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The San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SFSPCA) is selling its longtime facility in Pacific Heights and using the proceeds to fund a new community clinic that will serve lower-income neighborhoods in the southeast quadrant of the city.

The SFSPCA announced the move Thursday, closing up its animal hospital at Fillmore and Washington streets and shifting its focus to a new community veterinary clinic in the Excelsior District, as the Chronicle reports.

The Pacific Heights hospital isn’t going away, though. The SFSPCA sold it to a team of Bay Area veterinarians who partnered with a San Francisco-based veterinary services company called Curo Pet Care, and it will continue operating as a veterinary hospital.

That should come as a major relief to pet owners nearby, given that that particular animal hospital sees 16,000 patients each year.

The SFSPCA says its mission is to ensure access to care for all pets (Photo: SFSPCA)

The money from the hospital sale is being used to fund the new community clinic, which will be mainly dedicated to serving the Excelsior, Bayview, and Hunters Point neighborhoods, as the president of the SFSPCA, Jennifer Scarlett, told the Chronicle.

“It feels like we’re sort of coming home to what is our true calling, and that is thinking about those animals that are not going to get care unless we come up with creative ways to do it, and do it where it’s in the greatest need,” said Scarlett. Selling the Pacific Heights hospital is bittersweet, she said, “but I am absolutely 100% sure it is the right thing to do, for Pac Heights as well as the area that we’re trying to serve.”

The SFSPCA says the move is less about saving money that it is about dedicating resources more appropriately and effectively. Scarlett says that animals from southeast San Francisco were frequently showing up at animal hospitals and shelters with infections that can be prevented with a vaccine. Investigating that trend, the SPCA learned people living in the southeast corner of the city often had challenges with transportation that kept them from getting proper veterinary care for their pets.

With the shift in resources, the SFSPCA says it’ll be able to help the Excelsior area while still knowing the Pacific Heights area will have access to pet care.

Equal access to pet health care is something that’s needed all over the country. The US Department of Agriculture says 45 out of 50 states have at least one area with a shortage of veterinarians. A study by Banfield Pet Hospital estimates 75 million pets in the US may not have access to veterinary care by the year 2030.

The SFSPCA has been around for over 150 years. The organization says it wants to impact five million animals by the year 2030. And the SPCA says that impact isn’t just about getting cats and dogs into shelters and homes, but also ensuring they have access to care and a better quality of life overall .

The new clinic in the Excelsior is expected to be open by the end of summer. It will offer low-cost basic vet services like wellness checks, vaccinations, treatments for simple skin and ear issues, and medications to ward off parasites.

The new hospital in Pacific Heights reopens Monday as the San Francisco Animal Medical Center. In time, its operators plan to expand the services it offers to include oncology and cardiology, along with 24-hour emergency services. And, as the Chronicle reports, everyone who had appointments at the SPCA facility will have those appointments honored at the new facility.

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Amid a nationwide shortage of veterinarians, animal hospitals and pet owners have at times found themselves in dire straits. Many veterinary practices are critically short-staffed, and pet owners — even in a city as large and pet-friendly as San Francisco — have found that pet care is not always accessible.

In a bid to adapt to the unrelenting vet shortage and boost access to local care, the San Francisco SPCA announced Thursday that it is selling its Pacific Heights animal hospital to a team of local vets and opening a new, low-cost community veterinary clinic in the Excelsior District. The goal, SFSPCA officials said, is to bolster the city’s pet care landscape while further aligning the nonprofit with its mission of serving the neediest pet owners and their companions.

The Pacific Heights animal hospital on Fillmore Street, which sees nearly 16,000 patients annually, is being sold to a group of Bay Area veterinarians who have partnered with Curo Pet Care, a veterinary services company based in San Francisco. With revenue from that sale, SFSPCA will establish a community clinic that will primarily serve the Excelsior, Bayview and Hunters Point neighborhoods — an area of ​​the city that is considered a “vet desert” for its relative lack of care providers, said Jennifer Scarlett, president of SFSPCA.

“It feels like we’re sort of coming home to what is our true calling, and that is thinking about those animals that are not going to get care unless we come up with creative ways to do it, and do it where it’s in the greatest need,” Scarlett told The Chronicle. Selling the Pacific Heights hospital is bittersweet, she said, “but I am absolutely 100% sure it is the right thing to do, for Pac Heights as well as the area that we’re trying to serve.”

