Over the past five years, our streets have disintegrated into a free-for-all of tents, homelessness, and drug abuse and dealing. San Francisco has never been immune from challenging street conditions, but there is no Mayor in history who has overseen a steeper decline. 2023 was the deadliest year on record for overdose deaths. While we work to address the causes of the disorder on our streets (mental health, drug addiction, and homelessness), we must have zero tolerance for dirty streets and unsafe street behavior.
- Call for fentanyl state of emergency and more armed California National Guard officers to address open-air drug markets, drug trafficking, and other illegal behavior.
- Build a large scale, 24/7 centralized intake center with shelter, and stabilization beds, staffed with social workers and medical professionals to triage those in need to next steps in the continuum of care.
- Scrap Mayor Breed’s current Overdose Prevention Plan and shift from an over reliance on harm reduction that has enabled more drug use to providing more recovery-first and abstinence-based options.
- Leverage City-owned facilities inside and outside of San Francisco to provide more recovery-first options and treatment beds to add more capacity at all stages of recovery.
- Rapidly deploy new jail treatment and detox opportunities to fill another gap in the continuum of care.
- Stop the cycle of catch and release by reforming pretrial detention practices and ending the failed multimillion-dollar contract with Pretrial Diversion and away from the management of a law enforcement agency.
- Mandate contract reforms at the Department of Public Health to be outcomes and performance driven that are laser focused on stopping people from dying from fentanyl.
- Create a new recruitment and retention plan for hiring behavioral health professionals, as the City under Mayor Breed has failed to hire enough workers needed.
- Reform current entry and warm handoff processes from law enforcement and public health professionals so people can enter treatment easier, whether of their own volition or through other avenues like hospitals.
- Mandate treatment-focused detention and a connection to services for individuals who are revived with Narcan.
- Massively increase our police staffing levels to serve as a deterrent to drug dealing and public drug use.
- Immediately audit the sprawling community health and welfare budget and find where we can redirect resources to rapidly expand access to treatment.
