Russian Women’s Home of Mercy of the Holy Virgin’s Protection
Report to Diocesan Assembly
September 1999

History

In 1930 Archpriest Paul Rasumoff of Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco, with the blessing of Metropolitan Platon and Bishop Alexis, established a monastery and home for Russian women in San Francisco. The first location was Sacramento and Divisidero, and comprised ten rooms, a dormitory, and a church. In 1934 it became clear that the monastery would not be realized, and by-laws were developed for the Russian Women’s Home of Mercy, which was incorporated as a non-profit membership organization with a board of directors of ten members.

Fr. Paul served the Home until his death in 1949. The Home had several more locations and served many members.

In 1993, it came to the attention of our Chancellor that the last surviving member, Claudia Kolosoff, then 90 years of age, was seeking help in running the Home. Fr. Nikolai met with her, and at her request formed around her a new board. Thanks to Ms. Kolosoff’s good financial stewardship, the Home had about $100,000 in cash assets, and two properties on 15th Ave: a house containing a church and 3 rooms, and across the street a building with 4 apartments of three or four rooms each. However, in all the rooms in both buildings, there were only 4 people who met the mission of the Home, of which two were very frail and were moved to St. Olga’s to be cared for. It soon became clear that the combination of San Francisco rent laws and the low rents the tenants enjoyed would keep them there forever, so the Board decided to sell the properties and make a fresh start with the proceeds. Both buildings were sold in April of 1998.

New Facility

The mission of the Home as expressed in its by laws is to “keep a charitable institution, home and shelter for women and elderly men who may have temporarily found themselves in need of material assistance.” Over the past year the Board considered many options for carrying out the Home’s mission. The Board explored cooperating with other organizations such as parishes and monasteries or the diocesan center project, and looked at facilities outside San Francisco, where prices were lower and rent rules laxer. All this was interesting, but nothing concrete emerged from our talks and investigations.

Meanwhile, the Board had been talking to church related organizations that serve the Home’s target population in San Francisco. This research revealed that there is a clearly defined need in San Francisco, and that need is simply inexpensive living space. For the target population we have identified, moving outside San Francisco would require the Home to provide much more than living space–in fact all the shopping, social contacts and church they already have and could keep if living in San Francisco. It would be impossible to create this infrastructure on our budget. In San Francisco we could put our proceeds to work right away and provide the most service for our resources. At the meeting of February 2, 1999, the Board decided to actively pursue property in San Francisco to use for subsidized living.

In March 1999, the Board found and pursued a property at 4th and Anza, which had ideal location, 12 apartments, an elevator and a suitable price. Although our offer was not accepted, the Board developed an ideal property profile and a budget to use to qualify and evaluate new properties. Suitable properties have come on the market at the rate of about one a quarter. It is the policy of the Board to keep looking for such a property, attempt to secure it, and start providing low cost housing for the elderly orthodox once again, according to the mission of the Home of Mercy.