The San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. has taken more than a year to open 30 beds for homeless and mentally ill

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It has been nearly a year since the city began working on a much-needed psychiatric respite center for the city’s homeless and mentally ill — but the sprawling, yellow building in the Mission slated for the project is still vacant.

The city announced the new Hummingbird Place respite center last February and hailed it as a small but important step toward helping the city’s most vulnerable. But the hurdles faced in opening the 30-bed site underscore just how long it takes San Francisco to make even incremental improvements to its system of care.

“I am very, very frustrated,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, whose district includes the site. “It’s a lot of effort for a small facility. It will be worth it when we get to the end. But we just need to get to the end.”

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