City Grant to Help Build Housing for S.F. LGBT Seniors

A $6.1 million grant from San Francisco's new Housing Trust Fund will revive a stalled effort to build an apartment complex for low-income LGBT seniors.

Voters approved the trust fund November 10, and Mayor Ed Lee announced the grant to the complex Friday, The Examiner reports. The project is planned for a 5.4-acre site in the Hayes Valley section of San Francisco that was formerly occupied by an extension campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

Two nonprofit organizations, Mercy Housing and Openhouse, are building 110 units on the site for low-income seniors. They will be open to all people in this age and income group, but the organizations say they will assure that the environment is welcoming to LGBT residents, who often face difficulty in finding senior housing that is supportive. "It will be the largest low-income housing site in the nation that is welcoming to LGBT seniors," The Examiner notes.

There will also be market-rate units at the site, developed by Wood Partners. Officials of that company said construction could begin by the middle of next year. The company previously slated to develop the market-rate portion went bankrupt in 2008, leaving the project in limbo.