Close to one-third of all city-funded apartments for formerly homeless people in San Francisco are run by the nonprofit HomeRise, but the organization has struggled to live up to its promises, endangering its residents and its mission, an investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle and UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program found. Regulators have flagged the nonprofit’s failures, only to see problems persist. With support from the Fund, reporter Matthew Mitchell contributed to a Chronicle story highlighting a case that led the city to finally take action against HomeRise: Eric McCain lived in one of HomeRise’s units and lay dead for days, unnoticed. As a result of his case, the city attorney has launched an investigation and the organization is under the highest level of monitoring by the city. But the reporting by the Chronicle and UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program found that at least three other residents at the facility were found decomposing in their rooms, all in apparent violation of the facility’s wellness-check requirements.
Grantee probes ‘model’ S.F. complex for the formerly homeless, where a man lay dead for days unnoticed
