Not a Jail. Not an Emergency Room. What Is Daniel Lurie’s New RESET Center?

San Francisco’s latest effort to tackle rampant outdoor drug use is a new sobering center where law enforcement will drop off people detained for public intoxication as part of a pilot program.

Sheriff’s department and city officials say that the facility, called the Rapid Enforcement, Support, Evaluation and Triage, or RESET, Center, is not a detention center or an emergency room, but a place where people can connect with different service providers. But the new model has already raised concerns from the City Attorney’s office and sparked infighting in City Hall.

Mayor Daniel Lurie sees the center as a new opportunity for people struggling with addiction to get help while also cleaning up the city’s streets.

“We need a different approach. We can’t just rely on bringing people to jail or to the emergency room. This RESET Center is going to… allow our law enforcement officers to bring somebody in with the consequence of facing an arrest,” Lurie said after a tour of the space on Wednesday. “But the goal is to get them into recovery. The goal is to get them the treatment they need.”

The RESET Center will officially open on Monday and operate 24/7. It is located at 444 Sixth St., next to the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street and around the corner from the jail. People arrested for public intoxication without violent behavior, emergency medical needs or active warrants can be brought to the center, where they will be detained while they sober up. The pilot program is expected to last a little over two years.

Those who accept a placement at the RESET Center will not be charged with a crime or booked at the site. If they refuse the RESET Center, they will be brought to jail.

The unusual nature of the facility has already faced scrutiny. A memo from the city attorney’s office, first obtained by Mission Local, said it runs the risk of serving as an unlicensed detention center.

The pilot program is so far focused only on District 6, which includes the South of Market neighborhood.

“It’s a consequential intervention that will pair real accountability with connections to treatment,” said Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents District 6.

“I hope it sends a strong message to would-be drug offenders looking to travel to San Francisco that the party is over.”

At the RESET Center, people enter through a door with a metal detector that opens into a waiting area. There are showers and bathrooms, and two large white rooms with 25 gray reclining chairs. In the middle of the space, behind glass windows, is a command station for law enforcement and other staff monitoring people brought to the center.

Supporters say the purpose of the new facility is to offer an alternative to jail and free up space in hospitals.

“The drop-off process for officers… is designed to make sure that law enforcement personnel can get right back out onto the street,” Sheriff Paul Miyamoto said. “The intent of this entire resource is to provide a space for people to come, to not go to jail, not go to hospitals, but to a space where they can sober up, where they have access to services and healthcare and people who want to see them get into services and care and put them on a path to recovery.”

Sheriff deputies will be on site, along with medical staff, case managers and peer support specialists, to check in on people as they rest and sober up.

Miyamoto said that individuals who are brought there will be required to stay for a period of time before they are discharged, but will have the option to stay for up to 23 hours.

“The exact same thing happens when we bring them to jail. They’re put into what we call a release-when-sobering cell. So we wait for 48 hours to see what their state is, if they’re able to take care of themselves, if they’re sobering up. Then they’re released from our custody,” Miyamoto said. “But the difference here is we’re not releasing them from jail. We’re releasing them from a chair that they’re sitting in.”

City officials defended the approach and said that new ideas are needed in the current overdose crisis.

“It’s not jail, and it’s not the hospital. It’s a third way. It’s another option for people. It’s another option for our law enforcement, and we’re going to pilot this,” Lurie said.

While the Department of Public Health is not operating the facility, officials said that there will be vans available to direct people to other health facilities and services after they stay at the RESET Center.

If someone wants to be connected to drug treatment, including opioid addiction medications like buprenorphine, a pharmacist could be called to the RESET Center to provide those kinds of services, too.

“We have a range of ways to make sure they can get that very quickly, including having people able to come here to prescribe and get them the medication very, very rapidly,” Public Health Director Daniel Tsai said. “So that is part of the workflow that has been built in with the Connections Health team.”

Connections Health Solutions, a company that operates across the country but will be working for the first time in San Francisco, will provide health services at the RESET Center.

CEO Colin LeClair said the RESET Center is their first and only project where sheriffs completely run the site.

“Every other facility we operate, law enforcement and us are hand in hand. Most of them though are not owned or operated by the law enforcement,” LeClair told KQED. “This is the first step toward building out a continuum of services, so this is not a panacea. This is just a great first step.”

People can only be brought to the RESET Center by police, meaning there is no walk-in option for people looking for a space to sober up indoors or drop-offs if people want to bring their friends or loved ones.

That’s a stark difference from the city’s existing sobering center, called SoMa Rise. That facility, run by the Department of Public Health and the nonprofit HealthRIGHT360, is a voluntary walk-in sobering center with trained medical staff on site.

The city’s street outreach teams, which are part of the Department of Public Health, can also drop people off at SoMa RISE.

People can also leave SoMa RISE at any point and can also obtain transportation or connection to other health services.

“Initially, people won’t want to come here because they are being arrested, they are being detained, they’re being brought in and compelled to come to this facility,” Miyamoto said of the RESET Center. It is “not a part of the criminal justice system, not a voluntary system, but something that actually shakes them and wakes them up.”