The boilers, powered by either natural gas or diesel, produce steam that is then transported through a 71,540-foot distribution network to approximately 180 different buildings, providing heat for more than 37 million square feet of office space in the Tenderloin, Union Square, the Financial District and parts of SoMa.

According to a Department of Public Works newsletter, supply pipes carry steam from the network into radiators that heat San Francisco City Hall. When the loop opened in 1915, a power plant at Larkin and McAllister streets provided its energy until the mid-1990s.

Today, teams from the Bureau of Building and Street Repair handle the portion of the network beneath the four main streets surrounding City Hall: Grove, Larkin, McAllister and Polk Streets.

“We just feed it out of our system. We treat it like a service, like any other building,” Eurkus told The Standard.

Eurkus said about 95% of the network's steam comes from the 460 Jessie plant, using not only groundwater piped from the Powell BART station but also another source: “The other part is that we actually recycle condensation “After the buildings use the steam, some of it condenses, turns into water and is pumped back to the Cordia Energy Plant, he explained.

The oldest functioning parts of the network date back to 1913 and serve the use of several boiler systems. The Meacham Plant in the city's Tenderloin began operations in the 1960s, offering additional boilers to meet steam demand.

“Now, if there is a problem, 99% of the time we get a call from DPW or even the fire department, often because it's something that happened. If it’s abnormal, there’s too much steam coming out of the ground,” Eurkus said.

“We can respond within an hour and take care of it. In normal operation you'll see it burst and a little steam come out, but if it's an unusual situation where it's too much, and you know, then we'll get the call and we'll take care of it.”

The post Steam Rises From Some San Francisco Streets. Why? appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Photo by Grant MacHamer

If you've ever walked through downtown SF, especially along Market Street, you may have noticed clouds of steam rising from various vents and manholes. It turns out that this mysterious steam comes from a network of pipes has been heating up downtown SF for nearly a century.

Over 180 customersincluding SF City Hall, the Moscone Convention Center and the Golden Gate TheaterUse steam for space heating, water heating, air conditioning and other purposes.

Two huge cauldrons, located in SoMA And Lower Nob Hilllet the steam through 13 miles of underground pipes which form the steam cycle in the city center. This system is responsible for overheating 37 million square meters of commercial, residential and government buildings.

The company that operates this steam network, Cordia, serves a 2 square mile area in SF's central business district.

Courtesy of Cordia

Both steam generation plants use boilers heated by natural gas. The plant's combined heat and power (CHP) system generates 500 kW of electricity, This makes the system essentially energy self-sufficientsaid Cordia.

Critics of the system point out that the system also produces heat Almost a waste 250,000 gallons of water per dayaccording to a 2015 CBS Bay Area story.

Cordia addressed this problem by engaging in a water reclamation project Pump 30 million gallons of groundwater per year beneath Powell Street Station. The groundwater is purified and used in the boilers, reducing the need for municipal drinking water.

Not every drop of water in the steam circuit is wasted. Some of Cordia's 180 customers use some of the wastewater from their steam lines Landscaping and toilet flushingwhich includes SF City Hall.

The post Why Steam Rises From San Francisco Streets appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

January’s storms are offering an unsettling glimpse into one of the Bay Area’s dirtiest environmental secrets: Heavy rain overwhelms our region’s vast plumbing system and flushes wastewater into places where it doesn’t belong.

Downpours triggered the release of millions of gallons of raw sewage mixed with rainwater across the region in just two weeks, spilling contaminated water into dozens of rivers, creeks and ultimately into the ocean and San Francisco Bay, according to a Bay Area News Group analysis of 88 reports to the state’s Office of Emergency Services.

“Flooded waters contain pathogens,” warned Eileen White, executive officer for the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. “If you touch flood waters, you want to wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water to make sure that you don’t get yourself exposed.”

When sewage flows into homes and businesses, expensive remediation and decontamination is needed to make them safe again. Overflows also may have dangerous consequences for the environment, because human waste, pharmaceuticals, shampoos and other harmful products are flushed down drains and toilets.

In one incident, the Martinez Refinery Company reported releasing more than six million gallons of storm and wastewater into the Carquinez Strait estuary, which drains into the San Francisco Bay, on Jan. 4, according to state records. The discharge of partially treated “process water” and storm water was necessary to avoid damage to the refinery, the company reported.

Dozens of other minor incidents were caused by open manhole covers, broken pipes and overwhelmed treatment facilities, from Corte Madera to Woodside and Half Moon Bay to Pleasanton.

State records show that between Dec. 31 and Jan. 3, a total of more than 14 million gallons of sewage were discharged in the San Francisco Bay region, enough to fill 21 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to White. The Jan. 4 storm triggered the release of another 8 million gallons, or 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

More recent releases are still being tallied. Experts say the total volume is likely to be much larger than current estimates because the chaotic circumstances surrounding these emergency flooding situations mean it’s nearly impossible to accurately evaluate the true scale and impact of sewage contamination.

Like bridges or skyscrapers designed to bear certain weights, stormwater management systems are designed within the limits of weather — and can’t handle the intensity of storms that might happen only every decade or two.

In dry times, waste from homes and businesses is whisked immediately away to wastewater treatment plants, never to be seen, smelled or considered again.

But two weeks of near-constant storms have stressed the system, as heavy rainfall and flooding infiltrate sewer pipes.

“We saw 13 times our average wastewater flows,” said Andrea Pook of East Bay Municipal Utilities District.

Most of the releases were caused when storm water backs up into the streets, flowing up through drains or manhole covers forced open by the overwhelming volume of high-pressure torrents, the reports show.

In Redwood City, a manhole overflow sent polluted water into Borel Creek at a rate of 150 gallons per minute. In San Mateo, 100 to 150 gallons per minute flowed into a storm drain that empties into Polhemus Creek. About 50 gallons a minute were dumped into Sonoma Creek. In Oakland, the overflow of three manholes spilled 25,000 gallons into Lake Merritt.

When a sewage lift station in Daly City overflowed because of stormwater, 35,950 gallons of waste were released into the Pacific Ocean. The rupture of a main treatment line at Moss Beach also caused a spill into the ocean. In Pacifica, an overflowing pump station caused 20,000 gallons to be discharged at Linda Mar Beach. About 34,000 gallons were released in Menlo Park’s Belle Haven neighborhood when a West Bay Sanitary treatment plant couldn’t keep up with the flow.

In Richmond, the West County Wastewater facility pumped sewage directly into the San Francisco Bay, according to a Jan. 11 report. “It is unknown how long the releasing will be going for,” it said.

Three discharges into Oakland’s San Leandro Creek, Barnhill Marina and an estuary at the foot of Alice Street originated from the East Bay Municipal Utility District’s “overflow structures,” which are designed to discharge water in high-flow conditions.

Farther south, a sewage treatment plant was flooded Friday when the Salinas River rushed over the banks of a levee. Percolation ponds in the city of Templeton also were flooded, sending 300,000 gallons into the river.

Cal Fire Caption Curtis Rhodes, walks past a home flooded by the Salinas River on Chualar Road near Chualar, Calif., on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. Like many overwhelmed treatment facilities, a sewage treatment plant in Monterey County was flooded on Friday when the Salinas River rushed over the banks of a levee. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)

Mother Nature is wreaking additional chaos. In Oakland, a tree fell on the sewer line, causing 5,100 gallons of sewage to be released into Sausal Creek. In Crockett, a hillside eroded and collapsed — causing a pipe to break and release 2,700 gallons. When debris blocked a sewer conduit, about 10,000 gallons overflowed into a drain that leads to Oakland’s Lake Temescal.

Records show that a single day — Dec. 31, New Year’s Eve — was responsible for the largest number of reports to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, with 51 discharges in different Bay Area cities.

On that morning alone, there were 15 sewage discharges in 12 cities: Hillsborough, Woodside, San Bruno, Daly City, Pacifica, Burlingame, Half Moon Bay, San Lorenzo, Richmond, Piedmont, Oakland and Daly City. By midnight, there were an additional 36 discharges in 25 cities: Alameda, Oakland, San Mateo, Richmond, Pacifica, Martinez, El Granada, Montara, Pittsburg, Corte Madera, San Francisco, Antioch, Redwood City, Dublin, San Leandro, Albany , Berkeley, Woodside, Vallejo, Menlo Park, Benicia, Sausalito, Pleasanton, Foster City and Hayward.

