When the Eureka Valley branch of the San Francisco public library closes at night, its staff are required to turn off the free Wi-Fi.
The reason? To keep homeless people from gathering outside the building.
The library, located at 16th and Pond streets near Market Street, has been limiting after-hours internet access since August, 2022, following complaints from residents and pressure from District 8 supervisor Rafael Mandelman. The change is one of a raft of measures taken to make the sidewalk directly across from the library — which, for years, had been the site of an encampment — less inviting.
“It was the worst spot in the district,” said Jackie Thornhill, legislative aide to Mandelman. She said that residents had frequently complained about loud music, crime, and “antisocial behavior” associated with the 16th and Market encampment.
In addition to limiting the library’s Wi-Fi, the supervisor’s office advocated for a mural behind the tents to be repainted, and for a nearby trash-can-storage area to be dismantled. Sections of the sidewalk were also transformed into spots to grow plants, reducing potential camping space.
Together these measures appear to have had the desired effect; you are a lot less likely to see anyone camping opposite the library today. But some advocates have criticized the changes as an attempt to “sweep away” problems rather than tackle them head-on.
“All these kinds of efforts are based on the premise that if you make it difficult for homeless people, then they will disappear,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, director of the Coalition on Homelessness. “But these things actually exacerbate homelessness.”
Friedenbach said that free Wi-Fi is crucial for homeless people to access services, make calls, apply for benefits and jobs, and deal with healthcare. She said that many homeless people sleep during the day because it is safer to be awake at night, making after-hours internet access especially important.
And internet access is not just an issue for unhoused people. Data from the 2021 American Community Survey suggests that around 7 percent of San Franciscans have no access to the internet at home.
According to Kate Patterson, spokesperson for the San Francisco Public Library, there have been two direct email requests from the public asking for the nighttime Wi-Fi to be turned back on. One, made in mid-March, has been published by Twitter user HDizz, who obtained the email via a public records request.
The complainant wrote on March 5 that the library’s internet had been a “lifeline” for an unhoused friend who recently got sober. They added that their friend was in a “crisis,” and that the free Wi-Fi helped them communicate with services and friends.
“So please, please, I beg you, please have the wifi on all the time,” reads the email.
The pseudonymous Twitter user HDizz, who often publishes unearthed intergovernmental emails, noted that limiting internet access runs counter to San Francisco’s Digital Equity Strategy Plan, which notes that libraries should “serve as a connectivity safety net for all residents.” Thornhill said that the policy of shutting off Wi-Fi after-hours does not contradict the plan, because internet access is still available throughout the day.
The idea of limiting after-hours internet at the library has been considered since at least 2017, when then-District 8 supervisor Jeff Sheehy requested that the library limit its internet availability to discourage encampments and theoretically reduce crime.
In response, the library put together a study to compare crime levels with the Wi-Fi on and off. The library found that incidents of criminal activity were higher over the six weeks it kept nighttime internet on, compared to the six weeks it was off, but concluded that it was impossible to say if the change was because of the Wi-Fi or simply due to statistical noise.
“Sample sizes of criminal activity are very low in this experiment, and could be generally random in nature,” reads a report on the study. “The connection between Wi-Fi access and criminal activity is not readily apparent.”
The study also confirmed that Wi-Fi was used fairly frequently after the library closed, with late logins accounting for roughly 16 percent of total usage. Some 526 unique devices accessed nighttime internet during the six-week experiment, while police incidents were recorded 16 times.
Back in 2017, the library decided to keep its nighttime Wi-Fi based on this study. In 2021, then-Chief of Branches Catherine Delneo reaffirmed its findings while pushing back on another request from a neighbor to turn off the internet at night.
But the library changed course last year. City Librarian Michael Lambert met with Mandelman’s office to discuss limiting the Wi-Fi on Aug. 1, 2022, according to Thornhill. According to Patterson, the practice of turning off the nighttime internet began the next day.
Thornhill said that Lambert had made the decision to limit the Wi-Fi before meeting with staff from Mandelman’s office. Lambert and other officials at the library were not available to be interviewed for this article.
Despite the library changing tack in Fall 2022, Patterson reaffirmed its 2017 findings that nighttime internet access is neither directly nor significantly related to crime.
