Current plans call for a seven-story building with 154 units, mostly one-bedroom and studio apartments, adjacent to Jewish Family and Children’s Services long-time headquarters at 1600 Scott St.
The Scott Street complex will also hold new administrative offices for JFCS and Mt. Zion Health Systems — the two primary agencies that have joined together on the project.
Opening such a housing facility will close a gap in the continuum of elderly care offered by the Bay Area Jewish community.
Seniors who are well and still independent have been able to turn to San Francisco’s Menorah Park or San Jose’s Chai House. Seniors who require a high level of medical care have moved into San Francisco’s Jewish Home for the Aged or Oakland’s Home for Jewish Parents.
But the elderly who fit neither category have had nowhere to turn within the Jewish community for an “assisted-living” complex.
To social service providers, the need for such housing is obvious — an observationsupported by a feasibility study commissioned by the Scott Street organizers.
“We could probably fill several of these complexes easily,” said Ann Lazarus, CEO of Mt. Zion Health Systems and a Scott Street board member.
The Bay Area’s other assisted-living complexes are always full or near capacity, noted Anita Friedman, JFCS executive director. There are no such facilities in San Francisco itself.
“The need is in every income group, from the poor to the affluent,” she said.
The organized Jewish community has tried for at least two decades to pull such a housing project together, including one attempt several years ago on Lombard Street. But Friedman said the absence of a site, money and interagency coordination coming together simultaneously prevented those attempts from becoming reality.
“This is the first time we’re about to actually succeed,” Friedman said.
The goal is to create a residential, not an institutional feel — or, as Friedman puts it, a “vibrant and nurturing Jewish neighborhood.”
Overlooking Hamilton Park and a public library, the complex will take up one-third of a city block. It will sit a few blocks west of Japantown and will be across the street from UCSF/Mt. Zion Medical Center.
The 200,000 square-foot facility will include an open-air terrace, underground parking and indoor “main street” with a bakery-cafe, library-computer room, art center, hair salon and synagogue.
“It will mimic the urban experience,” said Bill Pomeranz, a paid consultant who is the finance and program planner.
A kosher kitchen will serve three meals a day, although each apartment will include a small kitchen. Transportation, housekeeping and medical supervision will be available. Counselors or aides will assist people if necessary with daily chores such as shopping, cooking, cleaning, bathing, dressing and paying bills.
“As people grow older, they really don’t want the encumbrances of huge homes and a lot of problems. They also need to have companionship. And they know they need to be taken care of. They’ll really have a community together,” Isackson said.
A health and wellness center will offer services such as medication-monitoring, blood pressure checks and physical therapy.
There will be a separate wing for seniors with early-stage dementia, as well as a licensed center for adult daytime health care, open to nonresidents as space allows.
The Jewish Home for the Aged is collaborating with the Scott Street center to create a simple transfer method for residents who become too ill, either temporarily or permanently, to remain in the assisted living complex.
Unlike other assisted-living facilities in the Bay Area, Scott Street will neither house only high-income seniors nor sell its apartments.
The new complex will instead accept Jews of all income levels and rent out its units. Though the monthly fee isn’t set yet, Friedman noted that the current market rate for similar Bay Area complexes is about $3,600 per month — compared to the typical $5,000 to $6,000 charged monthly at nursing homes.
The complex likely won’t begin to take names for a residential waiting list until sometime in 1998 — after the project receives final city approval and the exact floor plan is laid out. When it does begin accepting names, interest is expected to be high.
“I know people who have parents — and I personally know people — who will be needing such a facility,” said Anita Wornick, JFCS board president and a Scott Street center board member. “It’s just long overdue.”
Officials don’t expect that opening the Scott Street complex will dramatically affect waiting lists at either of the city’s two other Jewish-run senior facilities.
The Jewish Home for the Aged, which has 450 beds and a 15- to 20-person waiting list, might be slightly impacted. If some of the pressure eases, the home’s admissions policy might loosen up, said its executive director, Jerry Levine.
Menorah Park, on the other hand, has a 500-person waiting list for its 150 units. Because the federally subsidized housing caters to low-income seniors who can still live independently, Menorah Park board President Martin Goodman said, there won’t be much crossover with the Scott Street complex.
Though JFCS and Mt. Zion Health Systems are the primary organizations involved in the project, other local agencies interested in senior health care and housing have joined to offer their expertise in senior care or financing such a project.
The 13-member Scott Street board includes representatives of Mt. Zion, JFCS, Mt. Zion subsidiary Goldman Institute on Aging, Jewish Home for the Aged, and the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation.
Mt. Zion joined the efforts a few years ago when Lazarus began considering the possibility that her organization could offer a 58-space parking lot and another plot adjacent to JFCS headquarters for such a project.
Mt. Zion eventually decided to donate the 27,000 square-foot area — roughly a quarter of a city block — to the project.
“People feel there is nothing better that we could do with that piece of property,” said Lazarus, who is also a former JFCS board president.
Working with neighborhood associations, the Scott Street board hopes to integrate the 67-year-old JFCS headquarters into the project. Renovated and seismically upgraded, the red-brick building is expected to become the seniors’ communal dining room.
The construction plans are expected to go before the city planning commission in the spring.
Though the $36 million Scott Street project has been in the works for some time, publicity efforts and a public fund-raising campaign kicked off just two weeks ago.
The goal is to raise a minimum of $20 million for construction and $5 million for an endowment fund; the rest will come from bond sales.
Supporters have a solid start. Before the public campaign began, more than $13 million had already been raised.
“We have sufficient funds to break ground,” said Larry Myers, a Scott Street board member.
Two families — the Goldmans and the Schultzes — have become principal benefactors.
The Goldman family, through the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, has donated money toward the complex. Though officially and currently known as the Scott Street project, it eventually will be called Rhoda Goldman Plaza in honor of the late San Franciscan.
John Goldman, a Scott Street center board member, said his family decided to honor his mother in this way due to her commitment to seniors, Mt. Zion, and health and social services.
“She knew of the desperate need to have assisted living for seniors,” he said.
Janet and Albert L. Schultz of Menlo Park have donated money toward the new JFCS office space. It will be named in the memory of their daughter, Miriam Schultz Grunfeld.
The capital campaign co-chairs — Myers, Goldman and Mervin Morris — will turn to individuals as well as foundations for donations.
The more money that can be raised, Myers noted, the more financial assistance that will be available for low- to moderate-income seniors.
When he laid out the project last month at the first fund-raising luncheon, Myers said, he saw a strong interest that he expects will translate into donations.