San Francisco’s open-air drug market in the Tenderloin District has closed to the public less than a year after it opened.
The location, which was opened by San Francisco Mayor London Breed earlier this year to help deal with the city’s ongoing drug crisis, cost about $22 million to operate.
The Tenderloin Center, an addiction counseling center, was often referred to as a “safe place” for addicts where they “can get high without getting robbed,” according to one person who used the center.
In the first four months after the center opened, the open-air drug market also only brokered 18 of the more than 23,000 people it welcomed.
Overall, less than one percent of visits ended with a “completed connection” to behavioral health programs.
City leaders, including Breed, now say the site was a “temporary solution” offered to avoid the more than 640 overdose deaths San Francisco experienced in 2021.
The Tenderloin Center appeared deserted Monday when local media checked the site
A woman injects herself with drugs near the Tenderloin Linkage Center in San Francisco in January
This chart shows the number of accidental drug overdoses in San Francisco over the year
Despite their best efforts, 2022 has been almost as deadly, with more than 500 people dying from drug overdoses in the Northern California city. In 2021, the city recorded a total of 641 deaths.
Officials had also hoped the site would provide a place to deal with the homeless crisis the city has faced in recent months and years.
By some estimates, hundreds of people visited the Tenderloin Center while it was open, and more than 350 drug overdoses were reversed on the spot.
Workers handed out leaflets to people outside of the open-air drug market, directing them to other places to get essential resources.
Breed and others have not announced any plans for a similar site at this time.
The closure, which debuted with mixed reactions, now has some thanking the mayor while others criticize her for taking away what they describe as a critical resource.
Others, however, called it a massive waste of taxpayers’ money.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed has been criticized for her open-air drug markets, which some have described as a place where the homeless can get high without being robbed
These charts from the City of San Francisco show preliminary overdose data through November
“This is something we’ve been asking the mayor to do for months,” San Francisco City Superintendent Dean Preston said in an interview with ABC7, who also said “hundreds of people” rely on it.
dr Hillary Kunins, an official with the San Francisco Department of Health, said the center was closed for a number of reasons, including an expiring $75,000-a-month lease.
“The Tenderloin Center was also meant to be a temporary program, unfortunately the lease expired at the end of the year,” she told the local outlet.
“We are aggressively looking at ways we can continue this service while we establish service navigation during this time immediately following closure,” said Dr. Kunins further.
Homeless drug addicts (pictured in September) take over a city bus stop in front of the Asian Art Museum while people waiting for the bus wait in the background in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District
A homeless drug addict shows bruises and scars on his swollen legs from drug use in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District (pictured in September).
Many are ecstatically cheering the site’s closure after months of begging the city to close the market over safety concerns for people in the area.
Mayor Breed originally committed just $10 million to the project, but it quickly rose to more than double that estimate.
In all, about 400 people were being assisted daily, according to the San Francisco Department of Health.
However, a large proportion of those who used the site used it specifically for shelter or food.
A homeless drug addict holds pieces of fentanyl near City Hall in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District in September
Homeless drug addicts smoke fentanyl on the street near San Francisco City Hall in September
Earlier this year, Gina McDonald of Mothers Against Drug Deaths (MADD) wrote an op-ed for , describing the site as “dystopian”.
“The Linkage Center was never intended to be a place for people to use drugs, but that’s exactly what happened,” said the mother, whose own daughter once became a heroin addict.
In October, Breed signaled a reversal in her approach to the city’s rampant drug use by retracing some of her “soft” ways.
Established by the mayor and city officials, the open-air drug markets were intended to provide addicts with a place to safely engage in drug activities without fear of death.
However, some have said it has quickly become places where people can take drugs “without anyone going to jail”.
A sign for the center in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District before it closed on December 4th
Part of the liaison center is pictured behind screens in January. It was never intended as an area for drug users to get high, officials said
A man is seen lighting what appears to be a glass pipe near the liaison center – with locals saying people are free to use illegal drugs at the facility itself as they please
When city officials announced the center’s closure in June, Gary McCoy, the vice president of public affairs and policy at the nonprofit HealthRIGHT 360, insisted the mayor’s decision would increase overdose deaths.
“Despite the success in connecting with the hardest-to-reach people that we have failed to do for decades, it will surely send people back onto the streets, into the parks and into isolation at an increased risk of OD,” McCoy said in a tweet.
HealthRight 360 operated the Tenderloin Center.
“If we don’t continue funding this model, I hope we’ve increased the $ for the coroner,” the vice president continued.
Gary McCoy of the San Francisco-based nonprofit HealthRIGHT 360 shared his frustration at the site’s closure in a tweet earlier this year