“We have no new findings since we issued that report,” said Patterson. “We can confirm that incidents such as vandalism and other criminal behavior at the Eureka Valley Branch Library remain low and consistent with previous years.”
The Mission branch of the public library also received complaints about encampments during the pandemic, and was urged by some residents to shut down night-time internet. But the Mission library chose not to change its policies.
“Eureka Valley Branch is the only branch that turns off its Wi-Fi after business hours,” said Patterson.
Thornhill said that the Wi-Fi change was one small part of Mandelman’s plan to remove the encampment from 16th and Market, and was based on 16 resident requests. She said that the move was about “improving conditions in a specific location,” rather than providing a solution to homelessness. She added that Mandelman has separately called on the mayor to increase funding for new shelters and temporary housing.
For Friedenbach, these efforts to remove the encampment were a waste of time, and resources that could have been better spent getting people help: “I would have loved to have seen that amount of effort go into fighting for the people out there.”
Why doesn’t the city cut off water
and bathroom availability too.
Oh wait! We have.
City of Francis?
I don’t know.
The cruelty really is the point with these horrible people, isn’t it? I remember when Mandelman was still actually a liberal, now he’s just garbage.
The main library at Civic Center has had to close periodically because of homeless people stuffing their clothes into the toilets, defecating on tables or the floor, and assaulting others. At least one person jumped to his death from the balcóny. Another brought a dog that attacked a security guard.
Libraries are open to all but the city is not obligated to provide after hours service to the street campers, especially when they are harassing neighbors and trashing the área.
You’re telling half the story.
Clearly, you have an agenda
that includes exclusion.
Why are we arguing about Wi-Fi? Why not provide actual housing — with Wi-Fi? Or at least temporary shelter? Have we just given up?
If the City doesn’t have enough resources, demand state and federal assistance. This is a national crisis.
But the City of San Francisco has plenty of resources to do better, with a budget of $14B (with $1.1B dedicated specifically to homeless services).
The City owns or leases (mostly owns) 5,176 properties:
https://sfgov.org/services/city-owned-property
Surely some of this could be turned into supportive housing.
In addition, 33 percent of San Francisco hotels are vacant:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/S-F-hotels-tourism-17182614.php
And 29 percent of San Francisco office space is vacant (over 20 million sq. ft.):
https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/sf-office-vacancy-rate-hits-record-high-17889017.php
Other cities are converting these to housing:
https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/market-snapshots/adaptive-reuse-apartments-2021/
If that’s still not enough, there are currently 83 rent-controlled multifamily homes for sale in San Francisco. No sane investor wants to own a rent-controlled building in San Francisco. The City’s politicians have spent decades trying to drive landlords out of business, and they are succeeding. A multifamily dwelling unit can be purchased for a fraction of the cost of a house or condo (neither of which would be rent controlled):
https://www.loopnet.com/search/apartment-buildings/san-francisco-ca/for-sale/?sk=ce63072e864d1f37d3fb31abd6358f9e
Here’s one available for $135K per unit:
https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/935-Geary-St-San-Francisco-CA/26562755/
It’s got a 30% vacancy. Why doesn’t the City buy it? Or one of the eight Qualified Nonprofit Organizations participating in the COPA program
(Chinatown Community Development Center, Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, Mercy Housing, Mission Economic Development Agency, etc.)?
Here’s another\ for $171K per unit:
https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/500-510-Larkin-St-San-Francisco-CA/26562349/
Seeing the discourse around issues like this really shows why progressive reps have such difficulty making any kind of meaningful change in this city. Progressivism in the the Bay is mostly an opposition movement built off of activism and protests around various local issues. Today, the local progressive movement has won and held a significant degree of power, but struggles to coalesce around a specific agenda. This is in part because any specific stance stance on an issue can easily be attacked as crewel or “not-progressive” enough. This leads to the situation where it is politically advantageous for progressives to avoid specifics and continue acting like an opposition party even while holding real power as the incumbent.
I mean, look at this situation here. Mandelman, one of the most progressive supes, is being attacked by his fellow progressives in the thread here as crewel for simply requesting a change in a library’s wifi policy. He wants to make one small change to try to better manage the day to day issues on a local block, and this is the response. People like to talk big about prospective change, but then fight even the smallest/most gentile of actions. How do you think this is going to work out for the movement long term?
He’s a moderate.
Literally every publication defines him as a moderate.
