NEIGHBORHOOD REMODELINGS 2015 – SROs (#4 in a series)

This is the Sonoma Inn Hotel at Bush and Van Ness.

It used to be an SRO where drug addicts lived. I remember the day it closed. A meth-head couple, their dog and few meager possessions were huddled in the doorway, taking a final hit on the pipe before trying to find someplace else to live.

This is the Dorel Hotel, another SRO, at the corner of California and Larkin.

I remember a time when it was much more habitable; only in the last several years did I notice how much disrepair the owner had allowed it to fall into. For the longest time, until just recently, it seemed to have only one or two tenants. Whoever they were, they’re gone now, and the hotel being remodeled.

There’s also the New Pacific

and the Marathon

sfhomeless.wikia.com/wiki/Marathon_Hotel

former fleabag SROs where the skid row population lived, are empty and being remodeled.

Where did the people go who lived in them? Fern Alley, Civic Center, Mission, Castro...

 Photo by Michael short, SF Chronicle 1-7-2014

San Francisco isn't the only city to destroy skid row housing for money and create a homeless population, but those cities, however, have much more land space to endlessly move the homeless around in.

This is why, outside of re-building SROs (or ‘cash-up-front-no-questions-asked’ housing) I don't think San Francisco will not be able to solve its ever-escalating homeless situation anytime soon.

Postscript: Does that mean I would re-open those SROs so that derelicts can live in them? As opposed to having those same derelicts urinating, defecating, using drugs openly where I live? ... Absolutely.

Copyright © by Chris Enquist 3/29/15