by Randy Shaw on February 23, 2026 (BeyondChron.org)
A regular scene outside the Monarch Hotel shelter
Longterm Shelter Stays Promote Drug Tourism
From 1982 until 2022, San Francisco’s shelters provided people a temporary roof over their head. Occupants stayed for days or weeks before transitioning to permanent housing or fulltime medical care.
But Mayor Breed changed this strategy. She converted tourist hotels to shelters and allowed residents to stay for years. Shelter residents got private baths, which they likely would not get if they paid rent for permanent supportive housing. Residents in converted hotels also got free meals.
San Francisco made staying homeless in shelters a better deal than paying rent in permanent supportive housing. This policy shift increased homelessness and sidewalk drug activities. It decimated the Tenderloin, Mid-Market and SOMA neighborhoods, along with hurting lower Polk and Lower Nob Hill.
I wrote a story about this destructive policy shift in July 2024: “SF’s Failed Shelter Policies Exposed at COVA Hotel.” I wrote a follow-up after Lurie’s election—-“How San Francisco Promotes Drug Tourism“— detailing how San Francisco was spending millions incentivizing homelessness and public drug use. After candidate Daniel Lurie heavily criticized Breed’s homeless policies, we all assumed his administration would stop offering shelter residents unlimited stays.
But the destructive strategy of unlimited shelter stays has continued.
As Erica Sandberg reported last week quoting an official running a shelter at 711 Post, “The longest stays were supposed to be a year but those guidelines have disappeared. So when people are in, they tend to stay. We have some people living here for over three years. At least 95 percent of placements are for active addiction.”
What is San Francisco doing? Has the city forgotten that shelters were designed for temporary stays? As transitional facilities leading people to more permanent housing solutions?
I disagree with those blaming Urban Alchemy for problems at 711 Post. You can’t put 280 people (most of whom are addicts) and 42 dogs in a 123-room SRO and expect success. Especially when the city’s definition of success does not require getting shelter residents permanent housing or drug treatment
As San Francisco faces massive budget cuts the city allows people with incomes to live rent-free in converted SRO hotels for years! Not paying rent means more money to spend on drugs.
No wonder San Francisco continues to attract the drug tourists Mayor Lurie pledged to stop. Where else can these drug users get free lodgings for years—and in an environment that is not drug-free?
Shelters Don’t Take People Off the Street
At a recent hearing on 711 Post, Emily Cohen of HSH claimed closing SRO’s converted to shelters would put more people on the street. That’s a familiar justification for prioritizing shelters. Its completely contrary to the facts.
The conversion of the COVA Hotel and 685 Ellis to shelters dramatically increased sidewalk drug activities in Little Saigon and nearby areas. Converting the nearby Monarch Hotel to a shelter has kept nearby sidewalks filled with drug users. These shelters put more people on the street. The first block of Little Saigon immediately improved when the COVA closed.
Shelter residents do not spend all day in their 10 by 10 rooms. These rooms are not homes. Those with addictions find a community of drug users on the sidewalk.
It’s also true that with a fixed supply of shelter rooms, allowing them to be occupied for lengthy stays reduces opportunities for those seeking shelter. Based on the SIP hotel experience during COVID, the vast majority of shelter occupants living rent free do not choose to pay rent anywhere when their free ride is up.
Shelters serve a critical transitional function. But allowing longterm shelter stays means the city is spending millions to incentivize homelessness. This policy primarily benefits drug dealers and stores selling pipes.
SF’s Dubious Recovery Strategy
In addition to misusing shelters, San Francisco pursues a dubious strategy for addressing drug treatment.
The city does not spend a dollar on permanent drug-free housing. Or even on interim housing that guarantees permanent housing at the end of two or three years. But it spends millions sheltering indigents who refuse treatment.
$10 million was spent on a medical facility at 822 Geary that has trouble filling even half of its twenty beds. While this program is praised for meeting people’s medical needs, that money would have been far better spent getting addicts into housing with mandatory treatment programs.
The city loves its costly RESTORE program. Director of Public Health Dan Tsai said in 2025 that RESTORE has success rates “unlike anything we have ever seen.” At the time Tsai could provide no data to support this conclusion.
But we have data now.
According to DPH, 60% of those receiving medical care via RESTORE did not enter treatment programs. Presumably they went back to their sidewalk drug activities. While 40% entered some sort of treatment program there is no data confirming they participate for longer than a day.
Sidewalk drug addicts need medical care. But San Francisco’s priority should be funding programs that enroll people into drug-free programs through their housing.
Permanent supportive housing (PSH) programs typically have a 90% retention rate. Combining PSH with recovery services would likely maintain close to those high rates.
But San Francisco prioritizes spending its money on short-term programs lacking the longterm treatment addicts need. That’s a misguided approach.
Nonprofits Distributing Drug Paraphernalia
Mayor Lurie’s press releases state that one way his administration is addressing the drug crisis is by introducing new policies to end the distribution of smoking supplies without connection to treatment. This is misleading.
Lurie has prevented nonprofits from handing out drug materials on sidewalks. But addicts can go to Glide or the Gubbio Project or the SF Aids Foundation and get drug paraphernalia without any connection to treatment.
At most addicts are given a flyer about treatment (some groups don’t even bother with that). That’s not a “connection to treatment.” To the contrary, handing out pipes and other drug paraphernalia encourages drug use.
The idea that making it easier for addicts to continue using drugs “connects” them to treatment has no basis in fact.
Yet this factually-bereft belief remains official San Francisco policy.
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.
