Special Project: City Budget Cuts
Seniors and people with disabilities fight down to the wire to save programs that serve them
As Yogi Berra once said, "it ain't over till it's over." The baseball legend was referring to sports, of course, but the adage...
Life in the Later Lane
Following in the footsteps of heroes: My visit to the cradles of Civil Rights
SF SENIORBEAT COLUMN – March 17, 1886. A date you probably never considered. Carroll County, Mississippi. A...
Nonprofit director is happy to bug you, whether you’re 2 or 92, about saving the wild
If you grow up in Los Angeles, where do you find the wild? Norm Gershenz is not...
Bass playing lawyer takes on the landlords when seniors call for help
During the day, you’ll find Thomas Drohan in court or at his law office on Mission Street....
Former SFSU teacher shifts to helping union workers build leadership abilities
Like some people need coffee, Joan Wong needs to walk – and talk. Mornings, she puts in...
Joe Edley, a three-time national champion, has been racking up great Scrabble scores for decades
Joe Edley tucks his co-authored book, “Everything Scrabble,” under his arm and surveys the room. Around him,...
Robert Wachter, the doctor who is pioneering the use of artificial intelligence to treat patients
Robert Wachter is the doctor who oversees all the other doctors at the University of California, San...
Couple beat ‘fast furniture,’ pandemic and other challenges to keep upholstery shop going for nearly 50 years
J & G Upholstery stretches back farther than it looks from the sidewalk on Balboa Street. Stacks...
As the city’s older population swells, seniors who can no longer live at home face high costs, limited choices
EDITOR'S NOTE: See full profiles of the seniors interviewed by clicking links within the story. A panoply...
Stephanie Ernst-Scott runs the last tackle shop in San Francisco. It’s been in her family for 60 years.
Walk through the doors of Gus’ Discount Fishing Tackle, and you’ll likely be greeted before you even...
All Posts
Senior Beat examines in-home caregiving crisis: High costs leave most middle-income seniors in the lurch; worker supply lags demand
Because of its importance – and continuing concern – Senior Beat has decided to re-publish in whole this series produced last May by staff writers Mary Hunt and Judy Goddess. Their stories look at a complex health-care system that leaves most middle-income seniors on their own for in-home help affordable only for the wealthy and ...
A friend and landlord’s passing reveals a ‘shocking’ bequest – 801 of them.
Dexter Garnier was in the habit of checking on his friend and former landlord, 76-year-old Frank Brown. So when he didn’t return his calls, Garnier went to Brown’s Dolores Heights home and knocked on the door. When there was no answer, he let himself in with the key Brown had given him and looked around. ...
Somewhere between old age and hospice, there’s a phase called ‘docent.’ I’m fulfilling mine at Point Lobos.
Through college and grad school, I successfully avoided science courses. I took only two: astronomy and natural history, which my husband called “Our Friend, Mr. Sun,” and “The Chicken: A Natural History.” When he met me, I was 32, and he was incredulous I’d survived that long, given my complete lack of understanding of how ...
Bayview seniors and youth work and learn together in award-winning program led by artist whose quilts feature city’s Black residents.
It’s a spring-like March morning in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood. A gaggle of preschoolers is busy painting wooden stakes to mark plantings in the garden of the Dr. George W. Davis Senior Center. They’re working under the watchful eyes of teachers from a nearby elementary school as well as Bayview residents, mostly in their 70s ...
Nicaraguan refugee makes a life as bank teller, school aide and house cleaner – with some perks from customers who became friends
Guess Elba Balderramos’s job, a gig where grateful clients paid for her to cruise to Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii and the Panama Canal, and one promised to leave her $50,000 in her will. Trusted family lawyer? Investment Advisor? Nope. Balderramos, now 79, is a bank teller at the Bank of America in San Francisco, where she’s ...
Seniors may worry about crime on Muni, but the biggest complaints are fellow passengers – rowdy teens, the homeless and the mentally ill
It’s another bumpy afternoon ride on the 38-Geary, San Francisco’s most heavily used Muni line. The bus, with its accordion-like middle, is rattling and bouncing so hard that only riders immune to motion sickness can read. The blue seats reserved for seniors fill up fast. Older people, many toting shopping carts, some with canes, crowd ...
