Leases extended for Bay Area COVID hotels

Emergency programs shelter thousands

Super v isors in A lameda County have voted to extend leases on four hotels sheltering unhoused people, providing a brief reprieve to some residents who had been warned they’d have to vacate “very soon.”

With the extensions approved Tuesday, the last hotels are set to close at the end of February.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to pass a 60- day emergency ordinance to ensure its COVID-19 hotel program continues sheltering homeless residents.

A surge in COVID cases has made some officials push to extend emergency programs that have sheltered thousands of unhoused Bay Area residents in hotels during the pandemic — and that some experts say have been crucial in protecting people from COVID-19. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has promised to reimburse counties for 75% of the cost of the hotel rooms, and federal CARES Act funding has made up some of the difference. But local officials had made moves to start winding down the programs, worried FEMA funds soon would dry up.

In San Francisco, officials had planned to move more than 500 people out of Project Roomkey hotels this month and close all hotels by June. After pushback from critics, and after receiving additional funding from the state, that timeline was extended three months.

Not satisfied with that extension, a group of supervisors introduced an emergency ordinance prohibiting the city from moving someone out of a hotel room unless the person found stable housing, or unless the FEMA funding ended. As people found housing and moved out of hotel rooms, the city would have to fill those rooms with new unhoused residents.

Facing criticism over the cost burden that proposal could place on the city, Supervisor

Matt Haney introduced several last-minute amendments Tuesday night. Under the amended legislation, the city can begin slowly ramping down the Roomkey program as people move into housing by closing four out of every 10 vacated rooms. And though the city must find housing for people in Roomkey hotels, as new people enter the program, they won’t necessarily be guaranteed housing when the hotels ultimately close.

“This is a great compromise. This is what legislation is about,” board President Norman Yee said.

In Alameda County, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to extend the lease

on the Marina Village Inn in Alameda through January, at a cost of $375,646. T he Ro deway Inn in Berkeley also will continue serving unhoused guests until Jan. 31, at a cost of $301,990. Another two hotels — the Radisson in Oakland and the Residence Inn in Livermore, will remain open until the end of February, at a cost of $3.66 million and $1.53 million, respectively.

The county intends to shut down two pandemic hotels — the Springhill Suites in Newark and the Quality Inn in Berkeley — at the end of this month.

By the time those leases expire, county of ficials hope to have found long

term housing options for all residents.

The Quality Inn in Oakland will remain open through July to house people who have tested positive for or been exposed to COVID-19, at a cost of $3.42 million.

Heather Chavez and other residents of the Livermore hotel recently had flyers slipped under their doors that warned, “T his temporar y hotel shelter will be closing very soon.” Hotel staff told her that meant she’d be out by the end of December, she said.

Chavez, 48, was relieved to get an extra two months to find housing. “T hat helps a lot,” she said.

Chavez previously was living in an RV parked on the side of the road in Hayward, without power or water. She has put in

several applications for subsidized housing, with help from her caseworker at the hotel, but so far she hasn’t found a permanent home.

Despite the reprieve, many of the Residence Inn guests still are worried they’ll be thrown out at the end of the month, said 62-year- old Baltazar Cordeiro, who also is staying at the hotel.

“People are scared,” he said.

Cordeiro, who accepted a hotel room because he thought it would be a step toward permanent housing, is frustrated he has made no progress on that front so far.

“I’ve been here 21/2 months,” he said, “and I have no results.”