San Francisco Examiner - October 27, 2000
Kathleen Sullivan

But the San Francisco nonprofit group running the program has placed its sick and disabled clients in residential hotels that routinely violate city housing codes and state elevator safety laws.

The program, run by Lutheran Social Services of Northern California, is called the Bridge Project. Its motto: Housing Equals Health Care.

An Examiner review of city and state records dating to the beginning of the study in late 1996 shows the hotels had to be ordered to provide such basic amenities as heat, fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, clean public bathrooms and showers, safe elevators, and buildings free of bugs, rodents and trash. A survey of recent records shows:

The Aranda Hotel flunked its annual, routine inspection in August, after inspectors found 17 violations of The City's housing codes. Smoke detectors were broken or missing in 14 rooms and in the stairways of the six-story hotel. The hotel was also told to repair fire damage in one of its rooms. About two dozen Bridge Project clients live at the Aranda, which is located on Turk Street.

State inspectors prohibited anyone from using the elevator at the seven-story Boyd Hotel more than a year ago, saying it was unsafe. The hotel kept turning on the elevator anyway, until the state disabled its motor Sept. 1. They had also barred its use in 1998 and 1999. Health inspectors cited the Boyd for a rodent infestation in August.

Twenty-one Bridge Project clients live at the Boyd, which is on Jones Street, just off Market Street.

Last week, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic sued the Boyd on behalf of 11 residents, charging the owners and operator had failed to fix "severe health, safety and fire hazards" despite orders to do so by city and state officials.

The Hillsdale Hotel, named one of The City's 10 worst residential hotels in 1999 by the Department of Building Inspection, was told last month to fix its broken elevator and to put fire extinguishers in its hallways.

Housing inspectors have inspected the Mentone Hotel four times since July, and found problems each time, including a broken elevator in the six-story building; a cracked, leaking toilet; a bathroom whose walls were badly damaged from leaky pipes; and fire and smoke damage in a room and nearby hallway.

City inspectors inspected the Vincent Hotel in April and June. They told the hotel to repair a broken garbage chute, treat the garbage area for pests, and replace an improperly installed, stopped-up public toilet that had contaminated the surrounding floor with raw sewage. (The Vincent is the only hotel in the project that does not have an elevator.)

Six of the project's clients live at the Hillsdale, Mentone and Vincent hotels.

Since the project began, Lutheran Social Services has placed 173 people in the five hotels, said Richard Stahlke, president of the nonprofit group. The project stopped taking new clients last June.

Currently, 50 Bridge clients live in five hotels.

'Abominable' places to live

Dr. David Bangsberg, an assistant professor of medicine at UC-San Francisco, said he is a fan of the Bridge Project, but acknowledges residential hotels are abominable places for people to live.

"They're firetraps," he said. "I lost track when the 11th hotel burned down. There have been more than a dozen hotel fires."

Although not speaking specifically about the five hotels that house Bridge Project clients, Bangsberg said residential hotels generally can be dangerous because of violent crime and drug use.

To qualify for the project, men and women had to be homeless, HIV-positive, receive General Assistance or have stable income of less than $640 a month, and have a history of substance abuse and/or mental illness.

The five-year project is financed by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, which pays for health care, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provides rent subsidies.

Stahlke said The City's residential hotels were willing to house the clients, whom he described as highly volatile and extremely problem-ridden, because they offered a stable source of subsidized rental income.

Tenants rights

One of the project's goals is to help people get past the critical first month in a hotel. After that, a tenant gains the legal rights guaranteed to apartment dwellers, including limits on annual rent increases.

After clients had a room, they were offered access to primary medical care, substance abuse counseling, mental health services and benefits counseling at six agencies in The City.

Currently, most homeless men and women with HIV/AIDS rely on emergency rooms for medical care, which is costly.

Four of the five hotels also provided a room - rent free - to the Bridge Project, so clients could meet the project's nurses and counselors without leaving the hotel.

The goals of the project are to improve the quality of life, extend life expectancy, expand the use of services, and reduce the cost of health care.

"The purpose was to get them into something that was a step up and hopefully more stable, through gaining tenancy, and then enable them to begin looking at other aspects of their lives," Stahlke said.

Project in final year

The project is in its fifth and final year. A San Francisco research firm will analyze its findings when the project ends next September.

