Time to redirect tax dollars to vital health needs

The district dedicated the $4 million balance of its annual property tax revenue to reserves (more than half of what the taxpayers entrusted the agency to spend). According to the district’s audit, a priority for the reserves was to support a private-pay assisted living and memory care facility, the Trousdale, where the cheapest residence is reported to cost $6,900/month.

The Trousdale is out of reach for all but the wealthiest among us. The monthly fee is more than half of the annual income of many elders and people with severe disabilities and chronic health conditions who depend on SSI and Social Security as their sole source of income. These extremely low-income, medically vulnerable seniors are in the crosshairs of the pandemic, and they have been completely excluded from the focus of the district.

Yet despite the high price of admission, the Trousdale continues to operate at a deficit because there are too many vacancies. There simply aren’t enough seniors whose families can come up with monthly fees of $7,000/month or more, which is what’s needed for the market-rate venture to break even. As a result, the Trousdale sits partially empty, a market failure financed by our tax dollars, while our hospitals scramble to find additional beds for the growing number stricken by COVID-19.

Notwithstanding the troubled results of the Trousdale, our taxpayer dollars are making it possible for the district to embark on another market-rate real estate venture, the Peninsula Wellness Center, on more than 6 acres of land it owns in Burlingame. Ignoring years of community advocacy for the district to develop the land to provide housing at all levels of affordability, especially for the health care workforce, the district is instead creating an office building and rental housing, with almost 60% of the apartments for rent to seniors who can afford monthly rent of up to $7,000/month.

Once again, the pandemic has highlighted the district’s focus on the wealthiest among us and its indifference to the greatest community health needs. Our health care workers are at the front lines of an under-resourced health care system, fighting for all of us. Yet the district has ignored the community’s repeated call to use its land to create affordable housing for the health care workforce, and its failure of vision puts us all at risk.

If the district were a market rate company using private capital in a misguided venture to serve the wealthiest seniors in the Bay Area, we might find the inequity offensive but not our concern. But that’s not the case. The district is a public agency funded by our property tax dollars, we elected the board that is making these decisions, and as voters we now have a responsibility to call them to account.

At its March 26, board meeting which was held via Zoom, the members talked about the $3 million it publicly announced would be going to fund protective equipment and critical needs to fight the coronavirus. Indeed, the Board of Supervisors praised them for this contribution. However, the CEO and board members decided that night that the district would actually keep the money in reserve in the event that federal, state or other financial resources arrived and could be used instead. You will not see this discussion on any recording of the board meeting as it consistently refuses to record its meetings for the public.

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Let’s use the current one to demand that the Peninsula Health Care District cease its market-rate real estate development activities, focus on affordable housing for the health care workforce, and immediately meet with county health officials for direction on how best to use the district’s Trousdale facility and taxpayer-funded reserves to shore up our health care defenses.

Cindy Cornell is the founder of Housing for All Burlingame.