In a court filing, city attorneys expressed that the funds would be dedicated to remediating the opioid crisis in San Francisco. Mayor London Breed further elaborated that the money would be channeled into various programs, including the establishment of treatment beds, dual diagnosis beds, abstinence-based programming, and transitional housing.
While acknowledging the significance of the secured funding, Mayor Breed emphasized that it would not erase the tragic loss of thousands of lives to the opioid epidemic. And that the opioid epidemic has become a generational crisis affecting communities across the country.
The rise of fentanyl has exacerbated the situation, leaving cities like San Francisco grappling with devastating consequences.
The ruling highlighted alarming statistics: opioid-related emergency room visits in San Francisco had more than tripled from 886 in 2015 to 2,998 in 2020, while opioid overdoses had become the leading cause of death among the city’s homeless population since 2016.
