San Francisco officials appear to have abandoned efforts to open facilities where people can consume drugs under supervision — even as more cities adopt the model to prevent deadly overdoses.
Recent studies show that overdose prevention centers save lives, keep people from consuming drugs in public and do not lead to increased crime.
In an effort to help fill budget gaps and bolster some essential city services, one San Francisco lawmaker is proposing pay cuts at the highest levels of government.
City Hall has faced increasing budget shortfalls since the COVID-19 pandemic, which hobbled the downtown office real estate market, disrupting a major source of tax revenue. Mayor London Breed’s latest proposal to close the budget deficit, projected at $790 million over the next two fiscal years, has met objection from some officials and local social service providers.
In San Francisco, it is not uncommon to cross paths with a person experiencing homelessness in the throes of a mental health crisis. The scene can be tragic, confusing and sometimes might feel dangerous.
Bystanders might wonder how to summon help from the city — and what will happen if they do.
We created a flow chart to answer those questions. We show how cases traverse a tangle of pathways, through handoffs between dispatchers and myriad public workers. The person in crisis might spend days or weeks tumbling through the criminal justice system or health care facilities. Often, they return to where they started: the streets.
Thousands of people last year fell into San Francisco’s complex, reactive, strained system for treating severe mental health and drug-related crises.
To explain how that system works and its effects on the people who enter it, we begin with the story of one man, Jay. As with many others — including those who are unhoused or are detained without their consent following a call from an alarmed observer — Jay had received temporary care, entailing multiple involuntary psychiatric holds, that failed to address his long-term problems. That left him back on the streets to fend for himself or, with the help of passersby, try again to get the aid he needed.
La falta de programación en español es un problema crecientemente grave ya que el encarcelamiento de latinos ha aumentado desde el lanzamiento el junio pasado de una ofensiva policial contra las drogas en los vecindarios de Tenderloin y sur de Market. • Read in English: https://www.sfpublicpress.org/service-providers-demand-access-to-latinx-jail-inmates
Numerous drug policy experts and addictions specialists from across the country — as close as UCSF and as far away as Rhode Island — publicly oppose a San Francisco ballot measure that would compel adult welfare recipients to undergo drug screening before collecting cash benefits.
And efforts to publicize the measure have brought practitioners who don’t always agree about addiction treatment practices to the same side of the debate.
Spanish-language programming at San Francisco’s County Jail has since become virtually non-existent as routine lockdowns caused by staff shortages have made it practically impossible to hold classes. Even while deputies work mandatory 16-hour shifts, there aren’t enough of them to escort people who administer rehabilitation sessions and other training programs into the jails.
On Feb. 2, numerous social service providers for the Latinx incarcerated population implored the Sheriff’s Department Oversight Board during its monthly meeting to help them gain access to the jail.
Proposition F asks voters whether the city should be allowed to screen single adult welfare recipients for drug dependency and require those identified as suffering from substance use disorder to enter treatment to continue receiving cash assistance through the County Adult Assistance Program.
Community organizations say the systems in Chinatown to protect older populations during extreme weather are not enough to meet the needs that could arise. Without sufficient financial backing, the health of many older residents in the neighborhood could be threatened during extreme weather disasters. Similar scenarios could transpire in San Francisco’s other climate-vulnerable areas.
Chinatown faces higher threats during periods of extreme weather due to a range of socio-economic factors as well as the built environment. Within the neighborhood, older adults living in single-room occupancy buildings are among the populations at heightened risk. Reasons for this include physiological changes related to aging and financial barriers associated with making climate-resiliency adaptations to older buildings.
