Authorities are working this weekend to determine what to do with more than 130 people who were displaced from a transitional housing complex in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood after a three-alarm fire there on Thursday, an American Red Cross spokeswoman said today.
The fire was reported at about 5:40 p.m. Thursday at the Taylor Street Center, located at 111 Taylor St.
The center, which provides temporary housing, monitoring and transitional services for more than 200 offenders and pre-trial detainees, was evacuated due to the fire.
At least 129 adults and two children were displaced after the blaze, according to Patricia Peper, spokeswoman for the San Francisco area chapter of the Red Cross.
The Red Cross set up a shelter for the displaced residents at the Gene Friend Recreation Center at Sixth and Folsom streets.
Most of the displaced people from the Taylor Street Center stayed at the shelter on Thursday night, but many were placed at other facilities or with family and friends Friday, leaving 54 people still at the shelter on Friday night, Peper said today.
She said the Red Cross expects to operate the shelter through the weekend, but will have to shut it down by Friday morning because the city needs the facility back.
The Red Cross is working with Cornell Companies, the operator of the Taylor Street Center, to figure out where to put everyone if the center is not safe to reopen by Monday, Peper said.
Charles Siegel, spokesman for Cornell Companies, said Friday that the fire started on the roof of the building, where contractors were doing work Thursday evening.
Firefighters responded and controlled the fire by 6:30 p.m.
San Francisco fire Lt. Mindy Talmadge said Friday that the blaze caused about $350,000 in damage to the building’s roof and attic area, and that most of those upper portions of the building are currently uninhabitable.
The exact cause of the fire had not been determined as of Friday evening, Talmadge said.
