Just after 10 a.m. on Monday, San Francisco police pulled up to the city’s new 24-hour sobering center at 444 Sixth St. and delivered a man in handcuffs. He was the first person to be brought there instead of the hospital or county jail down the block.
One could call this man the first arrestee, client or patient. The “Rapid Enforcement, Support, Evaluation, and Triage” center opened today despite concerns about its legality and conflicting answers from city officials about whether intoxicated people there would be free to leave.
A city attorney memo obtained by Mission Local in February flagged a “high risk” that a court would find the RESET center to be a “detention facility,” which, by state law, would be required to meet certain standards that the center does not appear to meet.
A 24-hour police “drop off” center is a goal Mayor Daniel Lurie has been touting since his inauguration day.
The first arrestee/client/patient emerged from the police car with his head down. One of the officers accompanying him held a plastic bag containing what appeared to be a flannel blanket. Another filled out a form on a clipboard. Then they walked through the open entranceway of the $14 million converted warehouse on Sixth Street.
Inside, a dozen staff in sheriff’s deputy uniforms and nurses’ scrubs gathered around the man. Earlier, a deputy told Mission Local that the team had been expecting someone any minute, ready to offer what the deputy described as an “alternative to jail.”
It seemed as though law enforcement at the RESET center would not compel passersby to enter if they were not brought in by police. Half an hour before, a woman had staggered past the center. She was incoherent when this reporter spoke to her.
After being escorted through a metal detector, the man in handcuffs sat in one of the three plastic chairs placed next to a locker. A healthcare worker kneeled in front of him with a stethoscope.
According to Sheriff Paul Miyamoto and Lurie, the man will likely be released from custody in four to eight hours. But Miyamoto’s attorney, Rani Singh, said that people could “technically” walk out immediately after intake, if they choose.
Ten minutes after the man had been brought in, the crowd of staffers around him had mostly dispersed, disappearing into the depths of the shotgun-style building, where 25 leather chairs waited for people to recline on as they sober up.
A man in a wheelchair watched the proceedings from the sidewalk outside. Some homeless people would be glad to go into a place like that just to have a place to sit, he said.
But he didn’t expect anyone to stay sober after leaving — even if they were dropped off there in handcuffs. “The city’s got so many places they can do that at,” the man said about receiving addiction treatment. “If they’re looking for it, they can find it.”
Earlier, he said, he’d watched workers paint the center slate grey, a similar color to the nearby jail building. “An alternative to jail?” he asked this reporter. “It’s jail, ain’t it?”