The problem isn’t new, said Sejal Choksi-Chugh, executive director of San Francisco Baykeeper, a nonprofit focused on the health of the San Francisco Bay. But the constant rain has exacerbated the issue.

“Over the years, and typically every time it rains, we see sewage spills in the streets and wastewater overflows,” she said. “But the back-to-back-to-back-to-back major storm events is causing a continuous discharge. That’s what’s new.”

With continued population growth, the demands on our sewer systems have increased, experts say. Meanwhile, more development leads to more asphalt and cement, so the bulk of the rainfall ends up in our sewage systems. And our wastewater pipes, often made of clay, are aging, so water infiltrates through cracks and gaps.

The rate at which the urban Bay Area is adapting to these threats is lagging behind the speed at which rain is drowning it, said Choksi-Chugh. Cities need to invest in replacing pipes and upgrading wastewater treatment systems to increase storage capacity and install more recycling technologies, she said. Cities also could incentivize homeowners to replace old pipes through grants or low-interest loans.

In the absence of major improvements to our sewer infrastructure, these dangerous overflows will increase as climate change leads to more extreme weather, say experts.

“Our old infrastructure is just not going to be up to snuff,” Choksi-Chugh said. “It’s not going to be able to handle these larger storm events, year upon year. So we really need to be thinking about the future.”

The post Storms ship sewage pouring into streets, creeks, San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean – Instances-Customary appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

January’s storms are offering an unsettling glimpse into one of the Bay Area’s dirtiest environmental secrets: Heavy rain overwhelms our region’s vast plumbing system and flushes wastewater into places where it doesn’t belong.

Downpours triggered the release of millions of gallons of raw sewage mixed with rainwater across the region in just two weeks, spilling contaminated water into dozens of rivers, creeks and ultimately into the ocean and San Francisco Bay, according to a Bay Area News Group analysis of 88 reports to the state’s Office of Emergency Services.

“Flooded waters contain pathogens,” warned Eileen White, executive officer for the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. “If you touch flood waters, you want to wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water to make sure that you don’t get yourself exposed.”

When sewage flows into homes and businesses, expensive remediation and decontamination is needed to make them safe again. Overflows also may have dangerous consequences for the environment, because human waste, pharmaceuticals, shampoos and other harmful products are flushed down drains and toilets.

In one incident, the Martinez Refinery Company reported releasing more than six million gallons of storm and wastewater into the Carquinez Strait estuary, which drains into the San Francisco Bay, on Jan. 4, according to state records. The discharge of partially treated “process water” and storm water was necessary to avoid damage to the refinery, the company reported.

Dozens of other minor incidents were caused by open manhole covers, broken pipes and overwhelmed treatment facilities, from Corte Madera to Woodside and Half Moon Bay to Pleasanton.

State records show that between Dec. 31 and Jan. 3, a total of more than 14 million gallons of sewage were discharged in the San Francisco Bay region, enough to fill 21 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to White. The Jan. 4 storm triggered the release of another 8 million gallons, or 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

More recent releases are still being tallied. Experts say the total volume is likely to be much larger than current estimates because the chaotic circumstances surrounding these emergency flooding situations mean it’s nearly impossible to accurately evaluate the true scale and impact of sewage contamination.

Like bridges or skyscrapers designed to bear certain weights, stormwater management systems are designed within the limits of weather — and can’t handle the intensity of storms that might happen only every decade or two.

In dry times, waste from homes and businesses is whisked immediately away to wastewater treatment plants, never to be seen, smelled or considered again.

But two weeks of near-constant storms have stressed the system, as heavy rainfall and flooding infiltrate sewer pipes.

“We saw 13 times our average wastewater flows,” said Andrea Pook of East Bay Municipal Utilities District.

Most of the releases were caused when storm water backs up into the streets, flowing up through drains or manhole covers forced open by the overwhelming volume of high-pressure torrents, the reports show.

In Redwood City, a manhole overflow sent polluted water into Borel Creek at a rate of 150 gallons per minute. In San Mateo, 100 to 150 gallons per minute flowed into a storm drain that empties into Polhemus Creek. About 50 gallons a minute were dumped into Sonoma Creek. In Oakland, the overflow of three manholes spilled 25,000 gallons into Lake Merritt.

When a sewage lift station in Daly City overflowed because of stormwater, 35,950 gallons of waste were released into the Pacific Ocean. The rupture of a main treatment line at Moss Beach also caused a spill into the ocean. In Pacifica, an overflowing pump station caused 20,000 gallons to be discharged at Linda Mar Beach. About 34,000 gallons were released in Menlo Park’s Belle Haven neighborhood when a West Bay Sanitary treatment plant couldn’t keep up with the flow.

In Richmond, the West County Wastewater facility pumped sewage directly into the San Francisco Bay, according to a Jan. 11 report. “It is unknown how long the releasing will be going for,” it said.

Three discharges into Oakland’s San Leandro Creek, Barnhill Marina and an estuary at the foot of Alice Street originated from the East Bay Municipal Utility District’s “overflow structures,” which are designed to discharge water in high-flow conditions.

Farther south, a sewage treatment plant was flooded Friday when the Salinas River rushed over the banks of a levee. Percolation ponds in the city of Templeton also were flooded, sending 300,000 gallons into the river.

Cal Fire Caption Curtis Rhodes, walks past a home flooded by the Salinas River on Chualar Road near Chualar, Calif., on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. Like many overwhelmed treatment facilities, a sewage treatment plant in Monterey County was flooded on Friday when the Salinas River rushed over the banks of a levee. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)

Mother Nature is wreaking additional chaos. In Oakland, a tree fell on the sewer line, causing 5,100 gallons of sewage to be released into Sausal Creek. In Crockett, a hillside eroded and collapsed — causing a pipe to break and release 2,700 gallons. When debris blocked a sewer conduit, about 10,000 gallons overflowed into a drain that leads to Oakland’s Lake Temescal.

Records show that a single day — Dec. 31, New Year’s Eve — was responsible for the largest number of reports to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, with 51 discharges in different Bay Area cities.

On that morning alone, there were 15 sewage discharges in 12 cities: Hillsborough, Woodside, San Bruno, Daly City, Pacifica, Burlingame, Half Moon Bay, San Lorenzo, Richmond, Piedmont, Oakland and Daly City. By midnight, there were an additional 36 discharges in 25 cities: Alameda, Oakland, San Mateo, Richmond, Pacifica, Martinez, El Granada, Montara, Pittsburg, Corte Madera, San Francisco, Antioch, Redwood City, Dublin, San Leandro, Albany , Berkeley, Woodside, Vallejo, Menlo Park, Benicia, Sausalito, Pleasanton, Foster City and Hayward.

The problem isn’t new, said Sejal Choksi-Chugh, executive director of San Francisco Baykeeper, a nonprofit focused on the health of the San Francisco Bay. But the constant rain has exacerbated the issue.

“Over the years, and typically every time it rains, we see sewage spills in the streets and wastewater overflows,” she said. “But the back-to-back-to-back-to-back major storm events is causing a continuous discharge. That’s what’s new.”

With continued population growth, the demands on our sewer systems have increased, experts say. Meanwhile, more development leads to more asphalt and cement, so the bulk of the rainfall ends up in our sewage systems. And our wastewater pipes, often made of clay, are aging, so water infiltrates through cracks and gaps.

The rate at which the urban Bay Area is adapting to these threats is lagging behind the speed at which rain is drowning it, said Choksi-Chugh. Cities need to invest in replacing pipes and upgrading wastewater treatment systems to increase storage capacity and install more recycling technologies, she said. Cities also could incentivize homeowners to replace old pipes through grants or low-interest loans.

In the absence of major improvements to our sewer infrastructure, these dangerous overflows will increase as climate change leads to more extreme weather, say experts.

“Our old infrastructure is just not going to be up to snuff,” Choksi-Chugh said. “It’s not going to be able to handle these larger storm events, year upon year. So we really need to be thinking about the future.”

The post Bay Space storms ship sewage into streets, creeks, San Francisco Bay and ocean appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

January’s storms are offering an unsettling glimpse into one of the Bay Area’s dirtiest environmental secrets: Heavy rain overwhelms our region’s vast plumbing system and flushes wastewater into places where it doesn’t belong.

