Plan revived for S.F. drug sobering site
Mayor London Breed will revive an effort to open a drug sobering center in San Francisco on Tuesday, more than a year after the pandemic forced the city to halt its plans for such a site in the Tenderloin.
Breed wants to turn an empty office space at 1076 Howard St. into a clinic where people can ride out a painful or dangerous high in a safe and calm environment. The hope is that the 24/7 site would help make a dent in the city’s raging drug epidemic, which claimed more than three times as many people in 2020 than COVID19.
“It’s a way we can intervene, address the immediate issue, and then also get them connected to the longerterm services and support they need,” Breed said in a statement.
The mayor plans to propose the lease agreement to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. If approved, the 30bed site would be among the first of its kind in the country. It’s a similar model to the city’s alcohol sobering center, which has served tens of thousands of people since it opened in 2003.
The project would cost $2 million in one
time expenses and $4.2 million to operate annually.
While anyone struggling with addiction could come to the site, it would be geared toward those experiencing methamphetamineinduced psychosis. Such episodes can lead to destructive and manic behavior on the city’s streets, especially when a mental illness is also involved.
The sobering center would give emergency responders, like the city’s new Crisis Response Team, another place to bring people aside from the psychiatric emergency room at San Francisco General Hospital, which is often at capacity.
It would also have onsite social workers who could help connect people to other services, like drug treatment or withdrawal management. Users of the center would be able to rest and get food, water and basic medical attention.
“It will definitely be a resource for folks, especially on weekends when many other resources are closed,” said Kathleen Silk, managing director of behavioral services for HealthRight 360, the proposed nonprofit operator for the site. “I hope it becomes a place where people feel genuinely comfortable.”
But the proposed 30 beds — only 20 of which would initially open due to the pandemic — would only serve a fraction of those in need. The Department of Public Health counted more than 4,000 people on its streets struggling with homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction in 2019, a number that likely increased over the past year.
Connecting people at the sobering center with longterm treatment services may also prove difficult, as the city’s network of drug treatment services is often overwhelmed by demand. The Department of Public Health is working on a plan to overhaul the city’s behavioral health care system, which has long fallen short in helping the city’s most vulnerable. That plan will likely take years to fully implement.
“We have much greater need than for 30 individuals at any given moment,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who cochaired the city’s meth task force, which recommended opening such a site in 2019. “I’m glad that we’re gong to move forward and get this done, although I’m sure we’re going to find that we need more than just one.”
People won’t be able to use drugs inside the sobering center, although they will not be kicked out if they are caught doing so.
The city is still waiting for the state to pass legislation that would allow it to open a safe injection site, where people could use drugs in a supervised setting. Silk said the city is not planning for the sobering center to double up as a safe injection site, but said that would be “wonderful” if the state allows it.
Silk said the mayor’s proposal is intended to make sure that people are connected to services “as seamlessly as possible.”
The city first tried opening a temporary 15bed drug sobering center early last year on an empty, cityowned parking lot at 180 Jones St. in the Tenderloin. But those plans were abandoned after the pandemic redirected much of the city’s attention to the emergency response.
The new lease would be for 8½ years. The city would have the option to extend it for another five.
The mayor’s office hopes to open the site by the fall. But such projects often take longer than expected in San Francisco: A planned psychiatric respite center on Valencia Street has taken over a year to open, as the pandemic and myriad construction issues have delayed the project.
That site, which was supposed to open in spring 2020, is now not expected to open until May.
Mandelman, whose district includes that psychiatric respite site, hopes the drug sobering center does not hit the same snags.
“We needed this yesterday,” he said of the sobering site. “Every day that we delay ... is a lost opportunity to help people in need.”