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Your Call

SF Moves Unhoused People Into Hotel Rooms After A Major Outbreak; How Are Other Cities Responding?

Brooke Anderson, Oakland-based photojournalist
After 91 homeless shelter residents tested positive for #COVID19, protestors in SF today organized a "car protest" to call on Mayor London Breed to test all shelter residents and to move unhoused residents into hotels.

 

On this edition of Your Call, we’ll get an update on how COVID-19 is spreading through San Francisco’s homeless population.

On Friday, weeks after homeless advocates began calling for hotel rooms, Mayor London Breed confirmed an outbreak of 70 new positive cases at MSC South, San Francisco’s largest homeless shelter. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, by Monday, a total of 91 people tested positive at the shelter, including 10 staff members. The city has secured local hotels for some homeless people, but doctors worry it’s not enough. How are other cities handling their homeless crisis?

Guests: 

Joe Wilson, executive director and former client of Hospitality House

Joe Eskenazi, managing editor and columnist at Mission Local

 

Giselle Routhier, policy director at the Coalition for the Homeless in NYC

Web Resources:

Mission Local, Joe Eskenazi: ‘The Atlantic’ article about San Francisco is a fable. Here’s what’s really happening.

The Guardian, Vivian Ho: Wasted time: how San Francisco failed its homeless population amid coronavirus

Stat News, Allison Bond: As Covid-19 surges among San Francisco’s homeless, doctors face difficult choices

AP News, Christopher Weber: Massive effort to get Los Angeles homeless into hotels

NY Times, Nikita Stewart: 'It's a Time Bomb': 23 Die as Virus Hits Packed Homeless Shelters