Downpours triggered the release of millions of gallons of raw sewage mixed with rainwater across the region in just two weeks, spilling contaminated water into dozens of rivers, creeks and ultimately into the ocean and San Francisco Bay, according to a Bay Area News Group analysis of 88 reports to the state’s Office of Emergency Services.

“Flooded waters contain pathogens,” warned Eileen White, executive officer for the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. “If you touch flood waters, you want to wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water to make sure that you don’t get yourself exposed.”

When sewage flows into homes and businesses, expensive remediation and decontamination is needed to make them safe again. Overflows also may have dangerous consequences for the environment, because human waste, pharmaceuticals, shampoos and other harmful products are flushed down drains and toilets.

In one incident, the Martinez Refinery Company reported releasing more than six million gallons of storm and wastewater into the Carquinez Strait estuary, which drains into the San Francisco Bay, on Jan. 4, according to state records. The discharge of partially treated “process water” and storm water was necessary to avoid damage to the refinery, the company reported.

Dozens of other minor incidents were caused by open manhole covers, broken pipes and overwhelmed treatment facilities, from Corte Madera to Woodside and Half Moon Bay to Pleasanton.

State records show that between Dec. 31 and Jan. 3, a total of more than 14 million gallons of sewage were discharged in the San Francisco Bay region, enough to fill 21 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to White. The Jan. 4 storm triggered the release of another 8 million gallons, or 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

More recent releases are still being tallied. Experts say the total volume is likely to be much larger than current estimates because the chaotic circumstances surrounding these emergency flooding situations mean it’s nearly impossible to accurately evaluate the true scale and impact of sewage contamination.

Like bridges or skyscrapers designed to bear certain weights, stormwater management systems are designed within the limits of weather — and can’t handle the intensity of storms that might happen only every decade or two.

In dry times, waste from homes and businesses is whisked immediately away to wastewater treatment plants, never to be seen, smelled or considered again.

But two weeks of near-constant storms have stressed the system, as heavy rainfall and flooding infiltrate sewer pipes.

“We saw 13 times our average wastewater flows,” said Andrea Pook of East Bay Municipal Utilities District.

Most of the releases were caused when storm water backs up into the streets, flowing up through drains or manhole covers forced open by the overwhelming volume of high-pressure torrents, the reports show.

In Redwood City, a manhole overflow sent polluted water into Borel Creek at a rate of 150 gallons per minute. In San Mateo, 100 to 150 gallons per minute flowed into a storm drain that empties into Polhemus Creek. About 50 gallons a minute were dumped into Sonoma Creek. In Oakland, the overflow of three manholes spilled 25,000 gallons into Lake Merritt.

When a sewage lift station in Daly City overflowed because of stormwater, 35,950 gallons of waste were released into the Pacific Ocean. The rupture of a main treatment line at Moss Beach also caused a spill into the ocean. In Pacifica, an overflowing pump station caused 20,000 gallons to be discharged at Linda Mar Beach. About 34,000 gallons were released in Menlo Park’s Belle Haven neighborhood when a West Bay Sanitary treatment plant couldn’t keep up with the flow.

In Richmond, the West County Wastewater facility pumped sewage directly into the San Francisco Bay, according to a Jan. 11 report. “It is unknown how long the releasing will be going for,” it said.

Three discharges into Oakland’s San Leandro Creek, Barnhill Marina and an estuary at the foot of Alice Street originated from the East Bay Municipal Utility District’s “overflow structures,” which are designed to discharge water in high-flow conditions.

Farther south, a sewage treatment plant was flooded Friday when the Salinas River rushed over the banks of a levee. Percolation ponds in the city of Templeton also were flooded, sending 300,000 gallons into the river.

Cal Fire Caption Curtis Rhodes, walks past a home flooded by the Salinas River on Chualar Road near Chualar, Calif., on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. Like many overwhelmed treatment facilities, a sewage treatment plant in Monterey County was flooded on Friday when the Salinas River rushed over the banks of a levee. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)

Mother Nature is wreaking additional chaos. In Oakland, a tree fell on the sewer line, causing 5,100 gallons of sewage to be released into Sausal Creek. In Crockett, a hillside eroded and collapsed — causing a pipe to break and release 2,700 gallons. When debris blocked a sewer conduit, about 10,000 gallons overflowed into a drain that leads to Oakland’s Lake Temescal.

Records show that a single day — Dec. 31, New Year’s Eve — was responsible for the largest number of reports to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, with 51 discharges in different Bay Area cities.

On that morning alone, there were 15 sewage discharges in 12 cities: Hillsborough, Woodside, San Bruno, Daly City, Pacifica, Burlingame, Half Moon Bay, San Lorenzo, Richmond, Piedmont, Oakland and Daly City. By midnight, there were an additional 36 discharges in 25 cities: Alameda, Oakland, San Mateo, Richmond, Pacifica, Martinez, El Granada, Montara, Pittsburg, Corte Madera, San Francisco, Antioch, Redwood City, Dublin, San Leandro, Albany , Berkeley, Woodside, Vallejo, Menlo Park, Benicia, Sausalito, Pleasanton, Foster City and Hayward.

The problem isn’t new, said Sejal Choksi-Chugh, executive director of San Francisco Baykeeper, a nonprofit focused on the health of the San Francisco Bay. But the constant rain has exacerbated the issue.

“Over the years, and typically every time it rains, we see sewage spills in the streets and wastewater overflows,” she said. “But the back-to-back-to-back-to-back major storm events is causing a continuous discharge. That’s what’s new.”

With continued population growth, the demands on our sewer systems have increased, experts say. Meanwhile, more development leads to more asphalt and cement, so the bulk of the rainfall ends up in our sewage systems. And our wastewater pipes, often made of clay, are aging, so water infiltrates through cracks and gaps.

The rate at which the urban Bay Area is adapting to these threats is lagging behind the speed at which rain is drowning it, said Choksi-Chugh. Cities need to invest in replacing pipes and upgrading wastewater treatment systems to increase storage capacity and install more recycling technologies, she said. Cities also could incentivize homeowners to replace old pipes through grants or low-interest loans.

In the absence of major improvements to our sewer infrastructure, these dangerous overflows will increase as climate change leads to more extreme weather, say experts.

“Our old infrastructure is just not going to be up to snuff,” Choksi-Chugh said. “It’s not going to be able to handle these larger storm events, year upon year. So we really need to be thinking about the future.”

The post Storms ship sewage into streets, creeks, San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

FILE ART- A man who works with the San Francisco Day Labor program hauls a cabinet.

SAN FRANCISCO – For the last week or more, Marcos Saul Aurora Gonzalez has been sleeping on a street corner in San Francisco.

He wasn’t always homeless. But since the Bay Area stay-at-home order shut down non-essential business, the 37-year-old from El Salvador has not been able to find steady work as a handyman or in construction. He had been staying with his girlfriend but was told to leave her place recently because she lives in a city-owned apartment, which allows only one person to live there.

“There are a lot of people like me,” Gonzalez said in Spanish through a translator.

On a recent night, he slept near six other men like himself, he said. These are men who have no jobs, no chance at a federal stimulus boost because of their immigration status, no right to collect unemployment, and now, nowhere to go.

Some of the men have found places for their wives and children to sleep, but they have taken to the streets as there isn’t enough room at their friends’ and relatives’ homes, Gonzalez said. Other families he knows are sleeping in cars. “It’s super, super cold in the morning,” he said.

The other morning, he was the only one with tortillas and one of the men asked quietly, “Can you share?” The six men sat, six feet apart, on the corner, all taking bites of his meaner breakfast. “We gathered there,” he said, “sharing our stories. Nobody has enough for rent. None of us had eaten. Everyone is worried about how they will provide for their families.”

Coronavirus quarantine is becoming catastrophic for undocumented immigrants

There are an estimated 3 million undocumented immigrants in California and last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed support for them, saying they account for 10% of California’s labor force and provide essential services in the state. He also announced a $125 million fund for undocumented immigrants, although none of the money has been distributed.

There are plenty of critics who say people like Gonzalez should not be helped because they came to the country illegally. Two conservative groups south of Newsom over giving taxpayer money to undocumented immigrants.

However, each person who has come to the United States has a personal story about immigrating and the challenge of settling here.

