Can Empty Offices Become Homes?

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2023

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The office vacancy rate in downtown San Francisco is hovering around 30%. Meanwhile, thousands of people are living without shelter on city streets. Bay Curious listener Judith Gottlieb wonders if those empty offices can be converted into housing for people experiencing homelessness. In this episode of Bay Curious, we'll break down what it takes to turn an office into a home, and explore another option for housing people that is gaining more traction. Additional Reading: Could Empty Offices in San Francisco be Converted to Homes? Read a transcript of this episode Enter our Sierra Nevada Brewing Company monthly trivia contest Sign up for the monthly Bay Curious newsletter Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Pauline Bartolone. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Amanda Font and Christopher Beale. Additional support from Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From K-QED.
0:02.0	If you watch national TV news or E-drop at your local coffee shop, you may have heard something like this.
0:11.0	San Francisco's offices are lying vacant.
0:14.2	Homelessness is rampant and the city is floundering.
0:18.2	Bicurious listener Judith Gottlieb, a retired nurse in Oakland,
0:22.2	has been hearing some of those stories. The idea of people
0:25.5	sleeping on the street breaks her heart. One day I was so upset about the unhoused and I just saw I heard about all these empty office
0:35.3	buildings in San Francisco and I was thinking couldn't we just move them in there
0:39.9	really quickly? Other people have had similar ideas.
0:44.8	Office vacancy is hovering around 30% in downtown San Francisco, and that's been a major
0:50.1	blow to local businesses and the hospitality industry.
0:54.0	Recently, there's been a lot of talk about converting all these empty offices to living space
1:00.0	as a way to create some much needed housing and revive downtown at the same time.
1:04.8	The un-housed need dignity.
1:07.2	They need a roof over their head, they need to be able to shower, they need to have regular meals,
1:11.6	and anything we can do is better than just
1:15.4	waiting around. This week on Bicurious we'll seriously consider this question.
1:21.5	First we'll look into the economics and logistics of
1:24.3	converting office space into housing of any kind. Then we'll explore if this could
1:29.2	be a good solution for sheltering people experiencing homelessness.
1:33.0	I'm Olivia Allen Price. We'll get to it right after this break.
1:37.0	Support for Bay Curious is brought to you by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, still family owned, operated, and argued over.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KQED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KQED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.