More than a dozen chronic mentally ill residents in limbo, as South Van Ness Manor facility set to close Nov. 30

A 21-room board-and-care facility housed in a gargantuan Victorian home on South Van Ness Avenue is stated to close its doors Nov. 30, leaving more than a dozen chronically mentally ill residents homeless. 

The 129-year-old house, gaily decorated in white, lavender, and gold, was placed on the market in October for just shy of $5 million. Realtor Ellen Julian said the 6,745-square-foot home has not sold, and she’s fielded offers from “three interested buyers:” The city itself a developer with a notion of running it as a for-profit facility (with, it would seem, a different client base), and a developer interested in converting the site into a hotel. 

Either way, the 27 residents have been given notice that they have to clear out by month’s end. Some 13 have been placed by the city but 14 more are still here. One, who identified herself as Aifa’i Taylor, said her case manager is working to find her a placement. “I’m not homeless. I’m not homeless,” she said, ambling up the stairs and into the building. 

“Right at Thanksgiving — and it’ll be raining,” said Jennifer Esteen, a psychiatric nurse who works in the health department’s transitions division, securing placements for people like Taylor. 

“How much worse can the timing get?” 

Esteen said that efforts are underway to place the 14 remaining residents at the Hummingbird Place center at San Francisco General Hospital. 

This is not ideal. Hummingbird is not a board-and-care facility; it’s a temporary respite for the homeless. So, not only will the current South Van Ness Manor residents, some of whom have resided in that structure for years, be shunted into a shelter-like situation, they’ll be taking up places that were earmarked for those in need of shelter. 

Hummingbird only has 19 beds. By essentially commandeering it for South Van Ness Manor residents, a cascading effect takes place, affecting placements up and down the chain — from the hospital, from other board-and-cares, even from jail. 

This was also the case when, as revealed earlier this year, the city intentionally left some 45 beds empty at the Adult Residential Facility and Residential Care for the Elderly, both housed on the General Hospital campus in a structure called the Behavioral Health Center. Self-imposed bottlenecks, in fact, resulted in mental health patients sitting in jail, for months, because there was ostensibly no facility to place them in. 

This issue came to light following the health department’s effort to convert permanent housing for the mentally ill into temporary shelter space — namely, the very same Hummingbird Place center, which is also located within the Behavioral Health Center.  

Esteen notes that some 20 beds are still empty at Residential Facility for the Elderly, located just one floor up from Hummingbird. 

The loss of board-and-care facilities for the mentally ill has become endemic in San Francisco; the city had 999 under contract in 2013 — and, today, has access to fewer than 600. Other closures are on the horizon following Nov. 30.  

In San Francisco, the city’s parodic real-estate costs are often at the root of this; while the need for these facilities is acute, the land they occupy could well fetch top dollar. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman in October introduced legislation aimed at discouraging the repurposing of board-and-cares. 

He is uncertain if the future ordinance would apply to South Van Ness Manor, but hopes it would: “It is certainly my intention that they would have trouble doing anything here but a board-and-care,” he said.  

Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who represents the Mission and has focused on mental health during her tenure, said she’s concerned about the residents’ possible displacement. “We need to postpone any displacement of these residents until the city secures other stable long-term placements for them,” Ronen said. “We also must immediately identify more board and care beds for the city overall.”

She also urged a fast implementation of Mental Health SF, a sweeping mental health system reform she helped author, because it “will actually help solve the problem.”

Esteen said residents housed on-site at South Van Ness Manor are not taking it well; the stress has induced some to “de-compensate” — that is, suffer anguish and breakdowns. Even if the city were able to delay the facility’s closing rather than prevent it altogether, she said, that would be helpful. 

“That could give us the chance to get staffing right at the Residential Center for the Elderly, stagger admissions — which is better for staff and clients — and give us a chance to maybe find a new board-and-care to contract with,” she said. “We can find more.”