Rancid Smell Leads to Gruesome Discovery After Homeless Shelter Staff Neglect Bathroom Checks for a Week
When a man went missing, a hotel that was also a supportive housing complex didn’t check an out-of-order bathroom. Instead, they smelled something bad and found his body.
The Adler Hotel in San Francisco has 116 supportive housing units run by Episcopal Community Services (ECS). It has been named area of immediate action after a man was found dead in a bathroom that wasn’t working after going missing more than a week ago.
The San Francisco Chronicle got a five-page report from the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing that says James Martin Rinkes, 53, was still thought to be missing when a renter reported a bad smell coming from a bathroom in January.
Staff only went in to check on the bathroom after someone noticed a “foul-smelling” liquid leaking out from under the door! The bathroom hadn’t worked in weeks.
When the door was opened, they said they saw Rinkes dead from an overdose of fentanyl lying between the two toilets in the bathroom.
Colnnie McCort, Rinkes’ older sister who lives in Ohio, told the Chronicle that her brother had been “homeless for a long time” and that her family had lost touch with him.
She told the news source, “Homeless people have a hard time, and I knew Jimmy would never change his life.”
Ashes of her brother were sent to her from the San Francisco Medical Examiner two weeks ago, and she put them on the graves of his mother, father, and brother.
She agreed that her brother was “too lost,” but she also said that the people who work in those homes should be taking care of the people who live there. It doesn’t make sense.
Police in the city say that the hotel staff didn’t search the whole building when he was reported missing and didn’t check the bathroom until several days after the smell was reported.
According to the report that the Chronicle got, there was a “lack of communication and collaboration” among staff members like property managers, janitors, desk clerks, and others. This is what caused the man’s body to stay in the shared bathroom for days without being found.
The City’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing wrote that there are things that need to be fixed right away after the horrible event where Rinkes’ body was left to rot without anyone knowing.
This meant that if a tenant goes missing, the hotel staff should search more thoroughly, there should be better training for welfare checks, and ESC staff and property managers should do a weekly site walkthrough.
In a statement, ECS told the news source that the event has “prompted (the) homelessness department to update their Wellness Check policies across the entire system.”
The group that provides community services wrote, “We are following all of the suggestions.” “We made most of the suggestions to HSH after our own internal investigations, and most of them were put into action before we got the Corrective Action Notice.”
Based on their website, ECS has been helping homeless people and families in San Francisco since 1983. This past year, they helped more than 13,000 people find homes, jobs, shelter, and other important services.
An official from the city’s homelessness office, Deborah Bouck, also confirmed that “ECS has complied with all components of the corrective action letter related to the Alder Hotel.”
Like ECS said, Ms. Bouch said that this event has led to changes in their area, such as making small changes to their policy on wellness and emergency safety checks.
As part of the wellness check process, Ms. Bouch said, “information on checking shared bathrooms and other common areas” will be added.
