Breed pushes for sober housing with requirement: sobriety

Sandwiched between a hair salon and a dim sum restaurant just across Kearny Street from San Francisco’s iconic Sentinel Building, the Hotel North Beach doesn’t look like much from the outside.

But the unassuming 150-unit hotel is poised to become a new — and contested — front in Mayor London Breed’s efforts to show progress on fighting the worsening drug epidemic that caused record overdose deaths in the city last year and has frustrated the public with persistent open-air drug scenes.

Breed’s administration wants to turn the hotel at 935 Kearny St. into a sober living facility for formerly homeless people this spring. Officials say it will be a novel addition to San Francisco’s supply of permanent supportive housing, providing a previously unavailable option for people exiting homelessness who struggle with addiction and want to live in a building that’s free of drugs and alcohol.

Those who live in existing cityfunded supportive housing, or are leaving temporary housing programs and want to stay sober, will be able to request a transfer to the new site, which must still be approved by the city’s Homelessness Oversight Commission. On-site supportive services, including case management, will be designed to help residents stay sober. Residents won’t automatically be kicked out if they relapse, but if they return to drinking or using drugs regularly, the city will transfer them to another supportive housing facility that can better help them with their addiction, officials said.

For Breed, who is heading into a difficult November reelection campaign, the potential sober housing site is a response to requests from people in recovery who have advocated for more programs that include abstinence from drugs and alcohol. Currently, much of the city’s public health and supportive housing infrastructure embraces the model of harm reduction, which seeks to reduce the negative consequences of drug use while allowing people to address their addictions largely at their own pace. Some sobriety advocates have been arguing that San Francisco is too focused on harm reduction and should be expanding its abstinence-focused programs as well.

City-funded single-room occupancy hotels have been an epicenter of San Francisco’s drug overdose crisis. A Chronicle investigation found that, of about 650 drug deaths in the Tenderloin and Sixth Street corridor from 2019 to 2022, more than 40% were inside residential hotels used to house formerly homeless people.

Breed told reporters in the lobby of the hotel Thursday that the sober living facility she wants to open there was intended “for people who have struggled with addiction and are in a situation where it is hard to maintain sobriety because of their environment.”

“We have so much work to do, we know, but I think a project like this could be a game changer, and very transformative and exciting for so many people who deserve a second chance to live a life free and clean and sober in the city and county of San Francisco,” Breed said.

But the project is already facing resistance from Edward Siu, the president of the Chinatown Merchants United Association, who said nearby business owners hadn’t been properly notified of the city’s intentions. The hotel sits on the edge of North Beach and Chinatown, and Siu said the merchants he represents “never received any outreach from the city” and were unaware of the plans until they learned of Breed’s Thursday news conference.

“Right now, the city is doing (a) one-way street — they’re doing the dictator way,” Siu told the Chronicle.

Siu showed up to Breed’s news conference with other concerned residents and asked why the city had not communicated earlier with Chinatown merchants about the project. Breed said the city was just beginning its outreach process.

“This is still an ongoing conversation in order to accept feedback and hopefully get to a place where we can all be on the same page,” Breed said. “We’re here to listen, and we’re here to work with the community.”

Breed told Siu after the news conference that “there was a mistake made” and city officials wanted to speak to him about the matter privately.

The sober housing site is set to be leased by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, with a $3.7 million operating budget funded by the city. The hotel currently caters to tourists but also has about 40 people who live there long term and would not be asked to move as part of the facility’s transition, according to Emily Cohen, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.

Randy Shaw, executive director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, said he’s not aware of any other supportive housing site in the state — or even the country — that creates an entirely sober environment.

“There’s a groundswell of support for sober living. And finally, it looks like our city is prepared to meet that demand,” Shaw said at Thursday’s news conference. He praised Breed for “taking this bold political step — a courageous step.” Breed’s Department of Public Health took another step Thursday to push treatment for people struggling with addiction. The health department sent a memo to city-funded nonprofits, telling them that they must develop written protocols for how their staff will provide substance use treatment information and referrals to their drug-using clients. All service providers must have multilingual city-approved “palm cards” offering information about drug treatment and all staff who interact with clients must be able to provide treatment information verbally and in writing, the health department said.

The sober living site is not the only recent initiative that Breed said stemmed from her conversations with people in recovery. Another example is Proposition F, a measure Breed placed on the March ballot that would require drug screening and treatment for San Francisco welfare recipients. Prop. F has been slammed by addiction treatment specialists who say it would not work and would merely “shift blame onto the poorest San Franciscans,” as one critic said Thursday. But Breed said she was motivated to put the measure on the ballot because of input she heard from people in recovery.

Cedric Akbar, a substance use recovery advocate, is one such supporter of Prop. F — and he was equally enthusiastic about the prospect of San Francisco opening a sober living hotel on Kearny Street.

“One size does not fit all,” Akbar said Thursday. “And what we have to do in the city of San Francisco is stop bickering amongst each other, (and) be able to get our people that’s laying on the street, off the street, and put them back into responsible, effective and (accountable) living.”