By Abigail Van Neely : missionlocal – excerpt
‘Street fair’-like tents proposed for site where drug-users could be offered choice of jail, treatment — or bus journey
A third of a parking lot at 469 Stevenson Street will become a temporary law enforcement and treatment center to curb drug use on Sixth Street.
Hours after the Board of Supervisors voted in support of giving Mayor Daniel Lurie expanded powers to mitigate the city’s drug, mental health and homelessness crises, San Francisco police held a town hall to address part of their contribution to the effort: a parking lot.
Specifically, a parking lot at 469 Stevenson St., a stone’s throw away from the notoriously chaotic Sixth Street corridor, which Lurie has focused on as an early priority for his administration.
Police plan to operate 469 Stevenson as a hub for directing drug users to services and offering to bus them out of San Francisco — or putting them in jail. The site was the subject of an infamous fight when the Board of Supervisors temporarily blocked hundreds of housing units there in 2021, which led the state to investigate the city’s housing laws.
The city is “keeping expectations low” as it tries “doing something different,” San Francisco Assistant Police Chief David Lazar said on Tuesday evening. But, Lazar said, “If the model works, we can copy and paste it.”… (more)
How will the SFPD determine if the experiment is working? If neighbors are feeling better about the streets’ conditions, users are taking advantage of the services, and 911 calls are down, Lazar said the city would consider the project a success.
RELATED: