Marc Benioff gives millions to housing for San Francisco homeless

Salesforce CEO Marc
Benioff.
Justin
Sullivan/Getty

• Salesforce
  CEO Marc Benioff is putting $6.1 million into a project to
  transform a closed-down San Francisco hotel into halfway
  housing for the homeless, the San Francisco Chronicle
  reports.
• The housing renovation project is a partnership between
  Benioff, San Francisco mayor London Breed, and local homeless
  advocacy group Tenderloin Housing Clinic.
• Benioff has been
  an outspoken proponent of a tax on tech companies, called
  Proposition
  C, that would be used to benefit San Francisco’s homeless
  population.
  The measure passed during midterm election voting in
  November.

Now that Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff
has successfully tackled a tax on major companies to benefit
San Francisco’s homeless population, the tech executive has
turned his attention to building halfway housing for the homeless
with a multi-million-dollar donation.

The
San Francisco Chronicle reports that Benioff is contributing
$6.1 million to a project that would turn a run-down hotel —
whose rich, sordid history led to its closure years ago — into
halfway housing for the homeless that’s set to open in February.

Read more:



Billionaire Marc Benioff celebrates after San Francisco votes for
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Benioff confirmed
the news in a
series of
tweets Thursday morning, and said an official announcement on
the project would be coming later in the day.

“Every homeless person needs a home,” Benioff said on
Twitter.

‘When you give a person a home, everything gets
better’

The project to refurbish the Bristol Hotel is a partnership
between Benioff, San Francisco mayor London Breed, and a local
homeless advocacy organization. The nonprofit Tenderloin Housing
Clinic will run the hosing complex — with its executive director
as the acting landlord — once it opens, according to the
Chronicle.

The refurbished Bristol Hotel will function as a transitional
living facility, which is designed to help its tenants become
financially independent moving forward. The complex will feature
58 rooms at a low rent ($500 to $600 a month) that’s subsidized
with help from Benioff’s donation, the Chronicle reports.

With only so many rooms available, residents will be chosen,
although the Chronicle doesn’t say exactly how that selection
process will proceed. Prospective tenants are required to have
spent at least three years inside another San Francisco
supportive housing complex, and made progress toward maintaining
life after homelessness.

“When you give a person a home, everything gets better,”
Benioff told the Chronicle. “It’s the fundamental catalyst to
improving a person’s livelihood.”

Location
of the closed Bristol Hotel in October 2017.
Google Maps

An outspoken advocate

Benioff has been an outspoken advocate for San Francisco’s
homeless population, which stood at around 7,500 people according
to the city’s
latest official count from 2017. Benioff and his wife, as
well as Salesforce itself, have
donated millions of dollars since 2016 toward nonprofits that
benefit San Francisco’s homeless.

But Benioff’s most recent efforts to advocate for the homeless
have centered around a tax measure called
Proposition C, which passed in early November when it
appeared
on the San Francisco ballot during the midterm elections.

Benioff’s staunch support of the tax measure has led him to

engage in public feuds on Twitter with other tech executives,
like
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and
Zynga
cofounder Mark Pincus, 

Prop C, although
tied up in legal challenges that may delay when it takes
effect, would tax major companies that gross more than $50
million each year. This would include Benioff’s Salesforce, the
largest private employer in the city, which would stand to pay
between $10 million and $11 million a year, per the Benioff’s
estimates.