Helping S.F. residents age gracefully — at home
Jeff Van Bueren bounded up a steep sidewalk in his North Beach neighborhood, long strides carrying the 63yearold over slick leaves and past Victorians to a fogobscured view of the Bay Bridge.
“Just wanted to get the heart rate going,” he said.
Beside him, volunteer Samantha Wales had to break into a jog.
“He’s slowly getting me fit,” the 47yearold joked.
The pair’s recent morning jaunt was part of a weekly routine designed to help slow the progression of Van Bueren’s Parkinson’s disease. The meetups are coordinated by NEXT Village SF, a nonprofit organization that serves the city’s fastest growing population: seniors.
Adults older than age 60 will make up 23% of San Francisco’s population next year, and 27% of all residents a decade from now, according to the city’s Department of Disability and Aging Services.
NEXT Village, whose name stands for Northeast Exchange Team, seeks to help seniors in that corner of the city — which has San Francisco’s highest concentration of elderly residents — remain in their homes as long as possible. The work is vital in a city known for its high cost of living, as well as its many steep hills.
The organization is part of the national Village to Village network, which has more than
a dozen branches in the Bay Area and 240 nationwide. The hyperlocal groups were modeled after the first “village” created in Boston in 2002.
Many of NEXT Village’s clients face daunting issues such as navigating the streets alone, landlords attempting to push them out of rentcontrolled apartments, social isolation and loneliness.
“So many of our members didn’t marry and didn’t have kids,” said Jacqueline Jones, NEXT Village’s executive director. “So, we’re it.”
Supervisor Aaron Peskin, whose District Three includes North Beach, Chinatown and Nob Hill, called NEXT Village a “godsend” for his older constituents.
“With a pittance of city dollars, and an incredible amount of local volunteer and neighborhood support, NEXT Village SF has helped my neighbors age in place and get services big and small that they need to have a good quality of life,” Peskin said.
NEXT Village, now in its 10th year and serving roughly 220 members, plans to expand operations in January by adding biweekly events in the Marina. The membershipdriven organization charges clients $600 a year, while lowincome seniors can pay a $120 fee supplemented by city funds.
Neighborhoods served include North Beach, Telegraph Hill, Polk Gulch, Russian Hill, the northern waterfront, the Marina, Nob Hill and the Financial District. The goal is to “fill in the gaps of whatever people might need,” Jones said.
For Van Bueren, the biggest need is a steady walking partner.
Doctors told him exercise could help slow the progression of his nervous system disorder, which has no cure. Medication boosts his stamina in the morning, but by the afternoon Van Bueren can hardly muster the energy to inch through his apartment on a walker or reach for his reading glasses.
The morning walks remind him of the active lifestyle he used to enjoy, backpacking and yoga, before several falls and brain surgery. The conversations Van Bueren and Wales have are as colorful and winding as the path they usually take.
“We gossip a lot,” Wales said. “Jeff helps me out with work problems.”
Volunteers such as Wales help members buy groceries, drive them to appointments and teach them how to use technology. NEXT Village also hosts lunches, book clubs and painting classes to give seniors a chance to socialize outside the house.
In one case, said Jones, the executive director, a landlord nailed shut a woman’s recycling container. Volunteers carried her recycling down three flights of stairs — an insurmountable obstacle for the woman alone.
“In those kind of cases, we’re like, ‘Oh, we’re here — that’s not happening under our watch. We’re going to take care of this for you,’ ” Jones said. “So, there’s a lot of cases where we’re a step ahead of the landlord when they want somebody who’s been in a rentcontrolled apartment to go so they can renovate and rent at market rates.”
NEXT Village identified social isolation as one of the biggest issues facing seniors in San Francisco, after the city’s aging department estimated that nearly 30% of older adults live alone.
On a recent afternoon at the North Beach Public Library, a group of elders sat around a table as Lucia Gonnella, an artist, stood in front of an easel with a paintbrush in hand.
The seniors dabbed at their own papers with watercolor paints, glancing back and forth between their artwork and the red potted plant in the middle of the table. Leonie Van Den Berg, 73, peeked at the paintings of those around her and offered compliments.
“It’s like extended family,” she said about the friends she’s made through NEXT Village.
For Wales and Van Bueren, what began as a weekly walk has morphed into a friendship. The gettogethers give Van Bueren perspective, he said, when he begins to worry about his future.
“I don’t worry about anything,” Wales said. “We balance each other out.”
Most importantly, Van Bueren has found a friend who can keep up, step for step.
“She takes it all in stride,” he said.