San Francisco billionaire donates $6.1 mln to house homeless people

SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco billionaire Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com,Inc, an American cloud-based software company, said Thursday that he is donating $6.1 million to turn a hotel in the city to the home of formerly homeless people.

The Bristol Hotel located in downtown San Francisco will be made available to the homeless in February after it is refurbished, where the occupants are allowed to live for at least three years in one of 58 units in the hotel.

Benioff's donation will be used to cover the first five years of rents of the building leased on a 20-year term. The rents will range from 500 dollars to 650 dollars a month.

"Every homeless person needs a home. This morning at 1030am we are announcing a $6.1M partnership @LondonBreed @beyondchron @THClinicSF to provide The Bristol Hotel as a newly refurbished residence for very low cost housing for formerly homeless people," Benioff tweeted Thursday.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed expressed her thanks to Benioff's generosity to help address the long-standing problem of the homeless in the city.

"As we wait for additional homeless funding to become available, I'm working with business + civic leaders to fund immediate homelessness initiatives like the Bristol. Thank you Marc & Lynne @Benioff for your generosity and @THClinicSF for your partnership!" she said in a tweeted post.

Benioff, also founder and chairman of Salesforce, the largest private employer in San Francisco, has been championing a new measure, Proposition C, that aims to impose business tax on big companies to raise money for the homeless.

Proposition C was approved by 61 percent of the city's voters earlier this month, which is expected to raise about $300 million annually for homeless people.

San Francisco leaders have been grappling with the city's dirty streets and the homeless population, which stood at about 7,500 by the end of 2017.