San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed unveiled the new Diva Hotel yesterday, a redeveloped facility supplying 122 homes for adults transitioning out of homelessness. The endeavor is a cooperative venture between the city and Episcopal Community Services (ECS), with funding from California's Homekey program, as stated in the City and County of San Francisco announcement.
A seven-story premises, the seven-story renovated and operating Diva Hotel, offers lasting supportive housing (PSH), contributing to San Francisco's significant PSH array. Since 2018, the portfolio of the city's PSH, the largest in the Bay Area and possessing the second-highest per capita in the country, has assisted over 10,000 individuals in leaving homelessness behind.
Apart from 122 PSH slots, the Diva Hotel offers wraparound services to occupants, including case management and links to behavioral health assistance via referrals to partnering establishments. It also provides access to vocational and job development programs. The Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) and the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund (SFHAF) lend additional support through financing roles.
"We express our gratitude to our state and local associates for their assistance in materializing this project. We aim to seek effective solutions and continue working together in order to steer people from streets into housing," Mayor London Breed highlighted, emphasizing San Francisco's dedication to reducing homelessness and providing facilities to unhoused populations.
Prior to the transformation, the Diva Hotel was acting as a Shelter in Place (SIP) in response to COVID-19, hosting over 3,864 individuals as part City's Alternative Shelter Program. The building in Union Square went under massive construction and refurbishment with MOHCD, SFHAF, HSH, and ECS, securing $29.1 million for its purchase and conversion into housing for chronic homeless through the state's Project Homekey program in 2020.
Shireen McSpadden, Executive Director of the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, acknowledged the significance of the Diva Hotel in tackling homelessness in the city. She emphasized that the "stable housing" it offers allows inhabitants to "reshape and recover after the trauma of homelessness." The Diva Hotel is a part of several related projects, with the nearby Granada and Post Hotels also being recent purchases designated for conversion into permanent lodging.
The Diva Hotel, now managed by ECS, is a part of San Francisco's wider Five-year Strategic Homeless Plan called "Home By the Bay." The plan focuses on halving the city's unsheltered homeless population over the upcoming five years. It aims to expand on the 15% reduction in unsheltered homelessness since 2019.
Beth Stokes, Executive Director of ECS, drew attention to Project Homekey's innovative approach as a push for the fast tracking of PSH solutions across San Francisco and California, thus enabling communities to urgently respond to the homelessness crisis. She asserted "ending homelessness begins with housing."
