San Francisco welfare program to require drug screening

Proposition F, introduced by Mayor London Breed, aims to address the increasing substance-abuse issues in The City by mandating a drug screening for people who receive monthly assistance from the state’s General Assistance program, or the County Adult Assistance Program.

“The passage of prop F means we will have an important new tool to get people into treatment and to create more accountability around our City programs. We want people to seek treatment and many people do, but the reality is others are not willing or able to do so,” Breed said in a statement Tuesday night.

Those who are found to be struggling with substance abuse must then undergo treatment — such as peer-support groups or programs that use medications such as methadone or buprenorphine — to stay enrolled in CAAP.

Participants with substance-abuse issues who refuse treatment will lose their monthly benefit, but will have the option to reapply after 30 days. Benefits are $697 for people who are housed and $105 for those living without shelter.

With 216,280 ballots counted and about 16,400 outstanding as of Saturday afternoon, 58.5% had voted in favor of the measure, with 41.5% voting against it.

Breed said the proposition is about getting people the help and support they need to “turn their lives around.”

“When I look at people in recovery, who are alive, who are clean, who are sober, I can’t help but feel joy because I’m also thinking about my sister who was lost to drugs,” Breed said at a press event in January. “I’m also thinking about those who died from drug overdoses in The City and the need for us and me especially as a leader of the city to be courageous.”

Critics of the measure have said that such coercive care will only exacerbate the conditions of those struggling with substance-use issues.

“To me, this is such a reach of relying on a punitive response, as a kind of a political posturing rather than actually solving a problem,” said Lydia Bransten, the executive director of The Gubbio Project, a San Francisco homelessness nonprofit in a previous interview with The Examiner. “This kind of policy doesn’t work, and it’s detrimental.”

Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin has called the proposition “performative,” claiming the measure is just part of Breed’s efforts to bolster her mayoral campaign.

As of right now around 5,300 people are enrolled in the program, with some 1,500 people applying each month. At least 500 applications are approved each month, while roughly the same number of people leave the program each month.

Trent Rhorer, the executive director of the San Francisco Human Services Agency, said around 30% of program participants are believed to have a substance-use problem. Around 20% have disclosed it, with the screening process geared towards pinning down the remaining 10%.

The screening will be administered by the HSA, which already has staff qualified to conduct the Drug Abuse Screen Test, a questionnaire used to evaluate drug use in the previous 12 months.

The cost of implementing the screening will range from $500,000 to $1.4 million annually. It will go into effect Jan. 1, 2025.