His own district library studied the effect and it made no difference.
Almost as if you didn’t read the article.
NEWSFLASH: Mandelman is one of THE MOST CONSERVATIVE supes on the Board. He consistently votes in lock step with copagandists like Stefani, Dorsey and Engardio. He is London Breed’s monkey and does not think or vote for himself. For God’s sake: he was one of the few supes who supported armed police robots for use in our densely populated city. The same robots use in wartime, on battlefields!!!! Using armed robots to police our densely populated buildings, streets and sidewalks? Irresponsible and nuts!
I haven’t checked recently, but SF runs a free wi-fi signal along Market Street.
SF, or LA or any other California City for that matter, could eliminate 50% of homeless blight and misery by giving homeless individuals $2000 sheds with locks and privacy on sidewalks, parking spaces, and empty lots with nice rainbows, waterfall, and unicorns painted on them until permanent housing can be supplied to them. However, poverty pimps, construction trade unions, and so-called full solution progressives stand in the way. This is the easy, economic solution not taken, but always could have been. The savings in public health expenses more than pays for this.
This is great and seems fair. Let’s not stop until the city is cleaned up and better than ever. That mural and plantings in front of it look really good. Let’s hope and help keep these and others like it maintained!
Step 1 – force homeless who test positive for illegal drugs into in-house treatment for a minimum amount of time (determined by medical staff).
Step 2 – provide drug-free housing for those who are willing to accept living in a drug free situation.
Step 3 – Tow away RV’s that have expired registrations or are registered in a county other than San Francisco.
We banned nudity & sleeping in the parks & beaches so the wealthy could walk their dogs without having to look at hippies & hobos. Since then the homeless have been herded & enabled into pooping & sleeping on sidewalks in poor neighborhoods. You can thank Scott Wiener for the ban & the poop and Progressives for the tents & the rot. Meanwhile, the city is about to dive head first off a fiscal cliff because of the loss of business taxes and State & Federal subsidies. Soon we’ll all be pooping & sleeping on the sidewalk and the library will close permanently. Problem solved
San Francisco has never been able to house people with limited funds. It just makes life painful and dangerous for them. Excessive wealth damages community and communities.
As a former social worker turned Librarian and who literally just visited SF this weekend…. holy shit it’s so bad. Homeless people shooting up drugs, selling drugs and pooping and peeing in the streets drunk and drugged. There’s no helping these low lives who amount to nothing. They will not change! I’ve tries to help them. No more! I’m so glad to see the library doing their best to clean up this mess. I’m so ashamed of San Franciscos decline.
Well, it’s a good thing you are a FORMER social worker if you think of your fellow human beings as “low lifes.” Be glad you’re housed, because I would imagine that being homeless and being forced to live on the streets for lack of shelter would drive anyone to addiction, mental health issues, and all the things that go along with those conditions. As a FORMER social worker, one would think you would understand that. But then I question whether you are, in fact, a FORMER social worker. Heck, based on the quality of your post, I question whether you are a librarian.
You will find people living in tents and shooting up in nearly every city in the United States, so stop acting like it’s only happening in San Francisco.
Friedenbach as usual speaking so confidently about untruths, nothing she says is data supported. The library at least completed a cost effective study which showed a strong correlation. Is there a housing shortage and are rents high? Yes. Does offering a river of unchecked “services” and freebies without consequences act as a magnet for trouble making degenerates from across the country? Yes
Thanks Supervisor Mandelman for listening to your constituents and trying to disperse the homeless encampments from in front of the Castro library. Also, thanks for your ”Place for all” proposal to create enough temporary housing for every unhoused person in SF. Moving people from tent encampments in public spaces to secure temporary housing with services would put our city in line with other cities like Boston and NYC where you see much less unhoused people living in public spaces. Keep up the good work!
The library’s own study misses the point. What sites are most accessed at nighttime versus daytime searches? I get the feeling that most sites accessed at nighttime are adult sites and other trivial media. So the homeless are busy applying for college st night? Lets find out.
…. That’s a whole lot of unfounded assumptions. Do better.
The city already has a major lawsuit to deal with, and your brilliant idea is to introduce the headline, “SF Public Library and the City of San Francisco is sued by homeless advocates by violating privacy laws and policies”.
Truly, peak game there.
Another lawsuit we’re almost bound to lose by default.
