by Justice Dumlao
The following is a letter submitted by email to the San Francisco Police Commission.
Dear President Elias and Commission Members,
On behalf of the Safer Inside and Treatment on Demand Coalitions — two coalitions dedicated to enhancing the health and well-being of San Francisco’s most vulnerable residents — we write to express serious concerns about the San Francisco Police Department’s (SFPD) project at the parking lot on Jessie Street. We are a group of community members, service providers, including residents, people with lived experience, family members, advocates, medical professionals, and researchers. Collectively we represent decades of experience working directly with individuals in crisis, offering extensive knowledge of evidence-based strategies proven to improve health outcomes while addressing complex social challenges, including homelessness, behavioral healthcare, and substance use disorder.
The Jessie Street Project was described by Southern Station Captain Luke Martin as having been “thrown together starting about a week ago.”1 While we understand the urgency of addressing pressing community issues related to drug use, we are alarmed by the lack of transparency and strategic planning surrounding this initiative. Our coalition members, who are deeply embedded in serving this community, have questions about the nature of the services to be offered and the potential long-term harms of relying on incarceration as a response to public drug use. This misguided approach is predicated upon the false premise that criminalization is a viable and desired pathway to healing from substance use disorder and reducing overdose risk. Instead, it risks exacerbating the very issues it seeks to resolve.
Lack of Transparency and Community Engagement
There has been minimal community input in the development and implementation of the Jessie Street Project. The abrupt adoption of this initiative has left the community with few details about its processes. This contradicts public health best practices, which emphasize collaborative planning with community stakeholders.2 Decisions affecting public health and safety must be made transparently and with community involvement, ensuring that the voices of impacted residents are heard and considered. Additionally, if the project relies on arrestees accessing treatment through referrals, the capacity of local providers to accommodate an increase of people who are ambivalent about recovery should have been evaluated, and San Francisco’s substance use disorder treatment providers should have been involved in the planning process and afforded additional resources themselves.
Please see the following list of questions that we feel would be helpful in asking SFPD for more transparency:
● How is the coordination happening with treatment services to connect people to appropriate care?
● What linkages to care services will be provided on-site?
● The Journey Home program has been reported as a resource in this project. Is there additional funding going to it due to this project? What are the plans to coordinate with surrounding jurisdictions?
● When will the data of this operation be made available to this body and the public?
● Are folks being arrested and held at the center prior to transport, or are folks voluntarily entering for services/being diverted pre-arrest into services at the center?
● What measures are being taken to avoid putting people who may be immigrants at risk of ICE interaction?
Ineffectiveness of Criminalization & Counterproductive Harms
The Jessie Street Project aims to reduce visible drug use and improve public safety through intensified law enforcement; however, historical data shows that punitive approaches to drug use are largely ineffective. Research indicates that criminalization exacerbates public health outcomes, including overdose risks, infectious disease transmission, and barriers to accessing health services. A Budget and Legislative Analyst (BLA) audit found “little evidence” that similar initiatives had positive impacts on crime or response times.3 The audit said, “we did not find a significant improvement in response times to 911 calls or trends in crime,” despite increased police presence, raising serious questions about the efficacy of enforcement-heavy strategies.4
The Drug Market Agency Coordination Center and Detention Pilot Project (DMAC) – an ongoing, similar enforcement-focused initiative – led to a significant increase in incarceration of people who use drugs without effectively connecting individuals to treatment. According to a San Francisco Chronicle review of DMAC data, “In its first year, the San Francisco coordination center’s operations resulted in the arrests of 1,284 suspected drug users and 1,008 suspected dealers. Getting people into drug treatment through this method, however, hasn’t been successful. Over the past year, only 29 people who were arrested on drug-related charges and booked into San Francisco County Jail asked for assistance with treatment programs.”5 The new Mayoral administration has been explicit about prioritizing accountability and efficiency, and this disconnect underscores the failure of punitive approaches.
Moreover, enforcement-focused strategies can worsen public health outcomes. Research consistently shows that increased policing is “positively associated with drug overdose mortality for all drugs.”6 These findings confirm what public health advocates have long suggested: punitive drug policies often lead to higher overdose risks and other public health harms.7 We cannot arrest our way out of the overdose crisis, and San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott acknowledged as much in his Chief’s Report at the San Francisco Police Commission meeting on June 7, 2023.8
Insufficient Evaluation and Accountability
The Jessie Street Project lacks clear metrics for success or mechanisms for public accountability. Without these criteria, it is not possible to equitably assess the project’s impact or justify its continuation at the 30 day evaluation meeting. According to the BLA, “SFPD has not established criteria to (a) evaluate the effectiveness of these initiatives and whether they are worth the costs of overtime and officer fatigue; (b) guide decision-makers on appropriate levels of or need for police presence and staffing; or (c) scale down or conclude these initiatives once they have achieved their goals.”9 This lack of accountability prevents informed decision-making.
