More Than $356 Million Has Been Spent On Housing Projects, But Many People Are Still Homeless

The Aarti Hotel serves as a refuge for San Francisco’s young homeless people who usually have nowhere else to live.

Homeless People ( Photo: San Francisco Chronicles )

Not-for-profit housing and homeless service providers largely attribute this to better tenant support

Tenants can be difficult, often struggling with physical and mental health issues as well as drug use. By not providing effective housing for this population and ensuring safe, habitable and supportive buildings, many residents continue to deteriorate on the streets, while hundreds of rooms sit empty and unused. The vacancies pose a risk to the organization’s finances, show internal communications and the nonprofit wants to know when they can expect applications.

The city’s homeless leaders describe how they struggled to fill empty apartments no matter how hard they tried

Vacancies threatened to impact the organization’s finances, and in internal communications, the nonprofit wanted to know when applications would come. The application processing issue appears to have been resolved by January, three months after it was first noticed.

According to an email the HSH program manager received from a colleague, after visiting Aarti, these people waited until they found one “that was more likely to meet their mental health and housing needs.” said he wanted to remain homeless or in temporary housing. Cohen said part of the reason RTY’s high vacancy rate is the long process of city inspectors approving applications for rooms and tenants.

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