Tag: homeless housing

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Good News for SF’s Homeless

by  : beyondchron – excerpt

City Adopts New Strategy, Leadership

Last week brought some very welcome news to San Francisco’s roughly 6000 unhoused people living in tents, shelters and on the street.

First, a new referral strategy for filling vacancies in the city’s master leased SRO hotels has finally begun. Nonprofits began raising alarms about excessive vacancies and inadequate referrals in fall 2019. I described this as part of San Francisco’s “failed homeless strategy;” yet until very recently HSH made no material changes to the process.

The new referral process has already increased the number of unhoused who the city is allowing to move into permanent housing…

Starting April 1 a block rental system will sharply increase placements. Sending groups a large block of unhoused applicants as opposed to a few at a time is not rocket science; it gives the nonprofit provider the chance to offer options to potential tenants and ensures units do not sit vacant due to declines.

Hundreds of vacancies in city-funded, nonprofit master leased hotels will soon be filled. The new referral program will not end homelessness in San Francisco  but it will maximize the use of city funds for reducing the numbers…

It takes time for the city to purchase hotels as many agencies are involved…(more)
“It takes time for the city to purchase hotels as many agencies are involved…” This is a problem that needs streamlining. Which agencies can be cut out of the process? There is no end to streamlining for developers. Let’s see some of the focus shift from building new expensive “affordable” housing to purchasing existing affordable housing and keeping it permanently affordable. One might even consider offering permanently affordable units as rent-to-own to help the tenants move into the middle class rather than remain on the public dole. That would allow the city to purchase more permanently affordable housing and extend the offer to more families of a secure future.
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SF Creates New Office Tasked With Relocating Homeless Hotel Residents

: sfpublicpress – excerpt

A new city agency, founded in the wake of rising concerns about the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing’s ability to house the city’s homeless population, aims to bring 2,000 people into permanent shelter by the end of the year.

The Office of Housing Opportunities will be a division of the COVID Command Center, shifting responsibilities away from the homelessness department. Of particular focus will be housing the 1,880 residents of the shelter-in-place hotels, a program launched in 2020 to bring indoors vulnerable homeless people during the pandemic. Directing the effort is Chris Block, formerly the director of the chronic homelessness division at Tipping Point, a nonprofit focused on battling poverty and homelessness.

It’s unclear how the office will be funded, or if it will receive any portion of the Department of Homelessness’s $562 million annual budget. Through the city’s communications hub at the Department of Emergency Management, a spokesperson who would not divulge their name declined to answer questions about either agency’s budget or staffing…(more)

Read the whole article and see what you think about this new change. Whatever it takes to keep the affordable units full. The is no excuse to have 10% empty while people are living on the streets.

RELATED:

Renters Are Still Being Displaced, Tenant Advocate Say

By Laura Wenus : sfpublicpress – excerpt (includes audio )

At the beginning of the year, a tenant attorney warned of an “avalanche” of evictions unless California legislators reached a deal to extend tenant protections. They did, and applications recently opened for a support program designed to help both low-income tenants and their landlords with growing rent debt. Shanti Singh, legislative and communications director for Tenants Together, a coalition of 50 renters rights organizations in California, talked with “Civic” about the legislation…

Debt will continue to be a concern, Singh said. Applications opened March 15 for the State Rental Assistance Program, through which. landlords of qualifying tenants, who agree to forgive 20% of back rent owed, can get a subsidy from the state to cover the remaining 80% of that back rent… (more)

 

 

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Homeless crisis: Newsom proposes ditching environmental review when converting hotels into housing

By Kevin Fagan : sfchronicle – excerpt

Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing that state environmental regulations be waived for cities and counties that want to convert hotels into homeless housing using federal coronavirus relief funding.

His plan was sent to the California Legislature on Friday to be added to the state budget negotiations, and if it remains intact it would eliminate a key tool opponents use to fight projects they don’t want in their neighborhoods. By law, the budget is supposed to be passed by June 15.

Before the pandemic hit this winter, the governor had said he wanted regulations under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) eased for many types of homeless housing, and this current plan — sent in the form of a “trailer bill” addition to budget talks — narrows that ambition… (more)

A few people may explode over this, but, it sounds like the perfect karmic solution. Sort of a boomerang effect, correcting a major flaw in that turned housing into hotels and through many people out onto the street who were previously housed in those hotels. It could be like a happy homecoming to some, moving back into recently repaired rooms they were kicked out of. There are all kinds of possibilities here. Who might object?