Meet the Candidates: San Francisco’s District 6 supervisor race

Alex Behrend

• Job: No current job, formerly a voter organizer for Dean Preston’s 2024 campaign, a Safeway checker and a housekeeper at the San Francisco Zen Center
• Age: 54
• Residency: Renter living in District 6 since April 2026, and in San Francisco since 2011, with a previous stint in 1990-91 while attending the University of San Francisco
• Transportation: Public transit, walking
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from UC San Diego
• Languages: English
• Website: Alex for All

The power imbalance between local businesses and corporate property owners is murder on neighborhood commercial corridors! 

The city cannot pussyfoot around as landlords spike rent on small businesses while vacant storefronts are everywhere.

Organizing, resources and oversight are necessary protections against corporate greed. When landlords and banksters know shopowner rights are protected and the city won’t roll over, predatory practices aren’t enticing. 

We need a Public Bank to ensure local businesses — vital for neighborhoods — are properly capitalized. The Public Bank will deliver ROI for all city residents. [ED. NOTE: Proposition B, on the November 3 ballot, lays the groundwork for a public bank, though it will not provide the estimated $325 million that it will take to get the bank up and running. Matt Dorsey is one of 9 supervisors supporting the measure.] 

We’re the most important economic stakeholders here — not Wall Street and faraway landlords.

Matt Dorsey

• Job: Current District 6 Supervisor
• Age: 61
• Residency: Renter, living in District 6 since 2008, has lived in San Francisco since 1990 (except for four years in Washington, D.C.).
• Transportation: Public transit, walking, biking
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from Emerson College
• Languages: English
• Website: Reelect Matt Dorsey 2026

Most of what I hear from SoMa businesses is frustration at the unfairness of playing by the rules while the city tolerates business-killing lawlessness all around them. San Francisco demands a lot from our law-abiding businesses — and yet we seemingly allow public drug use, drug dealing, retail theft, vandalism, violence, illegal vending, and more undermine them every day. It’s not a level playing field. It’s not fair. And it’s a predictable result of a police staffing crisis we haven’t done enough to solve. Supporting SoMa businesses means enforcing the law — consistently and fully — to end unlawful competition and improve safety.

Alex Behrend

• Job: No current job, formerly a voter organizer for Dean Preston’s 2024 campaign, a Safeway checker and a housekeeper at the San Francisco Zen Center
• Age: 54
• Residency: Renter living in District 6 since April 2026, and in San Francisco since 2011, with a previous stint in 1990-91 while attending the University of San Francisco
• Transportation: Public transit, walking
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from UC San Diego
• Languages: English
• Website: Alex for All

I’m a formerly unhoused worker. 

It’s obvious that ambitious City Hall insiders cynically ignore whether ENOUGH is being spent to end homelessness.

If a homeowner needs $50K in roof repairs but decides to spend $30K, do you blame the contractor for ongoing leaks??

Accountability must start with those driving homelessness … landlords preying on tenants & corporations paying inadequate wages.

Accountability is also needed for Salvation Army’s $20 million in grants. (An SF court has been ordered to address whether the evangelical organization evades wage laws by misclassifying “Work Therapy” participants.)

Finally, accountability means MORE of what prevents homelessness – Eviction Defense funding.

Matt Dorsey

• Job: Current District 6 Supervisor
• Age: 61
• Residency: Renter, living in District 6 since 2008, has lived in San Francisco since 1990 (except for four years in Washington, D.C.).
• Transportation: Public transit, walking, biking
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from Emerson College
• Languages: English
• Website: Reelect Matt Dorsey 2026

Accountability has to go both ways. I’ve seen too many examples of City Hall expecting nonprofit partners to solve problems they were never designed or equipped to solve. As we move toward contracts that reward outcomes, we should work with providers to set fair, meaningful standards and give them the tools to succeed. That means clear expectations, timely contracts and payments, reliable data, coordinated referrals, and enough housing and treatment capacity to make success possible. Providers should be accountable for what they can control — and City departments should be accountable for removing barriers. The goal is better results, not blame.

Matt Dorsey

• Job: Current District 6 Supervisor
• Age: 61
• Residency: Renter, living in District 6 since 2008, has lived in San Francisco since 1990 (except for four years in Washington, D.C.).
• Transportation: Public transit, walking, biking
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from Emerson College
• Languages: English
• Website: Reelect Matt Dorsey 2026

Yes. I support a four-pillars approach to drug policy: Prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement.

Harm reduction plays an important role in our services continuum, but we can’t settle for harm reduction being the end goal of our drug policies and programs. San Francisco should continue to fund naloxone distribution, drug-checking services, syringe access, and low-barrier connections to medications for addiction.

Beyond harm reduction, we also need treatment on demand, more recovery and drug-free housing, effective prevention, and enforcement against drug dealing and public drug use. Our goal should be fewer deaths, less addiction, and more people achieving recovery.

Matt Dorsey

• Job: Current District 6 Supervisor
• Age: 61
• Residency: Renter, living in District 6 since 2008, has lived in San Francisco since 1990 (except for four years in Washington, D.C.).
• Transportation: Public transit, walking, biking
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from Emerson College
• Languages: English
• Website: Reelect Matt Dorsey 2026

Editor’s note: Mission Local initially coded Dorsey’s response as “ambiguous.” After publication, Dorsey clarified that his answer was “No,” writing, “There’s no contradiction between my concerns about geographic equity for services and the RESET Center.” His original response appears below.

The RESET Center is an approach I’ve long advocated for San Francisco to make more arrests and better custodial interventions for public drug use.

