Sunset for the Hall? : Home for Aging Radicals Totters on the Brink of Closure

The aged firebrands of Sunset Hall are engaged in what could be their last battle.

These are the people who manned the barricades in the 1930s to unionize the workers of America. In the 1950s, many of them struggled against McCarthyism. And in recent years, the old folks, some of them in walkers, piled into a van to demonstrate their support for Jesse Jackson’s candidacy and to take part in the Los Angeles teachers’ strike and the strike of Eastern Airlines employees.

This time the battle lines are different. On one side are the people charged with the old folks’ care who, beset by dwindling occupancy and financial losses, have decided to shut down their home later this month. On the other side are the oldsters, who see themselves as the latest victims of an uncaring society.

Hanging in the balance is Sunset Hall itself, a Los Angeles institution that for 66 years has been one of the country’s few retirement homes intended specifically for aging radicals.

“It’s the loss of a very important people’s institution,” said Sadie Tomkin, 89, a longtime communist and a former manager of “People’s World,” a Communist Party newspaper, who has lived at Sunset Hall for nine years. “If this were a decent society, this would never have happened.”

Ann Maupin, president of the Board of Directors that governs the home, said there is no choice. “We’re not happy about this, but we feel that, economically, we are simply not able to go on.”

Founded in 1924 by members of the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, Sunset Hall was established to house elderly “religious liberals” who share the Unitarian’s philosophy of intellectual open-mindedness and religious tolerance. In 1965 the facility moved a short distance east to its present location, a 19th-Century Spanish-style house with 36 rooms surrounding a shaded patio and goldfish pond on Francis Avenue in the city’s Mid-Wilshire district.

Although operated independently, the house is just two blocks from the majestic stone church that for years has been a major center of social and political activism in Los Angeles. The retirement home is governed by a paid membership of 240 that elects a 13-member Board of Directors. While the home is set up as a nonprofit corporation and receives no money from the church, the majority of its board members and many of its residents are Unitarians.

Over the years, Sunset Hall has been home to some of the city’s best known radicals.

Waldemar Hille, former accompanyist to black singer Paul Robeson and one-time collaborator with folk singer Pete Seeger, moved in some years ago after retiring as music director of First Unitarian Church. Ruben Burroughs, editor of Upton Sinclair’s newsletter, “Epic News,” during the famed socialist’s 1934 gubernatorial campaign, once lived there, as did Rose Chernin, former director of the Los Angeles Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born, which fought against deportations during the McCarthy Red-baiting era.

Seated in the cozy living room between the grand piano and the fireplace or strolling on the patio shaded by rubber plants and azaleas, the retirees share memories of their radical pasts, read books from the facility’s well-stocked library or listen to lectures and poetry. During a recent meeting in the library, surrounded by hefty political volumes, a group of the old folks complained bitterly about the uncertainty of the future.

“I’m broken-hearted,” said Sylvia Cochran, who will turn 100 on March 23, the day after the home is scheduled to close.

Said Faye Hyman, 89: “We’re being pushed out. Where am I going to go?” The home, which is financed primarily by monthly fees paid by its residents, has operated at a deficit for at least 17 years, according to administrator Thomas E. Brandlin. Previous administrators were able to keep operating by dipping into the facility’s endowment fund or holding special fund-raisers.

When he was hired in 1988, Brandlin said, it was with the understanding that he and the board would make one last effort to put the facility in the black or, failing that, shut it down. Last summer, disaster struck: four residents died in the space of four weeks, bringing occupancy to a dangerously low 13.

“That’s what sealed it,” Brandlin said. Although the number of residents has since risen to 18, he said, the die was cast.

Operated on an annual budget of about $300,000, Brandlin said, residents generally pay from $900 to $1,400 monthly, although the fees often are reduced for those in need. To break even, he said, the facility needs at least 30 residents. This year’s low occupancy created a deficit projected at $95,000, an all-time high.

In August, Brandlin recommended that Sunset Hall eventually be closed. In September, he said, the board accepted his recommendation. Since then, however, a minority of board members have rebelled, charging that not enough has been done to recruit new occupants.

“If there’s been an (effort) to keep Sunset Hall open, it’s been top secret,” said Michael Schaffer, a member of the board and head of a committee aimed at keeping the retirement home open.

Brandlin denies that, saying he personally gave applications to 47 prospective residents in the months preceding his recommendation. None opted to apply for residency, he said, primarily because of the neighborhood’s relatively high crime rate and the advanced ages of most of the residents, ranging from 77 to nearly 100 years.

“They look at the people here,” Brandlin said, “and say, ‘Hey, this isn’t a place for independent living.’ ”

This week the board accepted a $1.2 million offer for the property from a developer who reportedly wants to turn it into an apartment building. Remaining residents, Brandlin said, must vacate by March 22, at which time the utilities will be turned off and the staff terminated.

No determination has yet been made about what to do with the money from the sale, he said, but options being considered include building a new facility on Unitarian-owned land in Sepulveda or investing in subsidized low-cost housing for seniors.

Schaffer’s committee, however, has not given up. Kent Ten Brink, an attorney representing the group, said he intends to seek an injunction against the sale in Los Angeles Superior Court, on grounds that the sale may not represent the will of the corporation’s 240 members. If the injunction is granted, Brink said, he will push for a general meeting of the membership at which a vote will be taken.

If all else fails, some residents say, they are planning a demonstration--something at which they are experienced--on March 22 to protest the closing.