San Francisco’s numerous street-outreach teams, which administer to homeless people and drug users in troubled neighborhoods like the Mission and the Tenderloin, are being reshuffled: They will move from working under the Department of Emergency Management to the Department of Public Health, according to the mayor’s office, another signal that Mayor Daniel Lurie thinks addressing health factors is key to fighting public drug use and homelessness.
“People struggling with addiction need health care, so we’re putting the Department of Public Health in charge and doubling down on our work to connect people to treatment,” Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a statement.
Around 20 city workers will now report to the health department and 100 contracted workers — many of whom currently work for the homelessness department — will now work for the health department…