LOS ANGELES -- 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, and Sunset Hall, their retirement home, is in jeopardy. Located in an immigrant neighborhood near MacArthur Park, it is small, poor, and shopworn. Often, when residents die, no one replaces them. Five elderly newcomers without political leanings have come to fill vacancies, but that still leaves 20 empty rooms...

...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?" said Anne Katz, an associate professor of gerontology at University of Southern California. ''Totally unique."

Don Redfoot, a senior policy adviser on housing for AARP, said: ''I've certainly never heard of anything so tied to an ideology." Then he adds, with a chuckle: ''The Newt Gingrich Memorial Homes?"...