LELIA BOROUGHS

Lelia Boroughs, was 84 when she died, September of 2011 in San Francisco. Prior to her death Boroughs adjusted her will and requested that her 525 square foot condo be turned into a homeless shelter.

We at P.L.U.M salute Boroughs for her humanitarian kindness towards people who are less fortunate than her, such compassion deserve recognition.

Boroughs worked as a nurse at St. Francis Memorial Hospital, a skilled profession that require empathy and compassion for one’s patients. Borough’s kindness towards people in need that made her well known at work. Boroughs was also known in her neighborhood as a kind soul, who would offer to pick up groceries for her neighbors and feed the homeless who squatted on the sidewalk outside her apartment.

Weeks leading up to her passing, Borough told her attorney she had no family to whom she could leave her estate. She told them, she was leaving her condo to the homeless people in her neighborhood. 

The resolution also says the greatest need — which is consistent with the will of Boroughs — is to sell the property. Similar condos in her building have sold for more than $400,000 in the past six years, property records show.

More than nine years after making that decision, since Boroughs died, neighbor and friend Jericho Wehage told The SF Examiner that Boroughs purchased the condo in 1983 for roughly $100,000, according to property records. Her home is located at the end of a short hallway on the second floor of the building, which has 37 units. There are neighbors on either side of the home. The apartment is located at 1805 Pine St. Boroughs’ name is still listed on the front door and mailbox. Jericho said.

“She was the first person I met when I moved into the building,” he said. “I was sitting on the front steps, waiting for my real estate agent, when she opened the door and said, ‘Well, are you just going to sit there or are you coming in?’”

Because Boroughs left her home to be “used as a shelter or residence for the homeless,” or to be sold if her first wish was not practical, the budget committee of the Board of Supervisors is expected to authorize the Human Services Department to sell the property during a meeting today. The profits of the sale will be deposited into the Mayor’s Fund for the Homeless.

Calls to the Human Services Department were not immediately returned Tuesday. But the resolution that will be presented to the board today says the agency “has advised it is not practical to convert a single apartment in San Francisco into a shelter or residence for the homeless.”