Drug tourism in San Fran in 2024 is nothing new. Fifty years ago, San Fran had “The Summer of Love”, also known as a druggies paradise. So, when people complain about drugs being bad in this former world class city, it is nothing new.
“San Francisco spends millions of dollars encouraging the unhoused to avoid permanent housing. Taxpayers are incentivizing rather than stopping drug tourism.
Sound hard to believe? It’s all true.
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.”
This is the current problem. The city promotes homelessness—and the drug use that comes with it. In 2024 the drug problem is caused by government. Time to stop it.
How San Francisco Promotes Drug Tourism
by Randy Shaw, Beyon Chron, 12/2/24 https://beyondchron.org/has-san-francisco-forgotten-the-purpose-of-shelters/
SF’s Shelter Policy: A Destructive, Expensive Failure
San Francisco spends millions of dollars encouraging the unhoused to avoid permanent housing. Taxpayers are incentivizing rather than stopping drug tourism.
Sound hard to believe? It’s all true.
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.
Converting tourist hotels to “non-congregant shelters” has been a colossal failure in San Francisco. Residents are not required to transition to permanent housing. There is no time limit on stays! People have been getting free rent at the Cova Hotel for two to three years!
Unfortunately, the Breed Administration loves these tourist to shelter conversions. HSH is pushing for ten year lease extensions to keep the influx of drug tourists into San Francisco going. The city wants to extend leases for the Cova (655 Ellis), Monarch (1015 Geary) and Adante (610 Geary) Hotels and continue using the tourist hotel it purchased at 685 Ellis for shelter rather than permanent housing.
Mayor Lurie must stop this. Lurie ran as a political outsider willing to change City Hall’s misguided policies. Canceling these lease extensions offers him a great start. Supervisors Mahmood and Sauter, whose districts are most impacted by the conversions, also ran as candidates of change. They must help convince their colleagues to stop these lease extensions.
Damaging Residents and Small Businesses
Non-congregant shelters in tourist hotels make life miserable for nearby residents and small businesses. Yet City Hall doesn’t care.
In 2020, San Francisco saw a huge jump in sidewalk drug activities when the city converted tourist hotels to shelters on Seventh Street. This was an emergency response to COVID. When COVID funding ended, few of those enjoying San Francisco’s hospitality accepted offers of permanent housing.
That’s because obtaining permanent housing was never their goal. They only sought free housing, which the city provided. In addition to ruining legitimate businesses on Seventh and Mid-Market, these drug tourists ransacked their homes. The city had to pay tens of millions of dollars to hotel owners as compensation.
The Breed Administration closed the Seventh Street hotels due to neighborhood pressure. But as part of the mayor’s containment zone strategy, the city kept using four tourist hotels as shelters in the Tenderloin and Lower Polk.
The city acts as if COVID still requires converting tourist hotels to shelters. The conversion of tourist hotels in the Tenderloin and Lower Polk never received a public hearing. Nor did the city undertake an economic analysis of the impact.
Without having to pay rent, many occupants of these converted hotels have ample disposal income for drugs. The drug scene outside these hotels exploded.
Breed’s shelter policy devastated Little Saigon and Lower Polk (See “Why City Still Fiddles, Little Saigon Still Falls,” March 11, 2024). The number of vacant storefronts in these once thriving areas is shocking.
Aren’t Shelters Temporary?
Shelters are designed to offer a temporary stop to those temporarily unable to obtain housing. In 1990 Mayor Agnos expanded the capacity of shelters to address mental health and substance abuse issues that went beyond housing.
Most shelter have time limits to ensure turnover. And to ensure that people who can afford permanent housing do not instead live rent-free in shelters.
But San Francisco under Mayor Breed allows unhoused people to live rent-free in tourist hotels for years. With no fixed end time!
No wonder San Francisco is the world capital of drug tourism. No other city offers out of town drug users such a sweet deal.
San Francisco is subsidizing unlimited shelter stays in tourist accommodations typically superior to what’s available should these “shelter” occupants pay rent.
If the city wants to use tourist hotels to address homelessness, it should be for drug-free housing for graduates of transitional drug-free programs who need a permanent home. The city continues to ignore the permanent housing needs of those who reject drugs.
Where Will Unhoused in Tourist Hotels Go?
All those living in tourist hotels converted to shelters should be given a permanent housing exit. And given the moving assistance offered to other shelter recipients in the city.
But based on past experience with the closure of the SIP hotels, most will instead choose to return to sidewalks, stay in regular shelters, or leave the city. Obtaining housing that requires a rent payment was never their goal.
San Francisco learned from SIP that investing in tourist hotels as shelters does not get people off the streets or into permanent housing. Instead, it floods surrounding areas with drug activities that additional city resources are then needed to control..
The Breed Administration ignored these lessons. Now HSH wants to keep these failed programs that wreck neighborhood small businesses going for another ten years!
HSH’s shelter strategy keeps many people in the city who would otherwise leave due to their lack of desire to pay rent. San Francisco cannot curtail drug tourism so long as it offers unlimited private-bath hotel stays to drug users arriving from out of town.
Mayor Lurie and the new Board have a choice. Instead of continuing this destructive misuse of public funds they can redirect these dollars to permanent drug-free housing. City Hall can send a powerful message that San Francisco is becoming a city that prioritizes those seeking to avoid drugs over users.
Closing these destructive “shelters” is a critical step for the Tenderloin and Lower Polk’s revival. It’s also a strong signal that voters made the right choice in opting for Change.