Unlike homeless services that may attract voluntary participants to the neighborhood, the RESET Center is an involuntary intervention — just short of a jail booking — that aims to hold habitual drug-users accountable for addiction-driven lawlessness in SoMa, while better connecting those in custody to gold-standard addiction medications and drug treatment.

It’s showing impressive success: Reducing police time from hours to minutes to get drug use off the streets, and posting a services referral rate approaching 40 percent.

Matt Dorsey

• Job: Current District 6 Supervisor
• Age: 61
• Residency: Renter, living in District 6 since 2008, has lived in San Francisco since 1990 (except for four years in Washington, D.C.).
• Transportation: Public transit, walking, biking
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from Emerson College
• Languages: English
• Website: Reelect Matt Dorsey 2026

Revitalizing Sixth Street starts with honoring the City’s commitment to geographic equity and taking seriously neighborhood residents’ legitimate complaints about bearing a wildly disproportionate share of homelessness services.

Four years ago, San Francisco opened a $13.5 million Maria X. Martinez Health Resource Center at Stevenson and Sixth streets for comprehensive health and dental care — yet left open every duplicative nonprofit storefront, including Hospitality House.

Our city’s persistent budget crisis is enforcing efficiencies upon us, and right-sizing support services is part of that. The rest is empowering small businesses to activate neighborhood-serving storefronts through targeted grants, fee waivers, and workforce support.

Matt Dorsey

• Job: Current District 6 Supervisor
• Age: 61
• Residency: Renter, living in District 6 since 2008, has lived in San Francisco since 1990 (except for four years in Washington, D.C.).
• Transportation: Public transit, walking, biking
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from Emerson College
• Languages: English
• Website: Reelect Matt Dorsey 2026

San Francisco already has some of the nation’s most stringent privacy safeguards in place now: Our voter-amended surveillance technology ordinance; our independent Department of Police Accountability; our police commission; and 21st century police reforms SFPD has adopted to ensure constitutional policing.

However, I also believe safety technologies are too important to a fair and functional justice system to tolerate abuses that could diminish public support or undermine its effectiveness.

So, I’m open to new guardrails that deter and punish misuses, but would oppose limitations premised on speculative harms to prohibit technologies that are measurably enhancing public safety and solving crimes.

Matt Dorsey

• Job: Current District 6 Supervisor
• Age: 61
• Residency: Renter, living in District 6 since 2008, has lived in San Francisco since 1990 (except for four years in Washington, D.C.).
• Transportation: Public transit, walking, biking
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from Emerson College
• Languages: English
• Website: Reelect Matt Dorsey 2026

Three things: 

Fully staff SFPD;

Deploy more speed enforcement cameras; and

Expand automated license plate readers (ALPRs) and drone usage. 

There’s no substitute for police full staffing. Although we’re finally hiring more cops than we’re losing to retirements (for the first time since 2019), our voter-mandated staffing methodology shows we’re now nearly 650 officers short of the 2,257 full-duty cops needed.

Beyond that, SFPD’s voter-authorized safety technologies have been hugely successful, and we need more of them. Speed cameras have cut dangerous speeding by 80%, and our ALPRs and drones are dramatically reducing car break-ins and helping solve crimes.

Matt Dorsey

• Job: Current District 6 Supervisor
• Age: 61
• Residency: Renter, living in District 6 since 2008, has lived in San Francisco since 1990 (except for four years in Washington, D.C.).
• Transportation: Public transit, walking, biking
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from Emerson College
• Languages: English
• Website: Reelect Matt Dorsey 2026

New Medicaid eligibility requirements taking effect in January 2027 could devastate progress on drug treatment, as the New York Times flagged last year.

As the incoming Budget Committee chair, I’m already working with Mayor Lurie, SFDPH and others to ensure that we’re closely engaged with every individual in drug treatment who’s a beneficiary of Medi-Cal (that’s what we call Medicaid in California) to ensure that no one loses benefits unnecessarily.

In some cases, that may mean connecting people with jobs to help them remain eligible — but they’re local dollars well spent to ensure uninterrupted drug treatment and recovery.

Matt Dorsey

• Job: Current District 6 Supervisor
• Age: 61
• Residency: Renter, living in District 6 since 2008, has lived in San Francisco since 1990 (except for four years in Washington, D.C.).
• Transportation: Public transit, walking, biking
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from Emerson College
• Languages: English
• Website: Reelect Matt Dorsey 2026

Yes, although changes to state law could give it more teeth, and enable us to make more progress sooner to offer drug-free Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) options to those exiting homelessness.

First, by itself, my ordinance will require new locally funded PSH sites to be drug-free, with the same provisions governing standard residential leases in California. [Ed. note: the ordinance exempts funding for new construction, as well as projects where drug-free operation would conflict with the law or other funding conditions.]  

Second, the legislation also requires a survey of PSH residents citywide, and establishes city policy to meet residents’ demand for drug-free or drug-tolerant buildings moving forward. 

Matt Dorsey

• Job: Current District 6 Supervisor
• Age: 61
• Residency: Renter, living in District 6 since 2008, has lived in San Francisco since 1990 (except for four years in Washington, D.C.).
• Transportation: Public transit, walking, biking
• Education: Bachelors, degree from Emerson College
• Languages: English
• Website: Reelect Matt Dorsey 2026

Fighting to make long-term recovery the centerpiece of San Francisco’s drug policy and programming was my #1 reason for seeking this job four years ago. And there’s no policy priority that’ll be closer to my heart in my second term should District 6 voters re-elect me. 

I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished so far — the Recovery First Ordinance, Cash Not Drugs, Drug-Free Housing, and more — but with Trump cuts to Medicaid poised to eviscerate federal support for drug treatment in 2027, we have our work cut out for us to backfill funding and protect our investments in treatment and recovery.