Nine teams for street crises, zero coordination. Not anymore.

Nine teams, zero coordination. That was San Francisco's approach to street crises, but not anymore.

The Lurie administration is fixing it: One organization instead of nine, citywide coordination, and five neighborhood-focused subteams, all led by the Department of Emergency Management.

The facts

Mayor Daniel Lurie's administration is consolidating nine city outreach groups---previously scattered across the Police, Fire, Sheriff, Public Works, Public Health, Homelessness and Supportive Housing, and Emergency Management departments---into one unified structure. The new model will include five neighborhood-specific teams and one citywide unit.

Each team will be led by a Department of Emergency Management "team conductor" to ensure coordination between agencies and clarity for residents and business owners. Teams will focus on getting people into shelter, treatment, or long-term care---and will also keep the sidewalks clean by enforcing the sit/lie law (ie no camping on the sidewalk) and ADA laws. The citywide team will address hotspots and prevent large-scale issues before they escalate.

The overhaul is part of Lurie's "Breaking the Cycle" directive and is enabled by the fentanyl emergency ordinances passed earlier this year.

The context

These reforms follow a 2023 city audit that found the system dysfunctional and lacking accountability. Meanwhile, about 800 people die of overdose each year in SF, and 4,000 to 8,000 remain homeless on city streets every night.

Lurie's office has also committed to opening 1,500 new mental health, treatment, and shelter beds, 700 of which are already in planning.

Supervisors Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Danny Sauter, and Bilal Mahmood all praise the new model, as does DEM, SFPD, SFFD, DPH, and DPW.

The GrowSF take

This is exactly the kind of structural reform San Francisco needs. A single, coordinated system is far better than nine fragmented ones. We supported the fentanyl emergency ordinance that made this possible, and we support this plan to bring order, accountability, and treatment to our city's streets.