The San Francisco Human Services Agency is kicking off 2025 by implementing a voter-approved program requiring recipients of cash benefits who struggle with substance-use issues to undergo some form of treatment in order to continue receiving their monthly assistance.
Proposition F passed with 58.1% of the vote in March 2024 and took effect at the start of the New Year. Now known as the Treatment Pathway Initiative, Human Services Agency Executive Director Trent Rhorer said during a press conference Thursday the program aims to support “individuals who have substance-use disorders, and really beginning … their path towards recovery.”
Rhorer said the initiative’s main objectives are to get people on the path to recovery; prevent people from using their cash benefits to buy drugs; and to reduce the number of people coming from elsewhere to take advantage of the cash benefit.
The roughly 5,500 people enrolled in the County Adult Assistance Program — which provides a monthly cash benefit of $714 for people who are housed and $109 for those living without shelter — will be subject to a 10-question screening known as the Drug Abuse Screening Test, or DAST-10. Consisting of 10 yes-or-no questions, Rhorer said the questionnaire “is an evidence-based tool that tries to ferret out whether someone has a substance-use disorder.”