San Francisco ads demand leaders to do more to address fentanyl issues

Adverts sprouting up around San Francisco are demanding local leaders do more to address the city's ongoing fentanyl epidemic.

Plastered throughout the Democratic stronghold's most drug-ridden neighborhoods, the ads are meant to upset - and contain and statements that criticize officials for 'normalizing our fentanyl crisis.'

Pointed slogans intended to lambaste the lukewarm response - which has left citizens to navigate a mess of open-air drug markets and tent encampments - include 'SF enables drug use but not recovery', and the sarcastic 'That's Fentalife'.

Others tell fed-up citizens 'it's time to stop normalizing our fentanyl crisis,' and contain QR codes that take viewers to a page where they can send emails to Mayor Breed and the city's Board of Supervisors.

The campaign comes from the relatively new advocacy group TogetherSF Action, which seeks to stoke a more pronounced course of action from Breed and those tasked with creating the Bay Area locale's legislation to address the crisis - which has snuffed out nearly double the lives claimed by COVID-19 in

Adverts sprouting up around San Francisco are now demanding local leaders do more to address the city's ongoing fentanyl epidemic, which local officials have so far failed to address.

Pictured is a computer generated rendition of some of the scathing ads

Plastered throughout the city's most drug-ridden neighborhoods, the ads are meant to upset - and contain imagery and statements that criticize officials for 'normalizing' the fentanyl crisis

'We want people to stop looking the other way.

We have to confront this problem if we're gonna solve it,' TogetherSF Action Director Kanishka Cheng told The San Francisco Chronicle Tuesday, calling the campaign a wake-up call for the public.

'We have to shock people into action to realize this is actually not normal,' he added. 'It's not OK, and we can do better. 

'The people in distress on our streets deserve better.'

Such sentiments were what spurred Cheng and several other like-minded San Franciscans to start the group late last year, following a string of failed experiments from the city's notoriously lenient government.

Unsuccessful stints saw civic staffers hand out alcohol and tobacco to homeless and drug-addicted residents in hard-hit neighborhoods such as Tenderloin and SoMa, two of three sites where the procession of posters were put up this week.

With this new effort, Cheng and others hope to enflame already existing embers of outrage that have smoldered for the past few years, as a simple stroll through the city's streets continues to incite fear in the hearts of residents.

Speaking to the Chronicle, the director - who started TogetherSF Action as offshoot of a nonprofit formed in 2020 - explained how he believes the city's current course of action has actually enabled drug use instead of quelling it.

'There's a lot of focus on the outreach and overdose prevention side and much less of a focus on converting people into recovery and into treatment,' Cheng said, citing the city's introduction of a meth sobering center nearly a year ago, as well as 350 behavioral health beds over the past several years.

The first phase of the ad campaign started this week with murals  in the Tenderloin and two in SoMa, along with this billboard at 560 Brannan Street bearing a scathing message

The lukewarm response has left citizens to navigate a mess of open-air drug markets and tent encampments - something the city has refused to outright prohibit

The pointed ads, which sprouted up this week, are strategically situated along some of the city's most problematic corners.

The provide fed-up citizens with QR codes that take them to a page where they can send emails to city officials

'We want people to stop looking the other way.

We have to confront this problem if we're gonna solve it,' TogetherSF Action Director Kanishka Cheng said Tuesday, calling the campaign a wake-up call for the public

Months removed from the pandemic, the city's recovery has still lagged in recent months - with streets as unsafe as they were before and overdoses still rife

With this new effort, Cheng and others hope to enflame already existing embers of outrage that have smoldered for the past few years, as a simple stroll through the city's streets continues to incite fear in the hearts of residents

Called TogetherSF, the advocacy group's presiding nonprofit is also aimed at boosting civic engagement among those disaffected by San Francisco politics, particularly by policies of appeasement seen since the pandemic

'That's really what we're advocating for.

We want to restore more than a heartbeat — we want to restore people's lives.'

