Today at 6:41PM, the former Cathedral Hill Hotel at 1101 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco was occupied by demonstrators led by the squatters' collective Homes Not Jails and reinforced by the activists of Occupy San Francisco.

Homes Not Jails and OccupySF Take Over Cathedral Hill HotelFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEPRESS RELEASEPress Contact: Brian WilkesCell: 415.230.2392Live updates to be posted Oct. 10th at http://www.HomesNotJailsSF.org and 1.877.50.SQUAT(1.877.507.7828).Today at 6:41PM, the former Cathedral Hill Hotel at 1101 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco was occupied by demonstrators led by the squatters' collective Homes Not Jails and reinforced by the activists of Occupy San Francisco. Approximately 30 occupiers are presently inside the building, which contains 600 housing units. They report that most if not all of the rooms remain furnished and in habitable condition.The historic hotel known once as the Jack Tar, which was damaged by a fire in 2008, reopened to the public in 2008, and finally closed its doors on October 31, 2009. For two years it has sat vacant while the deep economic crisis precipitated by avaricious Wall Street bankers has forced more and more working people into poverty and homelessness.Activists demand that habitable housing stock be put into use for people not profits, and point out that enough residential units exist in San Francisco to eliminate homelessness in the City.##30##