The City’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing and the Episcopal Community Services have submitted a request to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for a $47.38 million permanent loan related to the conversion of Hotel Diva at 440 Geary Street into permanent supportive housing. The financing will pay off the construction loan from the San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF).
Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) with co-applicant Episcopal Community Services (ECS) as owner and service provider.
The project proposal requests to the Board of Supervisors to approve a $47M permanent loan for the Hotel Diva, which was acquired and rehabilitated from 2021-2023 using short-term financing from SFHAF that is now expiring. The Board approved funds of $27M in 2021 for this project early in the process. Now it will need to approve the upsize of the City’s loan and the payoff of the short term acquisition/rehabilitation loan. The affordable units are supported by the Local Operating Subsidy Program (LOSP). Hotel Diva contains two ground floor commercial spaces, including a long-term Starbucks and vacant commercial space, which has been used as the construction office. ECS hopes to expand its workforce development program in the vacant space.
Total development costs are $73.5M. The money was used to acquire a tourist hotel and rehabilitate it into 121 units of permanent supportive housing and one manager’s unit for unhoused households and individuals. The purchase of the Hotel Diva was made possible by a $26M Homekey grant from California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). Robust services are funded through a separate services contract by HSH.
Since the Hotel Diva was privately acquired by ECS, and HSH only manages assets it owns, the project is being underwritten by–and will be monitored as an asset by–the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD).
In addition, Local Operating Subsidy Program (LOSP) grant will be resized and updated to reflect the final unit count and include commercial income from Starbucks, which was not part of the initial analysis completed at LOSP contract underwriting. Payoff of the HAF construction loan is estimated to occur by October 19, 2023, requiring an extension as the HAF loan will expire on September 30, 2023.
Hotel Diva is one of the City’s first Homekey projects, and is located in the Downtown/Civic Center neighborhood. Hotel Diva comprises 110 Single Room Occupancy (SRO) units and 12 one-bedroom units for homeless and formerly homeless single adults with incomes at or below 50% MOHCD Area’s Median Income (MOHCD AMI) for all units except one staff unit.
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Wait, I’m I doing the math correctly?!? $607,000 for each single room occupancy unit? That has to be wrong!
No that’s corruption.