DAILYMAIL.COM
San Francisco never approved the creation of a supervised consumption site at the linkage center and the site is in violation of state and federal laws
The open air drug market was first reported on by journalist Michael Shellenberger, who said in his Substack blog that he’d witnessed a drug deal and blatant drug use at the site
The center is part of Mayor London Breed’s Tenderloin Emergency Intervention plan to address public drug use and overdose deaths in the neighborhood
Breed generated national news media coverage last December when she announced the crackdown on open air drug use in the downtown Tenderloin neighborhood
In addition to helping connect people with service, the center will also help people living on the streets get access to basic things like food, water, bathrooms, showers and laundry
The center operates seven seven days a week between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., with limited staff due to the impact of COVID-19. However, the center will expand to operate 24 hours a day and 7 days a week
A new ‘linkage center’ aimed at connecting homeless street addicts with drug rehab facilities opened in San Francisco last week – but distressing images show an open air illicit drug consumption site that is now littered with needles and crowded with addicts shooting up in broad daylight.
The center, which opened on January 18, is part of the San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s Tenderloin Emergency Intervention plan introduced last year. The linkage center is located at 1172 Market Street, in the United Nations Plaza. The supervised drug consumption area is an outdoor fenced section of the linkage center – just blocks away from the city’s court house, San Francisco City Hall and the Civic Center. Aerial footage of the area shows the city’s Pioneer Monument overrun with homeless tents.
In December, Breed declared a state of emergency in Tenderloin and announced a sweeping crackdown on open air drug use and drug dealing in the downtown neighborhood – one of the city’s poorest and most drug-infested areas.
The Tenderloin has long been an epicenter of homelessness and drug use, but city officials said the problem has worsened as the national opioid crisis escalated over the course of the pandemic.
Announcing a crime crackdown, Breed argued that San Francisco officers should get aggressive and ‘less tolerant of all the bulls*** that has destroyed our city’, as she went back on her plans to defund the police.
