by Randy Shaw on December 2, 2024 (BeyondChron.org)
Breed Promoted Permanent Drug-Free Housing. Then Defunded It
If you wonder why San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed lost so badly in her re-election effort, my experience with her flip-flop on permanent drug free housing is emblematic. Just as the mayor failed to connect her Emergency Declaration for the Tenderloin in December 2021 to increasing police in the neighborhood, she promoted permanent drug-free housing but then blocked implementation.
Mayor Blocked 3 Permanent Drug-Free Housing Projects
Mayor Breed allocated $3.7 million for permanent drug-free SRO housing in her 2023-24 budget. None of this money has been spent.
Did drug problems end in San Francisco? No. Did other permanent drug-free housing options available to graduates from transitional programs emerge? No.
The mayor did not spend a dime of the $3.7 million allocated for permanent supportive drug-free housing in the 2023-24 budget year. Instead, Mayor Breed intervened three times to block the program she claimed to support.
The North Beach Hotel
“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.”–SF Chronicle, February 8, 2024
I have previously written about the mayor’s terminating 150-units of drug-free housing in North Beach (See “The Truth About Drug-Free Housing,” February 26, 2024). She walked away from an incredible opportunity both financially and programmatically because of opposition from Chinatown merchants. The most prominent of which was an Oakland resident soon seen in a photo backing Mark Farrell for mayor.
Breed terminated the North Beach Hotel without even holding a meeting to bring opponents and backers together. The planned community meeting to discuss the project was cancelled. She made no effort to extend the community outreach period. No effort to make the project work. This despite the mayor’s repeated claims that supportive housing should not be confined to the Tenderloin (another example of her hypocrisy).
Nor did the mayor ever contact the North Beach Hotel owner to address concerns.
The Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which I head, had invested a tremendous amount of staff time preparing the North Beach Hotel to become the city’s first permanent drug-free housing program. After she told me that we had to find a new site, she asked me to find a smaller hotel that had roughly sixty units. I told her that the San Remo Hotel fit that unit count and was 100% vacant. I told her the hotel was in Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s district. She said that was fine and I should proceed.
The San Remo Hotel
The San Remo Hotel, 2237 Mason, was completely vacant (it is legally a tourist hotel). I met with Peskin to assess his support. Peskin not only supported the project but said he would take responsibility for community outreach and community support. I thought that was great. But when I conveyed that to the mayor’s office I was told they didn’t want Peskin doing that. They wanted me to do the outreach.
So I began outreaching to North Beach groups. None expressed opposition. Some asked that I meet with their Board and this was scheduled. All was going well when the mayor’s office told me that wanted one of their close political allies, Cedric Akbar of Westside Community Services, to do door-to-door outreach around the San Remo.
I thought that was odd. We did not need Akbar’s help to do outreach. Akbar was running for the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee at the time and I assumed the mayor was looking to help his campaign by assigning him outreach to potential voters (he was elected). Wanting to move the project forward, I said fine to Akbar’s plans.
But before Akbar could get started there was a change in plans. Breed went to China in April. Aaron Peskin announced he was running for mayor two weeks prior to her trip. When she returned I was told that the mayor did not want us to use the San Remo. I was never given a reason for the mayor’s sudden reversal. The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) said they and the mayor’s office preferred the program open at the Travelodge at Market and Valencia.
The Travelodge has 85 units with all private bath. I had chosen the San Remo because the mayor told me to find a hotel with roughly sixty units. My staff visited the hotel and while we had some security issues, HSH was confident that they could work out a financial deal with the owner to resolve them.
HSH repeatedly told the owner and me that the Travelodge was on “the fast track.” The North Beach Hotel would have opened in May. The San Remo in September. The Travelodge owner thought September was doable as well.
As my staff was rushing to get estimates for necessary upgrades at the Travelodge, we suddenly got radio silence from HSH and the mayor’s office. I soon learned that “higher ups” were holding up approval. I eventually heard that the mayor’s office wanted to schedule a zoom meeting with other groups supporting recovery.
I met with Andres Powers, who was the mayor’s point person on this project from the start, and representatives of Salvation Army and Westside Community Services. Cedric Akbar of Westside told me that he didn’t support permanent drug-free housing. He also said he didn’t like the way the Tenderloin Housing Clinic ran its housing. I asked why and he said because we allow tenants to have pets. He said Westside doesn’t allow animals. I told him federal law required that landlords allow service animals for tenants. He did not respond.
Steve Adami of Salvation Army also said that permanent drug-free housing didn’t work. I thought that was odd because the Salvation Army was co-sponsoring Matt Haney’s statewide bill mandating money for permanent drug-free housing. After our call I alerted the Bay Area Council about this contradiction (they were co-sponsoring Haney’s bill) and heard from Salvation Army that Adami did not speak for them. He later recanted his opposition to permanent drug free housing expressed at the meeting.
Residents in Westside/Salvation Army programs do not get tenants’ rights. These are transitional “programs” that residents must leave to get the permanent drug-free housing they need.
What I realized was going on here was Mayor Breed trying to shift $3.7 million from the Tenderloin Housing Clinic to her favored nonprofits. The mayor was also reversing her support for THC’s plan to provide a bridge to permanent drug-free housing for those graduating from transitional programs. The Salvation Army and Westside do not provide permanent drug-free housing so that was not where the mayor now wanted this money to go.
What I anticipated would happen after that meeting did happen. The mayor killed her once heavily promoted permanent drug-free housing plan.
Someone should count the number of contracts at Westside community services has gotten without an RFP. Most recently to do the Prop F drug treatment program (passed by voters last March) without any RFP.
The mayor and HSH got permission to waive RFP’s for five years so there was no reason to do an RFP for our permanent drug free housing contract. Why do an RFP in this case? Perhaps because the mayor sought to hide her funneling money to her political allies at Westside by using a rigged RFP process. An RFP process that her administration told the Board was not necessary. And which HSH has routinely bypassed.
As I foresaw, an RFP was issued which allowed funding for the transitional programs that Westside and Salvation Army operate. The RFP went out in late September for a decision by October 25. We got a rejection letter on November 14; HSH has not announced that award has been made.
The big picture: 70% of THC’s existing tenants who responded to a survey said they wanted permanent drug-free housing. But after promoting this model the mayor blocked implementation. She leaves office without opening a single building in San Francisco that offers permanent drug-free supportive housing
As THC’s Director of Recovery Services Richard Beal put it, “We send clients to detox, residential treatment, transitional housing, and then where? THC is committed to completing the bridge and provide permanent drug free housing to those clients that deserve a permanent drug free living environment.
We look forward to the city’s new leadership offering the permanent drug-free housing that San Francisco desperately needs.
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 latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including 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. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