The idea is that by selling the Pacific Heights location to a veterinary group, neighborhood residents will not lose the access to pet care that they already have, and that SFSPCA will be able to divert some of its resources to support communities that are currently lacking vet services.

“We didn’t want to leave the Pac Heights neighborhood in a lurch,” Scarlett said. “Our overall mission is to expand access to care, and that’s for everyone.”

Scarlett stressed that the decision to sell the hospital is entirely “mission-driven” and not about saving money. The SFSPCA Mission District campus will continue its current operations.

The need for a community clinic in the Excelsior became apparent a couple of years ago, Scarlett said, when the SFSPCA began taking a closer look at which parts of the city its patients were coming from. A large share of animals that were arriving at the animal hospital or shelter with parvovirus infections, which can be prevented with a vaccine, were coming from San Francisco’s southeastern corner. The SFSPCA set up vaccine clinics in the area and heard from residents that limited transportation and high costs for care were deterrents to seeking out veterinary services.

“San Franciscans love their animals but unfortunately, veterinary care is often available only to those who can pay substantial fees,” Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who represents the Excelsior, said in a statement to The Chronicle. “The SPCA’s investment in the Excelsior will provide essential low-cost veterinary services. I look forward to working with the SPCA and stakeholders to expand low-cost veterinary services across San Francisco.”

The clinic is expected to be open by the end of the summer and will be modeled after a walk-in clinic that SFSPCA has been piloting for two years on its Mission District campus. The clinic will not be a full-service care center, Scarlett said, but it will provide some low-cost basic vet services that the city’s southeastern corner has been largely missing, such as general wellness check-ups, vaccinations, anti-parasitic medications and treatments for skin and ear issues.

“The whole idea is to keep the overhead low so that we can keep the costs low,” Scarlett said. “We know it’s not a complete answer, but we’re marching along this path of trying to figure this out in real time because there is such a shortage and need.”

The new Pacific Heights hospital — to be named San Francisco Animal Medical Center, or SF AMC — will expand on the services that the SFSPCA hospital there already offers. It will open on Monday for general practice and in the coming months will add specialty care such as oncology and cardiology, as well as 24-hour emergency services — something that SFSPCA officials were forced to end last summer because of the vet shortage.

The incoming veterinary group has said it will honor all existing appointments at the Pacific Heights location, and Curo Pet Care is planning to offer jobs to every SFSPCA employee at the hospital, allowing them to stay at the practice.

“San Francisco can count on us to provide them with the same great, quality care that the SF SPCA has always provided, and Pets Unlimited for generations before,” Margo Mehl, one of the incoming veterinarians, said in a statement. “We’re honored that the SFSPCA has chosen us to take over this renowned facility, carry on its legacy of excellence, and build an unrivaled center for veterinary care.”

Andy Picon (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: andy.picon@hearst.com Twitter: @andpicon

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The first floor of the Italian-American Social Club is decorated with scarlet velvet wallpaper, dark wood paneling, and a jukebox in the corner. A US flag, an Italian flag and mostly black and white photos hang on the walls. Brass chandeliers with red dotted wall lights and carved decorations frame the long wooden rod. To one side is the restaurant’s dining room, which has a handful of tables with checkered tablecloths. The dining room is smaller than the bar.

“Every place is different,” says club manager Julie Clima, “except here”.

Clima and I were sitting in the dining room at 25 Russia Avenue at the Excelsior, which was empty. The bar was also empty. In the back hall of the building there was just one other employee setting up chairs for a weekend event.

She wasn’t expecting any restaurant guests that evening. It was a Wednesday after all. The restaurant started takeout in 2020 but it didn’t seem like a lot of people would benefit from it.

Though North Beach is known as San Francisco’s “Little Italy,” the Excelsior’s farms and ranches once attracted many Italians whose eyes glittered with the American dream around the turn of the century.

In the 1920s, many of these Italian-American men, mostly first or second generation immigrants, gathered in garages across the Excelsior to drink wine, eat cheese, and play a game of cards called Pedro. Then, in 1935, the Italian-American Social Club (IASC) was founded.

The IASC, like other Italian social clubs in the US, provided a place to relax and belong to the Excelsior’s Italian immigrant community. Italian men who paid a membership fee were able to use the IASC’s game room, ballroom and other facilities and attend exclusive dinners and events. The number of members was always limited to just over 200 and restricted only to men. Club members received and continue to receive a portion of the IASC building that has been paid off for decades.

