San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/author/leslie-santibanez-molina/)
Instead of celebrating milestones as they prepare to enter what a few months ago was the best job market in half a century, college students throughout the Bay Area are worrying about their futures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the historic wave of unemployment it has unleashed.
As San Francisco officials worked to expand housing options for the homeless, city leaders warned that anyone from outside San Francisco seeking a hotel room or other shelter would be turned away to preserve resources for those who were homeless within city limits before the pandemic hit.
City officials on Wednesday announced expanded access to coronavirus testing. Tests have become available to essential workers who must leave their homes to work and to anyone who has symptoms, regardless of ability to pay.
San Francisco is training a corps of city workers to trace the contacts of people who may have been exposed to someone suffering from COVID-19.
Refugees who arrived in the Bay Area around the time shelter-in-place orders were issued, as well as those who have been here for an extended period, are struggling to stay afloat, organizations who serve them said.
San Francisco State University students say they still don’t have clear guidance from the administration about whether they must leave university housing and take all of their belongings with them because of the coronavirus pandemic and statewide shelter-in-place order. With continued uncertainty, more students who had planned to keep their campus housing say they have changed course again and are heading home or to other locations for the rest of the spring semester. Over email, the university housing department confirmed that, “on a prorated basis, refunds for room and board and meal plans will be provided for residential students who have left housing.”
Students at San Francisco State University are grappling with conflicting directions from campus administrators about student housing during the coronavirus outbreak.
