SF supervisor calls for tougher legal action against homeless, drug users

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Even as SJ watered down its Responsibility to Shelter ordinance, adding new levels of "discretion," SF Supervisor Matt Dorsey calls for tough love for homeless addicts. KRON4 reports.

District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who oversees the city’s SoMa neighborhood, said in a press release that he wants to see 100 arrests per night. Dorsey also called for court-mandated treatment for drug users.

“New approaches are urgently needed to restore order to our streets, to diminish San Francisco’s attraction as a destination city for drug use and drug dealing, and to make lifesaving interventions in behavior that’s deadlier and more costly than ever before,” Dorsey said.

Several members of the community have criticized his idea. The San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness called the plan “a page right out of Project 2025.”

Go Deeper:

• Here's how SJ and SF approach homelessness—and what needs to change (1/4)
• Chron op-ed: Housing First's no-barrier orthodoxy
• Local Salvation Army head: Sober homeless shelters a safe and effective methodology (2/4)

While Dorsey wants his plan implemented around downtown San Francisco, he singled out Sixth Street as an area where the city’s drug problem is especially bad. The San Francisco Police Department estimated that 200 people use drugs on a quarter-mile stretch of the street each night.

Dorsey himself is a recovered addict. He believes the city’s current practices simply move drug users around the city, which leads to “drug enablism and neglectful cruelty.”

“Get drug-related offenders off the streets — and optimally into drug treatment — rather than simply moved to different streets,” Dorsey said of his plan’s goal.

Read the whole thing here.

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