Homeless policy director Dariush Kayhan and Mayor Gavin Newsom
Mayor Gavin Newsom announced a new plan to redesign the city’s homeless shelters this morning.
The press conference was held at Multi-Service Center South, one of the largest homeless shelters in the city, and addressed a small crowd of journalists and shelter staff. There didn’t appear to be any homeless people in the room (unless some of the staffers are also homeless, which is possible. The shelters are required to have homeless or formerly homeless individuals account for 25 percent of their employees.)
After a rambling introduction recounting the various perennial problems with homelessness in San Francisco, Newsom got to the point and said he’d like to import the Project Homeless Connect model into two shelters – MSC South and Next Door – so that clients would be able to one-stop shop for services. “The idea is putting a smaller version of Project Homeless Connect in these two shelters so we’re here seven days a week and to look at the medical side of the equation,” said Newsom. He also said he hopes that one day all the shelters, excepting these two large facilities, are closed for good. “Eventually, I can’t wait until these are the only two shelters remaining in the city and every single other one of them is shut down,” said Newsom.
As for revamping the two remaining shelters, the medical side of the equation would be a respite center, Kayhan clarified, which is curious, since Next Door shelter already has an entire floor of their four-floor building devoted to respite. I recently visited that facility and spoke with Cynthia Lee, a registered nurse, who told me they can only take patients who come out of the hospital. “The idea is to stabilize them, then transition to a bed or room,” she said. If someone on another floor (in this facility which houses 250 people) is having health issues they can’t go there. “I, personally, would like to do that but Next Door has their own clinic – out of Tom Waddell Health Center. It’s not open every day,” Lee said.
In other words, there’s a fully provisioned respite center in a high volume shelter, and the clients there are not allowed to access it. I asked Kayhan if they’d be looking at opening up the facility to the greater shelter population, but he wasn’t able to give me specifics.
Which is true of the entire press conference: no specifics, though a number of questions immediately come to mind.