How SF homelessness policies promote drug tourism
Image by Milan Cobanov
SF’s lax shelter policy is turning out to be a destructive, expensive failure, says Randy Shaw, director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in the excellent Beyond Chron.
San Francisco spends millions of dollars encouraging the unhoused to avoid permanent housing. Taxpayers are incentivizing rather than stopping drug tourism.
Sound hard to believe? It’s all true.
People unable to afford rent come to San Francisco and wait for their opportunity. They sit on sidewalks until a city-funded outreach worker offers them an unlimited stay in a tourist hotel with a private bathroom.
Plus two meals a day.
Go Deeper:
Once they get a room they have no incentive to move to permanent supportive housing. That requires they pay rent. And they probably would not get a private bathroom. Nor would they get free meals.
Converting tourist hotels to “non-congregant shelters” has been a colossal failure in San Francisco. Residents are not required to transition to permanent housing. There is no time limit on stays! People have been getting free rent at the Cova Hotel for two to three years!
Unfortunately, the Breed Administration loves these tourist to shelter conversions. HSH is pushing for ten year lease extensions to keep the influx of drug tourists into San Francisco going. The city wants to extend leases for the Cova (655 Ellis), Monarch (1015 Geary) and Adante (610 Geary) Hotels and continue using the tourist hotel it purchased at 685 Ellis for shelter rather than permanent housing.
Mayor Lurie must stop this. Lurie ran as a political outsider willing to change City Hall’s misguided policies. Canceling these lease extensions offers him a great start. Supervisors Mahmood and Sauter, whose districts are most impacted by the conversions, also ran as candidates of change. They must help convince their colleagues to stop these lease extensions.
Non-congregant shelters in tourist hotels make life miserable for nearby residents and small businesses. Yet City Hall doesn’t care.
In 2020, San Francisco saw a huge jump in sidewalk drug activities when the city converted tourist hotels to shelters on Seventh Street. This was an emergency response to COVID. When COVID funding ended, few of those enjoying San Francisco’s hospitality accepted offers of permanent housing.
That’s because obtaining permanent housing was never their goal. They only sought free housing, which the city provided. In addition to ruining legitimate businesses on Seventh and Mid-Market, these drug tourists ransacked their homes. The city had to pay tens of millions of dollars to hotel owners as compensation.
Without having to pay rent, many occupants of these converted hotels have ample disposal income for drugs. The drug scene outside these hotels exploded.
Shelters are designed to offer a temporary stop to those temporarily unable to obtain housing. In 1990 Mayor Agnos expanded the capacity of shelters to address mental health and substance abuse issues that went beyond housing.
Most shelter have time limits to ensure turnover. And to ensure that people who can afford permanent housing do not instead live rent-free in shelters.
No wonder San Francisco is the world capital of drug tourism. No other city offers out of town drug users such a sweet deal.
San Francisco is subsidizing unlimited shelter stays in tourist accommodations typically superior to what’s available should these “shelter” occupants pay rent.
Mayor Lurie and the new Board have a choice. Instead of continuing this destructive misuse of public funds they can redirect these dollars to permanent drug-free housing. City Hall can send a powerful message that San Francisco is becoming a city that prioritizes those seeking to avoid drugs over users.
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron.
Read the whole thing here.
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