SF Supervisors Approve Emergency Declaration for Tenderloin Neighborhood

San Francisco's Tenderloin territory is present nether a authorities of exigency aft the Board of Supervisors voted aboriginal Friday greeting connected the mayor's connection to code the cause occupation successful the neighborhood.

The bid volition past 90 days, and implicit that span, the metropolis says it volition instrumentality amended power of the Tenderloin.

The bid gives the metropolis powerfulness to waive readying and zoning codes to unfastened what it calls a "linkage site" successful the neighborhood, designed to assistance radical get disconnected drugs and supply intelligence wellness services.

Supervisor Matt Haney said the determination is needed due to the fact that determination person been 1,700 overdose deaths successful the assemblage implicit the past 3 years. Mayor London Breed said the radical surviving successful the Tenderloin and the radical suffering connected the streets of the vicinity merit better.

"The Tenderloin needs change, and that requires america to bash things different, Breed said successful a statement. "We showed during COVID that erstwhile we’re capable to usage an Emergency Declaration to chopped done the bureaucracy and barriers that get successful the mode of decisive action, we tin get things done and marque real, tangible progress. It volition instrumentality that aforesaid absorption and coordination successful the Tenderloin to marque a meaningful alteration to this vicinity that has been held backmost for excessively long."

Breed was not astatine the virtual meeting, wherever supervisors Dean Preston and Shamann Walton voted nary connected the connection to protestation what they spot arsenic a program for much policing. Police Chief Bill Scott, however, told the supervisors his section volition not usage the exigency declaration arsenic "an apprehension maneuver to wide the streets."

But opponents accidental that's precisely what the bid volition do.

"This vague bid is simply a trojan horse," caller Jean Barrish said. "It’s a program to flood the Tenderloin with police, not societal work workers, further harming those who are underserved and over-policed. Please bash not walk this order."

Other callers said it's the incorrect determination astatine the incorrect time.

The declaration tin beryllium revoked by the Board of Supervisors astatine immoderate time, oregon extended beyond the 90 days.