Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Bruce Lawrence, 78, lives in a home on Blauer Drive with four other older adults, thanks to Project Match. Owners of the home, however, say they will not renew the lease when it expires in July, as they are going to sell the house.
Project Match Seeking A Home For Seniors In, Or Near, City
Owner says time has come to sell the home
Lease to expire in July
By Kara Chalmers
Project Match, a nonprofit group that helps seniors find affordable housing, is scrambling to find another place to house five seniors, who today live together in Saratoga, by July 1, 2000.
The seniors, who range in age from 63 to 81, live on Blauer Drive, in a home subsidized by Project Match and the city of Saratoga. Project Match manages seven such homes for seniors in Santa Clara County.
The owner of the property decided in August not to renew the lease with Project Match, which expires June 30. This came as a surprise to Project Match, said Program Manager Chris Schaller.
"We're up in the air and were all kind of nervous and antsy," said Bruce Lawrence, 78, originally from Canada, who has lived in the house for the past three years. "It's kind of a greedy time, you might say, that we live in."
Christina Story, whose husband, William, a senior, owns the property, said their decision to put the property up for sale was a financial one. She stressed that she and her husband were very pleased with Project Match, and that the Saratoga renters took very good care of the place.
Lawrence says he likes his living situation, and says it is traumatic when the place he knows as home is being taken away.
"I don't have any family here anymore, I'm just by myself," he said.
Four of the five seniors have lived at the five-bedroom house for the last three or four years, and one person has lived there more than five years.
The seniors, four men and one woman, each pay $400 per month, including all utilities, to Project Match, which, in turn, pays the landlord $2,450 per month. The renters get local phone and cable television service in the common area of the house. The program manages the home, furnishes the common areas and provides staff services.
But the house has provided the seniors with more than just a financial deal, Schaller said. It has provided them with companionship and security.
"A lot of the seniors that we have are pretty much not really connected to family that live within the geographic area," said Schaller. "[The program] provides them with peers who have grown up in the same time frame. Also, they're aging, so they have another person who understands all the problems and joys of being a senior."
When Project Match started leasing from Story some eight years ago, the lease began as two-or three-year renewable lease, Schaller said. Then that lease was renewed for another five years in 1995.
The city of Saratoga pays Project Match a rent subsidy of $14,700 a year to help with costs of the house. According to Bob Campbell, the executive director of Project Match, without the city's help, the organization could never afford the Saratoga location. The subsidy is part of the reason Project Match would like to find another home in the city.
The other part is because the people who live in the house would like to stay in Saratoga, where they have established some ties, said Campbell. A more important goal is to keep the five renters together. Splitting them up would be like splitting up a family, he said. Also, there are no openings in any of Project Match's seven other houses.
"They've kind of gotten use to the community," Campbell said of the five Saratoga renters. "They would like to stay together, as well, as a group if they can. They've kind of gotten used to each other over the years."
Another option, according to Campbell, is a four-bedroom home in the city of Campbell on Pollard Road. Project Match is currently trying to work with the county and the city of Campbell to acquire the house, fix it up and add a bedroom.
Lawrence said he doesn't mind if they stay in Saratoga or not, although at the current location, it is only a 10-minute walk to Safeway and Longs Drugs.
"It wouldn't matter to me, I don't have any close friends except the people I live with," he said.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
