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Crosscurrents

Seniors in Tech City: An interview with journalist Paul Kleyman

Paul Kleyman
A senior in San Francisco

More than one in ten people living in the densely packed Tenderloin and mid-Market neighborhoods are age 65 or older, and that percentage is expected to grow significantly in the next decade.

The number of tech companies in the same area has also grown, bringing new businesses and demographics with them. So New America Media teamed up with a local paper, Central City Extra, to find out how the changes have impacted seniors in a series called "Old and Poor in Tech City." New America Media’s Paul Kleyman has reported on seniors for several decades.

PAUL KLEYMAN: What’s happened is that with the Twitter boom, is that suddenly there is all this wealth, there’s this kid of rising sea of wealth around what we call an island of elder poverty. BEN TREFNY: And you can see physically see it, I mean there’s plenty of cranes right around there right now. PAUL KLEYMAN: Now, here’s what’s interesting and a little bit unique about San Francisco's inner-city senior population: the rents there are often already controlled, so their rent is not necessarily going to go up. But what’s happening is that the non-profit services that serve them in the area are being forced out helter-skelter in buildings that now where the owners, the landlords are driving up, in some cases, tripling the rent.

Click the audio player above to listen to the complete interview. 

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Ben joined KALW in 2004. As Executive News Editor and then News Director, he helped the news department win numerous regional and national awards for long- and short-form journalism. He also helped teach hundreds of audio producers, many of whom work with him at KALW, today.