Our current approach to problematic homelessness is failing. We need to make our streets safe.
Our current leaders have failed to address the problematic homelessness on our streets. It’s time for us to take a fundamentally different approach to ensuring that our most vulnerable San Franciscans are getting off the streets, accessing the resources they need, and escaping the grips of addiction and mental illness.
A Two-Pronged Approach to Problematic Homelessness
Improve Resourcing
Partner with Governor Newsom to get shelter beds built in San Francisco. Proposition 1 was a major win for beginning to tackle the homelessness and mental health challenges facing our city - and we will work to quickly secure the resources necessary to get shelters built for the most vulnerable San Franciscans.
Re-imagine the shelter system. Many people living on the streets today reject the offer of a shelter bed because shelters (as they stand today) are not safe or conducive to facilitating treatment and recovery. From sexual assaults in shelters to a one-size-fits-all approach, we need to fundamentally reimagine our shelter system to be designed to address the specific need-state of the population the shelter is serving. Someone detoxing needs different services from someone who is systemically unemployed - and shelters should be designed to maximize successful outcomes, not occupancy.
Partner with the State Assembly to pilot a CRM-style approach to services administration, to ensure greater coordination of inter-county resources in helping unhoused citizens on their path to recovery.
Launch a city-sponsored program to help reunite those seeking treatment with their families to return those struggling with mental illness and addiction to an environment that will be conducive to their recovery.
Clean Up the Streets
A zero-tolerance policy toward undocumented drug dealers. We need to enforce the law to the fullest extent when addressing the distribution of the drugs poisoning our streets. I am unequivocally in favor of referring undocumented narcotics distributors to ICE.
Shelter or Sweep. While the courts continue to resolve SFPD’s capacity to break up unhoused encampments, what they did clarify is that, if an unhoused person rejects an offer of a shelter bed, they are no longer considered involuntarily homeless. I will work with the SFPD and the District Attorney’s office to impose a Shelter or Sweep policy- whereby if someone refuses an offer of shelter, the SFPD and Department of Public Works will, out of concern for public health, relocate the encampment.
Conservatorship for the resuscitated. I’ll submit a resolution that anyone revived from an overdose by a City of San Francisco employee be entered into temporary conservatorship (5150 hold) at shelters specifically resourced to facilitate detox and link addicts at the first step of recovery with services.
Sobriety from illegal drugs as a requirement to receive welfare. Proposition F is a step in the right direction - but doesn’t go far enough. The Mayor’s ballot measure - which was approved by a wide margin (58% in favor) in our most recent election - simply requires that those utilizing public welfare resources submit to screening, but not maintain sobriety from illegal drugs. As Supervisor, I will work to ensure that anyone receiving public welfare benefits is also maintaining sobriety from the narcotics poisoning our streets.
Conservatorship as a necessary last resort. While the most restrictive in nature, there are certain individuals for whom conservatorship is the only option to get on the path toward sobriety and addressing underlying mental health issues. I will make it easier for our law enforcement agencies to refer those with chronic mental illness and drug addiction to conservatorship.