New mental health shelter is proposed
City considers site to ease crisis at S.F. General Hospital
City officials are eyeing an empty building on Valencia Street as a new spot to temporarily shelter some of San Francisco’s mentally ill homeless population.
A lease for the vacant Salvation Army building at 1156 Valencia St. in the Mission District is in the works. If approved, the facility would be the city’s second dedicated to a population that is particularly difficult to treat.
The facility would have 30 beds and services such as counselors, group therapy sessions, laundry and showers. People would be allowed to stay for as long as they want and most would be referred from Psychiatric Emergency Services at San Francisco General Hospital.
There would be no drug and mental health treatment on site, but case managers can make referrals to other programs in the city.
“The need for places for people who are mentally ill or high that is not sidewalks and plazas is so clearly obvious,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, whose district includes the site. “There is plainly a need for places like this, and many more of them.”
The original site, called Hummingbird Place, on San Francisco General Hospital’s campus, is run by Nonprofit PRC Baker Places, which would run the new site, too.
Clients at the existing facility stay
“The need for places for people who are mentally ill or high that is not sidewalks and plazas is so clearly obvious.”
S.F. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman
for between a few hours and a few weeks before moving onto another treatment program in the city — or deciding to leave the city’s system of care altogether. The average length of stay is 19 days, according to the Department of Public Health.
The existing facility has been expanded twice since it opened in 2017, from 15 to 29 beds, to meet soaring demand. It served more than 500 clients in fiscal year 201819.
“Hummingbird Place is a good example of the Department of Public Health trying something new, figuring out what works and building on that success to serve more clients with behavioral health needs,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the city’s health department.
Mandelman and Mayor London Breed plan to introduce the lease proposal to the Board of Supervisors at Tuesday’s meeting. The site would cost about $300,000 to renovate and about $3 million to operate annually. The supervisor will hold a community meeting at the building on Feb. 10 at 6:30 p.m.
“This is about getting people off the street and into a supportive environment,” Breed said in a statement. “We need more places for people to go to seek treatment and get healthier.”
There are more than 4,000 people on San Francisco’s streets struggling with homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction, according to the health department.
If the lease is approved, the 30 beds would make a small dent in the hospital’s overwhelmed emergency units. Psychiatric Emergency Services was so crowded between October and December that it was on “condition red” — which means it cannot accept more patients — 40% to 54% of the time.
Dr. Mark Leary, deputy chief of San Francisco General Hospital’s psychiatry department and acting head of the psychiatric ER, told The Chronicle in November that the increased diversion numbers were partially due to a lack of other places for people to go in the city’s system of care.
He mentioned Hummingbird Place as a facility where more beds could be useful.
“If that resource were even more available, then it would allow us to discharge people more quickly and shorten the length of stay and then decrease our condition red,” he said.
Meanwhile, The Chronicle found that the overcrowding of Psychiatric Emergency Services was also spilling into the hospital’s emergency room — which is already understaffed and overwhelmed with demand.
Cal/OSHA, the state agency that oversees workplace safety, and the California Department of Public Health opened separate investigations into conditions at the hospital late last year after receiving numerous complaints from staff.
While the proposed facility is technically in Mandelman’s district — District Eight — it is on the border of District Nine, an area of the city that shoulders many of the city’s homeless services.
The yellow Salvation Army building is across from City College San Francisco’s Mission campus, and a block away from Buena Vista Horace Mann, a public school whose gymnasium turns into a shelter at night for homeless San Francisco Unified School District families.
It’s also next to an Indian restaurant, Mediterranean restaurant and the Crepe House.
The new site would be part of Mayor London Breed’s goal of opening 2,000 new spots within the next two years for people with mental health issues — such as residential treatment programs and sobering centers.
Still, Mandelman said 30 beds is not nearly enough to meet the huge demand on San Francisco’s streets.
“It is remarkably challenging to find locations that are large enough that they can accommodate any kind of homeless facility,” he said. But “we need Hummingbirds in communities throughout San Francisco.”