“Fifteen hundred, very quickly,” interjected the future mayor, clad in a smart white shirt and thin black tie befitting an Apollo-era NASA technician. “I’ve given myself six months. It shouldn’t take us that long.”
Six months into Lurie’s tenure, the San Francisco Chronicle last week trumpeted an “exclusive,” reporting that the Lurie administration was officially jettisoning this key campaign pledge. Lurie was not quoted in the article. Two days later, an op-ed penned by Kunal Modi, Lurie’s policy chief for health and human services, stated the same in the San Francisco Standard. Lurie wasn’t quoted in that article, either.
Modi, in his op-ed, notes that, rather than an arbitrary number of beds, San Francisco “needs the right beds.” That’s a fair point, and one Mission Local foretold all the way back in April. But an arbitrary number of beds — in an arbitrary amount of time — was Lurie’s core campaign pledge.
Moving on from an arbitrary, infeasible and, in the end, counterproductive goal is good. That the mayor wasn’t quoted in the first two stories announcing the curtailment of his own key initiative is less good.
To be fair, the mayor took questions about his pivot on live TV; you can see him here, here and here. He told all the interviewers that he valued “progress over politics.”
That’s also good. But Lurie’s TV answers failed to acknowledge that the “politics” in question was his signature campaign pledge.
Candidate Lurie, in fact, made standing up 1,500 beds in six months his raison d’être, despite the fact that this was a wholly unrealistic plan that was written off as a fantasy by every vestige of San Francisco political power, homeless and housing professionals and the portion of the Venn diagram where those two worlds commingle.
As Modi’s op-ed acknowledges, it was also an inadequate plan, one that would not have suited San Francisco’s needs even if it were possible to execute.
“Someone sleeping on the street in San Francisco is likely also suffering from addiction or a serious mental illness,” Modi writes. “Someone hooked on fentanyl needs more than a place to sleep.”
Modi and Lurie have, no doubt, worked diligently in these past six months and learned a great deal about the conditions on our streets and our housing and shelter systems. But, respectfully, this was something you didn’t need six months in City Hall to know.
The mayor may or may not have gone through the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief before shelving his 1,500-bed campaign pledge. We have no idea about “denial” or “anger,” but there was no small amount of “bargaining” going on.
By March, the administration was redefining the meaning of “shelter bed” and even “six months.” By April, city departments were being told that the new goal was to have 1,500 beds established or in the pipeline within six months.
We, again, have no idea about “depression.” But, come last week — and, likely months before — there was “acceptance.” In April we wrote that it was obvious the mayor wouldn’t make his 1,500-bed goal and he should just admit it. But we also wrote that this wasn’t wholly a bad thing.
That’s because, months ago, Lurie and Modi were described by their front-line homeless workers as being smart and thoughtful about where and how to add new beds to the shelter system. They were “following the data.” They were seeing what types of behavioral health services were needed and trying to address those on the front end.
“We were really worried it’d be 1,500 beds in a warehouse,” one city homeless worker told me. They were relieved with the approach the mayor’s office is taking instead.
“Hey,” one veteran homeless professional told us in April about the mayor’s pivot, “it might actually work.”
Modi’s July op-ed says a lot of the same things those workers said in April — which is, again, a good sign. It’s good to pivot away from arbitrary goals, and to devise solutions that might actually work.
If this approach works — or rather, if city residents feel like it’s working — voters won’t much care about Lurie having shouted from the rooftops that, if elected, he’d have done something else.
That’s in part because it wasn’t policy proposals that carried the day for Lurie in November. Rather, he was an upbeat, likable guy with little baggage who never saw fit to push the city’s head into the toilet for political gain. He was extravagantly well-funded. He ran a solid campaign. And it’s becoming more and more clear that a pivotal factor in last year’s election was that he was not London Breed. He aced that part.
Regardless, Lurie has dropped his signature campaign initiative, something he repeatedly told voters that he could accomplish easily and quickly. His new plan is much more thoughtful, but he may well be punished for that: Specialized beds catering to a more acute population — instead of warehouse-like shelters and a punitive approach — means more money expended for fewer units.
The back-of-the envelope math for the 16 beds at the 822 Geary “crisis stabilization center” is $1,353 per bed per day. If homelessness and drug abuse remain front-of-mind in San Francisco, nuanced explanations won’t necessarily appease surly voters.
That’s not yet the case. Voters have not soured on their new mayor. He has a pliant Board of Supervisors to work with and, if he’s outlasted his political honeymoon, he is still a political newlywed.
While it’s hard to expect candor, contrition and introspection from elected officials in 2025, Lurie, with his genuineness as a major appealing factor, is a special case. It’s good he abandoned an unworkable and ill-suited plan.
But it was his plan. So, it’d be better if Lurie explained why his central and oft-repeated campaign pledge was mistaken, impractical and unworkable — and fully owned this. The campaign is over. Now we deserve an explanation as to why, this time, the plan he’s pushing might actually work.
Then there’s that undercurrent where ppl look at the streets and wonder how listening to the veteran homeless professional type, Jennifer Friedenbach on down, might be a big part of the problem.
Jenny and all the staff at Coalition on Homelessness do incredible work, and I’m proud to support them as a monthly donor. They are demonized by the political establishment precisely because they’re so effective and refuse to play the game and become another status-quo-protecting part of the system. In a city with many grifting nonprofits with overpaid directors, they are the exception: lean, strategic, honest, and unafraid to speak truth to power.
