In July, San Francisco passed legislation aiming to promote drug-free supportive housing and allow for evicting residents solely for drug-use — which wouldn’t be permitted under present state rules. But on Aug. 28, state legislators unanimously approved a new bill — also regarding drug-free housing — that will have major implications for San Francisco if Gov. Gavin Newsom signs it into law.
How the two bills would interact has been top-of-mind for San Franciscans focused on recovery, housing and recovery housing. The answer is nuanced — and entirely dependent on which funding stream providers accept to get their projects off the ground.
The likeliest solution? Two different types of drug-free housing, each with different rules on evictions, could make their way into San Francisco’s supportive housing portfolio.
The state bill’s author, San Francisco Assemblyman Matt Haney, says that Newsom is likely to sign it. If he does, the state bill would fundamentally change California’s Housing First initiative, which governs how state money can be spent on supportive housing. In future cases where San Francisco providers use both state and city funds, the state rules would override the city’s new drug-free housing rules.
But San Francisco’s drug-free housing law, authored by Supervisor Matt Dorsey, will remain in place for future supportive housing projects funded without state money — and with city and/or private funds.
Dorsey’s bill takes more of a hard-line approach against tenants who repeatedly relapse into drug-use, allowing them to be evicted solely for drug use and removed from permanent housing into shelters.
Haney’s bill ensures the opposite — that tenants will only be up for eviction if they use drugs on site and if they violate another term of their lease. His legislation also says tenants who relapse into drug-use will not be sent to temporary housing like homeless shelters, but must instead be offered placement in another permanent housing environment without rules on substance-free living.
There are more distinctions: The state bill also requires a “recovery-based” approach to supportive housing, which Dorsey’s city legislation does not. Recovery housing means tenants have access to on-site case management and other resources needed to address substance use disorder; it is a costlier and more robust form of supportive housing.
The way future drug-free housing projects will operate hinges on whether or not a project is funded with state money.
The differences in the two bills, and their requirements ensure that state money will not, and cannot, be funneled into the city’s model, in which tenants could be evicted solely for drug-use and put into homeless shelters.
This stopgap has eased the minds of some housing advocates, who feel a more service-rich recovery model and protections against eviction will be the more successful form of drug-free housing.
“Haney went out and made sure he was writing something that would be additive to the affordable housing industry,” said Sam Moss, executive director of Mission Housing, which runs several hundred units of permanent supportive housing for San Francisco’s formerly homeless.
The city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing will be in charge of working out the details for how each type of housing will operate. Dorsey’s legislation called on the department to create these regulations.
For now, department leaders have confirmed that none of the city’s current supportive housing sites will convert to drug-free housing. Both pieces of legislation will apply only to future projects.
State funds freed up for recovery-based housing
In the next two fiscal years, San Francisco will receive $25 million in state funds for supportive housing, making up about 1.5 percent of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing’s total $1.6 billion two-year budget. The largest portion of the budget is dedicated to housing.
Not all supportive housing in San Francisco is the same.
Dorsey’s legislation focuses specifically on permanent supportive housing. To qualify for this housing, a tenant must be formerly homeless and be signed onto a long-term lease, typically with a subsidy that requires the tenant to only pay 30 percent of total rent costs. Providers must also offer these tenants case management and wraparound services on-site to navigate a successful long-term exit from homelessness.
As the city works to determine regulations for the state’s version of more supportive and programmatic drug-free housing, leaders at the Homelessness and Supportive Housing department say all drug-free models will likely exist in “site-based” housing projects, where 100 percent of the units in a specific building support qualified permanent supportive housing residents.
There are currently 158 site-based buildings in San Francisco housing 9,649 units of permanent supportive housing. The city also manages 2,748 scattered-site units, which are singular units that exist in buildings that also have different types of supportive housing.
Of the 158 site-based projects, 41 use at least some form of state funding and 49 are funded using solely city funds, according to data provided by the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.
Housing providers say the release of funds from the state to be used for sober housing is a game-changer.
“This is the first time that our industry will be provided the resources that we’ve been asking for,” Moss said. “We are going to go after some of that funding.”
Mission Housing operates seven site-based supportive housing sites, adding up to 242 individual units. These buildings are paid for using different federal funding streams. But that funding isn’t enough — Mission Housing owns commercial spaces under some of its properties that create revenue through leases and help the organization meet all of its costs.
“Haney’s bill passing is the government admitting that it should’ve been providing this kind of help all along,” Moss said.
That legislation makes it clear that the success of recovery-based, sober supportive housing lies in a tenant’s ability to access resources on-site to specifically address their substance abuse disorder.
The city already operates other supportive housing in a way that addresses specific needs, including those of the elderly, transitional-aged youth and people who identify as LGBTQ+.
Staff and tenants at a transitional-aged youth site at 42 Otis say the on-site programming is paramount. There are currently 22 formerly homeless youth between the ages of 18 and 24 living at the South of Market location. Some have experienced domestic violence; others entered homelessness after aging out of the foster system.
A team of trained staff work on-site, helping tenants find jobs, access medical care, register for food stamps and more.
“The fact that there’s case managers on site working all hours is incredibly helpful,” said 42 Otis tenant Hannah Gong, 24. “Because I’m living here because of a mental health disability.”
Before moving into permanent supportive housing, Gong was living in a shelter after experiencing multiple mental health crises. She enrolled in an extensive therapy program that provided her with a case manager who helped transition her to supportive housing six months ago. Now, she is on her feet — she has a full-time job and is in college, studying math and psychology.
Local efforts to prioritize sober environments
There is currently only one permanent supportive housing site with 42 units at 1174 Folsom St. that is drug-free, but it does not provide support or programs catered to people addressing a substance use disorder.
The site is a model for what drug-free housing under Dorsey’s bill could look like.
“We also started from a place where we were going to do recovery housing,” Dorsey said. “We shouldn’t create a perverse incentive that people who want to live in a drug-free environment have to be diagnosed with a substance use disorder to qualify.”
In Dorsey’s adamant separation from the state’s requirements, he redefines drug-free housing in the simplest sense: no drugs on the premises of supportive housing sites, simply because that is what the tenants want. But, this type of housing would not qualify for state funding and would need significant buy-in — literally and figuratively — from the city and private partners.
Dorsey said the city will begin surveying its current residents in permanent supportive housing to determine whether tenants prefer the state or the city’s version of drug-free housing, which will help identify which of the two models to prioritize.
