Monday, June 16, SEIU 1021 members working for the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Behavioral Health Center (BHC) flooded the SF Public Health Commission meeting alongside the BHC’s residents and their family members to deliver a petition — and heartfelt pleas — not to displace the 82 vulnerable residents.

Recently, the City informed residents and staff that the BHC’s Adult Residential Facility (ARF) and Residential Care Facility for the Elderly (RCFE) would be closing and that the residents would be transferred to other facilities. The closure and move is part of a plan to meet Mayor Daniel Lurie’s  promise of opening 1500 new beds to address San Francisco’s mental health and substance abuse crisis.

The BHC has three floors, one of which is currently a locked psychiatric facility. The building also holds the Adult Residential Facility (ARF) and Residential Care Facility for the Elderly (RCFE), which are not locked facilities. The City is getting a $21 million grant for renovations to create new locked psychiatric beds (known as a mental health rehabilitation center, or MHRC) and has decided the BHC is the place to do it, since it was built as a locked facility. However, the 82 residents of the ARF and RCFE would have to be moved elsewhere — a move that threatens the stability, community, and well-being they have found in their current home. Most of the residents of the ARF and RCFE have struggled in private facilities and/or have conditions that make it difficult to find appropriate settings for them.

Ninety percent of the ARF and RCFE’s residents have signed a petition urging the Public Health Commission not to close the facility and find another location for the locked psychiatric beds. Monday, ARF and RCFE residents, their family members, and staff delivered that petition.

“I’ve been working with the ARF clients for the last 20 years,” said SEIU 1021 member and mental health worker Sharifa Rahman during public comment before the commission. ”I’ve seen their pain, their struggles, how hard they’ve worked to get where they are today. Before coming to the ARF and RCFE, many of them were moved from place to place, never  stable, never totally cared for. But here at the ARF and RCFE they finally found a home. This isn’t just a place to live, it’s a therapeutic environment that the staff created. We have built with care a place of structure, safety, and healing. Most importantly, the staff here made them feel special, like they matter. That human connection is what helped them to become stable and well.

“In 2019, DPH already tried to close the ARF, and I can’t forget how much the clients suffered back then. It caused confusion, stress, and fear. Now they’re going through it all over again. How much more do they have to take? They’re already stressing out, afraid of losing the only place that ever truly worked for them. We understand the need for more locked facilities, but please, not at the cost of those who are already stable and healing. Don’t take away their home. Don’t undo years of progress. Please help us protect them.”

Antoinette Conde is the sister of a resident of the RCFE. She pleaded passionately in her public comment for the commission to rethink their decision. “The BHC has provided security, safety and stability. The staff really are familiar and skillful in dealing with this type of patient and his health conditions. To move him to these contractual facilities where he’s been before will create anxiety and even confusion. Please reconsider your plan. Do not move my brother from the BHC.

“These places he’s been before, some of them were so dirty and unsanitary. He was at Capp and Mission. The place was so filthy it was full of rats. He started having skin problems. In other places the staff were so mean and so degrading to the clients, and the staff were so unskilled, so unprofessional in dealing with his type of mental health. I urge you please listen to us, the family, the community. If you move these patients, you might aggravate their condition or their physical disability. My brother is all I have. If I don’t fight for his safety and well-being, who else will?”

In her public comment, SEIU 1021 Vice President of Organizing and 15-year SF DPH registered nurse Jennifer Esteen said, “The ARF, as you’ve heard from people who live there, from family members of loved ones, is a very special place. It’s an enhanced board and care that can do more than other board and cares can in the City. It’s a place of last resort. It’s a home for people who need culturally competent care because they don’t speak English and sometimes they’re not citizens. So the City covers their entire board and care patch, their social security payments, the Medicare payments, anything that would otherwise be covered through entitlements. The BHC is the home for all of those folks.

“In addition to that, there has been a dedication that has been made by DPH, by Mandelman’s bed task force, which says we need more beds at all levels. By closing the beds at the BHC the RCFE and the ARF in order to open a MHRC {mental health rehab center}, we lose beds. Even if the City is able to open an RCFE somewhere else, we do not gain. It’s a net zero. It’s not good policy to close one resource that’s already operating at a high level to open a new resource.

“In addition, the current MHRC located in the current building at the BHC has not had 100% occupancy for years. If we can’t staff and fill the current MHRC, what makes us think we’re going to staff and fill the new MHRC? I don’t know what stories are comiong out of our DPH that make it seem like this is a fair exchange. We are asking for this process to slow down, take another look like we did in 2019, and build these facilities somewhere else. The state of California has issued us a $21M grant to pay for renovations. That is a boon to our budget. We absolutely should use those funds to do the responsible thing and build MHRC beds. But we should not displace residents who are currently stable, who were otherwise previously unstable, in order to build those beds. Please don’t make my clients decompensate, don’t send them to psych emergency, don’t send them to the streets.”

Read more about the closure and its impact on vulnerable residents in the SF Standard here.