Supportive housing site reports 24 virus cases
Two dozen people — 22 residents and two staff members — have been infected with the coronavirus at a supportive housing facility in San Francisco’s Mission District after the first case was discovered early last week, city officials said.
Also on Tuesday, city officials said a second person had tested positive at Division Circle Navigation Center.
Casa Quezada, a 51resident supportive housing site for formerly homeless people with special needs, is the latest vulnerable community hit with a COVID19 outbreak.
After the San Francisco Department of Public
Health confirmed that a Casa Quezada resident was infected on April 13, officials tested all remaining residents and staff on Sunday.
As of Thursday, those results revealed 24 total cases among the facility’s 71 residents and staff.
City officials have moved or offered to move each affected person into a hotel room where they can isolate or quarantine, “depending on their condition and needs.”
The facility is being deepcleaned. Casa Quezada is run by Mission Neighborhood Resource
Center and Dolores Street Community Services, and serves many residents who transitioned from shelters and speak only Spanish. It is part of the city’s Direct Access to Housing program.
Similar outbreaks have occurred among the city’s most vulnerable residents who live in congregate settings. MSC South, San Francisco’s largest homeless shelter, has confirmed more than 100 cases among residents and staff. Central Gardens nursing home in the Western Addition has reported four deaths and at least 67 positive cases.
At the Division Circle
Navigation Center, the city has moved 48 residents into hotel rooms, according to the Department of Emergency Management. The Department of Public Health is testing the remaining 59 guests and working on moving them into hotel rooms, too. The city will temporarily close the shelter once all of the guests are moved out. Anna Bauman and Trisha Thadani are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: anna.bauman@ sfchronicle.com, tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @abauman2, @TrishaThadani