Mayor Daniel Lurie has proposed adding more than 90 treatment beds in a locked facility at the city’s Behavioral Health Center on the campus of San Francisco General Hospital. The catch is that 82 people are already receiving treatment there, and they would have to be moved out.
On Monday, they and their caregivers assessed that plan before the city’s Health Commission. They are not fans.
During the public forum at City Hall, nurses, staff and residents gathered in Room 408 to share emotional testimony opposing the plan.
A majority of the advocates, nurses and others stressed that the closure would displace scores of current residents — many of them low-income people with chronic mental health conditions — and disrupt the critical care they receive.
Antoinette Conde was among the first to speak at the podium. She shared the story of her brother Elmer, 64, who has been a resident at the Behavioral Health Center for five years.
“The BHC has given my brother security, safety and a stable environment,” she said.
She warned that moving Elmer from this supportive setting would trigger anxiety, fear and confusion. Elmer, she emphasized, is the only family she has left. Conde credited the nurses and staff at the center for the stability she now sees in him.
“I urge you: Please reconsider your plan,” she pleaded, recalling the poor treatment her brother endured at another care facility before arriving at the city-run center.
Sarah Clark, a nurse who has worked here for eight years, accompanied one of her patients, Marcus Heissman, to the podium before taking the microphone herself.
“I need some place to live. If this goes through, I could end up back in the streets,” said Heissman, who currently resides at the facility. “It seems that money is the bottom line, and it is not very human. Please do not take this place away from me, or I will become very furious.”
Clark, visibly emotional, told the committee she sees the humanity in her patients, and urged the board not to treat them as expendable.
The Department of Public Health has emphasized that no residents will lose housing or be asked to move until appropriate, personalized placements are secured elsewhere. Moves are not expected before fall 2025, and care teams will collaborate closely with residents and their families to identify suitable new homes.
The department is planning to expand residential care options citywide, with 50 new board-and-care beds anticipated to open this year and some 40 more skilled nursing facility beds aimed to come online next year — enough to house everyone presently residing at the Behavioral Health Center.
The proposal to add 90-odd locked beds would more than double the city’s present capacity. The city claims that it will add up to 30 new union jobs in the process of creating this new facility.
Speaking from the podium, Jennifer Esteen, a psychiatric nurse and SEIU 1021 union vice president of organizing, urged the commission to slow down the process and consider using the $21 million earmarked for the proposed new facility on-site to instead open a facility elsewhere and not displace Behavioral Health Center residents.
“Taking people out of the BHC and putting them into unfamiliar or ill-equipped settings will undo years of healing,” Esteen said.
City officials remain uneasy
As a candidate for mayor, Daniel Lurie pledged to add 1,500 new shelter beds within six months of taking office, aiming to alleviate the city’s homelessness crisis. As of late May 2025, almost five months into his term, approximately 420 beds have been announced, including 122 at Jerrold Commons and 54 at James Baldwin Place.
The mayor’s initiative has encountered criticism from residents and fellow city officials.
District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton expressed concerns about the concentration of shelters in neighborhoods like Bayview and the Tenderloin, advocating for more equitable distribution across all districts. In response, Supervisor Bilal Mahmood introduced legislation requiring each district to host at least one shelter by mid-2026, with a 1,000-foot buffer between new and existing facilities.
By a 10-1 vote in February, with only Walton dissenting, the Board of Supervisors gave Lurie freedom from board oversight when entering into deals addressing homelessness and drug-use, including standing up additional shelter beds. The constraints members of the board have subsequently attempted to place on mayoral power have been viewed in some circles as legislative buyer’s remorse.
At Monday’s meeting, staff and worker representatives from the Behavioral Health Center criticized the facility’s slated closure as short-sighted.
“It’s much easier, I know, to talk about beds; they are simple to count, stand still, they don’t need salaries or benefits and fit neatly into a spreadsheet,” said Elizabeth Travelslight, a field representative for SEIU 1021. “ But we all know those beds are nothing without proper, adequate staffing.”