San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey wants to know if the city has become a hotspot for drug tourism. Now, he's calling on the city to find a method for answering that question and tracking the results over time.
“I think we owe it to San Franciscans and taxpayers generally,” he said.
Dorsey says it's time for San Francisco to commission a report that digs into a growing perception about the city.
“Over the years, San Francisco has had a reputation for being a destination city for so called "drug tourism," or for fairly generous benefits for general assistance often people think that it is a destination city because of permissive policies around drugs,” he said.
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Dorsey has now sent a letter to the city controller, asking for an analysis and a method to track the issue without identifying those "drug tourists."
“We wanted to identify populations that are implicated in San Francisco’s ongoing drug crisis and also recipients of public assistance here among the adult population and find out how long have they been here,” he said.
Dorsey says it’s important to figure out what's true and whether there are trackable patterns in the problem.
Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said the focus needs to be on treatment, not tracking.
“You know, we need serious response. We have half of people trying to get treatment today in San Francisco that are getting turned away. In addition, looking into home addresses not only wastes time and energy you know when lives are at stake,” she said.
