by Randy Shaw on March 17, 2025 (BeyondChron.org)
Supervisor Sauter is Backing HSH, DPH Over Constituents
Supervisors Should Empower Their Communities
“San Francisco is withdrawing plans to open a new mental health service center on the border of the city’s Mid-Market and SoMa neighborhoods following backlash from the community and Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who lives on the same block as the proposed site.”—SF Chronicle, March 11
This withdrawal has a larger message. It was said to reflect “the difficult task of navigating community opposition to new sites serving those who are homeless or dealing with addiction or mental health conditions…Dozens of business owners, residents, nonprofits and community groups signed onto a letter last month urging officials to stop the proposed project.”
That’s not really why the project was stopped.
If community opposition mattered, the Department of Public Health (DPH) would not be expanding services at the Adante Hotel, 610 Geary. Neighborhood groups and businesses in that neighborhood also signed onto a letter opposing the project.
But DPH doesn’t care. Nor does HSH.
DPH stopped one project but is moving forward on the other because of contrasting positions of the district supervisor. D6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey listened to the SOMA community and joined its opposition. D3 Supervisor Danny Sauter has heard his constituency’s opposition but fully backs HSH/DPH’s destructive plans for the neighborhood.
Sauter ran for supervisor pledging to champion small business and community input. He needs that input to shape what’s best for his district. Yet he does not support the small businesses and residents negatively impacted by the drug activities caused by the Adante.
No District 3 constituency supports extending the Adante’s lease. All who have weighed in oppose the DPH/HSH plan.
Shouldn’t that matter to the district supervisor?
The Downside of District Elections
I recently contrasted how SFMTA quickly deferred to community input in the Marina and Cow Hollow while HSH and DPH ignore community opposition in the Tenderloin. Newly appointed D2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill backed his constituents. Sherrill did the same in backing a police crackdown on drug dealing in Jefferson Park.
D5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood has modified his position regarding the lease extension at the Monarch Hotel at 1015 Geary. His support for a one year and done is longer than the community wants but shows he is listening to the neighborhood.
The same can’t be said for Supervisor Sauter. He is proving more concerned with representing HSH and DPH than the constituents he ran to represent. The Adante is located on the southern border of Sauter’s district. He may figure that backing the Adante protects his North Beach political base from having to accept a similar facility.
Such is the big downside of district elections. The Board typically lets district supervisors call the shots in their district. This typically occurs even when the Board majority supports the community position that the district supervisor opposes.
Ironically, the Board unanimously passed a resolution last week urging the mayor to disperse shelters across the city instead of disproportionately targeting them on the Eastside (See “Supes pressure mayor to expand shelters across SF,” SF Examiner). This enables Supervisor Sauter to tell his constituents he’s protecting their interests when he is actually doing the opposite.
It’s shameful.
Because redistricting wrongly placed the Tenderloin’s northern Geary Street corridor in D3 rather than D5, the neighborhood most negatively impacted by the Adante extension is in Danny Sauter’s district. The Adante is two blocks from the city’s new 24-hour mental health facility at 822 Geary, and four blocks from the Monarch at 1015 Geary.
Hasn’t the Tenderloin already accepted more than its fair share?
Please urge Supervisor Sauter to follow the lead of Matt Dorsey, Steven Sherrill and other supervisors who put their constituents first.
Want to learn about the Tenderloin’s rich history? Pick up Randy Shaw’s updated book, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. To support the Tenderloin Museum, buy the book at https://www.tenderloinmuseum.org/buy-the-book
Randy Shaw
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s new book is the revised and updated, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. His prior books include Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.