Jennifer’s a saint !
Her organization doesn’t get a dime from the City and unlike most of the other industry execs she spends all day elbow deep on the Front Lines with the Homeless.
h.
She’s a plague. How many homeless folks has she moved into her house? (or houses, if the reports are to be believed)
The data show that in the North Mission, at least, street using addicts encountered by DEM are neither homeless nor residents of San Francisco. For whom exactly are we building the “get the addicts off of the street” component of this housing and treatment? Are San Francisco taxpayers expected to foot the bill to try to cure the region’s addicts?
Follow the money. Not only do the nonprofits get to build the facilities, the more intensive services required, the more the nonprofits take off of the top for every service rendered.
And Mission Local has still deployed the Big Brains to reconcile the Mayor’s celebrated shelter to PSH pivot with his moves to redirect Prop C money from PSH to shelter beds.
You keep pushing this point about supposed out of towners using drugs in the mission. Maybe it’s true, I have no idea. May I politely suggest including a link or some other kind of source whenever you state this point (which certainly bears repeating if true)?
It’s not a “fact” per se but those are hard to come by. However most residents of SF are not locals born into the problem but transplants, and there’s no reason to think that’s not true of both homeless and fent addicts. Everyone comes from somewhere. No doubt there are stats on both sides of every line you choose to draw. That shouldn’t negate the point.
Great article. Good to see Lurie ditching a plan that doesn’t work. Although I’d quibble with the 1500 beds being his “raison d’être“. I thought public safety and clean streets was his number one issue.
Good to see a politician admit when they are wrong and seek solutions. The rest of the lot could learn from this and would get more respect if they followed suit. We need solutions to problems not doubling down on bad ideas. Really rooting for this guy as he seems to have his heart and brain in the right place.
Man, people here are scary. You’ve got one lady who’s spent 25yrs working to help the homeless: she’s a commie grifter that nobody should listen to. Then “the army makes tents and we can just line them up along the highways and put the homeless there” . Then you’ve got “Non Profits are all scammers”, but dare suggest the city actually pay for it’s own department to cover that work and you’ll get a stream of anti-tax reasons. Then you’ve got “Oh, get rid of the drug dealers with more cops”, which doesn’t seem to work because “oh, it’s the bad liberal DA” and when that turns out to be BS it’s, “The Prison system needs more money!” and “Newsom is corrupt!”. Not to mention the easily disproven “they’re all from out of town! Deport them!” It’s just so disappointing to see such a complete lack of innovation and support to actually fix the problem, it’s just blame, conspiracy, and revisiting failed plans. I’d suggest a plan, but for you people…. wow. If it isn’t “more cops” and “hoovervilles”, I’d be downvoted to the bottom of the world.
“Fix the problem”. You’re funny. The vast majority of these people will never be fixed. A couple of feel good stories to the contrary does not make a rational argument. How many decades of abject failures will it take to realize this? It’s starting to feel like people are waiting for Jesus to retro to use a religious scam analogy .
Oh no, not the downvotes, anything but that, truly a fate worse than death. Looking forward to seeing your genius idea once you summon the courage
Thanks for reporting.
It is beyond time to look around the world and see how other places help for persons in need of shelter
UN refugee camps house over 6 million persons away from neighborhoods with services healthcare etc at a fraction of the cost
US military assembled a camp for 10, 000 refugees in two weeks .
Old military bases are used thruout usa to house persons .
Get these people off the streets now .
They are a public health and safety disaster
Most will refuse because they want to be where the drugs are .
All this talk about shelter and no mandatory removal or yet stopping the drug dens in this small city are the true harm
If the drug dealers were gone , most of the homeless would leave
UN person,
Politicians are averse to canvas in this town (or, whatever tents are made of nowadays) because counting how many tents are pitched has become a base number for deciding whether their systems are working or not.
Like yourself, I say go for tents big time but the key thing is where you pitch them.
And, under what kind of organizational and physical structure you employ.
I say we should use the RV/Tent Campground like you see along major highways model and build them first-class cause it ain’t gonna be homeless people occupying them for long.
Key thing is to get the Tweakers out of our neighborhood and business locales and Treasure Island and the Golf Courses are where the largest available chunks of land owned by the City exist.
Instead, the push is to double down on giving guaranteed cost plus contracts running for years to often greedy and apathetic non-profits.
Tents provide a modicum of privacy which should be a key factor in offering space to the space cadets meandering half-bent over around 16th and Mission.
Move ALL services out of the neighborhoods and enforce Newsom’s ‘Sit/Lie’ law.
And, UN, if you really want to get rid of drug dealers, many of whom are hostages forced to sell to protect families back home …
Decriminalize all drugs and give druggies Prescriptions instead of Citations.
That doesn’t get rid of the dealers from the 3 legged triad, it also get’s rid of the cops.
Pouring more money into a failed model is a waste.
Try something new.
Put a hundred tent pilot project on TI and give the new occupants prescriptions for whatever.
Also, for those really into this stuff, Manny’s begins a 4 night Presentation on Homelessness in San Francisco tonite with all of the Major players except the Mayor scheduled to attend.
I’ll be there drinking grapefruit juice.
go Niners !!
h.