Transitional-age youth housing proposal stands ready to fail both young adults and the neighborhood
Mayor Newsom’s Office of Housing is proposing to place housing for transitional-age youth – young adults age 18 to 24 – in the Edward II Inn located on Lombard and Scott Streets. This project will be owned and managed by the Community Housing Partnership. Residents of the Marina and Cow Hollow are concerned about a program that may unsuspectingly change the neighborhood for the worse. This does not mean that neighbors would not welcome housing for formerly homeless youth that is well planned, conforms to current laws, is economically practical, and employs responsible management controls. The mayor’s proposal, however, fails in all of these areas.
The Community Housing Partnership (CHP) has tried to convince the public that this proposal is just like the Arendt House, a new 40-unit senior residence on Broderick Street that CHP manages. The transitional-age youth (TAY) facility proposed for the Edward II Inn is a much different animal than senior housing. As anyone who has raised kids knows, young men and women in this age group are trying out their new adulthood. The 24 young adult tenants and their overnight guests will need the sure guidance of several experienced adults to help them navigate through this difficult period, not just a desk person in the lobby as proposed at the Edward II.
What is critically lacking at the proposed Edward II is the necessary level of supervision that youths this age require, particularly in the evening after work or school and late at night when trouble tends to arise. Housing older adults, seniors or families together with these young adults would be one way to provide this guidance.
Also lacking is any significant indoor or outdoor recreation or relaxation space. These tenants will have nowhere to go. At the Arendt House, senior residents have these areas, and the zoning law governing the Edward II requires it. So why doesn’t the Mayor’s Office of Housing want it for young adults at the Edward II? This may mean that the only outdoor place to go is the sidewalk in front of the Edward II; ten young adults loitering on a sidewalk tend to develop the wrong traits.
This lack of supervision during the day and particularly at night is especially evident at 864 Ellis Street, a very similar facility for 24 young adults that is managed by Larkin Street Youth Services (LSYS). During the first 21 days of June 2010, 284 police calls were made to a one-block area around this address. The facility has raised the level of crime, noise and police calls for the neighborhood exponentially. Neighbors will tell you that this youth facility, unlike the Arendt House, is not a good neighbor, and they lament the day that it was opened.
The housing model that CHP and LSYS are using – placing two or three dozen young adults together in an undermanaged and undersupervised apartment building – is the cause of a problem that Marina-Cow Hollow residents want to avoid. Where the model has been changed to include seniors and families with the young adults (as at other LSYS locations), the results have been much better for both the neighborhood and for the youth that is being served.
Rather than trying to jamb twice the legal number of young adults into an out-of-date motel structure to provide the sponsor (CHP) with development fees of almost $700,000 dollars, the neighborhood would like to see a more responsible approach from the Mayor’s Office of Housing – a plan that will irrefutably counter the shortcomings of 864 Ellis Street. It should also be a project that does not evade Americans with Disabilities Act requirements or existing zoning regulations, and one that moves closer to making better financial sense.
San Francisco already has a good example of a project designed to fail the youth it was supposed to serve at 864 Ellis Street – the residents of the Marina and Cow Hollow do not want another example damaging their own neighborhood.
The Community Housing Partnership (CHP) has tried to convince the public that this proposal is just like the Arendt House, a new 40-unit senior residence on Broderick Street that CHP manages. The transitional-age youth (TAY) facility proposed for the Edward II Inn is a much different animal than senior housing. As anyone who has raised kids knows, young men and women in this age group are trying out their new adulthood. The 24 young adult tenants and their overnight guests will need the sure guidance of several experienced adults to help them navigate through this difficult period, not just a desk person in the lobby as proposed at the Edward II.
What is critically lacking at the proposed Edward II is the necessary level of supervision that youths this age require, particularly in the evening after work or school and late at night when trouble tends to arise. Housing older adults, seniors or families together with these young adults would be one way to provide this guidance.
Also lacking is any significant indoor or outdoor recreation or relaxation space. These tenants will have nowhere to go. At the Arendt House, senior residents have these areas, and the zoning law governing the Edward II requires it. So why doesn’t the Mayor’s Office of Housing want it for young adults at the Edward II? This may mean that the only outdoor place to go is the sidewalk in front of the Edward II; ten young adults loitering on a sidewalk tend to develop the wrong traits.
This lack of supervision during the day and particularly at night is especially evident at 864 Ellis Street, a very similar facility for 24 young adults that is managed by Larkin Street Youth Services (LSYS). During the first 21 days of June 2010, 284 police calls were made to a one-block area around this address. The facility has raised the level of crime, noise and police calls for the neighborhood exponentially. Neighbors will tell you that this youth facility, unlike the Arendt House, is not a good neighbor, and they lament the day that it was opened.
The housing model that CHP and LSYS are using – placing two or three dozen young adults together in an undermanaged and undersupervised apartment building – is the cause of a problem that Marina-Cow Hollow residents want to avoid. Where the model has been changed to include seniors and families with the young adults (as at other LSYS locations), the results have been much better for both the neighborhood and for the youth that is being served.
Rather than trying to jamb twice the legal number of young adults into an out-of-date motel structure to provide the sponsor (CHP) with development fees of almost $700,000 dollars, the neighborhood would like to see a more responsible approach from the Mayor’s Office of Housing – a plan that will irrefutably counter the shortcomings of 864 Ellis Street. It should also be a project that does not evade Americans with Disabilities Act requirements or existing zoning regulations, and one that moves closer to making better financial sense.
San Francisco already has a good example of a project designed to fail the youth it was supposed to serve at 864 Ellis Street – the residents of the Marina and Cow Hollow do not want another example damaging their own neighborhood.
Geoff Wood is a board member of the Cow Hollow Association.
