SAN FRANCISCO—San Francisco City’s homeless shelter program turned out to be a “complete disaster”, according to a City Journal contributor Erica Sandberg’s report on August 12.

Sandberg commented “People were given rooms. Unfortunately, they were also given a tremendous amount of drug paraphernalia.”

At 2:27 p.m. August 1, officers from the San Francisco Police Department received a call about a strong chemical odor coming from a hotel room, and officers responded to the Civic Center Motor Inn in the 300 block of Ninth Street, said the San Francisco Chronicle.

Officers discovered an illegal drug manufacturing operation and evidence of a meth lab in an upper floor room, police spokesman Robert Rueca stated. Two adults who were staying at the inn were arrested for the operation of the meth lab in an isolated room, but police did not make the names of the suspects or the charges public.

The Civic Center Motor Inn is one of 27 businesses which joined San Francisco City’s Shelter in Place program, and it served as a shelter for 47 homeless people after the number of city’s homeless shelters decreased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The inn costs about $250 per room per night with meals, staffing and security. San Francisco’s Shelter in Place program has provided homeless people or people who are at risk for COVID-19 with a place to stay.

Sandberg noted that the city’s program which ended up as a “disaster” was suspended after two arrests and “the city has kind of drawn back on its contract.” In addition to that, San Francisco Public Press reported on Monday that the Emergency Operations Center confirmed San Francisco would stop acquiring shelter-in-place hotel rooms for the city’s homeless people, for example, and although the city would continue to use about 2,600 rooms which are already under contract, it will phase out the program by June 2021.