Mayor Lurie says he's trading S.F. shelter beds for sites with more services. Critics aren't convinced

As San Francisco overhauls its network of homeless shelters, a large facility near the Tenderloin that faced opposition from neighbors and the recent departure of its operator will close its doors.

The 280-bed shelter at 711 Post St. in Lower Nob Hill will shutter in March 2027, according to the city's homelessness department. It will be ushered out by a new contractor, Five Keys, which took over after nonprofit operator Urban Alchemy withdrew from the site in January.

The shelter opened in 2022 despite protest from local residents and businesses, who said the neighborhood was already saturated with homeless services. The planned shut down of 711 Post comes alongside the closures in recent months of two other pandemic-era shelters, one in the Tenderloin and another near Union Square.

The loss of shelter beds has alarmed homeless advocates, but Mayor Daniel Lurie's administration argues that shuttering the shelters is part of an effort to make sure temporary housing is serving clients with appropriate drug and mental health services and that some resources are shifted to treatment.

The closures come during a shift in San Francisco's homelessness response and its shelter system under Lurie. The mayor ran on a campaign promise to open 1,500 shelter beds within six months of taking office, a pledge that was scaled back after his administration acknowledged that timeline was not feasible.

A spokesperson for the mayor's office said more shelter beds have been added than removed since Lurie took office, with a net positive of 202 shelter or transitional housing beds. That number doesn't account for the closure of 711 Post next year, where about 250 beds will be lost and another 30 will be moved to another shelter. It remains unclear how many beds could be added over the next year to counter that loss.

The city additionally opened a net 221 beds offering specialized care for elderly adults and those struggling with addiction or mental health in the last year, and 80 traditional shelter beds were also upgraded to offer more acute medical care, the spokesperson said.

"For many years, the city invested in the wrong beds that didn't help people get on a path to stability," Kunal Modi, the mayor's chief of health and human services, said in a statement to the Chronicle. "Now, we are moving away from beds that aren't working, adding treatment beds that are much-needed, and converting existing beds for better outcomes."

San Francisco's shelter system has historically stayed near or at full capacity. The planned closure comes despite the city's waitlist for shelter beds, with nearly 400 people on the list as of Friday.

A spokesperson for the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing said the 711 Post closure is part of an effort to "stand up shelter and treatment beds at the right level of clinical intensity to help people succeed on their pathways out of homelessness."

The 711 Post site, which was opened during the pandemic, isn't the right model for the complex challenges we're trying to solve today," spokesperson Deborah Bouck said in a statement in response to a question about why the city is closing it.

Residents of 711 Post will work with Five Keys over the coming year to plan their next steps, which could include a move to another shelter, residential treatment or permanent supportive housing, Bouck said.

Neighbors were generally "relieved" by the news of the closure of 711 Post, said Rachel Johnson of the Lower Nob Hill Neighborhood Alliance. The shelter, she said, has increased open air drug use and exchange on the surrounding blocks.

"It's caused a lot of havoc around the neighborhood," Johnson said. "People will hang out outside and be noisy, so there's a lot of noise complaints … it basically creates urban blight."

In response to neighbors like Johnson who complain that certain areas of the city are ground zero for homeless shelters, the Board of Supervisors passed legislation last year to more evenly distribute homeless services across the city.

Homeless advocates, however, criticized the city for closing shelters under pressure from neighbors while putting resources into what they consider more restrictive settings.

In recent weeks, the city has also closed two COVID-era shelters, the Adante and the Monarch, shedding a total of 163 beds. Those closures and the pending shutdown of 711 Post were first reported by Mission Local.

Lukas Illa of the Coalition on Homelessness criticized what the organization sees as a recent pattern of shelters closing "due to neighborhood complaint" without the creation of a "functional alternative" for people who may not require the clinical environment that a treatment bed provides.

"There's no discussion of shelter conditions and why shelters potentially do not work for folks when they're run like a jail," Illa said. "Instead, we're shuttering good shelters - like the Adante, which was widely popular and well-run - in favor of carceral settings that are punitive if, for instance, you relapse."

The city has begun to reevaluate its longtime approach of prioritizing access to shelter over engagement in addiction services. San Francisco's first sober shelter opened last year, and Supervisor Matt Dorsey recently proposed legislation that would empower permanent supportive housing facilities to evict residents for using drugs.

Illa isn't opposed to the inclusion of sober shelters in the city's portfolio. But they remain concerned about the loss of options for homeless drug users with a longer road to recovery ahead of them. "Where are they going to go?" Illa said. "If the answer is jail, then say that."

Supervisor Danny Sauter, who represents Lower Nob Hill, said his constituents "want and deserve confidence" that their unhoused neighbors will have the best possible opportunities to find stability.

"You're really seeing a focus on different types of beds - some of the higher acuity beds, some of the treatment beds, some of the sober living facilities," said Sauter, noting that the closed sites did not fit those profiles. "The city is going through an entire portfolio overhaul."

Asked what will become of homeless residents in his district who are not ready for sober living settings, Sauter acknowledged the city needs a "mix of options." Meanwhile, the two shelters that the city has or will be closing in his district could be used by tourists and visitors, he said.

Operation of the 711 Post property had been under scrutiny before Urban Alchemy announced in January it would step away. A financial analyst for city lawmakers said in September that the nonprofit had overspent its budget at the shelter.

For its part, an Urban Alchemy spokesperson said in January that the nonprofit's leaders did not feel supported by the city and chose to step away.

The changes to the shelter system come as the city's homeless department gets new leadership. Shireen McSpadden, who served as the chief of homelessness since 2021, announced she will retire at the end of June. On Tuesday, Lurie tapped Mike Levine, the head of Massachusetts' Medicaid program, to replace the current chief of homelessness this summer.

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