Despite City Hall’s efforts to save San Francisco’s board and care homes, the facilities for the homeless, mentally ill and drug addicted are still rapidly closing around the city — and officials are running out of places to send the residents.
South Van Ness Manor, a board and care home for 27 mentally ill and homeless residents, can no longer sustain its expenses and plans to close Dec. 1. The city has only found another long-term placement for about half of the residents around the Bay Area, said Jennifer Esteen, a member of the Department of Public Health’s Transitions Division, which identifies shelter and treatment placements for those in need.
The rest of the residents, she said, may be moved to Hummingbird Place, a homeless shelter at San Francisco General Hospital that provides temporary care to psychiatric patients.
While residents stay sometimes stay at board and care homes for decades at a time, people stay at Hummingbird Place for an average of 17 days, according to The Department of Public Health. The placements are subject to change in the coming days, if other long-term beds become available.
“We’re done. We’re out of beds,” said Esteen, who has been outspoken about how the department uses its resources. “We’ve starved our providers, which has created these bed closures. We’ve created this calamity.”
Jenna Lane, a spokeswoman for The Department of Public Health, would not confirm where the South Van Ness Manor residents are going next. But, she said, all the residents “have places to go and no one will be discharged to the street.”
Transitioning people into a short-term care facility like Hummingbird could create a bottleneck in the city’s system of care. Hummingbird is primarily used as a temporary stop for people who come out of San Francisco General Hospital’s psychiatric unit or emergency room, while they wait for longer term placement. It is not clear how long the South Van Ness Manor residents will be allowed to stay at Hummingbird.
“DPH always tries to find the most appropriate level of care,” she said. “The operator, the state and DPH are working together and committed to the well being of these residents.”
Board-and-care facilities are home-like environments for people in need — often homeless, elderly, mentally ill, or all of the above — that offers round-the-clock care. The facilities are often hailed as a critical part of the city’s system of care, as people can live in the them for years on end.
But San Francisco is rapidly losing its board and care homes as operators struggle to make ends meet under the crushing cost of doing business in the city. Operators also blame difficulties with hiring and retaining staff and the temptation to sell the homes in San Francisco’s lucrative real estate market.
More than a quarter of San Francisco’s board-and-care beds have closed since 2012 — and the city is at risk of losing dozens more over the next few years, according to city data. In an attempt to slow the closures, the Department of Public Health recently increased the subsidies from $22 a night to $35 a night for board-and-care operators.
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About the Broken Care series:
San Francisco spends nearly $400 million a year on mental health and addiction treatment, but thousands of people in crisis are still without sufficient care. In this ongoing series, Chronicle journalists investigate the failures of this complicated, costly system and explore solutions to the crisis.
San Francisco spends nearly $400 million a year on mental health and addiction treatment, but thousands of people in crisis are still without sufficient care. In this ongoing series, Chronicle journalists investigate the failures of this complicated, costly system and explore solutions to the crisis.
Still, in the case of South Van Ness Manor, the increased subsidy was apparently offered too little, too late. The operators, Analyn and Andres Parangan Jr., could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.
But in a letter to the state obtained by The Chronicle, Andres Parangan Jr., said South Van Ness Manor has been struggling financially for years.
Parangan said that the facility could not cut anymore of the expenses without compromising their quality of care, and finally made the decision to close the home after 38 years.
“The cost of operating a facility like this in San Francisco has not been adequately compensated,” Parangan wrote in the letter. “Our monthly rent income was not sufficient enough to cover the cost of living in San Francisco or the ongoing necessary repairs.”
What frustrates Esteen — the member of the Transitions Division — the most is that there are several empty long-term beds at the Residential Care Facility for the Elderly at San Francisco General Hospital. But those beds have been kept empty as the city figures out staffing issues at the facility.
The residents at South Van Ness Manor are not the only ones in flux.
Parkview Inn #1 planned to close Oct. 1, but Karen Balingit, the bookkeeper and payroll manager for the facility, said the state asked them to extend the closure until Jan. 1 so they could have more time to find placements for the 20 residents.
Balingit said the city’s recent subsidy increase wasn’t enough to help keep the facility afloat.
“Even though we have an increase, we are still under,” she said. “Clients are upset knowing the facility is closing, but they can’t do anything about it.”
Balingit said the facility is also being impacted by a new rule that makes it harder to convert the homes into a different use and also urges the city to buy facilities at risk of closing. The point of the rule, sponsored by Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, was to influence the facilities to stay open for longer and also give the city more time to hash out a possible deal to buy the home.
After the rule went into effect this fall, Balingit said interest from buyers has dwindled.
Andy Lynch, a spokesman for Mayor London Breed, the city is looking at “all sites that are at risk for closure to explore potentially acquiring them so that they can remain operating.”
Still, the facilities continue to close.
“Talk about destabilizing,” Esteen said. “Any kind of transition is difficult for them — and now we’re going to transition them in the middle of the holidays.”
Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani
