As she departs May 1 for the unenviable job of overseeing San Francisco's response to homelessness, Shireen McSpadden is leaving behind a nationally recognized legacy of tackling LGBTQ aging issues as the executive director of the city's Department of Disability and Aging Services.
McSpadden, 57, who is bisexual and grew up in San Francisco, for the past five years oversaw an agency responsible for more than 70,000 seniors, adults with disabilities, caregivers, and veterans.
Under her leadership DAS, as the department is known, worked to ensure that a groundbreaking report on LGBTQ aging issues was implemented and not shelved away to collect dust, as was the case with a similar report released in 2003. "She had, I think, from the very