A San Francisco Man’s Housing Struggle After Relapse Put Him Back on the Streets | KQED

“I ended up drinking at least a 12 pack. And then, the next thing I know, I’m at a park with people I’m familiar with and I’m smoking meth,” Murray, a Central Valley native, said. “It happened so quickly.”

The slip cost Murray his bed at Delancey Street, where drug use is prohibited.

“When I came back the next morning, they called me in to drug test me. I definitely failed, so I just walked out ‘cause I knew what they were gonna do,” Murray, 41, said. “I was about to graduate. And I’ve been trying to rack my brain, why I made this decision. It was a very unfortunate one. Now I’m stuck on the streets in San Francisco.”

Murray’s experience comes as San Francisco supervisors push for more low-income housing options that require sobriety in response to the city’s drug crisis.

Advocates say it’s a much-needed component of the city’s public housing inventory for people in recovery or low-income residents seeking a drug-free environment.

“I’ve been running transitional housing right down the street for the last 10 years. When they discharge, I gotta look and scramble for them to go to a place that’s safe,” Richard Beal, director of recovery services at Tenderloin Housing Clinic, said at a recent town hall about the city’s response to drug use and homelessness in the Tenderloin neighborhood. “We need drug-free housing. We need to complete the bridge.”

Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who oversees the South of Market neighborhood, is leading the charge.

“Virtually 100%, or close to it, of permanent supportive housing right now has a drug-tolerant policy that people can’t be evicted for the use of illicit drugs,” Dorsey told KQED. “There are people that I hear from who are in recovery and in permanent supportive housing who are asking for drug-free options.”

Unhoused for the first time, Murray slept outside the first two nights. On the third day of homelessness, he visited a triage center on Sixth Street, where he heard he might find help.

“I’m hoping that this place will get me a bed in a shelter, if that’s what happens here. I don’t even really know. I just know they have food, and I haven’t eaten in a couple days; that definitely drew me in,” Murray said, sitting on the facility’s picnic bench one recent morning. “I just don’t want to sleep outside.”

A social worker found a shelter bed for Murray, where he’s since been sleeping as he applies to jobs and navigates the city’s web of social services. He said he hasn’t used drugs since the relapse, but every day is difficult trying to maintain sobriety while facing the harsh realities of homelessness.

“What’s creeping into my head and giving me anxiety now is having a uniform or the clothing that I’ll need for a job and the ability to maintain my hygiene,” Murray said on a phone call a few days into his shelter stay. “I’ve taken showers here, but I’m literally putting on the same clothes that I have.

“It starts wearing on you, like, the hopelessness.”

In 2004, under President George W. Bush, the federal government adopted a “housing first” model requiring permanent supportive housing providers to accept residents regardless of drug use, credit history or criminal background. The idea is backed by studies showing that having a place to live increases a person’s likelihood of stabilizing their health and income.

Recognizing that some people in recovery prefer abstinence housing, in 2022, the Department of Housing and Urban Development modified its policy to include drug-free programs.