Groundbreaking shelter for LGBT homeless opening in the Mission

When Jayson Dowker moved to San Francisco a year and a half ago, he had no job and nowhere to live. His first night in a shelter underscored the challenges for him as a transgender man. A staff member asked Dowker, loud enough for others to hear, “Oh, you’re trans?”

That night, Dowker woke up to people yelling and screaming and throwing water on him and. Terrified, Dowker, 21, fled the shelter in the middle of the night.

Now, he’s hoping to stay at what is believed to be the country’s first adult shelter for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The shelter opens Wednesday in the Mission, five years after it was first envisioned.

In a city where nearly a third of the homeless population is gay or transgender, the shelter will make a small dent — it has just 24 beds. But supporters say it is a groundbreaking initiative that could offer a blueprint for similar efforts nationwide.

“This is so much bigger than 24 beds,” said Bevan Dufty, the mayor’s point person on homelessness. “It’s about looking at the homeless service system and asking, ‘How can we do a much better job for LGBT people?’”

Steven R. Berg, vice president for programs and policy at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said other cities have homeless shelters for LGBT youth up to 25 years old, but none that extend to adults.

“It’s the first we’ve heard of it,” Berg said.

Filling a big need

The idea grew out of a 2010 San Francisco Board of Supervisors hearing that found many of the city’s LGBT homeless don’t feel safe or welcome in the large, existing shelters. A 2013 survey by the city underscored the problem: 29 percent of the city’s roughly 6,400 homeless people said they were LGBT.

“When we first had a hearing about this it was clear something needed to happen,” said Supervisor David Campos, who worked for the new shelter. “Whenever you talk about opening or expanding a shelter, many people say, ‘Not in my backyard.’ In this case the response was very positive.”

Dolores Street Community Services will run the shelter, named Jazzie’s Place in honor of Jazzie Collins, a dynamic community organizer and transgender activist who was vice chair of the city’s LGBT Aging Policy Task Force when she died in 2013.

Although not strictly limited to LGBT people, it is geared to them. Residents, who can stay up to three months, can choose to stay in one of three sections — for females, males and people who don’t conform to either gender.

“This is really revolutionary,” said Sadaisha Shimmers, 31, a transgender activist who lives in San Francisco and is Dowker’s partner.

Shimmers said transgender women generally run a dual risk in shelters: If they are housed with females, they face the possibility they will be accused of molestation or assault. If they room with males, they face the threat of being sexually attacked. She recalls the night she was sleeping at a shelter in Portland, Ore., when a male occupant beat her so badly every bone on the right side of her face was broken.

Proposed in 2010

“Just the thought that trans people can be safely housed will validate them in a way that makes them feel safe and able to move forward with stability,” Shimmers said, adding that she is among the people looking to stay at Jazzie’s Place because she had to leave her home to avoid drug-dealing roommates.

The shelter took far longer to open than anyone expected.

Proposed in 2010, advocates suggested opening it as an expansion to an existing shelter at 1050 S. Van Ness Ave., in a multipurpose building next to St. Mary and St. Martha Lutheran Church, thinking that would expedite the process. Problems emerged almost immediately, as it turned out the existing shelter had been operating for years without the proper permits and in violation of disability-access laws.

With the proposed LGBT shelter in peril, the community rallied. Restaurants like Slider Bar and Lone Star Saloon held fundraisers, architect Alan Martinez designed changes to the existing shelter to make it disability friendly and Swinerton Builders donated construction management services. This year, Mayor Ed Lee closed the $600,000 funding gap to complete the project.

$1.5 million project

The project cost $1.5 million to construct, with roughly $1 million coming from the city and the balance from private donations. The annual operating budget is $160,000.

“This is another great example of the public and private sector coming together to lift people up and out of homelessness,” Lee said.

Chandilier Jones, 20, is on a waiting list to get in. Jones, who is transitioning from a gay man to a woman, has lived at the Lark-Inn shelter for the past 2½ months.

But life there has been hard. Other residents have thrown condoms full of urine on his bed, Jones said, as well as left notes saying, “I hate faggots.”

Jones hopes that if she is able to move into Jazzie’s Place she will live among people who treat her well. People, Jones said, “who understand where I am coming from and have been in the same place where I’ve been.”