Mandelman is the worst supervisor.
He really is. It makes one wonder: what happened to make him so cruel and awful?
He really is. What happened to make him so awful?
Ms. Friedenbach, rather than spend $70,000 a year on a tent, why not use some of the $700 million for the homeless for a $2000 a month studio and $1000 a month for food and incidentals. Cuts the cost in half and sweeps away the encampment.
That sounds like a guaranteed basic income, an idea that has some merits. But those folks are drug addicts that need to be first institutionalized to get them clean and sober.
It’s almost laughable how many gullible people there are that actually believes the Coalition on Homelessness runs city funded programs.
Or even is funded by the city.
Hmm, it’s not that much of a stretch. Jennifer Friedenbach, the Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness also serves on “Our City, Our Home” (OCOH) oversight committee which is a City government department that funds various efforts for the unhoused. OCOH has made grants (~$250k this year) to the Coalition
All good work, but it seems like a conflict of interest to have the same person soliciting grants from the city for their organization and then also being the one to approve the issuance of that grant money back to their organization.
If this were put in the context of say Public Works. It would be a non-starter to have owner of a sidewalk repair company also approve bids for SF city sidewalk replacement projects.
It seems that Supervisor Mandleman equates homelessness and poverty with crime despite evidence to the contrary, including the library’s own 2017 study. Supervisor Mandelman cannot call himself a champion for the homeless if he collapses to the demands of 16 residents. What have these residents done, or attempted to do, to help the people that they villify?
Are these the same people who installed boulders? We have similar issues in my neck of the woods with entitled and compassionless residents who use the “it frightens my children” excuse. A number of us long term residents have organized food, gear and clothing drives to try to help these folks get back on their feet. One unhoused neighbor works at a local cafe. He has lived in a tent for over a year. We have tried to get him into more stable housing (non congregate shelter) like a hotel room or a tiny home by working with HSOC and SFPD to no avail. They try to make him go to a congregate shelter. He was beaten and his glasses were broken and they robbed him of his id and phone at a congregate shelter; he refuses to return to that setting. There is no security at the congregate shelters and people get sick, are robbed and beaten or worse. I would refuse to go tona congregate shelter too.
This is grossly misguided. Mandelman and his aide Jackie Thornhill are pandering to NIMBYs. San Francisco has a citywide epidemic of unhoused people who are suffering. How does this begin to solve the problem? Mandelman is running for higher office. Has he done anything to improve San Francisco?
This is a challenging situation. Unhoused encampments do present public safety issues, and if my family and children were nearby I’d probably make the same request if I thought it could help. SF residents pay higher taxes than most other major metropolitan areas, and yet deal with the greatest rate of unhoused per capita.
In 2021 the city spent over $100,000 per unhoused person… how is it that we still must resort to tents? There are clearly broader structural issues at play with SF’s unhoused response… NYC has a FAR lower unsheltered % despite lower per-capita spending and greater overall unhoused rate.
Except the Library, in its infinite wisdom of not treading onto the stupidity of pandering and false hope, did an actual study when challenged by the public when it first came up in 2017, and found it mostly bullshit.
And in 2021 found the same results: Same Bullshit.
“This” isn’t a challenging situation.
“This” is a studied situation.
But apparently you didn’t read the article.
The study that said, “The library found that incidents of criminal activity were higher over the six weeks it kept nighttime internet on compared to the six weeks it was off.”
I’ve read every major study on the unhoused in SF. I volunteer. I donate. I’ve been personally victimized by those experiencing substance issues. I do my best. Please focus on productive conversation.
Great misquote.
Except you forgot the last part that literally says the increase is so small that it’s basically statistical noise.
“I’ve read every major study” yet failed to quote properly.
“Productive”, such a shining example.
If you censor my comments I will cease to support you.
Well Carolyn, you have just shown there is a little bit of a capitalist in everyone… I’m sorry you are angry, but remember that accomplishes nothing and is rather harmful to you.
I don’t know what you mean by this response. It is not connected to my comment (however misguided) at all.
Hey Carolyn —
These comments are monitored in real-time. I hope it’s alright with you I went to a kid’s birthday party this afternoon.
I appreciate your support, but any supporter who says “If you do/don’t do X, I won’t support you” is not someone I can cater to. Period.
