After 30 years of Serving Seniors, local nonprofit leader retires

S1: Welcome in San Diego , I'm Jade Hindman. On this show , we speak with the president and CEO of Serving Seniors as he reflects on three decades of service ahead of his retirement. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. When Paul Downey first started working with the San Diego nonprofit Serving seniors , he was a reluctant volunteer. Well , now , 30 years later , he's retiring from his position as its president and CEO. His last day is May 8th. Three decades to the day he started. He spent his career fighting for the needs of vulnerable seniors. And that work has expanded beyond San Diego. He's also pushed for policy reform on the state and national levels. Paul Downey recently spoke with Midday Edition producer Andrew Bracken about his journey and how he's seen the needs of seniors in San Diego change over time. Take a listen.

S2: So , you know , it sounds like you weren't totally sold on , you know , volunteering with serving seniors to start off. Tell us about that story.

S3: Well , I started as a volunteer. I was working at City Hall , actually , in the mayor's office , and I think I was at that point , I think it was like 27 years old. And the mayor came in one day and said , we're all going to go to the local senior center and volunteer serving lunch. And , you know , as a as a 27 year old with a not maybe the brain cells , not all the way developed. It didn't didn't appeal to me. But I like to say I was smart enough not to say out loud that I wasn't enthusiastic. And but I went and started serving and it was eye opening. I , you know , grew up in a in a middle class family and then went to San Diego State where , you know , studied poverty and studied aging issues. Knew a little bit about it , but I'd really never encountered folks who were living in poverty and literally struggling to survive on a daily basis. So literally , within the one visit to to volunteer , I went from being dragged to being enthusiastic and then eventually actually helping coordinate monthly business to volunteer for the duration of the mayor's term in office. Wow.

S2: Wow. I mean , it's funny how life works out , right ? So , you know , as we said , you've been at this work for for 30 years. So , you know , going back to that first day , that first visit you just described.

S3: There was a lot of single room occupancy hotel rooms available primarily in the downtown area where a senior could get rent at a reasonable level. I mean , they might be spending 3 or $400 a month out of , at that point , a Social Security check that might have been 6 or $700 , but they could get by now. We're seeing rents for that same SRO is going for $950 out of maybe 12 or $1300 , and the gap of what they have to spend for everything else is either remained the same or even gotten a little smaller. And we know that prices for everything else have gone up. So people are more on the cusp of falling over the edge into homelessness. And in fact , if you look at the data , about a third of the folks on our streets now are actually older adults. So I think the economic need has gotten greater. Uh , on on sort of the , I guess , what you want to say , the negative side. On the positive side , though. We I think we see people who are taking better care of themselves. The baby boom generation , I think , has been a little more health conscious , perhaps than than prior generations. Which is a good thing , but also means people will live longer and they're more , you know , more engaged , more interested in , in volunteering. So there's been pluses and minuses. But I think the overarching issue is that there's far too many seniors in San Diego and in California that just can't make ends meet and struggle to pay the rent , get health care , feed themselves. And that's really where serving seniors has focused its efforts. Yeah.

S2: Yeah. So can you talk more about some of those services ? I mean , you mentioned homelessness and the amount of folks over 55 , you know , struggling with that.

S3: And then UC San Francisco has done extensive work in this area. And the key thing is that for older adults experiencing homelessness , it is generally an economic issue. In fact , about nine out of ten seniors on the street started because they simply didn't have enough money to pay the rent. Whether it was an illness , loss of a job , being on a fixed income , uh , that they couldn't keep up with the rent , but it was an economic driver as opposed to mental health or substance abuse issue or both. And so you start from a kind of a different place that if you could intervene at an earlier stage , you could prevent the homelessness through an infusion of some sort of dollar dollars and support. But what happens is when somebody does tumble over the edge , is that a lot of older adults have underlying health conditions that get exacerbated. Being on the street , you know. Diabetes , heart condition , things like that that are left untreated. So that condition gets worse while they're on the street. And then we also see that the longer somebody is on the street , you know , whether it's a year , year and a half , whatever , they start to develop mental health issues that didn't exist back when they were at the precipice , but pop up later. So we're talking , you know , PTSD type symptoms. So it's anxiety and depression , and then many start to self-medicate. So you now have an older adult who , after being on the street because of an economic issue , now has maybe a drug or alcohol issue to go with a mental health issue and worse , physical condition. And it is a lot more expensive , a lot more difficult than to transition them into permanent housing because you've created impediments simply by having them on the street , as opposed to to trying to intervene. And then just , you know , just so if you think about it from a human terms , I mean , any of us being on the street would be horrific. But imagine , you know , I mean , literally 75 , 80 years old. I mean , I've seen people into their mid 80s that we've encountered who are sleeping on the sidewalk , and that just isn't something that I think many folks would approve of , and something that we actually need to be doing a lot more about.

S2: We recently spoke with Luke Bergman , who is the now former director of behavioral health services for San Diego County , and he made a lot , you know , he emphasized the need for housing in this larger dialogue around behavioral health , which , you know , you're just kind of tapping into. I mean , how would you characterize San Diego's treatment of its elderly population ? You know , compared to other counties in our region.

S3: People care. They , they , they , they care about older adults. But we are not getting the resources that we need to adequately address their their challenges. And you mentioned housing. I mean , that is at the very top of the list. Clearly , you know , our homelessness issue is really a lack of affordable housing issue for most folks. I mean , I mentioned economic driver for seniors , but that's also true for younger populations. I mean , there are absolutely folks who have mental health challenges and whatnot. But economic driver is there. So we need more affordable housing. The real challenge in in California is it is extraordinarily difficult to build. Serving seniors. We built over 700 units in the 30 years that I've been there. And I can show you the scars for just about every one of those units. California makes it very difficult and very expensive to build. More expensive than it really should be. And that's an area that absolutely needs reform. I mean , I won't bore your listeners with the whole litany of how you have to go about doing it. But essentially , bottom line is you have to layer several different funding sources that have to be sought in a particular order , with usually long gaps between and. It causes unnecessary process expense that drives up the cost and delays getting it built.

