
We Want To Buy Our Apartment And Avoid Eviction
(Photo above was taken in 2001: Jeanine worked for an SF based LGBT publication called The Gay Book and her supervisor arranged for staff members and friends to go on a day long complementary fishing trip in San Francisco Bay. Jeanine and Gale both enjoyed this outing!)
Jeanine (now age 72) and Gale (now age 75),are a committed inter-racial lesbian couple who have lived together in their rent controlled San Francisco apartment since 1980. For many years they did labor intensive work including news paper delivery for the San Francisco Chronicle, Bay Area Reporter and SF Bay Guardian, moving furniture, portrait and wedding photography (doing business as Domestic Partnership Photography and Information) and other community based work in San Francisco, the city they both love.
Their life trajectory was altered in 1989 when a drunk, un-insured motorist rear-ended Gale at a very high rate of speed. The drunk driver went AWOL and disappeared. Gale had no health insurance to deal with her major injuries. For Gale and her life partner Jeanine their focus changed to doing whatever was needed to help Gale heal from her injuries. Gale received SSI. Jeanine became her IHSS worker (AKA home health aide) and also worked many additional evening + weekend jobs (working up to 60 to 90 hours weekly for years) to focus on Gale's necessary medical appointments during the week.
Now, real estate speculators from out of town have bought their building, turned it into "tenancies-in-common" and are Ellis Act evicting Jeanine and Gale. The San Francisco Small Sites Program does not buy apartments that have converted to "tenancies-in-common," hence there is no support in San Francisco for these types of conversions of rent controlled apartments that formerly housed low income working class people, seniors, disabled, etc. There are very few below market rate apartments in San Francisco. Many of those apartments are very tiny and would not accommodate Gale's book collection or the fine art (paintings, drawings, sculptures, photos) that Jeanine has done in the past 55+ years. Moving is a tremendous physical challenge for Jeanine and Gale and it would jeopardize their physical and emotional health. Their apartment is located close to UCSF Medical Center where Gale receives her health care. In January 2023, during the middle of the night, Gale had an urgent medical issue and Jeanine drove her to the UCSF Emergency Ward --following the speed limit and obeying traffic signals--in six minutes. Luckily, after ER doctors examined her, Gale turned out to be OK.
Jeanine and Gale would love to stay in the apartment they've lived in for 43 years.
Please donate to their GoFundMe page so they can buy their apartment and continue living there. Note: any amount will help. If you don't have much money, even small donations are great!!! The cost of real estate in San Francisco is pretty high, hence the $300,000.00 goal. Also, if you would like to donate anonymously, select the "Donate now" button, then choose "don't display name publicly on the campaign" option under the donation amount and name fields. Click "Donate now" to finalize your option. If you are not comfortable making an online donation, you can snail mail your donation to: Jeanine Reisbig, 584 Castro St. #231. San Francisco CA 94114. Please make out your check to Jeanine Reisbig.
Please share this fundraiser with your friends, family and social media contacts.
(Note: The San Francisco Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development partners with local non-profits to provide classes for "First Time Homebuyers" such as Jeanine and Gale. We recently completed the series of classes and have lots of good info to become informed and responsible first time homebuyers. We have met with a housing counselor who will provided additional help with the finer points of buying a home in San Francisco. Thanks for your donations and we will maximize your contribution to the best of our ability.)
The following are links to some newspaper articles published over the past few years that have either included or been about us:
And, if you'd like to see a half hour film Jeanine made about Openhouse, an LGBT senior organization in San Francisco, please go to:
Thanks so much!!!
Organizer
Jeanine Reisbig
Organizer
San Francisco, CA