Five San Francisco supervisors are calling for an end to city funding for what they’ve termed “drug-tolerant” housing for homeless people.
The law, proposed by Supervisors Matt Dorsey and Rafael Mandelman and backed by their colleagues Stephen Sherrill, Bilal Mahmood, and Danny Sauter, would halt funding of new housing for homeless people unless drug use inside the facilities is prohibited.
The legislation stands in stark contrast to California’s long-standing “Housing First” policy of providing housing to homeless people without precondition. It comes less than a week after Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 255, which would have altered the state’s policy to allocate up to 10% of its homelessness budget to sober housing.
In his veto, Newsom argued that AB 255 would have made it harder to fund housing projects but said the state “remains committed to advancing recovery housing.”
The local legislation, introduced Tuesday, is a direct reaction to the veto of AB 255 and an attempt to give the city more control over the matter, Dorsey said.
He said eviction would be on the table for anyone using drugs inside sober housing. But, depending on the client, they could be relocated to another “drug-tolerant” building. Over the past few years, hundreds of people have died of overdoses in supportive housing while complaints have piled up about rampant drug use inside the buildings.
“If it’s someone’s intent to continue to use drugs, we have plenty of options for you,” Dorsey said in an interview. “We have fewer options for drug-free supportive housing, and that’s what this legislation is hoping to address.”
The city funds more than 17,500 housing units and opened its first sober shelter last month. Following Newsom’s veto of AB255, Mayor Daniel Lurie said the governor’s move threatened to bring San Francisco’s progress on this issue to a standstill.
Dorsey’s proposal is already generating its own blowback from progressive advocates for homeless people, who argue that stricter requirements on housing would lead to more evictions and, therefore, more people languishing on the city’s streets.
Laura Guzman, executive director of the National Harm Reduction Coalition, called the legislation “obscene,” saying it threatens the rights of tenants and aligns San Francisco with the Trump administration, which is expected to shift roughly $2 billion from permanent housing to transitional housing, according to reporting from Politico. (opens in new tab)
“It’s not only sad, it’s terrifying, and it’s wrong,” Guzman said. “They’re trying to use the housing funding we fought for 30 years to get and use it for treatment facilities. They need to find other mechanisms to do that.”
Joshua Bamberger, a clinical professor and addiction doctor at UCSF, said he supports the creation of sober housing but cautioned against using eviction as a mechanism to coerce people into sobriety.
“What we’re all afraid of is creating these sober living environments, and then someone has a bad day, and instead of saying, ‘Let’s increase the intensity of their services,’ they say, ‘They’re out of here,’” Bamberger said. “When people are evicted, they come under extensive harm. We can’t be a contributor to that kind of harm.”
Sober living is usually effective when voluntary, Bamberger added, and any mandate would need to be paired with supportive services.
In order to pass, the legislation will require the support of six supervisors.
Mahmood, who represents the Tenderloin, where a large share of supportive housing buildings are located, said he’s supporting the bill because he believes it’s what people living in the facilities want.
“I’ve personally doorknocked on [supportive housing] throughout the Tenderloin and the top theme that comes up is they want to live in an environment and community that’s free of drugs,” Mahmood said. “We’re saying that we don’t have enough of this kind of housing stock, and we need more of it.”