Inappropriate Use of Community Resources
Prioritizing law enforcement responses to public health challenges diverts funding from proven, evidence-based solutions. In a budget deficit like this year existing programs will face funding cuts, limiting their ability to address the complex needs of the community. For example, the DMAC pilot was projected to cost $5.5 million (though actual expenses have not been fully tabulated and made publicly available).10 These funds could have been used to open two overdose prevention centers or provide 120 dual diagnosis beds, which were requested in the last budget cycle.11
Criminalization disrupts vital connections between people who use drugs and service providers, which is critical in building trust before connecting people with treatment services. Research shows the risk of overdose for those who have recently been incarcerated is significantly higher following a period of abstinence in jail. Two weeks after release from prison, people are more than 27 times more likely, on average, to die of opioid overdose than the general population.12 This cycle of arrest and release exacerbates public health risks without addressing root causes thus prolonging the jailing people for public drug use wastes critical resources and creates a revolving door of arrest and incarceration. This revolving door puts people right back onto the street, now with a criminal record and a higher overdose risk without having received any services.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vpEGvbYiBd4U5hlRIohFhTcy4OfV0P5x04ENBhlf4Yo/edit
Recommendations
The rhetoric surrounding this initiative emphasizes the need for urgent action, implying that criminalization is the only viable solution. We strongly challenge this narrative. San Francisco must immediately invest in evidence-based strategies that reduce harm, promote voluntary treatment, and improve community conditions, including:
● Overdose prevention centers and drug adulterant testing;
● Expanding community-based syringe access programs, including safer use supplies, and naloxone distribution;
● Non-discriminatory access to medications for substance use disorder treatment; ● Overdose reversal medication and prevention trainings;
● Funding to support peer-led programs and tenant-led overdose navigation in supportive housing; ● Support and resourcing for syringe services programs;
● Counseling and outreach to PWUD;
● Housing and subsidies for permanent supportive housing; and,
● Culturally responsive, linguistically accessible, fact-based drug education.
As coalitions with extensive experience in behavioral health and substance use disorder treatment, we urge the Commission to hold the SFPD accountable, push for more data/community transparency, and reconsider this proposal. The City’s response must be rooted in effective, evidence-based solutions that prioritize health, equity, and community-centered approaches which will ensure the long term well-being of San Francisco’s most vulnerable residents and not just offer a quick fix solution.
We appreciate your attention and are open to engaging in further dialogue to collaboratively develop humane and effective solutions. To discuss our position, please write to Justice Dumlao at jdumlao@sfaf.org.
Sincerely,
Justice Dumlao
Community Mobilization Manager on behalf of the Treatment on Demand and Safer Inside Coalitions
Cc: Sergeant Stacy Youngblood, Commission Secretary, via stacy.a.youngblood@sfgov.org
San Francisco Police Commission via sfpd.commission@sfgov.org
Department of Police Accountability via sfdpa@sfgov.org
Paul Henderson – Executive Director of Department of Police Accountability via paul.henderson@sfgov.org
1 Vân Neely, Abigail. “SFPD converting SoMa parking lot into one-stop shop for arrests, drug treatment, and homeless busing,” Mission Local, February 4, 2025.
https://missionlocal.org/2025/02/sfpd-uses-6th-street-parking-lot-for-arrests-treatment-and-busing/
2“Use Evidence to Guide Spending,” Bloomberg School of Public Health, John Hopkins University, https://opioidprinciples.jhsph.edu/use-evidence-to-guide-spending/
3 Owen Lamb, Jonah. “Cops are calling in sick to clock overtime on side gigs, audit finds,” The San Francisco Standard, December 12, 2024. https://sfstandard.com/2024/12/12/san-francisco-police-overtime-audit-wasteful/
4“Performance Audit of San Francisco Police Department Overtime,” San Francisco Budget and Legislative Analyst. December 12, 2024.
5 Chronicle Editorial Board, “What can Daniel Lurie actually do differently on fentanyl?” San Francisco Chronicle, December 22, 2024. https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/daniel-lurie-fentanyl-sf-19973737.php
6 Bohnert AS, Nandi A, Tracy M, Cerdá M, Tardiff KJ, Vlahov D, Galea S. Policing and risk of overdose mortality in urban neighborhoods. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2011 Jan 1;113(1):62-8. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.07.008. Epub 2010 Aug 19. PMID: 20727684; PMCID: PMC3008306. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3008306/
7 Bradley Ray, Steven J. Korzeniewski, George Mohler, Jennifer J. Carroll, Brandon del Pozo, Grant Victor, Philip Huynh, and Bethany J. Hedden: Spatiotemporal Analysis Exploring the Effect of Law Enforcement Drug Market Disruptions on Overdose, Indianapolis, Indiana, 2020–2021, American Journal of Public Health 113, 750_758, https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307291
8 Scott, William. “Chief’s Report,” Police Commission Meeting, June 7, 2023, Police Commission, San Francisco City Hall. https://sanfrancisco.granicus.com/player/clip/43862?meta_id=1007862
9 BLA, 2024.
10 Moench, M. “S.F. police crack down on public drug use ahead of Mayor Breed’s command center targeting dealers,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 5, 2023.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/sf-drug-dealing-tenderloin-emergency-center-18132343.php 11“Treatment on Demand Coalition City Budget Requests for 2023/24,” San Francisco Treatment on Demand Coalition, May 22, 2023.
12 Cooper, J.A., Onyeka, I., Cardwell, C. et al. Record linkage studies of drug-related deaths among adults who were released from prison to the community: a scoping review. BMC Public Health 23, 826 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15673-0