Bangsberg, of UCSF, said it's easy for people with HIV/AIDS to obtain $20,000 worth of medications a year, under state and federal programs, but it's hard to get the financial help they need to keep a roof over their heads.

"The fundamental project is worthwhile and essential, and, unfortunately, (a 5-year study) is the only way we can demonstrate the fiscal importance of providing housing," Bangsberg said.

In its proposal, Lutheran Social Services said its first goal was to "increase the quantity and quality of housing" for clients.

Stahlke said housing turned out to be the weakest part of the project because the group was unable to assure compliance with health and safety standards in the hotels, which are privately owned. (A nonprofit group began operating the Vincent last May under a city program.)

Money was also an issue for the Bridge Project.

"By virtue of the money available, we were limited to the least desirable hotels," he said.

Stahlke said the highest rent paid by a Bridge Project client was $500 a month.

No visit to hotels

The program didn't want to place people in hotels they couldn't afford to rent on their fixed incomes after the subsidies ended.

Stahlke said he has not visited any of the hotels since the study began, or spoken with their owners or managers.

Among the hotels in which the project placed clients was the Hillsdale.

A review of city and state records since late 1996 provides a look at conditions in the Hillsdale, which is owned by Hitendra "Sam" Sinh. State inspectors deemed the Hillsdale's elevator a menace to life and safety in 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000.

In late 1996, health, plumbing and housing inspectors discovered more than five dozen code violations at the Hillsdale. Public toilets were stopped up on five floors.

"7th floor toilets - clean often during the course of a day," a health inspector wrote in November, 1997. "7th floor - clean hallways of debris. Remove carpet that is no longer cleanable in front of garbage room."

Six dozen violations

In 1997, health and housing inspectors cited the hotel, which has 80 rooms, for six dozen violations. Toilets were clogged on five floors in September 1997, according to the Health Department.

"Inspection revealed that eleven of twelve toilet rooms and five of six shower rooms throughout the hotel were found in generally unsanitary condition and in disrepair with defective toilet and shower fixtures, dilapidated walls and ceilings," a health inspector wrote in December 1997.

That year, health inspectors also told Sinh twice to sign up for garbage collection. A housing inspector reminded him he was required to provide heat in the hotel.

In 1998, City Attorney Louise Renne sued Sinh, charging that the Hillsdale was a "continuing, visible public nuisance which substantially endangered the health and safety of residents and is dangerous to human life."

Under a 1999 court order settling the lawsuit, Sinh agreed to comply with city health, housing, fire and building codes; staff the hotel desk with trained people 24 hours a day; implement security measures; and prohibit drug use, drug dealing and prostitution in the hotel.

That same year, The City cited the hotel for 28 housing code violations. "Repair 3rd floor shower stall," the inspector wrote. "Walls of shower compartment are coming apart. Unclog toilet and maintain to proper working order on the 5th floor."

In 2000, housing inspectors told Sinh to put working fire extinguishers in the hotel's public halls.

In late 1998, the Bridge Project offered to move three female clients living at the Hillsdale to the Mentone, which had just been added to project, but they refused, said Gail Gilman, the project's program manager.

Withholding rent

Gilman, who joined the project in 1998, said she also helped Hillsdale tenants withhold rent - by placing it in escrow - to protest living conditions.

Gilman said she has also referred clients to tenant advocacy groups, and called the Department of Building Inspection on numerous occasions to alert them to problems.

Stahlke, her boss, said the staff has done what it could, when it could, to help clients.

"By virtue of being in the program, that doesn't mean we become responsible for managing their lives and everything related to it," Stahlke said.

He said Lutheran Social Services can accomplish more changes in hotels by working behind the scenes.

"If it becomes a really public issue, under those circumstances our working relationships tend to get jeopardized and strained," he said. Gilman agreed.

"We wouldn't want to lose our office at the Boyd, or have Chuck Dahud (the landlord) or Charlie Patel (the owner) end our contract and not let social services come in," she said. "We're in a touchy position. I would rather not be quoted in an article at all. But I spiritually support you."

Bangsberg, who has studied the health of people with HIV/AIDS living in The City's residential hotels, said they are the only low-income housing stock available to poor people.

"Conditions in them are sad," Bangsberg said. "But they're a whole lot better than living on the streets."

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