Called TogetherSF, the advocacy group's presiding nonprofit is also aimed at boosting civic engagement among those disaffected by San Francisco politics, particularly by policies of appeasement seen under Breed since the pandemic.

She and other San Francisco legislators are responsible for policies that have provided beds for roughly 2,550 disenfranchised residents, which send inhabitants back on the streets after they get cleaned up.

As these sites continue to eat up crucial taxpayer dollars comprising the city's budget, Cheng and other members want the city to pay for vans to pick up drug users to take them to get treatment - 24 hours a day.

Through their recent campaign - which comes on the heels of other adverts slamming San Francisco's lax methods - TogetherSF Action hopes to beseech the city to add more residential drug treatment beds, and offer more drug-free recovery options.

At the sobering spots, visitors are regularly given prescription-strength medications, ideally to help wean them off whatever they had been using prior. 

However, with the continued abundance of vagrants, that strategy has so far fallen flat - an occurrence the group wants to rub in the face of Breed and other officials with the new ads.

Called TogetherSF, the advocacy group's presiding nonprofit is also aimed at boosting civic engagement among those disaffected by San Francisco politics, particularly by policies of appeasement seen since the pandemic

seeks to stoke a more pronounced course of action from Breed and those tasked the Bay Area locale's legislation in addressing the crisis - which has snuffed out nearly double the lives claimed by COVID-19 in that same span.

The pointed, sarcastic slogan intended to lambaste the lukewarm response - which has left citizens to navigate a mess of open-air drug markets and tent encampments - include 'SF enables drug use but not recovery', and the sarcastic 'That's Fentalife'

Last year, citizens fed up with the state of their city - more than 70,730 people out of roughly 118,000 citizens - voted to oust woke District Attorney Chesa Boudin, whose anti-incarceration policies have been widely panned as causing the ongoing crisis.

He was originally elected on a platform of criminal justice reform, but his progressive laws were  widely blamed for rising crime and homelessness in the Bay Area.

He has since been replaced by Brooke Jenkins, 40, who cleaned house after taking her old boss' job, but has also failed to introduce new policies to deter repeat offenders.

During Boudin's time in office, 'smash-and-grab' robberies became commonplace, with thieves brazenly raiding store shelves in broad daylight, only to avoid charges thanks to Boudin's lax policies.

Such robberies have forced stores across the city to close down to avoid being victimized in the premeditated - and often coordinated - strikes.

Finally local business groups funded the recall campaign against Boudin, accusing him of not doing enough to keep citizens safe and penipu introducing policies that allow repeat offenders to commit crimes without fear of incarceration.

But Boudin and his supporters claimed that the recall was a Republican effort designed to undermine his progressive-led reforms, which has led increased crime seen during the pandemic to continue to persist.

The campaign comes from the relatively new advocacy group TogetherSF Action, which seeks to stoke a more pronounced course of action from Mayor London Breed, whose progressive policies have fallen flat in fixing the city's dire situation

Last year, citizens fed up with the state of their city - more than 70,730 people out of roughly 118,000 citizens - voted to oust woke District Attorney Chesa Boudin, whose anti-incarceration policies have been widely panned as causing the ongoing crisis

He has since been replaced by Brooke Jenkins, who also has been unsuccessful in quelling the surge

'They created an electoral dynamic where we were literally shadowboxing,' Boudin said following the vote.  'This is a Republican- and police union-led playbook to undermine and attack progressive prosecutors who have been winning elections across the country.

'The playbook involves delegitimizing and fear-mongering and recalling.

It's a tactic being used by folks who are increasingly unable to prevail in elections when they put forward their views about public safety and justice.'

As for Breed, her office responded to the new assortment of ads Tuesday with a vague statement that seemed somewhat receptive to the demands TogetherSF Action are making.

'The underlying asks are generally in line with what the Mayor has already been pursuing to increase police staffing, disrupt open-air drug markets, add more treatment beds, and increase street outreach,' Breed's office said. 

'These will be a key focus in her upcoming budget.'

The mayor will introduce a proposal for those finances in June.