Envisioning a Better Neighborhood

Earlier this summer I was invited to a volunteer opportunity at the Richmond Senior Center for its summer One Hard Thing. While the One Hard Thing has been covered previously on the Richmond Review’s website (RichmondSunsetNews.com), as a civic-minded individual I thought it would be good to mix it up from the neighborhood clean-ups and fundraisers to see how one can assist in the community directly. 

After a brief orientation that morning, I was paired with a young lady who came all the way from the Bayview by bus to help a senior gentleman with some weeding. The experience triggered a bit of nostalgia for when I used to do similar gardening chores for my grandmother at her place on Anza Street.

What ultimately stuck with me was chatting with a neighbor and hearing about his story of coming to San Francisco and settling down with his children – now thriving – and the grandkids he gets to help. Unfortunately, this was counterpointed just weeks later when I was asked to help a high school friend clean out her parents’ place that she grew up in. She had to move them to her current place in Denver. 

Taking care of one’s parents as they age has been a concern of mine for a while, and seeing these contrasting outcomes highlighted how many of my peers are becoming part of a “sandwich generation,” which refers to people who support both their parents and their children, whether financially, physically or emotionally.

This led me to revisit a chat I had with a family friend, Jenny Yu, who works at New York Life, about the challenges of long-term care and aging in place. Hearing from her about her own experiences – and those she has helped –  gave me a better understanding of the different options available. 

While care facilities might seem like an obvious option, I learned there exists a growing industry to help seniors age in place in their own homes. This can be seen most clearly in places on the west side where chair escalators have been installed on stairways for those no longer able to walk up stairs. Fortunately, there are great resources for seniors the west side, like the Richmond Senior Center’s Golden Gate Village, Self Help for the Elderly, and the Institute on Aging, but the City remains an expensive place for these kinds of senior care. Thinking ahead to this phase of life is one we should be planning for earlier if we don’t want to feel anxious about when the time is upon us.

As for aging in place, I’ve heard from some of my friends who grew up in the City but have built lives elsewhere how their parents wish they could return to the City. Many of the homes on the west side of the City were built for raising families decades ago, but these aging homes are not quite designed for multiple generations to occupy the space. 

For many of the single-family homes with seniors, additional dwelling units (ADUs) were once seen as a solution to either bring in home health care aides or help families move back to help provide care. To support multi-generational households, we need to see homes rebuilt to better accommodate infrastructure for seniors and children. Unfortunately, too much of the Planning Code and our current community process puts too much red tape in the way of permitting even minor changes to occur to the neighborhood. 

As anyone who has tried to update their street-facing windows or rear decks, we have a system that even small changes can be held up for months if not longer, let alone more extensive renovations. I fear, like my friend who moved her parents closer to her so she could better assist with their medical appointments, that many of my friends’ parents who came here as immigrants are more likely to avoid these time-intensive delays and move back to countries with more affordable senior facilities that already exist. 

While we are starting to see affordable housing go up at 2550 Irving St. and 4200 Geary Blvd., we still need to foster redevelopment of single-family homes into multi-generational homes if we don’t want to see some of our senior population displaced. Just seeing the delays that have befallen even relatively small developments, like 1151 Washington St., that followed all the stated rules, it’s clear that some amount of streamlining and clarity of process is needed from the City. 

Giving people greater flexibility to stay in their homes isn’t something that can happen overnight but requires fixing policies that currently make it difficult to enact even small changes. Supporting Supervisor Myrna Melgar’s or Supervisor Joel Engardio’s efforts towards streamlining will put us in a better position to allow these changes from being delayed instead of pushing for a status quo mentality. 

Just like many of us have (I hope) prepared for the next “big one,” preparing for the inevitability of change will make a stronger City.

Brian Quan is a Richmond District native, co-leader of Grow the Richmond, president of the Chinese American Democratic Club, member of the Park Presidio-Sunset Lions Club and participant in monthly Refuse Refuse S.F. street clean-ups.