By J.D. Morris : sfchronicle – excerpt

Sandwiched between a hair salon and a dim sum restaurant just across Kearny Street from San Francisco’s iconic Sentinel Building, the Hotel North Beach doesn’t look like much from the outside.

But the unassuming 150-unit hotel is poised to become a new — and contested — front in Mayor London Breed’s efforts to show progress on fighting the worsening drug epidemic that caused record overdose deaths in the city last year and has frustrated the public with persistent open-air drug scenes.

Breed’s administration wants to turn the hotel at 935 Kearny St. into a sober living facility for formerly homeless people this spring. Officials say it will be a novel addition to San Francisco’s supply of permanent supportive housing, providing a previously unavailable option for people exiting homelessness who struggle with addiction and want to live in a building that’s free of drugs and alcohol…(more)

RELATED:

S.F.’s largest drug treatment provider investigated by state after two overdose deaths

California officials are investigating the recent deaths of two men who fatally overdosed while seeking drug treatment at Walden House, a longtime San Francisco facility for those struggling with addiction.

HealthRight 360, which operates Walden House and is the city’s largest provider of drug treatment, reported the deaths — one which occurred Tuesday and another three weeks ago — to the California Department of Health Care Services and San Francisco Department of Public Health, as regulations require…(more)

Not quite sure how this will work with Wiener’s plans to sell open alcohol on the streets of SF till 4 in the morning. Or how legal it is to try to control alcohol consumption, but, I guess we shall see. We expect a lot of pushback on both efforts. What is going to happen to the current residents of the hotel who are not a part of the program if they end up living in a sober housing project?