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Yvonne Chan, left, spoke about her sister\u2019s housing insecurity at an Oct. 20 Health Commission meeting, with the help of an interpreter.<\/p>\n
Audio clip of translated testimony from Yvonne Chan.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou will only move when a new home that meets your needs is identified,\u201d stated a June letter signed by Angelica Almeida, chief integrative officer at San Francisco General.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But staff at the new city-recommended residence could not care for her sister, Chan said, and the operators moved swiftly to evict her, plunging the family into crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe trusted this recommendation,\u201d said an interpreter reading a statement written by Chan. \u201cThis eviction is devastating to my sister\u2019s health and our family stability.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to an earlier request for comment, the Department of Public Health said it evaluates residents\u2019 needs individually and works with them to identify appropriate placement within the city\u2019s system of care. \u201cOur highest priority is to ensure the continuity of their care and stability as they move into a new setting,\u201d the statement read.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nevertheless, at several charged Health Commission meetings in May, June, October and November, residents and families said they were afraid of ending up in a private board-and-care home that was violent or unsanitary.<\/p>\n \u201cThe place was so filthy. It was full of rats,\u201d said Antoinette Conde, recounting her brother\u2019s time in a Mission District board-and-care home. \u201cStaff were so mean and so degrading to these clients, and the staff were so unskilled, so unprofessional in dealing with his type of mental health. To move him to these contractual residential facilities, which he has been before, will create fear and anxiety and even confusion. Please, please, please listen to us.\u201d<\/p>\n Debbie Gish had the same fears. In an interview, Gish said her 66-year-old sister, Donna, has severe mental illness and had never remained in one place for more than a few months until moving to the Residential Care Facility for the Elderly, where she has lived for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my experience of all those years, when it\u2019s a private subcontractor, their capacity to de-escalate, to redirect, to deal with really chronically difficult people is much lower,\u201d Gish said. She said she was relieved by the city\u2019s assurances that her sister would remain under city workers\u2019 care once she moved to the Laguna Street facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n Care services inadequate<\/p>\n San Francisco faces a\u00a0critical shortage of locked mental health beds, which the department said was contributing to overtaxed psychiatric emergency services, long hospital stays, repeated psychiatric crises inside the hospital and people with mental illness returning to homelessness.<\/p>\n The hospital\u2019s behavioral health center was the only building the city could convert within a year, using $21 million in Proposition 1 funding already secured through the state\u2019s Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program, according to city planning documents.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Ad-300x250-1.png\")
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