Sydney Johnson [00:01:03] Yeah, I recently spent some time over on 6th Street between Jesse and Stevenson. This part of South of Market has become known as a sort of hotspot for outdoor drug use and drug dealing in particular. It’s also the site of the city’s latest experiment for addressing the fentanyl crisis. In an alleyway just right off of 6th and Jesse, actually in a fenced off corner of an old Nordstrom parking lot, there’s recently been erected this new, what the city has called a triage center. There’s a gate just facing 6th Street. And when you walk in, you see about half a dozen white easy up tents, sort of the tents that you see at like a farmer’s market with picnic tables underneath. The days that I went, there were a couple different service providers there, groups like Code Tenderloin, the Department of Public Health had some people there, and really just some folks that were trying to offer connections to basic city services. Most prominently, there was a station that they were handing out hot coffee and snacks and water and directing people to a bathroom that they could use if they needed to.
Alan Montecillo [00:02:27] So tell me then who you spoke with when you were there.
Sydney Johnson [00:02:30] I spoke to several people coming and going from this triage center. I spoke to one couple who went in, they were currently living in their car in the neighborhood. They were looking for a place to stay that night, but when they left, they said that they still didn’t know where they’d be sleeping and were planning on staying in their car again. and then I spoke with Alex Crafton.
Alex Crafton [00:02:51] I just try to avoid 6th Street lately, like with how crazy it’s been.
Sydney Johnson [00:02:56] He’s 26 years old. He used to live in a single room occupancy hotel just next door to where the site is now.
Alex Crafton [00:03:02] I just came down here last night and I noticed that was set up. I was like, what the hell is this?
Sydney Johnson [00:03:07] He was able to get a cup of coffee and, you know, saw a couple different services that he was already familiar with.
Alex Crafton [00:03:14] You know, just pointing you in the right direction because a lot of these people out here are clueless on where to go. I pretty much knew all those things and I’m all good. I just wanted a cup of coffee.
Sydney Johnson [00:03:25] So he ended up leaving and didn’t find exactly what he was looking for. But he did feel like that would be potentially helpful to folks who maybe don’t know about those services. He also heard that this place was ultimately going to become a police command center, and he was kind of confused and curious about what that was. So he stopped by to check it out.
Alex Crafton [00:03:44] The cops have been cracking down more lately, but it’s a lawless city.
Sydney Johnson [00:03:52] Police are cracking down on outdoor drug use and outdoor drug dealing. In fact, Alex told me that just a few weeks ago, he was arrested at this same corner at Six and Jesse for drug possession, and he was released within 24 hours.
Alan Montecillo [00:04:11] Tell me a bit more about how this center got set up. How did it come about?
Sydney Johnson [00:04:16] This center opened up just around the same time that Mayor Lurie signed his first major piece of legislation into law that he has sponsored as mayor. So this was an ordinance that gave him expanded powers and specifically it allowed him to speed up hiring and contracting for work by removing the need for certain approvals by the Board of Supervisors and some of this other red tape. specifically for services and programs related to homelessness and fentanyl.
Mayor Daniel Lurie [00:04:50] The opportunity before us is to create real options for people, because right now they’re not there.
Sydney Johnson [00:04:57] Laurie was recently on Forum and talked about the Triage Center.
Mayor Daniel Lurie [00:05:01] We are going to demand that people move from the street and into that place where they can get a cup of coffee, they can be seen by somebody.
Sydney Johnson [00:05:11] Right now, the city does not have nearly enough emergency shelter beds to address the need. So Lurie’s hoping that this legislation will allow him to bring in private funding, cut through bureaucracy, and speed up the city’s response to fentanyl and homelessness. And this triage center is kind of one component of that vision.
Alan Montecillo [00:05:35] Let’s talk a little more about this specific site. Can you get connected to drug treatment, housing, shelter? Like what specifically is available to people who need help?
Sydney Johnson [00:05:48] So on the days that I went, there were social workers that were offering help getting signed up for benefits like food stamps, signing up for government IDs. People could get added to waitlists for shelter, and that was what several people told me they were walking in to find out about. The same goes for housing, obviously. There are opportunities to sign up for housing, but in the city, there are enormous waitlists for supportive housing. For folks who are interested in treatment, the Department of Public Health is also sending staff members to this site. And people can get connected to medications pretty quickly, like buprenorphine, which actually helps reduce cravings around fentanyl and opioids. And that has been actually a big type of treatment that the city has been leaning on, as residential treatment is often very expensive. It’s hard to build up. This site is also intended to help the police. Like a stated goal of this site was to create a more convenient location where police can hand over the people that they arrest or detain for things like public drug use and hand them off to sheriff’s deputies who could then transport them to jail. Idea behind that is to allow police to more quickly get back on the street rather than having to drive halfway across town and then hand people off to sheriff’s deputies.
Alan Montecillo [00:07:16] So it’s a walk -in pop -up space for services potentially, but also a drop -off place for police? Is this happening in the same space?
