Mayor, supervisors spar over Tenderloin overdose prevention as city closes consumption site

Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Dean Preston traded sharply worded remarks June 13 at a San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting over the city's overdose-prevention plan and whether the administration has done enough to open a Tenderloin wellness hub.

Breed said the city has made arrests and offered services as part of a recent enforcement effort addressing open-air drug markets, and she disputed the board's characterization that the administration is not acting. "As of yesterday, 38 people have been arrested or cited under this effort," Breed said, adding that only three of those arrested identified as San Francisco residents and that, she said, none of those released had accepted offered services.

The dispute matters because the administration and the Department of Public Health (DPH) announced an overdose-prevention plan in September 2022 that described “wellness hubs” as a central element. Supervisor Dean Preston said the mayor and DPH committed at a public hearing last October to opening one such hub in the Tenderloin by June 30, 2023, and he said DPH had not issued a request for proposals to operate a site there after the Tenderloin linkage center was closed in December 2022.

Why it matters: The conversation puts two policy approaches against each other — a model of low-barrier, city-funded wellness hubs similar to a New York approach versus an enforcement-led approach combined with offers of services — and centers…