The Gubbio Project, a homeless shelter located at 1661 15th Street, has come under fire from nearby residents. They say their neighborhood has badly deteriorated because of the drug activity, filth, and vagrancy it attracts.
A May 2025 protest about the alarming conditions was well attended by such advocacy groups as Drug-Free Sidewalks, but since then no meaningful progress has been made.
Andrés Wíken, who lives on the same block as the Gubbio Project, wrote on the X platform that his children “have seen death on their front porch” because of the shelter. “Heard screams all night, stepped in their diarrhea and spread it inside our home!” he wrote. “I almost lost my sanity protesting it all last year.”
Wíken is not alone. The dense environment around the shelter has never been worse, neighbors say. So bad, in fact, that they planned a rally for the same day as the nonprofit organization’s March board meeting. No more chances; they want the city to close the Gubbio Project.
I arrived about 30 minutes early to find a few bedraggled people slowly sweeping the sidewalk. Many others, seemingly intoxicated, milled around. One man was loudly yelling in the adjacent alley, Caledonia Street. CEO Lydia Branson was setting up a card table, and she said Gubbio distributed the brooms for people to clean.
Still, the streets smelled intensely of excrement and urine. Branson and I discussed the lack of accessible restrooms, and she offered to let me use the one in the shelter.
It was my first time inside the Gubbio Project. The spacious outdoor area was crowded. Many people were vaping something; a good number were nodding off. As I was leaving, a large rat dashed by. Both Branson and I jumped, but she said it’s normal.
By then approximately a dozen community members and supporters had gathered on the corner of Julian and Caledonia Streets. One man on a bike, who described himself as an old-school punk, said he had extensive experience working on left-wing causes and with notable politicians in City Hall. He was deeply disturbed by Supervisor Jackie Fielder (the Mission is her district), explaining that union issues are her concern, not the residents who are upset by the entrenched and increasing squalor.
Violence has become a common occurrence, said Steff Jimenez, Wíken’s wife. She was with their small child and described a recent incident where she came close to a knife-wielding man who was threatening another man. Jimenez was forced to pick up her daughter and run to safety.
Branson informed the community group that the meeting was canceled because one of the board members had a death in the family. She would take questions anyway.
The main concern, I told Branson, seems to be not what is happening within the shelter but in the public space around it. The Gubbio Project has become a point of ire because their guests are directly impacting safety of the neighborhood, which consists of a senior center, an elementary school, homeowners, renters, and businesses. I asked her to stick with that subject.
Branson emphasized that the shelter is an integral part of the community and said they take about 120 people off the street each day, keeping them safe and connecting them with services.
I pointed out that the people are not just inside but congregate on the sidewalks and alleys around the building. Branson disputed that the shelter is at fault, saying people go to Gubbio because it’s in the Mission and that there has been a homeless problem in the area for decades.
Yet neighbors say conditions have worsened due to the intensifying drug crisis. The shelter isn’t just meeting the needs of hungry and tired locals with no place to call home, but drawing crowds of people with severe substance disorders into the area. At Gubbio they get free food, can sleep and socialize, and are provided with drug-use supplies.
Guests are not permitted to do drugs inside the shelter, but Branson affirmed that it happens. To avoid overdoses in the restroom, people are timed out at five minutes.
I asked Branson if she thought there would be any community outrage if there were no illegal drug activity, mental breakdowns, public bath-rooming, fighting, and dog issues on the street.
“Probably not,” she admitted.
Does the shelter have control over the situation?
She gestured to Julian Street, showing the area is clear and no one is using drugs in public at the moment.
“When we opened in 2020, this entire building was surrounded with an encampment,” she said, asserting that the shelter has benefited the area.
Branson then began to discuss the shelter’s services and the city’s drug supply issues, so I steered her back to the subject: the affected neighbors who feel ignored. They are angry and want Gubbio closed because it has had such a negative impact on their quality of life.
I explained that when I arrived, many people who appeared to be in substance-induced states were on the block. It felt dangerous and chaotic.
Does Branson really believe the shelter can stop being disruptive to the community at large?
Yes, she said, and by working in partnership with the police, the Department of Public Works, the Department of Public Health, and the Hot Team, they are improving the neighborhood every day. Branson insisted the situation would be worse without the shelter.
“And as many of our neighbors who show up and say that they don’t like what we do, we have neighbors who volunteer with us,” she said. “Three of my staff live within a block of here. We are part of this neighborhood, and we will continue to be part of this neighborhood.”
But if the area around the shelter were safe, clean and orderly, a rally like this wouldn’t be taking place at all. When I explained that community members had told me how unhappy they are about the Gubbio Project, she suggested they reach out to her directly.
“And then what will you do?,” I asked.
“Have a conversation about how we can make changes,” she said. “Talk to some of our neighbors that we have negotiated with and worked with to improve things, you know, and they say, ‘This is what I want to feel better.’ And I’m like, O.K., well, let’s get this done.”
According to Branson, the Gubbio Project has four people working outside from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. “This street used to be wall-to-wall people,” she said. “It is not anymore. It is fluid. We keep people moving. We don’t let people hang out. We have improved this neighborhood.”
In a follow-up email on March 23, Branson sent a few photos, which she claimed shows that the Gubbio Project has successfully resolved the area’s encampments.
However, Gina McDee, one of the founders of Mothers Against Drug Addiction and Deaths, also attended the rally, and tells a starkly different story.
“Watching people shuffle out of Gubbio at closing was disturbing,” she said in an X post to Wíken. “They literally set up camp all over your hood! It’s a magnet.”
Images and videos from people who live on and near 15th Street and Julian Avenue continue to document tents, garbage, and clusters of people in various stages of inebriation around the Gubbio Project.
“Saturday and Sunday Gubbio is closed and has dozens of drug users hang out and camp out front,” says Wíken. “Even holidays. Every weekend it piles up.”
So can a shelter serving over 100 people dealing with serious drug addiction and mental health problems operate without destroying the surrounding neighborhood? Branson says her organization is doing just that. Residents insist the Gubbio Project is doing the opposite, and have the both evidence and experience to back it up.