Enter San Francisco Village, which Goldman learned about a year ago while reading an article in the New Fillmore about an upcoming event at Margaret Johnson’s home on Pine Street where a new aging-in-place concept would be introduced. Goldman was already impressed by Boston’s Beacon Hill Village, the prototype for such communities. So she went.
That night, Mary Moore Gaines, Eva Auchincloss and Susan Poor outlined ambitious plans to create San Francisco Village, a membership-based community that would help older adults stay in their homes as they age by off ering a wide variety of social, educational and personal resources. Eventually, trained staff would work with each member through a four-step process: listen, respond, connect, follow-up.
For example, if a back fence needed repair, the Village would off er the names of several repairpeople who had been vetted. After the work was completed, the member would get a follow-up call making sure everything was satisfactory, soliciting input and adding that information to the Village database.
The same process would apply for other needs: rides to doctors’ appointments, help with computers, social visits. By anticipating problems that might call for outside help, the Village would keep members in their own homes as long and as comfortably as possible.
Now the dream is a reality
What was only a dream in 2008, presented to small groups in homes throughout the neighborhood, became a reality this year with the offi cial launch of San Francisco Village.
One of its first members was Sarah Goldman.
In many ways, she typifi es the members of the Village: active, intelligent, engaged— and planning to stay that way. She works two mornings a week at Th e Mindful Body on California Street—one in trade for yoga lessons, the other for pay. The yoga studio and a long list of other interests and involvements leave no time for boredom.
A career in clinical psychology led Goldman to California, and eventually to the Bay Area. She was working as a marriage and family therapist when she discovered both an interest in gerontology and a gift for one-on-one communications with seniors.
Her skills, honed through internships at senior residences including The Carlyle, in the neighborhood, led to a new career. When she was 64, she went to work with the Peninsula Regent retirement community in San Mateo. She soon realized that many residents needed intellectually stimulating activities, and thus was born a play reading group.
Once she joined San Francisco Village, Goldman quickly agitated for a play reading group. “It just caught on,” she says. Beginning last spring, a handful of theater enthusiasts—now up to a dozen—began meeting once a month at a member’s home.
Goldman chooses a play, hands out parts and they go from there.
“Usually it’s something short and light, with some humor,” she says. “But I think we might tackle things with more substance with this group.”
That’s probably fitting. “This group” includes early regulars Winnie Siegel and Maggie Ralston, retired psychiatrist Larry Lurie and his wife Ellie, SF Village board member Eva Auchincloss, retired attorney Tom Mellor (“who imbues every role with life”) and well-known San Francisco journalist Tom Benet (“also a very good reader”)— and the son of author-poet Stephen Vincent Benet.
Looking after one another
While SF Village focuses on services and socializing, there is another aspect that can be
critically important: looking after one another. Because many members live alone, new ideas for keeping in touch and offering care are continually being discussed and implemented. Problems of isolation, both physical and psychological, are among the leading reasons many seniors find they must give up their longtime homes.
Shortly after she joined SF Village, Goldman talked her elderly landlady into joining. Well into her 90s, the landlady had seen all of her close friends die. Goldman had observed that a nephew from Sacramento helped with some needs, and a friend came weekly to help with grocery shopping and other tasks. Then not long ago, she realized the weekly visitor was appearing less frequently. Her landlady was showing signs she needed more attention.
One call to San Francisco Village turned things around. A small group, including Goldman and the nephew, gathered and set plans in motion for a major cleanup, regular housecleaning and outside helpers who would keep up with bills and personal care.
For families, an ally
Those who belong to San Francisco Village hope the group can help relieve family members of many caretaking duties and burdens. Goldman has a son living in San Francisco. “I want him to have an ally in SF Village,” she says.
Margaret Johnson, who hosted the event that fi rst piqued Sarah Goldman’s interest in SF Village, has a daughter in San Francisco and a son in southern California. “But I see no need to disrupt their lives any more than necessary as I get older,” she says. “I would rather not live in assisted living or a retirement community if I can live independently.”
For more information about San Francisco Village, visit www.sfvillage.org or call 387-1375.
