SF low-income mental health provider may get evicted to make way for housing
SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) - Workers at a Bay Area center that provides mental health care at a low cost fear they may be kicked out of their building after nearly four decades of service.
HAPS, which stands for Haight Ashbury Psychological Services has served the people in San Francisco's Haight neighborhood and all across the city for 37 years.
"We really serve the working poor pretty much in San Francisco," says HAPS Director Lisa Frankfort. "They make a $1,000 a month, or $1,500 a month and they really want to get therapy. If it wasn't for places like HAPS they wouldn't afford to get help at all," says HAPS Co-Director Donna Zoll. But the service they provide may soon come to an end.
"Somebody said to me the buildings being turned into condos. I said what?" said Frankfort.
According to the city and county of San Francisco's Department of Building Inspections and Planning web page, the building's owners filed a request last October to demolish the existing medical offices and construct three separate residential buildings in a city that needs more housing.
"If we don't exist there are a lot of people who will not get services. These are people who can easily fall through the cracks," says Frankfort. "There are less and less resources at a time when there's so much going on in the city and we need more and more resources for mental health," says Zoll.
Frankfort and Zoll have been with the center since the 80s when they started as interns. The offices in the building have been all they've known for most of their professional careers.
Now with the threat of losing it all they've created a gofundme account in hopes of raising enough money so they can move.
"It would really break my heart if we closed. We're fighters here and we're not giving up," says Frankfort.
The center's lease is month to month so the owners only have to give them 30 days’ notice to leave. KTVU reached out to the building's owners and did not get a response.