San Francisco opens SoMa RESET Center for public intoxication and drug use cases

San Francisco's experiment with a new approach to public drug use and addiction starts Monday as the RESET (Rapid Enforcement, Support, Evaluation, and Triage) Center opens on Sixth Street in the city's South of Market neighborhood. Under the pilot program, people found publicly using drugs or intoxicated in the neighborhood will be arrested and brought there until they sober up, then they will be offered the option to connect with treatment upon release.

The center will be run by the San Francisco Sheriff's Office in conjunction with the Department of Public Health and Connections Health Solutions. A spokesperson for the Sheriff's Office said the RESET Center will open at 10 a.m. on Monday. Initially, the facility will only host people from District 6, which includes the SoMa neighborhood.

The site has 25 reclining chairs. City leaders said there will be 24/7 access at the site to nursing care, social workers and peer support. Treatment will not be required, but city leaders said people there will be given the option to quickly connect with treatment when they leave.

Officials have offered conflicting explanations of how the center will operate. The mayor's initial announcement in January stated that individuals would be "placed under arrest" and transported to the facility, and the sheriff said, "They are being arrested, they are being detained, they are being brought in and compelled to come to this facility." But the sheriff's chief attorney said, "We actually have probable cause to arrest [but] we're not arresting them," while officials also said people will be compelled to the center but will not be booked in jail.

Officials also differed on whether people can leave before being cleared. The sheriff said people brought to the facility would be assessed as they sobered up and, if deemed able to take care of themselves, would be released from custody, typically within four to eight hours, and said they could not leave prior to that assessment. But the sheriff's chief attorney said people could "technically" walk out of the facility if they chose immediately after intake.

Questions also remain about whether the site is a detention facility. A city attorney memo obtained in February flagged a "high risk" that a court would find the site to be a detention facility which by state law would be required to meet certain standards that the center currently does not appear to meet, like providing healthcare and food. A sheriff's spokesperson said, "This is not classified as a detention facility. It's classified as a sobering center."

Officials gave differing answers on medication access as well. The public health director said a workflow was set up to prescribe buprenorphine "very, very rapidly" to clients at the RESET center. Representatives of Connections Health Solutions said the facility will have over-the-counter medication at the ready, but prescriptions would happen elsewhere.

Supporters have described the center as an alternative to jail or hospitalization for people who are picked up by police while publicly intoxicated. A supervisor whose district includes SoMa called the RESET Center "a new approach" and said the value proposition is that it will reduce from hours to 15 minutes the amount of time a police officer needs to make an arrest and get somebody into custody.

The center has also drawn pushback. Advocates for the unhoused said it is "basically another detention center" and questioned whether the money would be better invested in behavioral health treatment programs. Neighborhood groups have voiced concern about adding the center to an area they say already has a hyperconcentration of homeless resources, and some residents are worried that when people exit the RESET Center, they will be a short walk away from one of the city's major open-air drug markets.