The coronavirus crisis is beginning to do something the city of San Francisco has been unable to accomplish for years - move homeless people off the streets and into shelters, including some of the city's now-empty hotels.
SAN FRANCISCO - The coronavirus crisis is beginning to do something the city of San Francisco has been unable to accomplish for years - move homeless people off the streets and into shelters, including some of the city’s now-empty hotels.
The hotels may additionally house high-risk individuals among the 19,000 people living in single-room occupancy buildings with shared kitchens and bathrooms who similarly cannot self-isolate. Progressive San Francisco lawmakers want to triple the number of rooms to 14,000, enough to shelter all of the homeless and some additional people from the SRO buildings.
A move to hotels may be the most aggressive intervention in years to address homelessness in the liberal-leaning Bay Area. Between 2015 and 2019, the homeless population in San Francisco grew nearly 30%, according to city figures.In San Francisco’s central Tenderloin neighborhood, tent encampments still lined the streets after city officials issued stay-home orders on starting March 17.
To give the homeless more room to spread out, city officials are converting an upscale tennis club in the South of Market neighborhood and part of the Moscone Center, a venue for glitzy technology conferences, into shelter facilities. Anand Singh, president of United Here Local 2, the union that represents more than 14,000 San Francisco hospitality workers, said he knew of two local budget hotels near the Tenderloin that have signed on to take quarantine guests.Slideshow
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