SAN FRANCISCO — The following notice regarding the proposed sale of Hotel Buchanan in Japantown was posted by the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing on Aug. 27.
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Dear Japantown Community Members and Interested Stakeholders,
Thank you to everyone who participated in the first community meeting about the proposal to acquire the property at 1800 Sutter St. for use as permanent supportive housing. During the meeting we heard very thoughtful comments and questions about the proposal. Thank you so much for your input.
Unfortunately, we were not able to hear everyone’s comments yesterday. We will be hosting a second listening session on Sept. 8, 2021 to continue this discussion and hear from more members of the community.
Meeting details: Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2021 at 5:30 p.m.
Register for the Zoom meeting:
Community Meeting #2: Proposed Acquisition of 1800 Sutter
Slides and the recording from last night’s meeting are available on the HSH website: https://hsh.sfgov.org/get-involved/notices/
A flyer for the meeting on Sept. 8 is also available.
While last night’s meeting was a listening session and an opportunity to hear directly from the community, we do want to try to answer many of the questions we have received. We are consolidating the questions that were raised and will send out an updated FAQ document to try to address these important questions.
We appreciate your participation in this process and HSH is committed to continuing to engage community members in a robust discussion about this proposal.
Information about this and other proposed projects can be found on the HSH website.
If you have been forwarded this email and would like to be added to our email distribution list for this project, please email HSHExternalAffairs@sfgov.org.
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Japantown leaders have said that the community was not consulted regarding the possible sale of the hotel to use as housing for the homeless. Based on the temporary use of the hotel for this purpose during the pandemic, merchants and others said that businesses will be negatively impacted and that the hotel should continue to be used for tourists in order to boost the local economy.