A legal services agency that works with low-income Bay Area residents is moving its San Francisco office into the city's LGBT Community Center this fall.
Bay Area Legal Aid has signed a 10-year lease for the center's entire third floor to house 24 attorneys and additional support staff. It has the option to extend it another five years, and while the rent it is paying is below market value, the agency signed a confidentiality agreement barring it from disclosing the price.
"We knew we could not be forced out of San Francisco, as it is where all of our client population is," said Jerel McCrary, the managing attorney of Bay Legal's regional office in San Francisco since 2014.
As the Bay Area Reporter has previously reported, the center is undergoing a major renovation of its 35,000 square foot building at 1800 Market Street. Work on the $6.5 million project began last month.
The work is expected to take at least six months, with a completion date in "late 2016," Rebecca Rolfe, the center's executive director, told the B.A.R. this week.
With the center consolidating its staff and office needs onto the building's first and second floors, it allowed it to reconfigure the third and fourth floors to accommodate the needs of several local nonprofits that will be moving into new offices later this year.
McCrary began looking for new office space more than a year ago, even though the current lease does not expire until September 2017. The rent on Bay Legal's current San Francisco office at 1035 Market Street, which also houses the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and other groups, was set to rise from $30 a square foot to $70 a square foot.
"Everyone else in the same position said to start looking now," said McCrary.
Had it remained in its current location, which totals 8,500 square feet spread over two floors, it would see its rent increase to $60,000 a month, said McCrary. The agency learned about the LGBT center's planned renovation through the Northern California Community Loan Fund, which is working with Mayor Ed Lee's administration on the city's nonprofit mitigation program aimed at keeping such agencies housed in the city.
"We had hoped to renegotiate our lease here," said McCrary. "Then NCCLF contacted us about the center. They sort of played Yenta for us."
To ensure the safety of its staff and clients, most of whom have experienced domestic violence, as well as safeguard confidential client records, Bay Legal leased the center's entire third floor in order for it to be configured so there are locked entryways into the staff offices. A reception area and conference room will be built where an open atrium had been.
The agency is spending $950,000 to remodel the space to its specifications. Rather than launch a capital campaign, Bay Legal is self-financing the cost by borrowing against properties it owns in the East Bay, said McCrary.
"Given how rents are, one of the things that makes it possible for us to contemplate paying nearly $1 million for tenant improvements is because the rent is so reasonable," he said. "It was an immense relief to know we had some rent security amidst all that is happening with rents in San Francisco."
Increase in Services to LGBTs
By housing Bay Legal's San Francisco staff in the LGBT center, the agency expects it will see more LGBT clients. The agency has a long history of working within the LGBT community, noted McCrary, a gay man who began with Bay Legal in 1989 as a staff attorney in the family law unit focused on domestic violence cases.
Back then the agency was known as the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation. It changed its name in 2001 when it merged with several other county organizations.
"I think it is a real opportunity for us to have a closer connection with the community to let people know the services we do here. I am really excited about this for us," said McCrary, who in the past worked with Rolfe when she served as executive director of San Francisco Women Against Rape in the mid to late 1990s.
The agency has a close working relationship with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, having teamed in the past on a project focused on domestic violence in same-sex couples. Other projects it has worked on over the years have focused on transgender individuals, LGBT seniors, and the East Bay's LGBT community.
Bay Legal has offices serving seven counties in the Bay Area. Its services run the gamut, from working with youth who are low-income, homeless, or in foster care, to low-income renters facing eviction or people facing housing discrimination.
In 2014 its budget was $11 million, much of which was in federal funding. Due to the governmental support, Bay Legal is restricted to mainly working with clients whose incomes are 125 percent of the federal poverty level, though in some cases it can work with people earning up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
It does not track the sexual orientation of its clients, but does collect data on gender identity. The San Francisco office has seen at least 27 transgender clients, according to data McCrary provided to the B.A.R .
V, 38, a transgender woman who was born in Mexico and has been living in San Francisco since 2006, was connected to Bay Legal after she was arrested for driving without a license. After she was fingerprinted, she learned the police had been looking for her because they had found the person who had sexually assaulted her in 2008.
Attorneys at Bay Legal assisted in obtaining her a U-Visa as a victim of violence and are now appealing the denial of her Adjustment of Status Application.
"We have been working good," said V, who asked that only the initial of her first name be used due to her ongoing legal issues.
Asked about Bay Legal's planned move into the LGBT center, she said she hopes the agency is able to assist more LGBT people.
"If they are going to help our LGBT community, it will be awesome," said V.
Another client, Javier, 30, a transgender man, turned to Bay Legal in February for help with his custody suit against the biological father of his three children. NCLR, which is handling his immigration case, had referred him to the agency.
Originally from Central America, Javier speaks Spanish and spoke to the B.A.R. with the assistance of a translator. He asked that only his middle name be used due to his working to resolve his immigration status and not wanting to jeopardize his job as a janitor at a department store.
As of now, the San Francisco resident can only see his children, two boys and a girl all under the age of 10, one weekend day and one evening during the week. As their biological mother, Javier is seeking joint legal and physical custody of the children, whom he gave birth to prior to transitioning his gender identity.
"If Bay Legal was not able to help me, I would have to represent myself," said Javier. "I think it would be very difficult for me."
He, too, hopes Bay Legal's planned move into the LGBT center will result in more LGBT people accessing the agency's services.
"It is a perfect way to work in the community more," said Javier, so people like him who also are in a "desperate situation" can seek help.
To learn more about Bay Legal and how to access its services, visit https://www.baylegal.org.
Residents of San Francisco County can also call the agency's Legal Advice Line for help with housing and public benefits issues at (415) 354-6360