“There used to be five, six, seven years on the waiting list,” said Paul Giusto, chairman of the IASC.

Clima grew up in her father’s restaurant, Joe’s Fish Grotto, at Mission and Cotter. She recalls dozens of Italian-owned companies that once adorned the stretch of Mission Street between Geneva and Silver, the main street of the Excelsior. The Royal Baking Company supplied fresh bread to local restaurants. Valente, Marini, Perata & Co. Funeral Home hosted dinner at the IASC. Bars like Cotter’s Corner, which was next to Joe’s Fish Grotto, opened at six in the morning to pour drinks for the garbage collectors after work.

“People waited an hour and a half for food,” says Clima, “it used to be a lot going on.”

Giusto is a local from Excelsior who eventually took over his father’s auto repair shop near Mission and Silver. “Everyone was Italian,” said Giusto of his childhood at the Excelsior in the 1950s. “All the boys in the neighborhood were part of the club.”

Giusto also remembers sleeping in the dining room as a kid because his whole family shared a house with one bathroom and two bedrooms.

In the 1960s when Clima was 8, her family left the Excelsior and her father began commuting from the peninsula to run the restaurant. Clima didn’t want to move too far from her parents when she was growing up, so she’s now commuting to work at the IASC.

Although Giusto recently returned to the Excelsior area, he also went away for 34 years, commuting from Sonoma six days a week to run the auto repair shop.

“We ended up there [Sonoma] because we could get a bigger house and it was right next to the schools, ”said Giusto. “Back then the schools in San Francisco were actually pretty tough.”

Clima and Giusto weren’t the only Italian Americans to leave the Excelsior. Although the area remains a hotspot for immigrants (around half of Excelsior’s residents are originally from other countries), most immigrants are not Italians. Today the neighborhood is mostly Asian and Latin American.

Giusto sees many reasons for the Italian-American exodus from the Excelsior, which he both witnessed and later joined.

“People made money back then … they were wealthy. And they moved to San Mateo, they moved to Millbrae for a little better weather. Because we have a lot of fog here. You only drive 5 miles and you’re in the sun … and you’ve moved to get a bigger home to accommodate your family. People had three or four children and had the money to buy another house. … It went well in the 50s and 60s. “

When I sat down with Clima, she listed one local store after another that was not Italian or that no longer existed. The bakery in the Royal Baking Company building is no longer Italian-owned. The funeral home Valente, Marini, Perata & Co. is being demolished to make room for affordable housing. Cotter’s Corner is now another bar called Rocks Den.

Clima’s father sold Joe’s Fish Grotto in 2006. Today it is a sushi restaurant, Amami Sushi Bistro. And Giusto closed his car shop in 2019. He rents the building’s parking lot to the cannabis shop across the street.

Today the IASC has about 180 members spread across the Bay Area, including Giusto’s three sons. Although non-Italian men can now become members, they cannot hold office and they do not have a share in the building. In practice, the IASC remains a club for Italian-American men, with a building in a neighborhood that has been all but abandoned by Italian Americans.

Founded in 1917, the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club in North Beach has more than 650 members and a nonprofit foundation that organizes community festivals, Italian classes, and events. This year the 100th annual Statuto Race of the North Beach Club takes place.

With so few club members still living at the Excelsior or even in town, Clima is planning most of the IASC’s events and is not packing the calendar. Some events are open to both members and the public. A crab feed that happened before the pandemic attracted around 300 people. A sausage and polenta night is planned for Friday, to which 20 answers have been given so far. Clima expects more after the club meets this week.

She rents the halls and ballroom, mainly to Quinceaneras and churches, to cover the operating costs of the IASC, and runs the restaurant, which is open to the public. Clima is not only the general manager of the club, but also the head chef of the restaurant.

At 6 p.m. two people came into the club and strolled up to the bar. Clima knew her two drinks orders by heart: Martinis, Ketel 1 and Smirnoff. The three started laughing and joking. I packed my things and stepped out into a soupy mist. I walked down quiet Mission Street and passed the Central Drug Store, one of the few remaining Italian stores in the area. A few blocks down where Joe’s Fish Grotto used to be, I found Amami Sushi Bistro. And I wondered what the Excelsior will be in another hundred years and what shadows will be left of today.

It’s Excelsior month at SFGATE. We’ll be delving deep into the neighborhood throughout September as part of a series that highlights a different corner of San Francisco each month this year.

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