Formerly homeless and addicted San Franciscans have long accused liberal nonprofit groups’ “housing first” policies of worsening the city’s homelessness problem — and now say a positive change is on the way.
A political outsider with a bold plan for the homelessness crisis has taken charge of City Hall: Daniel Lurie was sworn in Wednesday as San Francisco mayor. The moderate Democrat has vowed to emphasize effectiveness and accountability over compassion in programs that address the crisis.
“This is a critical moment for San Francisco,” said Thomas Wolfe, director of West Coast Initiatives at the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions. “With the right leadership, the city can finally start addressing homelessness and addiction in a way that changes lives rather than just maintaining the status quo.”
At his inauguration ceremony in San Francisco’s City Hall on Wednesday, Mr. Lurie proclaimed an immediate ramp-up of efforts to “bring drug dealers to justice and clean up our streets.”
“Widespread drug dealing, public drug use, and constantly seeing people in crisis has robbed us of our sense of decency and security,” he said to the crowd. “Safety isn’t just a statistic, it’s a feeling you hold when you’re walking down the street. That insecurity is harming families and businesses in the Tenderloin, South of Market, the Mission and beyond.”
Cedric Akbar, director of Positive Directions Equals Change, says the city’s long-applied “harm reduction” approach has enabled the addiction plaguing the streets rather than eliminating it.
“The city’s efforts for compassion over effectiveness kept me on the street,” said the formerly homeless and addicted Mr. Akbar, who noted that rehabilitation services, not housing, changed his life.
Critics of San Francisco’s “housing first” model argue that providing permanent housing alone cannot address addiction and mental health issues, the main drivers of homelessness. Their experiences show that the city’s nonprofit infrastructure is fundamentally broken.
Mr. Wolfe lived on the streets for six months after post-surgery opioid use had spiraled out of control, and his wife kicked him out of their home in 2018.
“What homeless people need is this: We need a continuum of care, and this is where nonprofits need to focus,” he said.
In fiscal 2024, San Francisco allocated $1.52 billion to 745 nonprofits across 37 city departments, up from $809 million in 2019.
Meanwhile, homelessness has grown by 7% since 2022, with more than 8,300 people now living on the streets. Family homelessness has surged even more dramatically, with a 94% increase since 2022.
The Washington Times reached out to the city’s Department of Public Health for comment but received no response.
Under the “housing first” model, San Francisco’s publicly funded residential services saw only 12% of clients complete programs in 2022, compared with a statewide average of 28%, government data show.
In addition, between January 2020 and June 2024, 3,205 people died from overdoses in San Francisco, 20% of whom were in supportive housing, data from the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office show.
“The city’s outdated government infrastructure has become dependent on these nonprofits, while the nonprofits, in turn, rely on the funding,” Mr. Wolfe said. “What they’re doing is saying, ‘We’re going to pick you up off the street and put you into an apartment or into a hotel room,’ but they’re not addressing the root causes.”
“They’re not putting people in mental health crises in jail. So unless there’s a mental health bed open, you’re not getting help,” said Gina McDonald, co-founder of Mothers Against Drug Addiction and Deaths (MADD). “Instead, they’re putting them in apartments. That doesn’t make sense. You should go to treatment before you get that house.”
Ms. McDonald says it was law enforcement intervention that eventually saved her life when she was on the streets. “I was so in this psychosis on the street that I was a definite danger to myself,” she said.
“Progressives provide people with the means to stay where they are,” Mr. Akbar said. “They hand out tents and clean syringes but block laws that could actually protect people.”
The city’s struggles with homelessness have transformed its downtown into a ghost town, with a 35% office vacancy rate — the highest in the nation. Mr. Lurie, who ran an antipoverty nonprofit for years, has pointed to the need for cleaner, safer streets to restore San Francisco’s appeal.
“The Lurie administration is saying that it wants to pivot from ideologically driven approaches to evidence-based solutions,” said one source close to the new mayor’s office.
Mr. Lurie has announced plans to declare a fentanyl state of emergency and commit to revitalizing the police force. Advocates say these actions depart from the city’s nonprofit-led homelessness strategies.
The new mayor has also sought to address nonprofit mismanagement and cronyism by appointing management consultant Kunal Modi, specializing in government efficiency, to overhaul San Francisco’s health and homelessness services.
According to several reports, Mr. Modi has already identified significant fragmentation within the system that makes it tough to track efficacy within nonprofit outreach.
“You can’t manage an approach with that much fragmentation,” Mr. Modi told The San Francisco Standard. He plans to prioritize transitional housing tied to addiction treatment, reports say.
Whether Mr. Lurie can deliver on his promises to San Franciscans remains to be seen. For Mr. Wolfe and Ms. McDonald, his election means a lot in a city yearning for transformation.
“San Francisco has been a leader in these progressive policies for decades,” Mr. Akbar said. “But it’s time to evaluate whether those policies are achieving their intended outcomes. The city’s residents deserve better.”
The Washington Times contacted Mayor London Breed’s outgoing administration and Mr. Lurie’s incoming administration for comment.
• Emma Ayers can be reached at eayers@washingtontimes.com.