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Originally Posted by mrnyc
there is current talk of using some of the closed hotels for covid cases and for homeless. i dk if its actually happened, i think maybe a bit?
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San Francisco is doing this. In fact, the Hastings College of the Law (U/C Berkeley law campus), which is on the fringes of the San Francisco Tenderloin/Civic Center, joined forces with a neighborhood group and sued the city for allowing the proliferation of homeless tent camps and their associated drug dealing and other undesirable activity. The city settled:
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San Francisco strikes deal over Tenderloin lawsuit to clear tents on ‘dangerously crowded sidewalks’
Dominic Fracassa
June 12, 2020 Updated: June 12, 2020 5:26 p.m.
San Francisco officials have reached a deal with a group of Tenderloin residents and business owners who sued in federal court last month to compel the city to clear the neighborhood’s “dangerously crowded sidewalks” of tents and find shelter for its homeless during the coronavirus pandemic.
The settlement, filed Friday, requires the city to remove 70% of the tents crowding the neighborhood’s sidewalks in just over a month and to get those living in them into vacant hotel rooms or sanctioned encampment sites. In exchange, the Tenderloin residents — led by the UC Hastings School of Law — agreed to stop pursuing litigation. There were about 415 tents scattered throughout the Tenderloin’s 49 blocks as of June 5. By July 20, around 300 of them must be gone, according to the terms of the settlement.
The city also agreed to “discourage additional people from erecting tents in the neighborhood” and committed to employing ill-defined “enforcement measures” for people who refuse to accept an offer of a shelter bed or a spot in a sanctioned tent encampment.
It was not immediately clear if the Board of Supervisors will approve the settlement, which they must do within the next three months. If the board rejects it, the litigation against the city can resume. There has been considerable tension between Mayor London Breed and the board over homelessness during the pandemic. The board has pushed for thousands of unhoused people to be put into hotel rooms while Breed has insisted the city is doing everything it can within the constraints of what’s legally and logistically possible.
“COVID-19 has impacted many communities in our city, but we know that the Tenderloin has been particularly hard-hit,” Breed said in a statement, adding that “both the city and UC Hastings are committed to address the short-term challenges while we work towards long-term solutions” . . . .
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https://www.sfchronicle.com/local-po...n-15336228.php
Reports are that they've actually accomplished the 70% figure but partly by pushing the tent campers into adjacent neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, my good friend used to work at the San Francisco J W Marriott (laid off) and he tells me they have rented out whole floors to the city to house medical staff and "first responders" who are reluctant to go home and possibly bring the infection with them to their families so they are staying in hotels at city expense.