Petition calling on San Francisco’s Mayor and Board of Supervisors to block the Department of Public Health from adding a drop-in center, pharmacy, and ‘central access point’ for those seeking mental health, substance use services, and drugs at 1125 Mission next to 7th Street 

We are the neighbors, homeowners, renters, small businesses, business owners and staff, restaurants and cafes, event spaces, property managers, hotels and hospitality staff, art galleries, housing organizations, postsecondary educational institutions, neighborhood associations, community groups, non-profit organizations, property owners, friends, denizens, and residents of the SOMA West and Mid-Market neighborhoods. 

WHEREAS, the SOMA West and Mid-Market neighborhoods came together in 2023 to resurrect the neighborhood of 7th and Mission, a neighborhood that had been destroyed by well-intentioned but dangerously flawed City efforts to meet the health challenges presented by COVID-19 and numerous City programs;

WHEREAS, starting in the early 2020s, City programs, including ● the Shelter-in-Place (SIP) hotels on 7th Street,
● the opioid addiction service center on Market at 7th,
● the new City homeless clinic on Stevenson near 7th,
● the new City sobering center on Howard near 7th,
● the new City transitional support housing on Folsom near 7th,
● and more
all took a great toll on the neighborhood’s viability. Drug dealers flooded our neighborhood targeting the very people these City programs were supposed to help. Open-air drug markets became normalized;

WHEREAS, drug use was so prevalent in SOMA West and Mid-Market that when Governor Newsom visited the area to discuss state resources to fight the open air drug markets in July of 2023, he had to stand in the street due to the overwhelming presence of dealers and users;

WHEREAS, federal workers at the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building at 7th and Mission Streets were formally warned not to come down to the area due to its manifold and manifest dangers (SF Chronicle, August 2023, Crime is so bad near S.F. Federal building employees are told to work from home, officials said);

WHEREAS, after coming together and working non-stop to improve the area, our neighborhood residents, small businesses, hotels, nonprofits, community benefit districts (CBDs), and other property owners have managed to generate astounding improvement to 7th street;

WHEREAS Seventh street is worlds different than it was during the unbelievably grim times of 2022, 2023, and 2024; 

WHEREAS, as the City rightly focuses on improving the degradation of 6th Street, SOMA West and Mid-Market have been repeatedly assured by SFPD and City Hall that our governmental leaders do not want to see displacement of 6th street troubles to 7th street;

WHEREAS, despite the good works of ours and City leaders in making 7th street livable again, coupled with the good works of the new mayoral administration and SFPD, we have since learned that the City wants to place another City drug program onto Mission and 7th Streets;

WHEREAS, this new proposed use of 1125 Mission as a new site for drug recovery programs, mental health facilities, walk-in/drop-in clinics, and a pharmacy for drug addicts flies in the face of all of our years-long neighborhood clean-up work which required the help from federal and state resources, ably assisted by Governor Newsom, Mayor Breed, Speaker Emerita Pelosi, Sheriff Miyamoto, Supervisor Dorsey, Senator Wiener, District Attorney Jenkins and City Department leaders such as Trent Rhorer, Carla Short and others);

WHEREAS, our growing neighborhood (with more than 40% more residents than the previous US Census) was ready to thrive before the 2020’s onslaught of City programs leading directly to its decline;

WHEREAS, now in 2025, we are on our way to finally getting the neighborhood back on track with new hotels for tourism, new homeowners moving in, new businesses starting up, and even a new neighborhood association;

WHEREAS, adding another service treatment facility to the many City services already in SOMA West and Mid-Market, especially along the corridor around 7th street, that will undoubtedly bring the dangerous drug dealers back, will reverse the progress we worked so hard together to make over the last few years;

WHEREAS, SOMA West and Mid-Market deserve better than to be the operative zone of choice by City departments' well-intentioned programs that have historically proven to negatively affect our neighborhood and continually lead to the loss of the quality of life, economic vitality, and ability to thrive for our residents, small businesses, and community;

WHEREAS, SOMA West and Mid-Market would welcome new regular office staff and personnel from City departments, but not any more direct services that will further hurt our neighborhood;
now, therefore be it

RESOLVED, the City must take responsibility for and meaningfully address the public health and safety crisis brought on by its City programs in SOMA West and Mid-Market;

FURTHER RESOLVED, the City will work to help us grow and thrive as a neighborhood by ending the continued use of our community as a place for City programs that attract drug dealers from all over the world and the very open-air drug markets we are all trying to remove from our good City;

FURTHER RESOLVED, the first step in supporting our neighborhood of residents, small businesses, tourism hotels, property owners, and community overall involves stopping any proposed drug program at 1125 Mission at 7th street;

FURTHER RESOLVED, following that, we continue to ask the City and County of San Francisco to work with us in mitigating the negative impacts of the City departments’ already existing programs who have come into our neighborhood and promised everything would be fine but are not; and

FURTHER RESOLVED, we deserve better as a neighborhood from our City government.

SOMA West and Mid-Market neighborhood