One was a young woman when she spent a night behind bars for attacking a policeman at a labor rally. "You're talking to a jailbird," she says. "Someone who stood for what she believes. An old red."
Another was just a girl when she became aware of "the extraordinary inequalities of the capitalist system." Still another looks up from her walker, through 91-year-old eyes, and remembers a pair of anarchist icons executed after their 1920s trial: "Sacco and Vanzetti, they went to the gallows with such dignity."
There are only 11 of these aging leftists now at Sunset Hall, and the retirement home is in jeopardy. Located in an immigrant neighborhood near MacArthur Park, it is small, poor and shopworn. Often, when its residents die, no one replaces them. Five elderly newcomers, without political leanings, recently have come to fill vacancies, but that still leaves 20 empty rooms.
Once before, when board members tried to close Sunset Hall and sell it, a judge ordered the home kept open. But perhaps there is no saving it this time.
Sunset Hall might be the only one of its kind. The nonprofit home was established in 1924 by women from a nearby Unitarian church. It was intended to house aging religious liberals. As time passed, it catered more to residents with a political bent.
"A retirement home that attracts old socialists and liberals?" says Anne Katz, an associate professor of gerontology at USC. "Totally unique."
Don Redfoot, a senior policy advisor on housing for AARP, says: "I've certainly never heard of anything so tied to an ideology." Then he adds, with a chuckle: "The Newt Gingrich Memorial Homes?"
The day of reckoning is March 26. That's when the residents of Sunset Hall and its 50 or so dues-paying supporters will vote on its fate.
One plan, a longshot, is to keep it open for another year, hoping for donations and new residents. Among the other plans: sell the two-story building and buy or build another place in a better neighborhood.
"Unfortunately," says Wendy Caputo, its director, "that will be too late for the people living there now. Some of them don't have much in the way of family. And so many of them are so frail. What will happen to them?"
Sturdy, Opinionated
Luba Perlin is one. She is 91 and wide-hip sturdy. Like most of the others, she has a mind that is slowly betraying her. But because she remains opinionated and is one of the only ones left with much energy, she is also their unofficial spokeswoman.