In Gonzalez’s case, he fled here about two years ago, escaping MS-13 gangs who had already shot him and vowed to kill him, he said. He has an attorney who is helping him stay in this country permanently. But still, his status is undocumented.

Gonzalez is one of about 250 members of the 30-year-old San Francisco Day Labor Program and Women’s Collective, both of which fall under Dolores Street Community Services. Francisco Herrera helped found the program and is now co-director with Guillermina Castalenos. Their operating budget is roughly $800,000 a year.

One of the services the program provides is connecting undocumented workers with people who need help cleaning homes, gardening, landscaping and construction work.

Dispatchers hope that they soon get an influx of calls matching neighbors’ needs to laborers and domestic workers who are desperate to provide services and earn a paycheck as the relaxed stay-at-home order for the Bay Area now allows certain outdoor professions.

On Monday, some stay-at-home orders eased, allowing for all construction jobs and landscaping. Cleaning homes and yard work are also allowed.

Q&A: The status of California’s $125M undocumented immigrant fund

Gonzalez has not applied for any of the free hotel rooms in the city, nor has he applied for any grant money.

“I am just focused on getting a job,” he said, adding that he typically stands at 26th and Harrison streets in San Francisco, hoping to get hired for the day.

FILE ART – A member of the San Francisco Day Labor program paints a wall.

Gonzalez and his girlfriend, who is a domestic worker, would love to be hired. But they say that so far, they and their friends have been turned down because people are worried about bringing them into their homes, worried they might have coronavirus, especially since he has been sleeping on the streets.

While he is not experiencing any symptoms now, Gonzalez said he, too, is “very afraid of getting sick. I am very, very vulnerable.”

Herrera said that’s why his program has been pushing to get Gonzalez and San Francisco’s other 8,200 homeless people into hotel rooms in the city, and he’s frustrated with why it’s been taking so long. Herrera also said that per Cal-OSHA guidelines, employers must provide the proper personal protective equipment and sanitizers to workers to keep everyone safe. Laborers in the program are also trained in proper COVID-19 social distancing and procedure, Herrera said.

Newsom: California unemployment hours extended; $125M fund for undocumented immigrants

Gonzalez described his situation as pretty dire.

“I’m at the edge,” he said. “If I don’t get a job soon, I don’t even want to think about the situation I will be in.”

Still, despite his life now on the streets, Gonzalez said it’s still better here than in El Salvador.

“I’m hungry. I have no place to sleep. But it’s still better here,” he said. “At least I’m not afraid I’ll be killed or tortured. The level of violence there is not to be believed.”

IF YOU’RE INTERESTED: In hiring a worker from the San Francisco Day Labor Program and Women’s Collective call 415-252-5375. More information about the programs can be found here. You can also donate to Fighting for our Workers (or any of the groups listed below.) You can also email Louis Legowsky at the program at sfdlp@3358@gmail.com.

FILE ART – Domestic workers clean homes as part of San Francisco’s Women’s Collective.

BAY AREA FUNDS TO HELP THE UNDOCUMENTED

Fighting for our Workers (This is the fund that would go directly to Marcos Saul Aurora Gonzalez. You can specify which worker you’d like to honor.)

East Oakland DREAMers

StimulusPledge.org

OURFund Oakland

Undocufund-sf.org

Mission Families Relief Fund

Dolores Street Community Services

Lisa Fernandez is a reporter for KTVU. Email Lisa at lisa.fernandez@foxtv.com or call her at 510-874-0139. Or follow her on Twitter @ljfernandez

The post Immigrants with out work discover themselves sleeping on San Francisco streets appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

He stood in the corner of San Francisco’s Department of Motor Vehicles, clutching the handles of his walker and waiting for his turn to apply for an identification card. He’d lost it a few years ago, along with his home, his health and his dignity.

“I recognize those two people right there,” he whispered to me, anxiously, nodding at a man with a long braid and a young woman in a blue dress just feet away.

Ben Campofreda, 41, had smoked fentanyl many times with the pair on the sidewalks of the Tenderloin. He hoped they wouldn’t spot him.

After lifesaving surgeries and a hospital detox, he could stand instead of slumping in his old wheelchair. His long hair, once grimy, was cut short. He wore clean clothes.

Ben had been sober for four months by that September afternoon and aimed to keep it that way. Reconnecting with anyone from his old life, he figured, could jeopardize that. Fortunately, his former friends took no notice of him.

“I love that nobody recognizes me,” he said. “There’s a rumor on the streets that I died on the operating table. I told my dad about that, and he said, ‘Good. Let everybody think that you’re dead.’”

The rumor may be more believable than the truth — Ben had managed to kick fentanyl, the terribly powerful and addictive opioid that has radically changed San Francisco. He told me that of all the friends he made smoking “fetty” on city streets, 40 had overdosed and died. Just one, he said, is in recovery.

I’ve been following Ben since late August because his story exemplifies so much about the cruelty of a city that makes it far easier to buy deadly drugs than to access treatment to leave them behind. But his journey shows there’s hope for the legions of people like him dotting the Tenderloin and South of Market districts in a fentanyl-fueled fugue, often sprawled on the sidewalks or folded over where they stand.

With the help of family and friends, talented health care workers and the resolute determination to be free of addiction, a better life is possible. But the obstacles are significant. The question as I kept in touch with Ben was whether he could hold on to his new sobriety and avoid falling back into the chaos of life on the drug.

In the DMV, the numbers ticked.

“Lucky 13!” Ben said. “I’m next! All right, I’m ready.”

Ben Campofreda, about age 7, at his grandparents’ house in Virginia

Courtesy Judi Johnson

Ben Campofreda, in his early 20s, at a restaurant celebrating his great-grandmother Mary’s birthday.

Courtesy Judi Johnson

Left: Ben Campofreda, about age 7, at his grandparents’ house in Virginia. Right: Campofreda, in his early 20s, at a restaurant celebrating his great-grandmother Mary’s birthday. Photos provided by Judi Johnson. At top of story: Campofreda walks through San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood to catch a bus to his drug treatment program.
Top: Ben Campofreda, about age 7, at his grandparents’ house in Virginia. Above: Campofreda, in his early 20s, at a restaurant celebrating his great-grandmother Mary’s birthday. Photos provided by Judi Johnson. At top of story: Campofreda walks through San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood to catch a bus to his drug treatment program.

Ben, who grew up in Virginia, developed spinal stenosis as a teenager; a lack of space in the backbone puts pressure on nerves in his spine. By 20, he had constant, extreme back pain.

A doctor prescribed Oxycodone, and Ben loved both the relief from his pain and the energy the pills gave him. Within a couple years, he’d developed a serious addiction, consuming an entire month’s supply of 120 pills in a day by crushing and snorting them. He found an M.D. who would write prescriptions for more for $100 a pop and supplemented all that by buying pills on the street.

This allowed him to live a successful life as a snowboarding instructor in Colorado, then as a sound engineer and production manager who toured with musicians including the rapper Macklemore.

But the addiction grew stronger, and buying all those pills was expensive. In his early thirties, Ben switched to heroin, which was cheaper.

He moved to Santa Clara with a girlfriend six years ago to be near her family, working remotely for a Colorado company that provides online courses to educate people about cannabis, including how to run successful dispensaries and how to cook with it. He tried to hide his worsening dependence on opioids from his girlfriend, but she was suspicious of his increasingly strange behavior and dumped him after catching him smoking heroin on a camping trip.

His boss fired him too after Ben was high and incoherent during a weed conference in Seattle.

Next came a stint in an RV that he parked in Millbrae, providing an easy starting point for Uber rides into the city to buy heroin. When his RV broke down and was impounded, he couldn’t afford to get it out. So he settled into life on the streets of the Tenderloin, never calling one corner home, but just wandering.

Almost immediately, someone stole his backpack with his wallet and phone. And finally he did what so many have done: He switched to fentanyl, which was cheaper than heroin and far stronger.

He funded his addiction by dumpster-diving, explaining to me that many San Franciscans are so rich that they throw away clothes with tags on them, sunglasses, electronics and toys. He sold whatever items he could salvage by spreading them on a tarp or a blanket at Sixth and Market streets at night.

He often ate breakfast, used the bathroom and got toiletries at Glide Memorial Church or St. Anthony’s and got more goods from outreach workers.

