When “Partnership” Means Takeover: The Truth About LightHouse SF and Lighthouse Guild

Image Description: Four silhouetted people stand together in front of a building. A large, dark shadowy figure behind them reaches its hand toward the building, creating a feeling of threat or danger.

In this post, we want to share with our supporters about a potential takeover of LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired (LightHouse) by New York-based Lighthouse Guild International (Guild).

For more than a century, LightHouse has been a cornerstone of independence, employment, culture, and community for blind, low-vision, and DeafBlind Californians. But today, that legacy is under direct threat.

Another Smokescreen “Fireside Chat”

What unfolded during the so‑called “fireside chat” on November 12, 2025 between LightHouse and Guild was not transparency. It was not collaboration. It was not accountability. It was a carefully choreographed attempt to soften the community for what many have suspected to be all along: a takeover that leadership has already put in motion behind closed doors.

For nearly an hour, executives repeated the word “partnership” with near-scripted consistency until an audience member finally cut through the euphemisms and called it a merger. At that moment, the mask slipped. Leadership hedged. And the truth emerged: Guild wants to absorb LightHouse.

Of course, it is happening without meaningful community input. Just like that, decisions about iCanConnect were and continue to be made without our community’s input. And what did the FCC do? It will be interesting to see what the Attorney General does.

LightHouse Leaders Contradicted Themselves to the Public in the Press

What makes this attempted takeover even more alarming is that LightHouse’s leadership told reporters they were committed to the organization’s long-term sustainability. The San Francisco Chronicle quoted Board Chair Jennison Asuncion insisting: “No one on the board is thinking or talking about the demise of the LightHouse.” And The San Francisco Standard quoted Interim CEO Brandon Cox saying he wanted the organization to “last another 120 years.”

Yet behind the scenes, those same leaders are now facilitating a process that would effectively end LightHouse as an independent community institution. They cannot claim stewardship while negotiating their own organization’s dismantling.

A Pattern of Failed Leadership: The HQ Lease Crisis

Last year, LightHouse defaulted on its building loan after the City of San Francisco (its major tenant) pulled out of leasing the eight lower floors of its Market Street headquarters. The lender subsequently seized those floors, or is in the process of doing so.

A major municipal tenant leaving is not a coincidence. It is, by every practical measure, a vote of no confidence. It signals deep governance problems and instability. And it raises serious questions about why leadership is now trying to hand LightHouse over to an out‑of‑state operator with its own troubling track record.

The Summary

Attendees of the fireside chat reported a deeply disturbing dynamic. Instead of seeking community input, Guild executives lectured the room full of Bay Area community members they plainly did not understand. Below, we summarize our information. We call on leadership to release the unedited version of the video that captured the event if leadership wants to correct anything ehre, given that we have documents indicating LightHouse’s practice of doctoring videos or transcripts.

• Leaders insisted on calling the plan a “partnership” until confronted directly, at which point it became clear the process is a merger.

• No guarantees were offered that Enchanted Hills Camp or other Bay Area assets would be protected from eventual sale.

• When asked whether Li  Guild could simply provide a loan or financial support without taking over the organization, the answer was no.

• Concerns about unresolved controversies involving LightHouse’s current leadership were dismissed when raised by community advocates.

• Questions about Guild’s history of cutting programs not aligned with its medical/clinical model went unanswered.

• Leadership appeared unfamiliar with basic facts about partner organizations in California.

• Attendees were left convinced the merger would result in massive program cuts, especially in community-oriented services.

This is not community-centered practice. We call it professionalized paternalism. Our information not only indicates that only 10-15% of Guild’s workforce includes blind and low vision people (less than LightHouse’s even after the mass layoffs), but top leadership was always sighted until recently. Thus, sighted professionals who come from the East Coast are effectively deciding about the future of Bay Area blind, low vision, and DeafBlind communities without them.

The Guild: Low Representation and Top-Down Culture

While Guild recently hired its first-ever blind CEO, this milestone came only this year and community members report that, like at LightHouse, true power isn’t in the hands of the BLV community. Guild continues to be dominated by sighted executives, clinicians, and administrators who have historically made decisions that marginalize blind leadership and community priorities.

Representation at the top is symbolic; power remains in the same hands. This culture was on full display during the fireside chats, where Guild leaders talked at blind Californians, not with them. We do not want another marriage between Jewish Guild and Lighthouse Guild to happen right here in the Bay Area.

A Troubling Track Record: Program Closures and Community Displacement

Guild’s leadership has a documented history of shutting down community programs. In 2018, The New York Times reported how the Guild evicted a beloved music program for blind youth (the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School) despite having substantial assets. If they could discard a core cultural program in New York, what prevents them from dismantling LightHouse’s community services, DeafBlind programs, or Enchanted Hills Camp? Nothing.

Not a Partnership: Let’’s Sing

They huddle behind closed doors,

Planning “help” we never ask.

Their soft words bend around the truth—

A ribbon wrapped around a farce.

They dance around our questions,

Like clumsy actors in a mask.

Chorus

That’s not a partnership —

That’s a takeover.

That’s exploitation

With a “trust us, we know best” flair.

The blind and DeafBlind of California

Deserve autonomy and dignity —

Not this condescending circus act they call “care.”

Take Action

Protect LightHouse from a hostile takeover. Demand transparency, accountability, and community-centered leadership.

Contact California State Officials

• Find your Assemblymember: https://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov  

• Find your State Senator: https://www.senate.ca.gov/senators  

• Contact the California Attorney General: https://oag.ca.gov/contact

Contact San Francisco Officials

• Mayor’s Office: https://sfmayor.org/contact-us  

• Mayor’s Office on Disability: https://sf.gov/departments/mayors-office-disability-mod  

•  Board of Supervisors: https://sf.gov/departments/board-supervisors  

• Controller’s Office – Nonprofit Monitoring: https://sfcontroller.org/nonprofit-monitoring  

• Human Rights Commission: https://sf-hrc.org/contact-us

Sources

• SF Chronicle article: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/lighthouse-financial-struggle-20761687.php  

•  SF Standard article: https://sfstandard.com/2025/07/17/lighthouse-for-the-blind-and-visually-impaired  

•  NYT Lighthouse Guild article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/nyregion/blind-school-filomen-dagostino.html