Floating homeless shelter could be game changer for S.F.

EDS NOTE: PICTURE MAY HAVE BEEN REVIEWED AS IT WAS SENT VIA NAVY COMMUNICATIONS--An aerial view taken Saturday Nov. 4, 2001 shows the American amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu, as it sails in the Arabian Sea. The USS Peleliu is currently supporting U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Nicholas Kamm/Pool) less EDS NOTE: PICTURE MAY HAVE BEEN REVIEWED AS IT WAS SENT VIA NAVY COMMUNICATIONS--An aerial view taken Saturday Nov. 4, 2001 shows the American amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu, as it sails in the Arabian ... more Photo: NICHOLAS KAMM, AP Photo: NICHOLAS KAMM, AP Image 1 of / 38 Caption Close Floating homeless shelter could be game changer for S.F. 1 / 38 Back to Gallery

Hundreds in San Francisco’s homeless population are living in horrendous conditions in tents on streets because we simply do not have enough shelter beds for them. Proposals to cite homeless individuals with “two-day vacate notices attached to promise of housing” are disingenuous because there is no housing. Our city desperately needs a humane, progressive game changer to house them until there is enough permanent housing.

Only when we can provide that housing on demand can we honestly say, “No more living in street tents or sleeping in doorways, parks or under freeways.”

My idea for a game changer is to immediately create a temporary Navigation Center operated by a nonprofit agency aboard a reconditioned Navy ship large enough to handle a large number of people.

For 35 years, the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu, a small aircraft carrier complete with sleeping quarters, kitchens, medical clinics, offices and recreation facilities, carried 2,200 Marines, 2,500 sailors and 262 officers, totaling almost 5,000 military personnel working and living aboard the ship for months at sea.

If docked at the Port of San Francisco, the Peleliu, mothballed at Pearl Harbor, or a ship like it with similar facilities, could temporarily house most, if not all, of San Francisco’s homeless living in tents on the streets while permanent housing is built.

Pie in the sky?

Not really. This is exactly what we did in San Francisco to temporarily house homeless folks after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

While the San Francisco’s Marina neighborhood had the most visible victims of the earthquake, more homeless victims living in badly damaged South of Market single-room occupancy hotels were temporarily housed in the Moscone Convention Center. To allow the convention center to get back to business, Admiral John Bitoff offered the Peleliu to temporarily house homeless individuals.

During the day, 300 homeless individuals kept their usual routines. At night, they came home to the ship. It was popular because it was a safe, civilized shelter with good food. The ship left after two weeks to resume its military mission.

The Peleliu worked beautifully as a temporary emergency earthquake homeless shelter, but we would need to test the idea on a long-term basis.

While this might be a game changer in San Francisco, our city would not be the first to try this approach:

• Auckland, New Zealand — A group of businessmen began looking into the purchase of an Italian cruise liner for use as a homeless shelter for their city, an expensive international housing market.

• Dortmund, Germany — The city has deployed two cruise ships on the Emscher River to temporarily house its overflow of refugees.

•Galveston, Texas, and Mobile, Ala. — In 2005, the Federal Emergency Management Agency chartered three large cruise ships with a combined capacity of more than 4,400 beds to house Hurricane Katrina victims. Afterward, FEMA reported that “the use of cruise ships was an innovative and successful program.”

•New York — In 2002, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg explored the use of cruise ships for the homeless, but the cost of retrofitting was deemed to be too high at that time.

Would this “game changer” have challenges such as costs ... availability ... logistics ... federal cooperation for a pilot program here?

Certainly, but the same great champion we had in Washington in 1989, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, today is the House minority leader. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, as a former San Francisco mayor, certainly understands the problem. Both leaders are on excellent terms with President Obama and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus.

Winter is coming. Maybe this “game changer” could be arranged to coincide with the beginning of San Francisco’s famed Navy Fleet Week, whose mission is to honor “the contributions of the men and women of the United States Armed Forces while advancing cooperation and knowledge among civilian- and military-based Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response personnel.”

Now that would be a “game changer.”

Art Agnos is a former mayor of San Francisco.