“There was a lot of food offered,” he said. “People would hand out tents and sleeping bags, toothbrushes, deodorant, harm-reduction supplies. They would give out meth pipes, crack pipes, aluminum foil.”

The drugs were the easiest to score of all — dealers were everywhere, and fentanyl was dirt-cheap — and soon his life was entirely centered around scoring his next hit.

“The dealers figured out the science of that one real good,” he said of fentanyl. “It’s a jackpot for them. You constantly need it, you constantly want it and you’ll do anything you can to get it.”

A cop, every so often, would approach him in the Tenderloin and tell him to put his drugs away. He doesn’t recall a single outreach worker offering him treatment on the street, even as the city’s drug crisis grew so severe that one or two people, on average, died of overdoses every day.

He rarely slept at night, using methamphetamines to stay awake, and sometimes stretched out on a pew at St. Boniface Church to doze during the day.

“Everywhere else,” he said, “you’ll just get robbed.”

He managed to get by OK for a while, but then an infection in his legs made its way into his spine, and he couldn’t walk. He became confined to a wheelchair, unable to use the bathroom or get food without help. He normally weighed 170 pounds, but as his health grew worse, he shrunk to a startling 100 pounds. His hands grew red and puffy, a common symptom of opioid use.

“I wasn’t taking care of myself at all,” Ben said. “I didn’t know what was wrong with me.”

Campofreda on the streets of San Francisco shortly before his friend took him to UCSF in the spring for medical help and to beat his addiction.

Courtesy James Nugent

One thousand two hundred and seventy four. By the count of Judi Johnson, that’s the number of days her son was homeless.

“San Francisco reminds me of a Mad Max movie,” she said. “It’s beautiful and the weather’s nice, but I don’t understand how you can let people do drugs on the street like that. It’s not compassion. It didn’t seem like there was any help.”

She flew to the city from Virginia four times to visit Ben and was shocked by his worsening health. The skinny, filthy man in the wheelchair looked nothing like her little boy.

“He was gaunt. He was sick. He was off-color. He had sores,” she said, crying at the memory. “It just broke me. It still hurts to think about it.”

She found him easily each time just by walking around, then offered him help like food, hotel stays and phones he kept losing.

“I never went there thinking I could change him,” she said. “I just hoped Ben would see how much I loved him and come back.”

He didn’t, and when the pandemic struck, she stopped flying out west. She worried about her son during the day and dreamed of him at night, joining a growing number of parents whose children are addicted, homeless and lost here.

“San Francisco reminds me of a Mad Max movie.”

— Judi Johnson

Allison Lawler, 33, Googled her old college boyfriend on Valentine’s Day of this year on a whim. She found Ben’s name and photo in an online essay about San Francisco’s homeless people and their pets. Shocked, she flew south from Oregon.

Arriving one weekend in March, she found her once-vibrant and athletic companion sitting in his own waste in a wheelchair in United Nations Plaza, his back wrecked, his skeletal body nearly folded in half. He was, she recalled, “continuously smoking drugs and having uncontrollable twitches.”

Mayor London Breed had by then opened the Tenderloin Center in the plaza, with a goal of linking the city’s most vulnerable people to housing and treatment, but Lawler learned that it offered no assistance on weekends.

She initially booked a room at the Phoenix Hotel in the Tenderloin, planning to clean Ben up and accompany him to the center that Monday. But after she realized her friend had open, feces-infected sores on his legs, she called 911 against his wishes.

She urged the paramedics who arrived to place him under an involuntary psychiatric hold. They said they couldn’t. One, Lawler said, suggested she wait until Ben fell unconscious from the infection in his legs, then call 911 again. That made no sense to her.

“It’s a slow suicide, right?” she said. “Who are we protecting by letting someone die on the streets?”

Lawler returned in April on a weekday to visit the Tenderloin Center. She said she spent a frustrating day there with Ben, who smoked fentanyl in an outdoor area. (The practice was allowed and may have saved lives, with workers able to administer the antidote Narcan to those who overdosed.)

While the staff was kind, she said, the programs didn’t seem coordinated, and finding housing for someone in a wheelchair seemed particularly difficult. After many hours, staff members gave Campofreda a spot at the Cova Hotel on Ellis Street. But the bathroom wasn’t big enough for his wheelchair and he didn’t stay. Lawler went home again, defeated.

In the nearly 11 months it was open, people made about 123,000 visits to the Tenderloin Center, where basics like food and laundry were plentiful. Center staff members reported making 1,500 connections to housing or shelter, but there were only 397 “linkages” to mental health or substance abuse services.

Whether those referrals were successful is unclear. The city didn’t measure outcomes, a lost opportunity to help more people like Ben recover.

Breed had pitched the center as a conduit to longer-term care. By that measure, it failed. And rather than work to improve it, Breed this month shuttered it with nothing new to take its place for the more than 7,700 people in the city who are homeless and the untold number who are struggling with addiction.

I wanted to ask the mayor about the closure of the Tenderloin Center and whether she considers the city’s treatment system effective, but multiple requests for interviews with her over three weeks were not granted.

James Nugent, one of Ben’s best friends, was trying to find him, too, calling police, homeless aid groups and even the city morgue.

His breakthrough came after contacting Miracle Messages, a nonprofit that aims to reconnect unhoused people with their families. Soon after Nugent called, one of the group’s volunteer detectives, Liz Breuilly, called him back and agreed to search for Ben, finding him quickly.

Nugent flew in from Washington, D.C., in May, met Breuilly and then found his friend smoking fentanyl in United Nations Plaza, his head covered by a dirty jacket.

“He’d hit his drugs and then all of a sudden would be in la-la land for 45 minutes to an hour and then do it again,” Nugent said.

When some addicts fell unconscious, he noticed, dealers stole their belongings. Police officers were scarce. Meanwhile, office workers strolled through the plaza carrying bags of Whole Foods groceries, ignoring the scene around them.

“It looked like a war zone,” Nugent said. “And no one was doing anything about it.”

At one point, Ben asked Nugent to lift one of his legs onto the footrest of the wheelchair because it was dragging on the ground, and he couldn’t raise it. Nugent felt warm liquid. “He was actually peeing on me,” he said.

That was it. He told his friend he was going home and wouldn’t visit again. “I said, ‘I don’t want to remember you like this. I want to remember the good times.’ I think that hit him hard.”

Nugent left for his hotel, but soon received a call from Breuilly. Ben had called her to say he was finally ready to get help.

When they met at 9 the next morning, Breuilly told Nugent to take Ben to UCSF Medical Center, where he would have a better chance at obtaining long-term, intense help than at the smaller hospitals nearer the Tenderloin.

After arriving at UCSF, Nugent and Ben said, medical staff removed Ben’s soiled pants. Maggots fell out of the sores on his legs. Doctors later told Nugent that Ben, if he remained outside the hospital, would have died within a week.

That was May 15. It was the last day Ben used fentanyl or any other illicit drug, he told me. He marks May 16 as his sober date — the day he began to come back to life.

Ben arrived at UCSF Medical Center with osteomyelitis and discitis, severe bacterial infections in his lower back. The infections had eroded his two lowest vertebrae and spread to his tailbone. He was extremely skinny and, in the words of Dr. Alekos Theologis, a UCSF orthopedic surgeon, “depleted of all nutrition.”

“People who are addicted to drugs and who are malnourished and who have a compromised immune system are prone to these infections,” he told me.

What came next, Theologis said, was “miraculous.”

The treatment by a team of surgeons, doctors, nurses, nutritionists, social workers and others began with a complicated surgery to remove bone that was pressing on the nerves in Ben’s back. A second surgery included cutting out the infection and using a metal cage to reconstruct his spine.

Over the summer in the hospital, Ben began to recover the use of his legs. He gained more than 50 pounds. “Even though his recovery was slow, I must say that it was dramatic,” Theologis said.

The team gave him the anesthetic drug ketamine to ease his withdrawal and later prescribed him methadone for the same purpose upon discharge.

Ben, who is on Medi-Cal and paid nothing for his stay, said someone in the hospital told him his care cost more than $1 million. Theologis said he didn’t know the exact figure, but that the estimate “was very possible.”

Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a UCSF professor of addiction medicine who didn’t work on Ben’s case, called Ben’s transformation “a welcome miracle.” He said he doesn’t know how many people like Ben recover from fentanyl addiction, but called it “unfortunately low.”