S2: On the difficulties you mentioned of building housing here in San Diego and around the state. Really ? I mean , there have been greater calls from state leaders , from local leaders , to make it easier to build housing , to build affordable housing. Right. We hear that from San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria.

S3: So when we went through the the permitting process for for our new project , Uh , I think we got our permits in less than 25 days. So the problem is not the city of San Diego. And we've also done projects with the county. The problem is not the county of San Diego in terms of processing permits. It is the funding mechanism because , uh , for for affordable housing , uh , you have to get maybe 85 to 90% of your equity before you build because your rents are artificially low and you're you can't take out a loan , you can't cover your loan if it's too large. So it's that funding mechanism to get the that you have to go through. That delays it and drives the , the expense. That's where the reform is needed. Um , essentially what we need to do , like others , what other states do is take the federal funding , the state funding , the local funding , put it into one big basket that an affordable housing developer like serving seniors can go and apply for the funds , get the funds , ONS. Go get our permits and get the thing built. But right now we have to go to 4 or 5 different entities , go through a rigorous application process , hopefully get funded , and then wait 6 or 8 months until you can go for the next one. Hopefully get that way to 6 or 8 months for the next one. And that's that's what delays things here in California. We've had discussions with the governor's office about trying to reform it in California. Um , so far we get a lot of pushback from the sort of the bureaucracy. Uh , but we're , you know , we're hopeful that maybe in the medium to , to longer term , we can bring about some reform , uh , because otherwise , any new funding that you hear about or hear in 2025 , figure 2033 is when you'll actually see units build. And for me , that's just unacceptable. When the numbers of people experiencing homelessness on our street continue to rise. And then there's just the ordinary seniors that I see through our doors at serving. Seniors are struggling to pay their rent and can't find an affordable place to live and are , you know , trying to get by on a couple hundred dollars. So we've got to make a concerted effort to streamline this process.

S2: You mentioned the need , you know , for for more resources. And I mean , we have to mention it's a pretty challenging funding environment right now , whether it's federal or state , probably locally as well. Right. Governments are facing budget deficits. Federal funding is being affected for for a lot of programs , a lot of nonprofits , a lot of different sectors.

S3: Yet yes and no. I mean , I've been been through a lot of a lot of battles. Nowhere , not nothing like what we're seeing now. But I also have extreme confidence in the leadership of leadership. Melinda Forrester , who will be our new president CEO has been with us for 16 years , and I know that we have the team in place. And I actually planned. I mean , I planned to stay very involved in the community. So I may not be CEO of serving seniors , but I'll still be still be definitely involved in in the fray. Um , I think the , the thing that really impacts me is , is the frustration , because the programs and services , many of the programs and services that are being targeted to be eliminated actually save the government money and should be invested in. I mean , I'll use our meal program as an example. Uh , so we we do meals and senior centers and then essentially Meals on Wheels , home delivery. Uh , we do about 1.5 million meals a year in San Diego , and that's about 80% of the senior meals. And it's , you know , funded through the federal government , goes to the state , goes to the county , goes to us. but we have studies that show that seniors who receive these meals are hospitalized 75% less than folks who don't , and that their health care costs are 67% less because they're healthy. I mean , who knew that when our mothers told us to eat our vegetables and eat healthy ? You know , she was right. You know , and and that that carries through now is you give seniors healthy meals , you give them socialization , create volunteer opportunities in the senior centers for them to get involved. And they stay healthier. So it reduces Medicare , Medicaid. Medi-Cal here in California costs. And so it should be they should be invested in. And there's , you know , many other programs you know as well or say in this bucket. So , you know , I the challenge I , you know , I issue to Elon Musk and doge is if you are serious about actually saving money , do some analysis and invest in places that will save you money , particularly in the health care arena. So the cuts are going to you know , either you can either save money , but you can also cost yourself more money if we don't stop them from from occurring. And so it's kind of penny wise and pound foolish approach to trying to make the government more efficient.

S2: So , you know , we started with your memory that first day volunteering with serving seniors , the organization you've now been with for for three decades.

S3: It's it's the faces is it's the stories. But I think it's most of all I think it's it's the resilience because because of the , you know , economic level that most of the folks that come through our doors are at. I see the struggles and I often reflect If I were in that position , could I do it with the same courage and optimism and positive attitude , positive vibe that that these folks go through ? I mean , I have tremendous admiration , uh , for folks who struggle , um , and many , many of them , they've kind of struggled all their lives. And I just , you know , reflected , if we've been able to do something to ease that or to help them , it's all worthwhile. I mean , I tell folks , you know , if I'm having a tough day , for whatever reason , all I have to do is take a walk through one of our senior centers or housing complexes and just interact with folks and and just see their optimism and their gratitude that somebody cares about them. And so that's that's kind of what I take is that knowing that serving seniors and it's it's the entire team. I mean , I you know , I get the sort of team captain recognition , but we have a fantastic team , group of board members , a group of donors that have really make it all all possible. And , um , our logo has a heart and that that's not by accident. Uh , we , you know , we care. And , uh , many of the seniors are , you know , become friends. And I will continue to be in contact with them , you know , even after I retire.

S1: That was Paul Downey , president and CEO of Serving Seniors , speaking with Midday Edition producer Andrew Bracken. Paul retires later this week. That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.