In early February, Mayor Daniel Lurie launched the triage center, a place for police officers to send people detained for illegal drug activity. After a health assessment, the person would be offered everything from addiction treatment services to a bus ticket back to their hometown. However, the intention of the open-air site, located on Sixth and Jesse streets, seems to have changed, and the Coalition on Homelessness has attempted a coup.
The center is part of the mayor’s push toward recovery. From 2020 to 2024, over 3,400 people lost their lives to overdose in San Francisco. The city’s reputation had nosedived due to the squalor and crime that come with public drug use. To repair this, Lurie made significant changes to how the city is contending with the drug trade and addiction problem. Radical harm reduction methods that included mobile sites — where nonprofits like the San Francisco AIDS Foundation would give fentanyl foil and meth pipes to users — are out. Detox, treatment, and recovery are in.
On Thursday, April 10, a series of posters eschewing the administration’s goals appeared on the triage center’s wall. The Coalition on Homelessness Instagram account shows photos of their members putting up the same posters (location, not specified) and offered their reasons:
“As promised, in the last few weeks Daniel Lurie has put the fentanyl crisis at the center of his new term’s agenda. This includes a processing center in a parking lot on 6th Street referred to as a ‘triage center,’ to essentially shuffle people out of the city or to jail.”
“As we see politicians spew rhetoric that attacks harm reduction, some of us may ask ourselves what harm reduction really is.”
“… harm reduction is an evidence-based approach that is critical to engaging with people who use drugs and equipping them with life-saving tools and information to create positive change in their lives ….
“Harm Reduction Saves Lives Harm Reduction is Science Harm Reduction is Recovery. sign the petition in the link tree in our bio to join community advocates in opposing a harmful SF drug policy.”
By mid-April, the triage center has transitioned into more of a drop-in center for the area’s entrenched street fentanyl addicts. The change is not necessarily counter to the overarching purpose of Lurie’s original plan. When the site is in operation (currently on weekdays, though a round-the-clock operation is the goal, should it prove success) the beleaguered block shows signs of improvement. It’s calmer with fewer people languishing on the sidewalk.
The center provides snacks, such as hot coffee, juice, and bags of chips, which people can consume at the picnic tables or take away. The site is open to all; nothing is hidden.
It’s not perfect, though. On April 12, JJ Smith, a concerned resident who documents the city’s homelessness crisis, recorded evidence of drug use in the triage center. It’s not allowed, but the workers — from the departments of Public Health, Homelessness and Supportive Housing (and its homeless outreach team), Public Works, and nonprofits such as Code Tenderloin — either can’t keep up, turn a blind eye, or condone it unless problems emerge.
Still, police officers and sheriffs are present and do eject rule-breakers. This is in stark contrast to former Mayor London Breed’s Linkage Center, which operated at United Nations Plaza for about a year in 2022 and quickly became an unofficial drug den. Dealers passed their products through holes in the fence while the general public, media, and even law enforcement personnel were not allowed inside.
So how did Coalition on Homelessness posters that protest the purpose of the site wind up on the triage center’s walls? Was drug activity taking place?
On Monday, April 14, I visited the center. The posters were still up. I asked the workers about them, but most refused to answer until one man came over to talk with me. He said he wasn’t aware of what the posters were advertising, and when I explained, he became agitated.
“No, this isn’t right,” he said. “I’m taking these down.” He immediately started to scrape them off the wall.
I contacted Kunal Modi, the city’s chief of health, homelessness, and family services for San Francisco, appointed by Lurie, about the situation. “It’s unacceptable, plain and simple,” he said in a direct message on X. “On it and will find out what happened. There’s obviously a lot of work still to do to re-take the corridor. We will stay on it.”
While at the triage center, I asked the on-duty officer if the Coalition on Homelessness is formally involved with the site, and he said no. Yet, their attempt at a messaging takeover was clear. They do not want the city to stop even the more extreme harm reduction methods, such as providing all the substance use supplies a user could ever want.
The coalition and extreme harm reduction activists are swimming against the tide. The Board of Supervisors voted 10–1 to support Lurie’s Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinance. City policies regarding harm reduction are changing, and fast.
As for drugs, it was no surprise that most people at the triage center seemed to be under the influence. That’s what it’s for. From my vantage point, I didn’t see anyone actively using drugs. The officer said the center does not allow it, and he tells people to leave if they start. Overall, I found the site peaceful, especially compared to the sidewalk one step away. “You should see this street at 5 a.m., before [the center] opens,” the officer said. “It’s scary.”
Before I left, the officer stopped me. “You know what I noticed, being here?,” he asked. “If it wasn’t for the coffee, no one would come in.”