“Even though his recovery was slow, I must say that it was dramatic.”

— Dr. Alekos Theologis

Fentanyl is highly potent and addictive. Treatment slots are too few. The federal government heavily regulates methadone to treat it, limiting its availability and requiring frequent trips to licensed opioid treatment facilities to access small quantities. Another drug, buprenorphine, isn’t effective until after a few days of painful withdrawal, Ciccarone said, noting that many patients give up in the meantime.

“You have to be lucky and persistent and know people and be motivated and be ready to go through all the hard work that it means to go through recovery all at the same time,” he said. “People do it, and I find it utterly remarkable and extraordinary.”

Ben, his family and his friends praised the hospital for devoting so much time and effort to him. But at his discharge in August, the city’s lack of a coherent treatment system became clear.

Ben needed to stay nearby for follow-up appointments, but UCSF social workers could not find a good place for him to go.

They recommended a medical respite facility at Eighth and Mission streets. But the corner teemed with drug dealers, and Ben said he had a panic attack when told that was his best option. The only other place the social worker could find, he said, was a medical respite facility in Oakland.

Ben went there with a prescribed stash of painkillers for his back and methadone to curb his cravings, expecting someone would keep it for him and dole it out in small quantities. Nobody did. He stayed alone in a room with piles of drugs, frantically trying to find a program that fit his needs.

In late August, Breuilly, the Miracle Messages detective, reached out to me. She’d been phoning her contacts, asking where someone who had three months of sobriety and no home could go. She couldn’t find anything.

Ben Campofreda, a recovering fentanyl addict, walks back from the pharmacy in Oakland, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. He is recovering from multiple surgeries in a respite in Oakland before seeking drug treatment.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

“I’m so desperate to help him, I could just scream,” she told me in one of our conversations. “He is scared to death. He doesn’t leave his room.”

Ben and I started chatting, and he provided regular updates. He said he left “dozens” of messages at city agencies and treatment centers, but either didn’t get calls back or received contradictory information.

“It’s been a lot harder than I planned,” he said. “They keep asking me if I have a case worker, but they can’t tell me how to find one.”

A UCSF social worker suggested he visit the Tenderloin Center — and he did, wearing a ball cap, sunglasses and COVID face mask as a disguise in hopes of avoiding his old friends.

He’d visited the center about a dozen times before, but only to smoke fentanyl and meth in the back, lured by free meth pipes and the ease of bumming drugs off fellow users. He said San Francisco should create overdose-prevention sites, but also drug-free places to seek treatment.

“I was literally looking out a window watching someone use while I’m trying to find rehab and trying to stay sober,” he said.

“I’m so desperate to help him, I could just scream.”

— Liz Breuilly, Miracle Messages volunteer

Ben said he visited the center five times in the fall, but it never led to much help. Once, after being assessed for housing, he said he was told he didn’t qualify. Another time, he said a staffer recommended visiting the office of HealthRight360, a treatment program, “to introduce himself.”

He said a staffer at HealthRight360 asked why he was there since he was already sober. “I’d like to stay that way,” he responded. He said he was told it was too late in the day to enter the nonprofit group’s detox program, but that he could come back the next day and try again.

UCSF provided car rides from Oakland, but needed several days of advance notice. Ben said he wanted to make sure HealthRight360 could place him immediately if he went back. He said he called the nonprofit and left messages that weren’t returned.

He grew increasingly frantic. He knew his recovery was fragile.

Ben should have been able to get treatment at any hour of any day. San Francisco voters in 2008 passed a measure mandating it. But 14 years later, the city is far from reaching it.

At a recent Board of Supervisors hearing, officials with the Department of Public Health were adamant that San Francisco offers treatment on demand, but advocates say that’s not true.

San Francisco has no nighttime or weekend options for seeking treatment, makes little effort to proactively educate people addicted to drugs about treatment options, and offers no navigators to help people figure out the bureaucratic treatment system once they’re ready. For people like Ben, who are already on the edge, the system needs to be a lot more supportive. Any delay or confusion can be devastating.

Department of Public Health officials said in a statement that 4,544 people received drug treatment — including methadone to curb cravings, outpatient treatment and residential treatment — through its programs in 2021. The wait time for methadone programs is less than one day, and the wait time for 90-day residential drug treatment is four days, they said.

The department said people seeking treatment should visit the Behavioral Health Access Center at 1380 Howard St., from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, or call the center 24 hours a day at 415-255-3737.

I called the number recently and, as a test, asked how someone can get treatment for a fentanyl addiction.

The call-taker said to visit the Howard Street center, but noted it was open for intake only from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and was closed for two hours Wednesday afternoons. He said detox was usually available quickly, but that securing outpatient or residential treatment could take up to two weeks.

Critics of the city’s system say people addicted to drugs often hit rock bottom at night or on weekends and that if they can’t get immediate help, they may seek fentanyl.

I described Ben’s plight to Dr. Hillary Kunins, the city’s behavioral health director. “It’s important feedback for us to receive, and we want to make sure people know how to get help,” she said, noting she intends to expand the hours for the Howard Street facility.

She said outreach teams do “motivational interviewing” in which they ask addicts what they need but also urge them to change their behavior.

But Sara Shortt, co-chair of the Treatment on Demand Coalition, an advocacy group, said the city needs to improve its treatment services and ensure that people addicted to drugs know about them and can access them.

“Much more public education needs to be put out there, and in some cases, people really need more navigators or case managers or people who are going to hold their hand through the process,” she said. “All of that is nonexistent for the most part.”

San Francisco has a new advocate for people like Ben in Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who’s in recovery himself after years of alcohol and crystal meth addiction. He smartly wants to task police with keeping dealers away from blocks with treatment facilities. He wants treatment intake available 24/7, a 311-like call center for people seeking help and a response team available to pick them up within an hour and help them navigate the process.

He said he recently helped a friend addicted to crystal meth access treatment, a process he found frustrating and confusing.

“This is never going to be the issue of the month for me,” he said. “I consider it the obligation of my survival.”

Ben made a Sept. 22 morning appointment at HealthRight360, and I asked permission to attend. That’s when things finally clicked. They told him he could move into a treatment facility on the edge of Buena Vista Park that day.

“That’s awesome!” Ben said. “I’m stoked.”

Getting into detox can happen quickly if someone shows up by 3 p.m., said Vitka Eisen, executive director of the nonprofit. But she acknowledged that a city that truly offered treatment on demand would have it available all day, every day and would be more explicit about how to get the help. She said a staffing shortage has made offering immediate treatment even more challenging.

I visited Ben at the Buena Vista Park facility the following week, and he seemed calm and happy. He described attending morning meetings in the chapel and walking in circles around the large room in the afternoon for exercise. He attended online Narcotics Anonymous meetings and had been connected to a doctor, a psychiatrist and a dentist to pull meth-rotted teeth.

“It’s been really great here,” he said. “The program is awesome now that I’m in it.”

After a couple of weeks, he moved to a longer-term treatment facility on Hayes Street. Now, he can go for walks outside. All participants must perform jobs; he folds laundry.

He talks to his parents every day, and numerous friends have visited. He voted on Election Day and celebrated Thanksgiving at the facility with turkey and stuffing. He’s recording a podcast called “Rehab Undercover.” Perhaps most stunningly, he no longer needs his walker and can walk and climb stairs with ease.

Ben Campofreda is dropped off at HealthRIGHT 360 in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Campofreda began his 90 day-residential treatment in his attempt to stop his fentanyl addiction.

Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

Ben Campofreda arrives at HealthRIGHT 360 in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Campofreda began his 90 day-residential treatment in his attempt to stop his fentanyl addiction. He sits in an office to process his paperwork before going to the treatment center.

Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

Left: Ben Campofreda is dropped off at HealthRIGHT 360 in San Francisco on Sept.Santiago Mejia 22. Right: He sits in an office to process his paperwork before being admitted to the treatment center. Photos by Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle
Top: Ben Campofreda is dropped off at HealthRIGHT 360 in San Francisco on Sept.Santiago Mejia 22. Above: He sits in an office to process his paperwork before being admitted to the treatment center. Photos by Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

Campofreda walks through HealthRight360’s Walden House in San Francisco, where he was undergoing his drug rehabilitation.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Ben Campofreda, a recovering fentanyl addict, shows off his bracelet reading “ Every Day Counts” while in his room in rehab at Walden House in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2022. He is recovering from multiple surgeries while getting drug treatment.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

Ben Campofreda, a recovering fentanyl addict, (right) meets with his therapist to discuss his progress in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. He is recovering from multiple surgeries while getting drug treatment.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Ben Campofreda, a recovering fentanyl addict, organizes a piece of laundry at his drug rehabilitation program at Walden House where hopeful messages are on the walls in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2022. He is recovering from multiple surgeries while getting drug treatment.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Left: Ben Campofreda shows off his bracelet reading “ Every Day Counts.” Top right: He meets with his therapist to discuss his progress. Bottom right: Campofreda does laundry at his drug rehabilitation program at Walden House in San Francisco. Photos by Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle
Top: Ben Campofreda shows off his bracelet reading “ Every Day Counts.” Middle: He meets with his therapist to discuss his progress. Above: Campofreda does laundry at his drug rehabilitation program at Walden House in San Francisco. Photos by Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

Ben Campofreda organizes chairs in a meeting room at Walden House’s 30-day detox center in San Francisco.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

He plans to enter a HealthRight360 step-down facility where he’ll be able to live for a year or two while getting help seeking a job. He hopes to become a drug counselor.

Dec. 16 marks his seven-month-sober date. His mom and friends still can’t believe their happy, healthy guy is back. A miracle, his mom calls it. Like winning the lottery, his ex-girlfriend said. As good an outcome as one could have possibly hoped, his surgeon told me.

He goes back to his old stomping grounds for methadone appointments and no longer worries about getting recognized by his old friends.

“I hope that when people see me out there and see what I’m doing, it can maybe be a glimmer of hope for them,” he said.

And he no longer worries much about succumbing to the lure of fentanyl.

“Actually, it’s the complete opposite,” he said. “I can’t believe that s— had such a crazy hold on me. It’s like being held hostage.”

But now, at last, he’s free.

Heather Knight is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf

Campofreda greets a friend he had used drugs with on the streets after a therapy session in San Francisco.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

The post He was days from demise. Right here’s how he kicked fentanyl and bought off San Francisco’s streets appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Every morning, Agustin Fuentes makes his way to the front door of the San Francisco Day Labor Program in the Mission. There he starts his day by sweeping the leaves, plastic bags and cigarette butts that have blown down Cesar Chavez Street and gathered on the sidewalk overnight. After he’s done, he checks in to see if anyone’s called in to the program with a job moving, painting or gardening. If not, he joins the hundreds of day laborers standing on street corners throughout the city, hoping for a few hours of work.

At the end of the day, Fuentes doesn’t retreat to a warm bed indoors. Instead, he finds a few pieces of cardboard and hunkers down on the sidewalk.

Fuentes is one of hundreds of unhoused people in the Mission who are underserved by the city’s homeless programs. In the daytime, when outreach workers hit the streets, he’s at work. At night, he keeps a low profile, trying to stay out of other people’s way. Nearly 60, he’s lived in San Francisco 40 years. For the past 20, he’s been homeless.

Contrary to what we read on Twitter and in the national media, particularly surrounding discussions of Chesa Boudin’s recall, San Francisco’s population of homeless people are not all drug addicts who break into cars and commit violent crimes. In some ways, it’s easier to lean on that narrative; by assuming they are at fault for their homelessness through some deep moral failing, it absolves us from feeling obligated to do anything about it.

But that’s not the reality.

Many, like Fuentes, are longtime residents who simply can’t afford a place to live. And they love this city.

“It’s a beautiful place to live whether you’re homeless or you have a house,” Fuentes said. “I want to stay in my home, in my community, in my beautiful city.”

But as the city — particularly the Mission — has gotten more expensive, its homeless population has grown. Infrastructure to address the crisis has been slow to catch up.

After years of trying to get help with no offers of housing or resources, Fuentes has lost trust in the system. He rarely leaves the neighborhood and doesn’t feel safe in the tenderloin, where much of the city’s services are located.

We often refer to people like Fuentes as falling through the cracks. But it’s not a crack, it’s a gaping hole. The system simply isn’t designed to serve them.

That’s why in March, the Latino Task Force, a collective of more than 40 community groups, deployed 80 volunteers to do block-by-block survey of the Mission’s homeless residents. The goal was not to simply count people, but to collect nuanced information on their needs: how far people must travel to get water (60% said more than two blocks), how many had lost items during homeless sweeps (75%) or how many spoke Spanish as their preferred language (43%).

The ensuing report, released Thursday, fills in crucial gaps in city data on people experiencing homelessness and proposes some long-overdue solutions.

The report confirms that there are many like Fuentes who have been left out. Of the 110 people polled, only 17% said they were on a waiting list for shelter or housing, although nearly every person said they’d like to move indoors.

One barrier: There is nowhere in the Mission District to apply for permanent supportive housing. And even if you’re lucky enough to get on the waitlist for a coveted, subsidized unit, the path inside is broken — especially for the area’s Latino population. The journey from approval to moving indoors can take more than a year. In the first three months of 2022, only 20% of those who moved into this type of housing were Latino. But in the Latino Task Force’s poll, nearly 50% identified as Latino.

After decades of watching more of their community end up on the streets, members of the Latino Task Force aren’t waiting for a top-down solution to homelessness to land in their laps. They have a plan to get people off the streets: El Proyecto Dignidad, the Dignity Project.

The plan looks something like this:

When a sweep of a homeless camp is scheduled, community monitors will act as an intermediary between city agencies and homeless residents, ensuring that people and their belongings are kept safe. Trained case workers from nonprofits will then partner with each person in the camp to start referrals. People will enter shelters and their belongings will be stored while they wait for permanent housing. The streets where they camped will then be cleaned.

It’s not wildly different from what the city says it does during a homeless sweep, though, importantly, without an overreliance on police. And instead of depending on city agencies, El Proyecto Dignidad will empower the Mission neighborhood to care for its own. That means outreach to people like Fuentes would come from people who speak his language, who understand his culture and who he may even recognize from the neighborhood. That trust is essential.

It’s a plan that requires policy shifts, but minuscule new financial investment: The only budget ask is for money to hire two community members to monitor activities between city agencies and mission residents who live outdoors.

There’s a precedent in the city’s plan to end homelessness in the transgender community, which entails a $6.5 million investment in trans-led groups already working with the population and a commitment to permanently subsidize housing for 150 people.

Supporting a similarly engaged coalition that has a clear idea of ​​how to solve homelessness within their community should be a no-brainer.

Too many in San Francisco view homelessness as an intractable, unsolvable challenge. But there’s another narrative that could be true: When given the resources, communities can take care of their own, without displacing people, adding to their trauma or letting them fall through the cracks. For the mission, which has experienced decades of gentrification with little remediation, this trust and investment is long overdue.

Nuala Bishari is a San Francisco Chronicle opinion columnist and editorial writer. Email: nuala.bishari@sfchronicle.com

The post This employee has slept on San Francisco’s streets for 20 years. How town failed him appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The misery experienced on San Francisco’s sidewalks has long offered a case study in the failure of California’s mental health care system. Now, the dire situation is inspiring a proposal for a sweeping overhaul.

gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan, to be unveiled Thursday, seeks to tackle two big flaws in the system: the shortage of desperately needed care and the strict limitations on compelling treatment for people who are too sick to understand they need help.

His proposal, called Care Court, would create a mental-health-focused arm of the civil courts in every county. For the first time, the state would require counties to provide comprehensive treatment to those suffering from debilitating psychosis — and risk sanctions if they don’t. The people in the program, in turn, would be obligated to accept the care.

In an exclusive interview Wednesday, Newsom grew visibly angry as he discussed his hometown — the city he presided over as mayor more than a decade ago — which prides itself on its so-called compassion as it lets people wither and die on its streets.

Previous efforts to compel treatment have often run into opposition from mental-health advocates who worry about a return to institutionalization, and say governments should focus on expanding voluntary care. But the governor said there’s no more time to debate people’s civil rights as they endure degradation, and no more time to argue about how to fund the much-needed help.

“There’s no compassion with people with their clothes off defecating and urinating in the middle of the streets, screaming and talking to themselves,” Newsom said. “There’s nothing appropriate about a kid and a mom going down the street trying to get to the park being accosted by people who clearly need help.