Sydney Johnson [00:07:28] That’s a great question. So the first couple of weeks, there was no visible sign of any of the police detainment, you know, part of this plan and vision happening on site. And actually, when I spoke to the mayor’s office recently, I asked for a timeline, you know, when are we going to see this part of the site materialize? You know, It’s a stated goal of it. And both the mayor’s office and the police department said that they don’t have a date yet for when they might start that part of the operation. And in fact, the mayor’s office told me that the police have not actually used this site at all for any detainment so far. And you’re dealing with a lot of people who have experience with the justice system and may be turned off if they see police processing arrests or police in general behind those gates. So, it is really I think, frankly, confusing for a lot of people of who this is intended to serve and what the impacts of kind of combining those ideas might look like on the ground. Really the kind of stated goal around this as being this police command center is still something that’s very much in the works and opaque.
Alan Montecillo [00:08:45] It seems like there are some things available here, some not, that the law enforcement part of this is a little confusing, but how new is this approach, this sort of pop -up triage center?
Sydney Johnson [00:08:57] That is not a new idea. I think back to during the pandemic, actually, Mayor London Breed had an emergency declaration for the Tenderloin. And as part of her initiative, the city erected the Tenderloin Center. And this was a pop -up, you know, there were tents outside, they actually had some indoor space where people could meet with counselors, similarly get signed up for benefits and social services. The real big difference between these two sites is that the Tenderloin Center had supervised drug consumption on site where people could smoke or inject drugs with the supervision of medical professionals around who could reverse an overdose if it took place. I think it’s important to point out that there were no overdose deaths that took place at the Tenderloin Center all 10 months it was open, and they reversed over 300 overdoses. But this new triage center and the one that Laurie is supposedly planning to open this spring will not have any drug use allowed on site, and in fact is inviting police to come inside and potentially detain people who were using drugs on the street.
Alan Montecillo [00:10:17] Seems like there’s some of the same services on offer, but that the big difference is, as you said, no supervised drug consumption, but an even more, quote unquote, police friendly, to use Lurie’s words, approach.
Sydney Johnson [00:10:31] There’s other differences, too. The Tenderloin Center was smack dab in the middle of UN Plaza. It was during the pandemic when there were a lot of other challenges going on. It received a lot of focus and negative attention by press and by people online. And it was just very visible. I mean, it had averaged hundreds of visitors a day by the time it closed. And that led to long lines outside. And there were businesses and neighbors that complained about that. This new site, I think is fair to say, is much more discreet. It’s got similar goals, but very different approaches of handling that.
Alan Montecillo [00:11:13] I know Alex Crafton, one of the people you spoke with at this current triage center actually also went to the Tenderloin Center back when it was open, right? I mean, we’ve been talking about the differences. What was his experience of that? Does he have thoughts on similarities, differences between the two?
Sydney Johnson [00:11:32] Yeah, it was fascinating getting to talk to Alex and hearing his perspective of visiting both sites.
Alex Crafton [00:11:38] What was really great about that program as well though is that of all the many overdoses they encountered there, not a single life was lost. It saved lives. That’s all anyone needs to know about it. It saved lives.
Sydney Johnson [00:11:54] You know, Alex told me that he has participated in rehab programs almost a dozen times. And he said that he hasn’t completed those programs each time, but that he has several times. And he did really appreciate that the Tenderloin Center offered a place where if people were really struggling, they could go and know that they would be safe.
Alan Montecillo [00:12:18] I know it’s a little early, but are there any critics of this triage center and Daniel Lurie’s overall approach to the issue of drug addiction?
Sydney Johnson [00:12:28] You know, I think there’s still a lot of questions about this triage center. Like, it’s definitely sort of building the plane as it flies, so to speak.
Vitka Eisen [00:12:37] Because it doesn’t fit the narrative, it’s not the solution that people want.
Sydney Johnson [00:12:41] I spoke with Vitka Eisen, who’s the CEO of Healthright 360. This is one of the city’s largest drug treatment providers.
Vitka Eisen [00:12:48] I don’t think the solution comes from law enforcement. I look to do things that improve health for people, increase engagement, connect people to care.
Sydney Johnson [00:12:59] She and others have pointed to research that can show that actually sending people to jail when they are struggling with addiction can sometimes lead to increased risk of overdose because you have a tolerance drop. And if people go back and use again, that can actually really increase their likelihood of a fatal overdose. I spoke with some people who just live in the neighborhood on Sixth Street. One man named Byron who lives about a block away from the triage center told me that actually he did feel like the street and the area had looked a little bit nicer lately. He said, yeah, the streets have been a little bit calmer, but he’s really skeptical. He said that at night, a lot of the dangerous activity that was going on during the day previously picks back up again. The triage center is intended to be staffed and opened 24/7 but they are not nearly close enough to offering that yet. And in fact, it was closed all of President’s Day weekend, just about a week after opening because they didn’t have enough staff. So, you know, some of these goals that they’re reaching for with this site are still pretty far off. And people like Byron are wondering, you know, what this is going to actually look like in three, six months from now.
Alan Montecillo [00:14:23] How will we know whether this triage center, other ones like it, and really the Lurie administration’s whole approach to these big problems that he was elected to solve, how will we know whether these are working or not, whether they are a success?
