Opinion: Offer supportive services for the homeless; don't enable destructive habits

Homeless shelters without behavioral requirements are known to endure some gnarly treatment by residents who sidestep much-needed rehabilitation for mental illness/addiction (see: LA's Skid Row Housing Trust disaster). KQED reports that SF is expected to pay millions in property damage to Hotel Whitcomb, which housed people during the pandemic—and supervised “safer” (though noting 18 overdoses) hard drug use.

San Francisco could pay up to $19.5 million to settle a lawsuit over property damages at one of the hotels that provided emergency housing during the pandemic.

The owners of Hotel Whitcomb on Market Street filed the complaint against San Francisco on April 13 of this year. They allege the historic hotel endured millions in property damage resulting in loss of use by the city’s shelter-in-place hotel program, part of a statewide effort called Project Roomkey that opened up empty hotels during the pandemic to create emergency shelters.

The settlement is the latest agreement between the city and owners of the hotels that stepped up during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide emergency housing for people experiencing homelessness during the first two years of the pandemic. That has included $2.9 million to the Tilden Hotel and $5.3 million to Hotel Union Square....

But life was not always easy inside the hotels. Staff and residents at Hotel Whitcomb were often on the front lines of the overdose crisis that the city continues to endure. About 400 people were housed there during the pandemic, many of whom struggled with substance use disorders.

On-site services helped prevent overdoses and encourage safer drug use, such as clean needle exchanges and training on how to administer the overdose-reversal drug naloxone. At least 18 people overdosed at Hotel Whitcomb from the time it first opened its rooms for the program in April 2020 to April 2022, KQED reported while the program was still in place.

This article originally appeared in KQED. Read the whole thing here.

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