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Officials describe limited use of San Francisco's housing conservatorship and pilot steps to broaden pathways
Summary
At a committee hearing on SB 1045 housing conservatorship, city health and conservatorship officials said the program has reached a small number of people so far because of strict eligibility, documentation requirements and placement shortages. Departments described an outpatient referral pilot, early conservatorship placements and plans to expand placement options while stressing the importance of voluntary upstream services.
Supervisor Rafael Mandelmann, sponsor of the hearing, opened by recounting the board's decision to opt into the state SB 1045 conservatorship framework and said the city has moved slowly to implement it. Mandelmann said he convened the hearing to assess progress and lessons learned after nearly two years.
Jill Nielsen, Deputy Director of Programs for the Office of the Public Conservator, and Angelica Almeida, director of Forensic and Justice-Involved Behavioral Health Services at the Department of Public Health (DPH), described legal and practical hurdles that have limited the program's reach. Nielsen told the committee the local implementation had become more complex than original drafts because of added state and local requirements: the city must compile hospital documentation for each 5150 hold and meet strengthened voluntary-service-offer requirements derived from SB 40 and local ordinance amendments. She said those documentation thresholds make preparing a conservatorship case time-consuming and legally vulnerable if contested.
Almeida described…
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