In San Francisco, where the median income for a single person is well above $100,000, thousands of residents earn or subsist on much less. Nationally, under the official poverty measure, one in 10 (10.2%), or 5.9 million adults ages 65 and older, had incomes below the official poverty threshold of $14,040 in 2022. For adults with disabilities in San Francisco, this figure translates to a median monthly income of $1,493. This breaks down to a daily choice between food, medicine, transportation, or rent. The Senior and Disability Action (SDA) Network was built to serve this community.
Executive Director Erik Greenfrost, who joined the organization close to a year ago, believes that what affects one demographic, also affects another; we are all trying to survive within a system of overlapping and interconnected social policies. The intersectional work of Erik and his team is built on the underlying belief in broader community, allyship, and the power of education and organizing.
The Senior and Disability Action (SDA) Network stands out among other nonprofits in the elder advocacy space for a number of reasons: At the crossroads of aging and disability, SDA builds intergenerational alliances between individuals and community groups, and creates a unique space for impactful and action-oriented connection and initiatives. “We don’t just provide a service; we provide the platform, tools, and training for communities to amplify their own voices and fight for their own futures,” Erik says.
The time to fight has never felt more urgent. Amid the ongoing trauma of the pandemic—which has caused widespread disablement and isolation—the disability community now also faces a federal assault on its civil rights and vital support systems. Older Americans are significantly more likely than younger adults to have a disability. Some 46% of Americans ages 75 and older and 24% of those ages 65 to 74 report having a disability, according to estimates from the Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey (ACS).
“My work was always in social justice spaces, from queer-specific organizing to elder justice,” Erik reflects. “But at SDA,” he says, “it all came together: social justice, management, leadership, and fundraising.”
He arrived with a plan to create clarity. “We established three formal departments: a Department of Organizing to unite our various campaigns, a Department of Education and Partnerships to direct our outreach, and a Department of Development and Operations to secure our infrastructure.” Matched with an equally ambitious team and active volunteer network, SDA has seen immediate results.
The Development team rebuilt the fundraising policy from the ground up, an effort that has culminated in an end-of-year grant from the Metta Fund. This financial stability is the bedrock upon which SDA’s advocacy is built, funding everything from transit campaigns to emergency preparedness workshops.
SDA’s “Muni Now Muni Forever” campaign, for example, built a coalition with other local groups in the fight to stop service cuts and envision a fully functional transit system. The stakes are high; as Mr. Greenfrost notes, even “two blocks can make a difference” for elders and for those with a disability — transit route reductions adversely affect those who depend on transit access.
In the case of SDA’s transit campaign, Erik and team mobilized immediate action at flashpoints like City Hall rallies, while also creating spaces for long-term visioning, such as a recent transit summit that engaged 100+ community members. Crucially, SDA connects with and activates other impacted communities around a topic like transit access into a more wide-reaching and unified organizing force.
SDA’s tactic of activating their volunteer-run and community-based advocacy programs has also paid off this year. The organization is in its own lane when it comes to how information is disseminated and how alliances are created. Their Education and Partnerships department runs the Senior and Disability Survival School, a multi-week deep dive into local resources, and Senior and Disability University, which offers one-off workshops on topics like emergency preparedness.
“These programs tie perfectly into our mission. We’re not a direct service organization; we really empower and educate the folks who are the most affected,” to realize their own initiatives, Erik emphasizes. “This year, we’ve already done as many Survival Schools as last year—we’ve doubled. Having a structure has made that possible.”
This community education is complemented by the Community Resource Program. Here, volunteers staff phone lines and offer walk-in help during the week. They don’t just give out phone numbers; they act as peer advocates, often calling agencies on behalf of someone who has hit a wall with health insurance or other life-sustaining benefits.
“We’ve just about finished bringing on a new cohort of volunteers,” Erik notes. “This will nearly double our capacity, and double the amount of hope and practical help we can provide.”
SDA’s model of educating and mobilizing its membership leads to concrete, life-changing victories that resonate from City Hall to national media. These successes are born from its legacy advocacy programs, such as the Health Care Advocacy program, where members like Luis, a senior wheelchair user, convinced policymakers to fund a permanent emergency wheelchair repair program by sharing personal stories. The Housing Advocacy program secured a major victory by pressuring the city to release an initial $10 million to fix broken elevators in Single Room Occupancy hotels. Meanwhile, the Empowerment program’s Masks for Equity group has been a relentless force in preserving mask requirements in healthcare settings, a campaign that has garnered national attention.
As community organizer Ocean Blue Coast shared at an event for the SDA this month, “We make sure that if we’re working on legislation that the needs of our community are explicitly being put into the language of the legislation.”
SDA’s advocacy is dynamic and responds to current and continuing community needs, pivoting to meet emerging–and existing–crises. The Masks for Equality initiative formed around COVID safety but is now taking shape as a long-term vision for health dignity in a pandemic-weary world. For Erik, the mission transcends any single policy because while the intensity of COVID has faded for many, it hasn’t for SDA’s primary demographic. “Our communities are hurt and scared,” Mr. Greenfrost says, “because of the cruelty of this administration. It feels like these communities are being targeted to die. We’re positioned to give hope to folks—avenues for how folks can get involved and not feel totally dehumanized.”
Newest SDA board member Sonya Rio-Glick, who was in attendance at this October’s general meeting adds,” It was important for me to find a community that really understood the urgency of the moment, and for me SDA is that. They’re not an organization that is parachuting in and then leaving; they’ve really been embedded in the local community for so many years that I’m very, very grateful for the opportunity to further the work in this next generation.”
