A state psych ward sent him to an S.F. halfway house. He died days later.

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San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood today called for an investigation of GEO Group, a for-profit prison and detention center operator that runs a halfway house in the Tenderloin. 

“We’ve heard now several complaints over the last several weeks about overcrowding, exploitation, about the living conditions at the facility,” Mahmood, the District 5 supervisor, said. 

Those complaints culminated following last week’s death of Melvin Bulauan, who moved into the facility at 111 Taylor St. earlier this month, and a week later was found dead. 

It’s unclear if Bulauan’s death had anything to do with GEO Group’s procedures. Mahmood said he would subpoena representatives from the company to testify before the Board of Supervisors this fall to answer questions about the facility, as well as their involvement with the federal government in detaining immigrants.

Bulauan, 44, had a stint of sobriety last year during a term in San Quentin prison and, later, a stretch in the psychiatric ward in Atascadero State Hospital. Upon release, his family said, he did not want to be placed back in the Tenderloin.

Born in the Philippines, Bulauan grew up in San Francisco. He spent years in the Tenderloin struggling with drug addiction and mental illness, shuffling in and out of facilities, according to his family. In July 2023, Bulauan attacked a man in the street while suffering a psychotic break, his public defender reportedly said.  

Bulauan served at least part of a sentence for that attack at San Quentin before his transfer to Atascadero. But earlier this month, doctors released him from Atascadero and sent him back to the Tenderloin. More specifically, he was placed in the Taylor Street Center, a reentry facility at 111 Taylor St. run by GEO Group, a global prison and detention facility operator. 

Less than a week after his arrival at the Taylor Street Center, Bulauan was dead. His body was found on July 14, just a block away.

The halfway house is located at the epicenter of San Francisco’s street drug scene. Drug and mental health recovery centers are often right in the middle of the environments many are trying to escape, sometimes by design. 

The location was already in the news last week because of an effort by trans advocates to reclaim the building, which is the site of the historic Compton’s Cafeteria riot in 1966. GEO has operated at the site for 30 years. 

“He was self-aware that this was not a good place to be at,” said Bulauan’s sister, Michelle San Miguel, who noted that they had grown up in the area and knew it inside and out. “Why would we decide to put him in this location? It’s almost like we wanted the cycle to continue.” 

On July 13, less than a week after he arrived, Bulauan’s family said he began calling them repeatedly, in distress. Bulauan had bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia, and had been in and out of treatment and incarceration. Still, said Anjru Jaezon de Leon, Bulauan’s 25-year-old son, the calls raised red flags; he had never heard his father admit to being afraid.  

His family believes that Bulauan’s history and behavior would justify keeping him under closer supervision. Instead, he was permitted to leave the facility. 

GEO Group receives funding per resident, and contracts with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Federal Bureau of Prisons to run the Taylor Street Center.

It runs two programs: One in which residents are still serving time and have more restrictions, and a second for residents in transition from prison. It’s unclear what program Bulauan was enrolled in.    

The director of the Taylor Street Center and GEO Group’s spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

Three of Bulauan’s children, aged 17 to 25, pleaded for attention to their father’s death on Thursday before the city’s Reentry Council, a committee that supports local services for people leaving jail. 

“We spent our lives watching our dad cycle through incarceration and untreated addiction in this city,” de Leon said at the council meeting. “His death is not an isolated tragedy, but part of a larger pattern of institutional failure.” 

Members of the council were apparently moved by the speeches, one wiping her eyes.

De Leon and his younger siblings grew up in the foster care system, but had always kept in touch with their father. 

The night before Bulauan died, de Leon said he tried to ask his father questions on the phone to understand how he was feeling. “Among some of his last words, he told me that: ‘Anjru, I’m scared, I’m feeling anxious, and I would rather go back to jail than stay here.’” 

De Leon and his family members began to call the facility for help, and soon were driving from across California toward San Francisco. 

But their calls to the Taylor Street Center failed to get their father help.  

“Before I could even complete my question, they hung up on me every time,” de Leon said. He tried three times. His grandmother, calling separately, was also hung up on. 

Another of Bulauan’s daughters, who wanted to be known as Leigh, was told by a front desk worker that they couldn’t provide information about residents, but was also told that they didn’t know anyone by Bulauan’s name.

“The workers just kept contradicting themselves,” Leigh said. She hit the road from Sacramento to check on her father at 111 Taylor St. 

By the time Bulauan’s family arrived a couple of hours later — from Sacramento, Merced, and Concord — Bulauan was gone. The family was surprised he’d been allowed to walk out of the facility, considering the bevy of permissions they needed to obtain to take him out for a visit the week before. At that point, the family said, Bulauan seemed stable.

“I was under the impression that if he left that facility, he would be in violation of his parole,” de Leon said. “The fact that they just let him walk out the front door … that really concerns us.” 

The family searched the streets of the Tenderloin, to no avail. The next day they received a call from the office of the medical examiner that Bulauan had been found dead.

A fire department spokesperson confirmed that around 2:50 a.m. on July 14, the department received a 911 call for a suspected overdose on the 200 block of Taylor Street, and medics were unable to revive the person.  

The office of the medical examiner did not confirm the cause of death, but Bulauan’s family knew he was afraid of using drugs again. 

“This was really a genuine first time he didn’t want to use,” de Leon said. 

In March, Mission Local reported on a man who was released under a “safe discharge” alone in a taxi to the Medical Respite and Sobering Center in SoMa, just a block from the streets where he had long lived and struggled with addiction. Soon after, he was arrested, and died in his jail cell. 

“You’re trying to rehab these people back into the community, but you’re literally putting them back where they came from,” said San Miguel, Bulauan’s sister. “That’s a complete disservice.” 

GEO Group has also been accused of coercing detainees to work for a dollar a day, not protecting inmates from gang violence and unsanitary conditions. The unsafe conditions during COVID were highlighted in a documentary by the Adachi Project, a project of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, in 2021.

Melvin Bulauan’s family is raising funds for his funeral here.