by Randy Shaw on March 3, 2025 (BeyondChron.org)
Daily drug users near Monarch Hotel
Mayor Prioritizes Drug Tourism Over Drug-Free Housing. Continues Breed Strategy of Using Tenderloin as Containment Zone
Those of us who thought Mayor Lurie would end the homeless spending boondoggles of his predecessor were wrong (See “Will SF Stop the Expansion of Drug Tourism,” December 16). Following Mayor Breed’s lead, Lurie is pushing to spend $14 million next year and up to $70 million over five years on tourist hotels converted to shelters.
These conversions have increased drug tourism and wrecked small businesses in the lower Polk and Tenderloin.
Nor is Lurie earmarking funds to revitalize Little Saigon. This despite nearby businesses suffering huge losses due to city programs.
The Lurie Administration has no plan to revitalize the Tenderloin. It is a shocking reversal from candidate Lurie’s pledges to help the neighborhood’s recovery.
$14 Million to Encourage Drug Tourism
How can a city facing extreme budget cuts blow $14 million on shelters that incentivize homelessness? That’s what San Francisco spends annually to use two tourist hotels as shelters — the Adante (93 units, 610 Geary) and Monarch (100 units,1015 Geary).
That’s a whopping $225 per client per night. For shelter!
That’s more than double what the city contracts on a cost per client for permanent supportive housing. So the city is spending dramatically more to keep people unhoused.
Here’s how these luxury shelters attract drug users to San Francisco:
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.
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.
The average stay at the Monarch Hotel is 6-9 months! The Adante is 4-8 months. People got free rent at the recently closed Cova Hotel for two to three years!
Plenty of Housing Vacancies
Why is San Francisco spending $14 million using hotels as shelters when sufficient permanent supportive housing exists to close both the Monarch and Adante in the next month?
There are currently 95 vacancies in the city’s permanent supportive housing supply for single adults. Why are we spending $225 per night per client for shelter instead of filling these vacancies? The city could soon close the Monarch or Adante and shifting occupants to permanent housing would save the city millions!
It does not cost the city an additional dollar to provide these shelter occupants with permanent housing. Rents on these vacant units are already being paid. As are the support services.
The Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which I head, is the city’s largest permanent supportive housing provider for single adults. Only 36 % of our 1948 rooms have private baths compared to the 100% private baths in the converted shelters. Our average tenant rent is $281 per month; residents of the Monarch and Adante pay no rent.
Why would an unhoused person leave a rent-free, private bath, two meals a day situation to pay rent for a bathroom down in hall in permanent supportive housing?
They don’t leave.
Of the last 116 occupants at the Cova, only 14 exited to housing!
And when these hotels close most occupants reject permanent housing. They go back to the sidewalk or leave town. Taxpayers are spending millions of dollars on people do not want to pay rent and choose to remain homeless.
Voters elected Daniel Lurie to end this madness. But for all his talk about “Change,” his policies are in lockstep with HSH and the prior administration.
Our new mayor should redirect these funds to drug-free housing. Or at least use some or all of the $14 million in savings to avoid layoffs and service cuts to vital city programs.
Steve Adami of the Salvation Army tweeted about this misguided spending: “San Francisco is spending $243 day/person ($7,000) to house ppl at the Adante Hotel who are using drugs, yet the city won’t invest $80 day/person on drug free Recovery Housing for people who have completed long term drug treatment. “
Mayor Lurie Ignores Tenderloin Businesses
I walked through Little Saigon and the 800 block of Geary with candidate Daniel Lurie. He lamented the closed businesses and vowed to help revive the area’s economy.
I believed Lurie would follow Mayor Lee’s revitalization agenda, not Mayor Breed’s containment strategy. I even expressed this hope in the conclusion of my updated book, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco.
That’s what makes his opposing Tenderloin businesses so disappointing. Lurie has met with merchant groups across the city but not in the Tenderloin. Ned Segal, his economic policy chief, won’t meet with the Tenderloin Business Coalition. The mayor and Segal have excluded the Tenderloin from the vaunted Downtown Plan for economic revival.
Sadly, Lurie seems as committed as his predecessor to keeping the Tenderloin a containment zone for homeless and urgent mental health services.
The mayor told the Chamber of Commerce last week that “we need to invest in permanent solutions that make it easier, not harder, for businesses to set up shop in San Francisco.” Tenderloin and lower Polk representatives have told the mayor’s office that these two converted hotels badly hurt existing small businesses and deter new businesses; extending the leases makes it harder, not easier, for businesses to set up shop.
D5 Supervisor Favors HSH over Constituents
A recent large meeting of the Tenderloin Business Coalition displayed a unanimous show of hands when Supervisor Mahmood asked whether people saw extending these leases as a bright red line of opposition. But soon after this show of opposition Mahmood helped negotiate a backroom deal with HSH to extend the leases.
Mahmood campaigned against incumbent Dean Preston’s failure to connect to the Tenderloin business community. Mahmood connects, but then backs a deal the businesses told him they opposed.
Not what Tenderloin businesses expected from their new supervisor.
San Francisco cannot close drug markets without halting the influx of drug users. Closing the Monarch and Adante would do precisely that.
The hearing on the $14 million lease extensions will be March 12 at the Budget and Finance Committee (Chan, Dorsey, Engardio). These supervisors will soon be tasked with making major budget cuts—they should be disposed toward saving $14 million by closing upscale shelters that promote drug use while incentivizing homelessness.
You can get Randy Shaw’s updated book on the Tenderloin and can support the Tenderloin Museum by purchasing the book here, 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.