“I’m increasingly outraged by what’s going on in the streets,” he said. “I’m disgusted with it.”

Newsom, who has battled homelessness and mental illness in his official capacities for two decades — and has faced pressure to do more — sounded optimistic that this proposal could yield dramatic change.

Under his vision, people suffering from psychosis — whether from a mental illness such as schizophrenia or triggered by severe drug addiction — could be brought before a Superior Court judge under three scenarios: either they are suspected of a crime, an involuntary hold in a psychiatric emergency room is ending, or a family member or outreach worker believes they cannot care for themselves. A public defender would represent them.

A county clinical team would create a care plan with input from the person and their “supporter,” a county case manager who would help them navigate the process and make decisions.

The plan would likely include clinical services such as visits with a psychiatrist, prescriptions for medications and housing such as at a board-and-care facility. The person wouldn’t need to be homeless to qualify. If a judge ordered the plan, the county would be mandated to provide what’s needed and the person would be required to accept it.

If the person suffering from psychosis refused at any point to participate, their criminal case would proceed. If no crime was committed, they could face the existing state process, in which people who are gravely disabled or deemed to be a danger to themselves or others are placed under involuntary holds and eventual conservatorship. Medication could be court-ordered, but would not be forcibly given.

Failure to take mandated medications could mean the person reverts to the criminal court or eventual conservatorship. The idea is to help people long before either of those outcomes is necessary.

Care Court would need legislative approval, which Newsom hopes to secure by June for implementation in January. The legislative process will include debate over how much additional money to provide to the courts.

A loud contingent has fought increases in involuntary treatment and conservatorship for years—and may fight the governor’s plan, too. They include advocates for homeless and disabled people who say forcing people to accept treatment is cruel, as well as some politicians and mental health clinicians who say increasing the number of conservatorships without far more treatment beds and staff isn’t viable.

Newsom brushed off those concerns Wednesday, saying the status quo is intolerable.

It’s unclear whether his sweeping, expensive idea will pan out, but what’s certain is that the current system is failing miserably.

Every week in San Francisco seems to bring new, horrifying stories of people suffering because they are experiencing crippling mental illness or drug addiction. Last week, a homeless woman and mother of three whose ex-husband said she suffered from severe drug addiction, and whose friend said she had behaved erratically, died in a fire while taking shelter from the cold under a freeway overpass in Glen Park.

On Sunday, Leonard Krubner was riding a Muni train when another passenger shoved him, screamed about him being in the FBI, called him anti-gay slurs and brandished a switchblade. Krubner darted off the train and reported the incident to a Muni agent — who said a similar report had been made the night before.

“Hello! Someone, do something!” Krubner said in an interview. “I try to be sympathetic to people with problems. Nevertheless, we just can’t have them coming onto public transit and brandishing knives.”

On Saturday, a group of seven women and girls were celebrating a birthday at Ocean Beach when a man who said they seemed profoundly ill or high approached them, grabbed their food and threw it into the sand. He then grabbed a can of soda and hurled it into the face of Karla Flemmings, one of the celebrants, who passed out.

“I laid there and I literally asked, ‘God, am I dying today?'” Flemmings, 50, said. “Then I thought I’d lost my eye. I didn’t think it was even still there.”

A man sitting nearby called 911. Police responded and booked a 46-year-old man on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon and misdemeanor vandalism. He remains in jail.

Flemmings was diagnosed with a concussion and multiple fractures in her nose. Her face was severely swollen and her eye was shut for days. She spoke compassionately about the assailant, who said she appeared to be homeless and clearly needed help.

“I’m born and raised in San Francisco, and I’ve seen the drastic changes that have occurred firsthand,” she said. “So many people don’t have money when there’s so much wealth and opulence in the Bay Area. Something better has to be done — real services and real support.”

Last year, the state approved spending $12 billion to address homelessness and mental health. Newsom’s proposed budget for this year includes another $2 billion. Of the $14 billion total, $4.5 billion is tagged specifically for mental health treatment.

The state’s Mental Health Services Act, a 1% income tax on the wealthy that passed in 2004, will provide another $3.8 billion this year to counties for treatment, a pot that’s grown significantly from last year as incomes of the wealthiest Californians have soared.

Whether the money will be enough to provide the huge amount of care Newsom envisions is a big question, but the governor’s team says the program would save money elsewhere in pricey jails and hospitals.

Darrell Steinberg, the Sacramento mayor who authored the Mental Health Services Act when he was in the state Legislature, said he supports the Care Court concept because it would finally compel counties to provide services on the state’s dime.

“Everything that cities and counties are called upon to do in providing help and treatment is voluntary and optional,” Steinberg said. “We don’t say to our local communities, ‘You know, provide a free public education to kids or don’t, whatever you choose.’ We require it.”

Clearly, the up-to-you approach for counties when it comes to mental health isn’t adequate. Under Laura’s Law, the program designed to compel outpatient treatment for seriously mentally ill people, just 218 people in the entire state were subject to enter court-ordered treatment in 2018-19, according to the governor’s office.

The foundation for mental health treatment remains the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, signed by Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1967 in a bid to empower people experiencing mental illness. It allows for short, involuntary psychiatric holds if a person is deemed potentially dangerous, and allows a judge to appoint a longer-term conservator to make decisions for people who are “gravely disabled.”

But in 2019-20, though there were more than 55,000 short-term holds around the state, just 5,584 long-term conservatorships were put in place. Some of those could have been renewals in cases that are years or even decades old.

Last year, judges found 4,531 people incompetent to stand trial on felony charges, meaning they couldn’t understand the nature of their case or assist in their defense. Two-thirds of them were homeless, and nearly half had received no mental health treatment in the previous six months.

In June 2019, San Francisco opted into a controversial state law to expand eligibility for conservatorship to include those suffering from severe drug addictions and mental illness. But nearly three years later, just two people have been preserved.

Newsom called all of these initiatives “small ball” compared to Care Court, asserting that many of them involved years of fights for few results.

“This is a moral exercise,” he said. “The risk here is not taking one.”

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight usually appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf

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SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) – San Francisco Pride announced this week it will return to in-person events this June for the first time since the pandemic as the nonprofit also prepares for a change in leadership this year.

“I think what stands out for me about my time here at San Francisco Pride is being really heartened by the resilience of our community of the ways we have consistently faced challenges with love and compassion,” said Outgoing Executive Director Fred Lopez.

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Lopez was in charge of the organization for the past two years, overseeing its journey through the COVID-19 pandemic. While the search for his successor continues, Suzanne Ford will take on that role in an interim basis.

“We’re going to step back into our greatness and we’re going to let the world know that the queer community is resilient in San Francisco and San Francisco Pride is at the center of that,” Ford told KPIX 5 on Thursday.

Community leaders say the return of a celebration in person will benefit the whole city. One estimate calculated that $357 million was generated for all of San Francisco over the two days of Pride weekend, according to the Castro Community Benefit District.

“Pride has always been a little bit like Christmas for the Castro as far as the small businesses go,” said Andrea Aiello, the executive director of the Castro CBD. “We’re back, we’re moving forward.”

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While the benefit for the city is clear, the Castro District expects to see a much needed bounce for businesses who have struggled during the pandemic. Those who are located in the neighborhood say they are eager to have a safe and successful Pride celebration in 2022.

“This I think is a necessary thing for the community, to remember what it’s like to live life, and to get through the pandemic, we’ve come along way in the past two years,” said Paul Perretta, one of the owners of hot cookie “I’m a firm believer that in person is always better when it comes to celebrating with others.”

Some question if this is the right move at this time, hoping it will be safe but wonder if more time is needed to assess the current state of the pandemic.

“Bringing hundreds of thousands of people together seems a little premature,” said Louis Knox, a San Francisco resident. “I say baby steps, I say baby steps and evaluation, baby steps and evaluation because you see we’ve been here before, this is not the first time we’ve had a ‘reopening’ only to find out it’s a ‘reclosing. ‘”

Pride Weekend will be June 25 – 26 with “Love Will Keep Us Together” as the 2022 theme. Organizers say they will have more specific details to announce in another month. They hope people will donate to the organization or become a member to help fund their work.

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“Everybody from the city who wants to say ‘Hey, San Francisco is open and we’re ready’ to accept people from all over the world who want to experience that sense of community and acceptance that San Francisco is known for,” Lopez said .

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