, queer family.

Related: SF Bars With Capacity Over 100 Ordered to Close For Seven Weeks; Restaurants Told To Limit Capacity

SF Opens New Coronavirus Testing Center, But It’s Referral-Only

Broadway Theaters, Disneyland Shut Down; SF Giants Delay Opening Day

The kids over at Curbed SF have the word on one polling place that's also an open house. Gross. Over in the enchanted Excelsior District, early morning voters have also been getting the hardcore sales pitch for a 6BR polling station that's going for $888,888. Not a bad price, btw, but still. Anyway, check it:

"Went to vote this morning at 900 Persia Street in the lovely Excelsior District. Not only is it a polling place but as it turns out, it’s also an open house. The agent for the house is standing around in the polling place loudly greeting all the voters and yelling down the street “The Polls Are Open!.” I actually thought he WAS the head of the polling place but I quickly realized he’s just making the most of the opportunity to hawk the property. He’s chatting up all the poll workers and is SUPER enthusiastic about voting!

So I go to turn in my ballot and he’s right there to hand me his business card and a flyer for the property and then point helpfully to the sign hanging from the ceiling giving the URL for the property’s website."

Seems that something like this would be considered verboten by law, or at least frowned upon by cranky SFers, but does anyone with a modicum of law knowledge have any input?

Image credit: Curbed SF, via Sharon