It\u2019s last call for San Francisco\u2019s government hooch.<\/p>\n
A COVID-era program that guzzled $5 million of taxpayer money annually to serve booze to homeless alcoholics will finally shutter this year, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie exclusively told The California Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years, San Francisco was spending $5 million a year to provide alcohol to people who were struggling with homelessness and addiction \u2014 it doesn\u2019t make sense, and we\u2019re ending it,\u201d Lurie said.<\/p>\n
The MAP news highlights the uphill struggle that Lurie faces in returning San Francisco to its once grand self after being brought down by homelessness, addiction and retail flight in the downtown area. Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The taxpayer tipple, called the Managed Alcohol Program (MAP)<\/a>, was created by the San Francisco Department of Public Health in April 2020, when the city began housing homeless people in hotels during lockdown. <\/p>\n The program served just 55 clients during its run \u2014\u00a0amounting to a $454,000 bar tab each. <\/p>\n To prevent chronic alcoholics from dangerous withdrawal while stores and bars were closed, clinicians brought metered doses of beer and liquor to clients.<\/p>\n But the scheme went on for six years, well after the pandemic ended.<\/p>\n Now, \u201cWe have ended every city contract for that program,\u201d Lurie added.<\/p>\n A representative for Community Forward, the San Francisco-based nonprofit contracted by the health department to run the plan since 2023,\u00a0confirmed to The Post that the city had pulled the plug.<\/p>\n A health department official boasted in a 2024 video presentation about one of the success stories, who went from 36 ER visits annually to fewer than 10.<\/p>\n San Francisco\u2019s Mayor Daniel Lurie insisted the city\u2019s Managed Alcohol Program \u201cdidn\u2019t make sense\u201d and vowed to end it. AP<\/p>\n Community Forward\u2019s financial\u00a0statements<\/a>\u00a0show the nonprofit received $17.8 million in government contracts and grants in 2025, with $10.8 million going to salaries and compensation. In 2024, it was revealed that CEO Kara Zordel, who stepped down that year, earned a $225,794 salary.<\/p>\n Although Canada has over 50 MAP sites, San Francisco\u2019s was the first of its kind in the US.<\/p>\n While other harm reduction services<\/a>, like free needle exchanges, have been sold as public health initiatives to fight the spread of bloodborne diseases, San Francisco\u2019s MAP took the unprecedented leap of administering the actual substance of choice to addicts.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder my administration, we made San Francisco a recovery-first city and ended the practice of handing out fentanyl smoking supplies so people couldn\u2019t kill themselves on our streets,\u201d Lurie told The Post. Getty Images<\/p>\n Lurie, who was sworn in last year, has put an end to this, along with handing out free drug supplies such as crack pipes \u2014\u00a0a practice that had turned the city\u2019s downtown, especially its Tenderloin district, into a shooting gallery<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder my administration, we made San Francisco a recovery-first city and ended the practice of handing out fentanyl smoking supplies so people couldn\u2019t kill themselves on our streets,\u201d Lurie told The Post.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have work to do, but we have transformed the city\u2019s response, and we are breaking the cycles of addiction, homelessness and government failure that have let down San Franciscans for too long.\u201d<\/p>\n Lurie put the city\u2019s notorious open-air drug markets on notice in a statement last year, saying: \u201cIf you do drugs on our streets, you will be arrested. And instead of sending you back out in crisis, we will give you a chance to stabilize and enter recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are breaking the cycles of addiction, homelessness and government failure that have let down San Franciscans for too long,\u201d Mayor Lurie said. Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n San Francisco\u2019s MAP took the unprecedented leap of administering the actual substance of choice to addicts. AP<\/p>\n This shift away from a multi-decade, permissive approach to addiction puts San Francisco outside the norm for a major West Coast city, as the city governments of Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle continue to insist that a housing shortage, and not addiction, is to blame<\/a> for the homeless crisis.<\/p>\n Recovery advocates cheered the news of MAP\u2019s impending closure.<\/p>\n \u201cThey [were] wasting our money just paying people to keep using the drug that they\u2019re hopelessly addicted to,\u201d Tom Wolf, a former homeless heroin addict in San Francisco who now works as a recovery advocate, told The Post.<\/p>\n \u201cHarm reduction itself is part of the overall social justice framework \u2026 If you ascribe to social justice ideology, you must ascribe to harm reduction, which has been redefined from the original meaning, from keeping people alive, and keeping them from getting bloodborne diseases like HIV, to now supporting drug users,\u201d Wolf added.<\/p>\n \u201cThey [were] wasting our money just paying people to keep using the drug that they\u2019re hopelessly addicted to,\u201d recovery advocate Tom Wolf told The California Post of San Francisco\u2019s MAP. California Peace Coalition<\/p>\n Recovery advocate Tom Wolf in a 2018 mugshot, when he was homeless and addicted to heroin on the streets of San Francisco. Courtesy Tom Wolf<\/p>\n \u201cOver the past two decades\u00a0the city had really doubled down on housing first and harm reduction,\u201d said Steve Adami, a once-incarcerated recovering addict who is now the executive director of The Way Out<\/a>, the Salvation Army\u2019s recovery-focused homeless initiative in San Francisco.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder Mayor Lurie, they have reassessed the outcomes of those models and have pivoted and have a very clear strategy: That we are a recovery-first city. He\u2019s made a significant investment into abstinence-based and recovery-focused services.\u201d<\/p>\n