SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – A protest on the steps of San Francisco City Hall Thursday morning called on the city to continue providing the services of the Tenderloin Center, despite its planned closure in December.
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The center opened in January as the cornerstone of Mayor London Breed's state of emergency declaration for the Tenderloin and both served as a safe harbor for unhoused people and provided essential healthcare services to people struggling with drug addictions. However, San Francisco announced in June that the center will shutter at the end of the year when its lease at the building at 1172 Market St expires.
Tenderloin community members, those who have benefited from the services of the center and San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston, spoke out on Thursday and said they're concerned about the gap in services once the facility closes.
"Quit playing with us, quit lying to us, we are sharper than you," one male speaker at the protest said.
"We feel like we've been outcast and no one cares," another woman said.
Breed's office has not said if a replacement center will open by the time the current center closes. The mayor's office did pledge to create wellness hubs, which would provide services similar the Tenderloin Center, however it hasn't yet said where or when they will open.
Vitka Eisen, CEO of Health Right 360, the health provider which oversees the Tenderloin Center, said it takes months to build trust with the unhoused population and closing the center throws away the progress.
"They came in there and they were like, what’s this place, is this just a set up of some kind and all those kind of fears about how they would be treated," she told KCBS Radio.
Aside from services, Eisen said the center provides a reprieve from the streets.
"People that have been up and awake for five days straight, it's incredibly restorative to get a nice sleep," she said. "The intangibles of watching people experience some sense of hope and being treated with dignity... there’s something incredibly powerful about that."
According to Eisen, more than 100,000 guests have come through the door since the center's inception.
San Francisco Department of Public Health officials estimated that 272 lives were saved by the center.
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