Thank you kindly,
JE
Sorry, but I have had my comments blocked by big tech before and it looked like you weren’t accepting my previous comment. My mistake. We are all living in Kafka land.
Typical bourgeois liberal attitude toward the poor and disadvantaged. Why don’t you vote to house the poor instead of complaining about them and punishing them? This attitude makes me very angry.
Good work. The encampments around the library have included drugs and sales, trash strewn all over the street, vandalism to neighborhood murals and plants, and dogs that their owners refuse to leash or control. I appreciate Supervisor Mandelman’s work to keep the area more clean and safe.
If there’s one person in San Francisco whose backward thinking has contributed the most to the misery we see on the streets on a daily basis, it would be Jennifer Friedenbach.
The progressive philosophy that the top priority above all else is to give unhoused people the freedom to choose their own lifestyle, and then allow them to slowly kill themselves by exposure and drugs, is yet another example of the progressive tendency to ignore the unintended consequences of their policies.
The tone-deaf efforts of these activists forcing the tax-paying citizens (who, after all, are the source of funding for homeless programs) to endure the aggressive, antisocial and criminal behavior that comes along with having an unsupervised camp in front of their doorstep, is not a politically astute strategy for gaining support for one’s cause.
“The progressive philosophy that the top priority above all else is to give unhoused people the freedom to choose their own lifestyle, and then allow them to slowly kill themselves by exposure and drugs…”
No, there is no “top progressive philosophy,” and fomenting slow suicide isn’t a philosophy at all. If progressives had any real control these people would be housed. Don’t blame the left for failures of right-wing policies.
Sorry, but who in the “right wing” has any influence at all in SF politics? All that happens here is decided by progressives, so if there are failures in SF Homeless policies, there’s only one group to blame.
London Breed has never ever been a Progressive.
Thank you.
You are entitled to your opinion…
But I digress, what does this have to do with the article at hand?
She doesn’t control what the city does, and she is literally following the law, with studies backing up what she says that the city is violating.
And I can’t believe in that same tirade, you mentioned “unintended consequences of their policies” when they are literally winning a lawsuit, and get this, by SF blatantly violating our own policies of an injunction at a baseline we did not follow?
And lied about following policy for a minimum of 2 years?
That the same Coalition warned them of?
The supervisor clearly isn’t “following good policy”, and even got rebuked by the library’s own research team.
What is this immature character assassination that is so sorely lacking of a shred of evidence, of whom, paramount to all, the sheer failure of SF policies without her ever influencing directly what the mayor can or can’t do?
Because it appears, in your desperation, you couldn’t find a better scapegoat.
Sometimes, “politically astute” doesn’t make you right.
Because people who bury themselves doing the work actually know what the fuck they’re doing.
Instead of wasting time slandering nonsense on the internet.
I spend a lot of time at this library branch, both as a patron and a volunteer.
The lack of wifi access issue is obvious, and important. I’m not sure how to remedy, but having wifi access is so important. If we can’t rely on the library, for many reasons that I understand, I want to know what the supervisor and these residents suggest, exactly.
Didn’t one mayor or another propose city-wide free wifi at some point? Or maybe they were going to treat it as a public utility?
Maybe these residents need to roll up their sleeves and volunteer an hour or two of their time to help, instead of complaining and then expecting someone else to fix their problems.
The staff at this branch field so,
so many issues from literally every kind of person, and they do so with grace and patience, regardless of the abuse and danger they experience. I have witnessed it all at this point. They go so far beyond what anyone should expect of library staff. Please know they are really, truly doing their best.
You bring up a great point about city wide wifi.
The city killed it in 2007 due to political scumbaggery and budget realities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Municipal_Wireless
Last I heard, Dean Preston was trying to get at least fibre running in low income areas, but who knows where that will go.
Glad to read about it. Library had lots of homeless people inside using Wi-Fi. I stopped going there
If you think these are down-on-their-luck folks who’d become productive members of society if only they had a government-sponsored home, then you may be smoking the same stuff many of them are.
We need to make it harder and less pleasant to pursue the “homeless lifestyle” in San Francisco. Tough love is needed.
