| History. In 1930 Archpriest Paul
Rasumoff of Holy Trinity Cathedral
in San Francisco, with the blessing of Metropolitan Platon and
Bishop Alexis, established a monastery and home for Russian women in San
Francisco. The first location was Sacramento and Divisidero, and
comprised ten rooms, a dormitory, and a church. In 1934 it became
clear that the monastery would not be realized, and by-laws were
developed for the Russian
Women's Home of Mercy, which was incorporated as a non-profit
membership organization with a board of directors of ten members.
Fr. Paul served the Home until his death in 1949. The Home had
several more locations and served many members.
In 1993, it came to the attention of our Chancellor that the last
surviving member, Claudia Kolosoff, then 90 years of age, was seeking
help in running the Home. Fr. Nikolai met with her, and at her request
formed around her a new board. Thanks to Ms. Kolosoff’s good financial
stewardship, the Home had about $100,000 in cash assets, and two
properties on 15th Ave: a house containing a church and 3 rooms, and
across the street a building with 4 apartments of three or four rooms
each. However, in all the rooms in both buildings, there were only 4
people who met the mission of the Home, of which two were very frail and
were moved to St. Olga’s to be cared for. It soon became clear that
the combination of San Francisco rent laws and the low rents the tenants
enjoyed would keep them there forever, so the Board decided to sell the
properties and make a fresh start with the proceeds. Both buildings were
sold in April of 1998.
New Facility. The mission of the Home as expressed in its by laws
is to "keep a charitable institution, home and shelter for women
and elderly men who may have temporarily found themselves in need of
material assistance." Over the past year the Board considered many
options for carrying out the Home’s mission. The Board explored
cooperating with other organizations such as parishes and monasteries or
the diocesan center project, and looked at facilities outside San
Francisco, where prices were lower and rent rules laxer. All this was
interesting, but nothing concrete emerged from our talks and
investigations.
Meanwhile, the Board had been talking to church related organizations
that serve the Home’s target population in San Francisco. This
research revealed that there is a clearly defined need in San Francisco,
and that need is simply inexpensive living space. For the target
population we have identified, moving outside San Francisco would
require the Home to provide much more than living space--in fact all the
shopping, social contacts and church they already have and could keep if
living in San Francisco. It would be impossible to create this
infrastructure on our budget. In San Francisco we could put our proceeds
to work right away and provide the most service for our resources. At
the meeting of February 2, 1999, the Board decided to actively pursue
property in San Francisco to use for subsidized living.
In March 1999, the Board found and pursued a property at 4th and Anza,
which had ideal location, 12 apartments, an elevator and a suitable
price. Although our offer was not accepted, the Board developed an ideal
property profile and a budget to use to qualify and evaluate new
properties. Suitable properties have come on the market at the rate of
about one a quarter. It is the policy of the Board to keep looking for
such a property, attempt to secure it, and start providing low cost
housing for the elderly orthodox once again, according to the mission of
the Home of Mercy. |
