Ella Hill Hutch Closing?

by T.J. Johnston/Special to PNN

As of two weeks ago, the staff was bracing for a June 29 closing date, but no final decision on the center's fate has yet been made, said shelter manager Trina Johnson. This comes in the wake of the March 31 closing of Buster’s Place, the city's only 24-hour resource center for homeless people.

Johnson also said that Mayor Gavin Newsom doesn't realize the effect the possible closing would have on staff and people staying there.

"Clients talk to us and feel safe. We have a community," Johnson said. Once homeless herself, she also said she wouldn't turn people away from the shelter.

Neither Human Service Agency Director Trent Rohrer nor Dariush Kayhan, the mayor's homeless policy director, have responded to requests for comment.

Ella Hill Hutch, located in San Francisco's Western Addition neighborhood, is also a youth center that provides education, crime and violence prevention, employment, recreation and other community involvement programs for low- and moderate-income residents.

Johnson said the space might be used for nighttime activities for neighborhood youth, though she doubts anybody would come for a midnight basketball game.

Up to one hundred people line up nightly outside the center as early as 8:30 p.m. to sleep on a mat in the gymnasium from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Most of them secure a spot through the city’s CHANGES computerized reservation system, but some disabled people, recent hospital discharges and people just arriving in town are also accommodated.

Those turned away from the center are referred to shelters at 150 Otis St., Episcopal Sanctuary or Providence Baptist Church.

Shelter monitor Christopher Nolan criticized Newsom's promotion of the appearance of solving homelessness while he stands sentry as homeless people pick up their pillows and blankets.

"It's sad they don't have a backup (for a new shelter)," Nolan said.

Before his current job, Nolan worked for five years at the McMillan Drop-in Center at 39 Fell St. before it closed in 2006. He believes the mayor's appeal for funding in Washington, D.C. last year without addressing permanent housing needs was a hollow gesture.

"When everything starts falling like dominoes, and the mayor goes to D.C. and brags on how the shelter system is good … why don’t they call him on his shit?" Nolan said. Just because people are homeless doesn't make them hopeless, he added.

Homeless people like Warren McCormack also disapprove of the closing. McCormack has been homeless for two months. As a bipolar SSI recipient, he said shelters should provide supportive services, such as in-house psychological counseling.

"Everybody's materialistic out here," McCormack said, citing increases in housing costs. He also observed a racial dynamic as to who could afford living in the city. "Over by Glide (Memorial Church in the Tenderloin), not one black person owns a home there. There's a lot of tensions," he said.

Roy Hill, a thin, graying Massachusetts native who is seven years homeless, said hotels could house homeless people. "They need to get SROs for everybody, instead of closing the center," he said.

Cat, a San Francisco native who returned from Portland, Ore. on April 2, sid he hopes the center remains open. "I know a lot of people depend on this place," said.

Because he has family in the city, Cat is optimistic about his housing situation.

"I'm glad they have these places,” Cat said. "If they leave this place, one door closes and another one opens."

"It really affects me and the clients (at Ella Hill Hutch), and (Newsom) really needs to hear us speak," Johnson said.