Enough. Stop treating all homeless the same. That is of the utmost importance if we will ever improve the situation. What the realist is saying is that a mentally Ill addict will not be able nor seek services that require accountability. We can’t expect city housing to miraculously improve the behaviors of these people. The homeless are a diverse population. We need to prioritize those working or between jobs but unable to pay rent. There are a lot of cooks, janitors, building sups, dishwashers etc who are homeless or living in poverty. These are the people we need to prioritize as it doesn’t take much to get them stabilized. On the other hand we should not be wasting millions on meth head Matt from Montana or the other brain damaged individuals who spends their day destroying our city and stealing from local businesses to support drug habits. Conserve these individuals and yes arrest them when caught breaking the laws… tough love. We aren’t here to support your drug Disneyland .
Boy Butler playing with some heart. Would love to see him on the Warriors.
Do you really think that it’s pleasant to be homeless? Seriously? And what do you mean when you suggest that “tough love” is needed?
Good question.
@Kurt: The vast majority of the unhoused in SF do not wish to be housed by ANY program with rules. All Programs need rules and regulations to function. Addicts need anarchy. Solve me that one.
I don’t see any discussion here about the library’s liability if someone nearby uses their Wi-Fi to access illegal video sites. Does the library have software that alerts them if that happens and shuts down access to the site?
Using a mural to displace unhoused folks is as insidious, and loathsome as it gets. Caution to muralists who are approached by unethical city officials and property owners….your work may be used to more harm than good.
An answer could be, FREE internet everywhere. Communication is a link to dignity, services, friendship, opportunity. Internet providers should find another way to make profit than to exclude anyone from communication through internet use. INTERNET SERVICE should be free to everyone everywhere all the time. Period.
Agreed.
So long as homeless people sleep during the day and are active at night for safety reasons, then there are going to be conflicts between housed and unhoused in residential areas.
“I would have loved to have seen that amount of effort go into fighting for the people out there.”
How much money did it cost to turn off the wifi and how many drops in the bucket would that amount to? Friedenbach is getting as rote in her responses as Redmond at the SFBG was before it expired.
If the progressive claim now is that residents need to buck up and take sleepless nights, then that’s evidence of political sabotage.
That said, the responsibility here rests squarely with those in power for being flush with resources and taking no perceptible steps to build capacity to change things and the advocates who get paid to play the foil while a crime against humanity continues to unfold on our sidewalks.
If those in power did their job, then these people to people conflicts would diminish.
Based.
Dear Jennifer Friedenbach: Lets install a free wifi access point in front of your home with multiple extension beacons where you sleep! Lets make sure tents, clean needles and glass pipes are always available there.
Pretty sure she lives and works in the tenderloin, so you have your wish already.
I don’t know where San Franciscans get the idea that homeless advocates are living in a castle in Pacific Heights walled off from the drugged out masses they spend so much time fighting for.
“I don’t know where San Franciscans get the idea that homeless advocates are living in a castle in Pacific Heights walled off from the drugged out masses they spend so much time fighting for.”
Randy Shaw of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic lives in a 6 BR mansion in the Oakland Hills and had commuted into the TL lord over and profit from squalor.
When I last checked in 2000, John Elberling lived in a Mission Bay condo valued at $950K in the assessor’s file.
Elizabeth Funk who’s DignityMoves operation lives in Lower Pac Heights and wants investors to profit off homelessness.
So enraging. Yuppies in an affluent neighborhood see homelessness as blight instead of a human rights issue. Instead of pressuring their government to solve the problem they simply try and push it somewhere else.
Would be easier short term to just house everyone in vacant hotels.
Agreed.
Those so-called “yuppies” (let’s re-conjur the 1980’s!) are already funding SF homeless programs to the tune of $800 million every year, and are more likely fed-up by now with the ineffective politicians who squander their resources on backward policies that rely solely on the carrot, and not enough on the stick.
No one is stopping you from housing them in your residence
It really wouldn’t? We tried that and people died at higher rates, caused tens of millions of dollars in damages, and the surrounding neighborhoods became as bad as ever.
If there was an increase in the death rate, and it’s by no means conclusive, nor is the dollar figure hotels are claiming while refusing to provide proof to the BoS or the media. There was no supervision in the hotels, unlike most shelter situations, which may have caused a spike in ODs, but again, no one has checked any of the figures. That was an emergency measure to put folks in the hotels and deaths by COVID plummeted after that step was taken. By every account housing the unhoused in hotels was a huge success in terms of lives saved, so please cut the crap.