The San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF), a nonprofit community health organization that combines harm reduction strategies with a social justice focus, appears to be violating a citywide mandate launched by Mayor Daniel Lurie.
In an effort to stem the city’s long-standing drug addiction and overdose crisis, the administration created the Breaking the Cycle policy in May 2025. A key provision of the ordinance prohibits the distribution of supplies intended for illegal drug use in the city’s public spaces.
Since the ordinance’s adoption, city departments and nonprofit organizations that receive city funding have been barred from distributing items such as fentanyl foil and pipes for crack cocaine and methamphetamine in public spaces. The restriction applies to public streets and sidewalks, as well as distribution from vehicles.
Now, so-called “safer supplies” are only allowed to be distributed indoors at sanctioned sites and must be paired with referrals to treatment and counseling. City-funded organizations risk losing support if they continue operating as open-access harm reduction points in public spaces.
However, video footage recorded by Tenderloin Deli and Connect owner JJ Smith on May 25, 2026, shows SFAF workers doling out a variety of free drug-use supplies from folding tables holding multiple plastic containers. The nonprofit’s white van is visible in the background. A man wearing a white sweatshirt bearing “Clean-Up Crew” and the crossed-syringes logo is seen taking things out of the van. SFAF operates this group.
In the video, shot on the 2400 block of Keith Street in the Bayview neighborhood, a man (a friend of Smith’s) in a baseball cap asks an SFAF worker in a dark jacket what items are available. The worker lists what she has to give, such as socks, condoms, and toothbrushes.
“Oh, you don’t have pipes?” he asks.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can get for you,” she responds.
The man inquires about straight pipes, typically used for crack cocaine, and those that have a sphere at the end (called “bubbles”), which are commonly used for methamphetamine but are now increasingly used for illegal fentanyl. The woman confirms they have both types of pipes to give.
Although the man didn’t ask for it, the worker also offered him foil, which is primarily used to ingest fentanyl.
After the man left the site with a plastic bag of goods he received from SFAF, Smith asked him to show the contents. The man emptied the bag, which contained a bubble pipe and a wire pad for crack cocaine preparation.
We reached out to SFAF for an explanation by both phone and email. In the email, we attached Smith’s videos and images showing the drug paraphernalia their employees had given the man.
Emily Land, SFAF’s vice president of public affairs, responded by writing that they operate a mobile site in the parking lot of Southeast Family Health Center in Bayview. She wrote that it is operated in collaboration with the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), which owns and operates the center. According to Land, the site operates in compliance with SFDPH policies.
However, we explained that the Southeast Family Health Center was not the location we referenced.
Land then disputed the age and location of the video, writing that “it was filmed some time ago at an outdoor site at 16th and Weiss, which we don’t provide services at any longer.”
We pointed out that the video is time-stamped May 25, 2026, and that the Keith Street location has been confirmed. Land denied having any information about it, insisting that SFAF does not “distribute safer use supplies in violation of city policy.”
Again, we pressed for clarification based on the evidence. Does Land deny that SFAF was distributing crack and meth pipes out of a van on the 2400 block of Keith Street on May 25?
At that point, Land stopped communicating.
Meanwhile, other SFAF mobile harm reduction sites, including the one behind a Safeway store in the Castro and another on Hemlock Street in the Tenderloin, appear to have ceased operations in compliance with the city ordinance.
So why has SFAF continued giving people struggling with addiction the tools to consume illegal and highly toxic substances at the Bayview location, a neighborhood with San Francisco’s highest concentration of Black residents? That question vexes Smith.
“The worst part about this is they woke up this morning and said, hey, let’s take this to the Black community where there is a park named Martin Luther King and we know there’s gonna be a lot of Black people there socializing,” wrote Smith in an X post.
Regarding compliance and the city pledging to pull support from organizations that flout the mandate, we turned to the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH). This city department is supposed to enforce the rules outlined in the Breaking the Cycle ordinance.
In an email, SFDPH wrote that they regularly and proactively monitor and check their contractors to ensure compliance with the Pilot Treatment Connections and Safer Use Supplies Distribution Policy. Apparently, this includes monthly data submissions, regular meetings, and site visits where they directly observe services.
Additionally, SFDPH specifies that they investigate all complaints.
Such an investigation “includes unannounced site visits at service locations to observe services and regular discussions with contractor leadership. If a contractor is observed to be noncompliant with contract terms after monitoring is escalated, they would be held accountable.”
If SFDPH discovers that the policy is not being followed, they will implement a progressive three-tiered process intended to fix the problem.
The first time an organization is found to have broken the rules, SFDPH issues a remedial plan. Repeated violations result in an “Agency Technical Plan” that outlines corrective actions. If the organization continues to persistently break the rules, it will be given a “Corrective Action Plan,” which may result in loss of funding.
SFDPH’s process would hardly strike fear in an organization committed to distributing an endless supply of drug-use tools. Funding cuts are only a possibility and could go into effect only after a lengthy and documented history of violations.
Moreover, none of these monitoring and accountability tiers describes a way for the city to actually prevent an organization from handing out drug supplies.
Clearly, the cycle has yet to be broken. With so few meaningful repercussions, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation is brazenly telling the mayor’s office who is really in charge.
