Authorities identified an interim site Sunday to house the more than 140 people displaced after a three-alarm fire Thursday at a transitional housing complex in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, according to the American Red Cross.
The fire was reported at about 5:40 p.m. Thursday at the Taylor Street Center, located at 111 Taylor St.
After the blaze forced the evacuation of the center, the Red Cross set up a temporary shelter for the displaced residents at the Gene Friend Recreation Center at Sixth and Folsom streets.
The Bay Area chapter of the Red Cross will close the shelter today at 6 a.m. thanks to a joint effort between the Red Cross and Cornell Companies, the center’s property management that will also manage the interim housing, according to the Red Cross.
Displaced residents could not continue to stay at the temporary shelter because the city needs the facility back.
More than 140 residents were housed and fed in the shelter the first night, with 61 residents remaining in the shelter Sunday night.
Others were housed with family and friends or placed at other facilities, Patricia Peper, spokeswoman for the Bay Area chapter of the Red Cross, said Friday.
For the past four days, the Red Cross, working with Cornell Companies, has provided food, housing and essential services to shelter residents.
The center, located at 111 Taylor St., provides temporary housing, monitoring and transitional services for more than 200 offenders and pre-trial detainees.
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.
