Oh No SRO
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Cash not care: There were many things left out of your article ["The Vice Hotel," Oct. 10] regarding the conditions at the Mission Hotel located at 520 South Van Ness. One issue is the actual cost of the rooms that are no bigger than a jail cell, at a ridiculous price; also, the problem that some of the residents cannot get phone lines hooked up again once they have been disconnected by either the maintenance crew or AT&T mistakenly cutting the lines of tenants who reside there, then not bothering to come back and see what the problem is.
The fact that this hotel has drug-dealing activities is no shock at all to any person who has lived here in San Francisco most of their lives. This is a daily occurrence in all the SROs in this city. To try to write a story to say that there is corruption is like saying Muni is not on time. Big deal. Like the taxpayers don't know this? Please. I am so tired of so-called investigative reporting lame stories. Do you really think the money that is given to the Tenderloin Housing Clinic or all the other nonprofit "homeless projects" is going to alleviate the homeless problem in San Francisco? Think again. There is too much money to be made for all these organizations. Homelessness is about profit for this city.
Laurie Estrada
San Francisco
Perspicacious! Dejecta! Shenanigans!: Matt Smith doesn't know me from the Man in the Moon but I just read his boffo article and wanted to congratulate him on his wordsmithing and bravery.
My family has lived in S.F. since 1920. Alas, we've seen this gorgeous city slip into an ever-increasing death spiral, especially over the past 20 years, to the point where we've had enough and are making plans to move out. S.F.'s City Hall shenanigans put Tammany Hall to shame, and our board of supes is benighted to the extreme.
My first journalism prof exposed us me to Civil War–era newspaper editor Wilbur F. Storey of The Chicago Times, who stated that a newspaper's job was to "print the news and raise hell." You and your paper embrace Storey's perspicacious dictum, and I encourage you to sustain your efforts to uncover the dejecta suffusing S.F. politics. I hope that the grand jury investigates what you've uncovered. District Attorney Kamala Harris, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Mayor Gavin Newsom, and their overpaid acolytes won't touch what you've unearthed. Their complicity through silence and inaction is utterly despicable.
Bill Becker
San Francisco
THC deserves TLC: Mr. Smith's article makes for juicy reading, but it's too slender a rope to hang THC, which is the city's largest private low-income hotel landlord. Using the example of one manager at one hotel to taint the service of hundreds of dedicated employees seeking to better life for this city's poor and powerless? In the more than three years that I've been with the Tenderloin Housing Clinic as a desk clerk, a day has not passed without a tenant telling me how glad they are, or how great it is, to have a place to get off the streets. I'm proud of my job! And as chief shop steward I know my co-workers feel the same. Mr. Smith may have an ax to grind with one person, but it reads like a hatchet job on the entire THC organization.
Tony Medina
Chief Shop Steward, SEIU #102
San Francisco
Worth a thousand words: I just wanted to say that I loved the cover art from your "Vice Hotel" cover story. I definitely would not have picked up the issue if not for this artwork. Not to say that the story wasn't important, but the real draw was the art, at least for me. People like to claim they don't judge the book by the cover, but I personally believe that they are lying ... and even if they aren't, having a kickass cover doesn't hurt. It was a great choice on the art director's part.
Jesse Young
San Francisco
Correction
We neglected to credit artist Jason Levesque for last week's "Vice Hotel" cover illustration. SF Weekly regrets the error.
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