Milk club honors Kim
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Lyft reaches deal with queers
ARTS
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‘The Queen’ returns
Nightlife
The
www.ebar.com
Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971
Vol. 49 • No. 31 • August 1-7, 2019
Rick Gerharter
Trish Tunney
Bill Longren prepares to unpack boxes after moving to 95 Laguna Street.
SF LGBT center deputy director Roberto Ordeñana
SF pilots Host Homes for youth
Residents move into SF LGBT senior housing
by Meg Elison
S
an Francisco will soon join Minneapolis, Baltimore, Sacramento, and other cities that are offering transitional housing in private homes for homeless youth. The LGBT community center this fall expects to pilot the local host homes program, the first such housing to be formally offered in the city. Unsheltered transitional age youth from 1824 can apply at the community center for the program, which includes wraparound services – housing, casework, mental health services, and ultimately a plan toward a more permanent housing solution. The program accepts all TAY homeless youth, but the center’s language highlights the fact that half that demographic is LGBTQ, and have specific housing needs that the program can help with. However, according to Roberto Ordeñana, the center’s deputy executive director, the city’s program is still in its infancy, and is looking for community support – and hosts. “We’re eager to get the program off the ground,” said Ordeñana, who spoke with the Bay Area Reporter by phone. “It’s the first of its kind for the city. Unsheltered transitional age youths can choose a home through the SF-based community center, and we can work to reduce the impact of homelessness on a personal level. “Hosts will be people who have homes they’re willing to open, offering private space, a kitchen, and a bathroom,” he added. “The center will have personally-assigned caseworkers to ensure these kids get the help they need.” In April 2018 center officials had told the Bay Area Reporter that they were aiming to launch a host homes program that fall, as the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development had accepted its grant application to pilot the program for two years. At the same time Mayor London Breed, then a candidate, had included it in her housing plan during the campaign and discussed it when meeting with the B.A.R.’s editorial board. A former aide of hers had learned about a Host Homes program in Minneapolis. Funding for the San Francisco host homes program comes in large part from the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, according to Ordeñana, as well as some federal HUD funds that the city received See page 10 >>
Lots to like at leather fair Rick Gerharter
F
urries mingled with leather-clad folks at Sunday’s annual Up Your Alley street fair in San Francisco’s South of Market
neighborhood. The summertime event is a warm-up to the larger Folsom Street Fair that takes place September 29.
by Matthew S. Bajko
A
t night Red Jordan Arobateau tracks the arc of the moon as it crosses the night sky through the window of his studio apartment he moved into this spring with Bijou, his 30-year-old Goffin’s cockatoo. The pair had been living in an older residential building in the city’s Nob Hill neighborhood that didn’t afford as nice of a view. “What I like is the sky and moon at night,” said
Leasing plan for new Castro apartments elicits outrage by Matthew S. Bajko
T
he decision by a developer of a new apartment building on upper Market Street in San Francisco’s Castro district to have a hospitality startup rent out the units as furnished extended-stay apartments has elicited outrage from community members and District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman. Local contractor Brian Spiers won approval from the city to erect a 60-unit building over roughly 4,000 square feet of ground floor retail space at 2100 Market Street, with eight of the apartments set aside as below-market-rate. Located at the intersection of 14th, Church and Market streets, the project is months behind schedule, as it was initially expected to be ready for move in at the beginning of this year. It is now expected that the first tenants will move in sometime in September. But rather than offer up the units as typical apartments, Spiers partnered with San Francisco-based startup Sonder to handle leasing them as furnished apartments. According to the company’s website, it offers “the consistency and service of a great hotel that doesn’t come in a typical hotel format, combined with the warmth and comfort of staying in a space that feels more like a home, and the ability to
Rick Gerharter
Controversy has greeted the new building at 2100 Market Street, where the apartments will be leased by a hospitality startup as furnished apartments.
choose the perfect location from the best neighborhoods in cities around the world.” The news generated headlines last week that said the company was bringing “52 furnished hotel rooms,” as Hoodline put it, or a “corpo-
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rate rental” property, as SFist dubbed it, to upper Market Street. Spiers has disputed such descriptions, noting the units are being offered for lease similar to other furnished apartments people can rent throughout the city. He expects most of the tenants will sign leases with Sonder of six months to up to a year with an option to renew. “There has been a miscommunication that my building is going to be a hotel. That is absolutely not accurate,” Spiers told the Bay Area Reporter. In an interview Monday, he said he did not yet know what the market-rate apartments would rent for, as he was leaving that up to Sonder. As for the below-market-rate units that will be leased through the city’s lottery system for affordable units, Spiers told the B.A.R. that the five one-bedrooms will rent around $1,290 a month and the three two-bedrooms will rent for about $1,440 a month. Because he doesn’t have an apartment leasing team, Spiers said it made sense to have Sonder handle renting out the building, though a different company will oversee the leasing of the BMR units. With just one elevator in the building, Spiers said it would be easier to move in furniture all at once for the market-rate units rather than having numerous people moving into the building at various times. See page 9 >>