Why Can't SF Negotiate With Hotels?

Please read this excerpt in City Journal:

San Francisco’s hotels and motels are slowly emptying of the homeless people that the city placed there during the Covid-19 pandemic. The city simply can’t afford the $260 per night, per person, price tag of housing approximately 2,000 people—just a portion of the estimated 8,000 people who live on the street. Where will they go? Elected officials have come up with a new plan: turn the whole city into a network of homeless encampments.

Many residents and commercial tenants started to renegotiate their rates with landlords back in September, or they'd most likely join the exodus and move to cheaper cities. Why would a landlord want to kick out a tenant for failure to afford the monthly rate, knowing property prices have dropped and tenants are leaving the city, when they could barter a short term deal? They wouldn't. They opted for accepting temporarily reduced rent in return for longer tenancy security.

This method's been working really well. We (first hand) know people who have come to an agreement with their residential or commercial landlord for up to 75% less rent per month over a short term, and landlords have agreed. 

If this is the case and the concept's proving to be a success, why can't the city also adopt the same rule of thumb for the homeless? Hotels are crumbling and many small hotels may pack up and sell out due to lack of business - most may have already, if they'd not received the city's cash to fill their rooms with the poverty. Not all hotels in the city need to cost a walloping $260 per night - that amount is outrageous. The cost rate to run a hotel can be 20% i.e. the rest is profit. Why can't the city reduce the per night average to even $100? The hotels will then be able to maintain all expenses + a decent cushion profit margin. The alternative is that shortly, the city has announced they'll be kicking out the homeless from these hotels and sending them back onto the street. 

The repercussion of this ill-thought out decision: The hotels don't receive any secure income at a time when Covid-19's hit its second wave and global influx tourism to San Francisco is at an all time low; the homeless will be living on our streets during winter (the worst possible time for them); since the street dwellers will huddle together, the chances of a citywide Covid-19 increased spike is easily possible. The latter will then result in the homeless suffering beyond comprehension, hospital beds flooded and hospitals not appreciating their revenue crash through to the basement.

The city must treat this homeless+hotels programs with a business mind set and renegotiate the rates, so the poverty are taken care of when the temperature drops. Please contact your district supervisor and urge them to tell our City Hall leaders to renegotiate those hotel rates so the homeless can stay safe. And since we have more billionaires per capita, than any other city worldwide, maybe you know of one that can finally step up and cough up hotel cash...