<\/p>\n
Amber Richmond, a San Francisco woman who struggled with addiction while living in city supportive housing and got sober last year, poses for a portrait in her loft apartment in\u00a0SoMa.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Camille Cohen\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Standing in the doorway of her new San Francisco apartment, Amber Richmond felt like her luck had finally changed.\u00a0
\u00a0
It was the summer of 2020, just before her 28th birthday. After years cycling between homeless shelters, hotels and the streets as she struggled with opioid addiction, she was finally moving into a studio in Lower Nob Hill thanks to a federal housing voucher.<\/p>\n
Amber was still using heroin and crystal meth, which she paid for by reselling cosmetics she shoplifted. She wasn\u2019t sure how to find her way back to the kind of person she used to be\u00a0\u2014 a star cheerleader and protective older sister who loved animals and Taylor Swift. But the apartment was a good start.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my mind, I was like, \u2018I\u2019m going to stop doing drugs. I\u2019m going to do this, I\u2019m going to do that,\u2019\u201d said Amber, now 33. \u201cAnd then nothing changed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
For many of the homeless San Franciscans who struggle with addiction, the move into stable housing can be a turning point on the way to recovery. But not for Amber. Once inside her apartment, her addiction only deepened\u00a0\u2014 exposing what she considers an oversight in the city\u2019s traditional \u201chousing-first\u201d approach, which has prioritized immediate access to shelter over drug treatment or sobriety.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the street, when she\u2019d overdosed, people had administered Narcan or called an ambulance. Now, Amber was overdosing alone, waking up with only her dog, Duchess, curled next to her and no idea how long she\u2019d been unconscious.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Amber weaned herself off crystal meth with the help of the outpatient program at Heart Plus, an SF General clinic for drug users with heart conditions. Earlier this spring, she got a job staffing the sobering center the city plans to open in May, honestly passing a drug test for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Camille Cohen\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
San Francisco funds thousands of supportive housing units designed to help people like Amber when they move indoors, often including case management, freely available\u00a0Narcan and in-unit emergency call systems. Because the first housing available to Amber came through the federal Section 8 program, it didn\u2019t offer those built-in resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n
San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n
Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Her addiction wasn\u2019t a secret\u00a0\u2014 she disclosed it along with the heart condition she developed from injecting drugs every time she applied for federal or city services. But once Amber was indoors, she said, outreach from the city dropped off while opioids remained easily available on the street. Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n But on social media, where she\u2019s gained a following chronicling her recovery, Amber has thrown her support behind the recent movement to expand abstinence-based housing, which she thinks could have gotten her out of addiction sooner.\u00a0<\/p>\n Amber\u2019s loft is big enough that her\u00a0stepdad and four of his friends could spend the night there last fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n Camille Cohen\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n In long social media posts, and\u00a0an essay in the conservative-leaning Voice of San Francisco, <\/a>she\u2019s criticized a system that she says writes off formerly homeless people as success stories once they move indoors. And while she knows she doesn\u2019t have all the answers to the city\u2019s drug and homelessness crises, she\u2019s been identifying the ones that didn\u2019t work for her\u00a0\u2014 like unfettered access to clean drug supplies and subsidized housing without a focus on sobriety.<\/p>\n Amber has faced some blowback from critics who say this narrative could ultimately make it harder for people in recovery to get the housing they urgently need. Others, especially parents who have lost children to overdoses, have urged her to keep sharing her experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n The abstinence-based approach\u00a0\u2014 generally backed by Mayor Daniel Lurie\u00a0\u2014 has gained traction with the opening of San Francisco\u2019s first sober shelter last fall. The 58-bed site, which has a no-tolerance policy for drug and alcohol use, was near capacity<\/a> a few months after opening.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Board of Supervisors is also considering an ordinance<\/a> that would encourage the expansion of drug-free supportive housing around the city\u00a0\u2014 although a state bill that would have empowered local governments to spend more state funding on sober housing was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now, Amber looks back on her first summer in the apartment as a lost chance to get into recovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was inside this apartment, but with the same addiction,\u201d Amber said. \u201cNobody checked on me. Nobody asked if I was okay.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI am never leaving here\u201d<\/p>\n Amber has a vivid early memory of looking over the edge of her bunk bed to see her mother using crystal meth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Addiction, though never discussed, shadowed her childhood. The family was frequently evicted, moving around the Bay Area and Central Valley in search of housing. Amber often sat outside school for hours waiting to be picked up. Her brother, Andrew Garza, said Amber would steal Lunchables from gas stations to feed her younger siblings.\u00a0<\/p>\n Amber\u2019s father was in prison for most of her childhood, and their contact was limited. Jason Shirley, who would become Amber\u2019s stepfather, first met her when he was 19 and walked into a drug house near Chico where six-month-old Amber was propped up in her carseat on the floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n Amber Richmond as a cheerleader in her youth. As a child, she was a \u201cflyer\u201d \u2014 the focal point of the team, often airborne.\u00a0<\/p>\n Amber Richmond<\/p>\n \u201cShe was this perfect little baby, sitting in the middle of this really bad spot,\u201d Shirley said. He appointed himself Amber\u2019s caretaker for the first years of her life, but mostly lost touch with her when she was seven, after his relationship with her mother ended.\u00a0<\/p>\n The family eventually moved in with her grandmother in Auburn, where Amber joined her new high school\u2019s cheerleading team. She was a flyer\u00a0\u2014 the focal point of the team, often airborne\u00a0\u2014 confident and skilled. Amber was a \u201ccool sister,\u201d Garza said, who drove her siblings around, coached younger cheerleaders and befriended football players.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n In her sophomore year, Amber started dating a boy who abused prescription painkillers. After she tried them herself, it quickly became a habit. Amber started finding excuses to go to the locker room during pep rallies to steal money from her teammates\u00a0\u2014 spending it first on\u00a0OxyContin, then on heroin. Over the next few years, she bounced from juvenile hall to a group foster home, then county jail.\u00a0<\/p>\n Left: Amber eventually moved in with her grandmother in Auburn, where she joined her new high school\u2019s cheerleading team. Right: Amber at a graduation party.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Amber Richmond<\/p>\n Above: Amber eventually moved in with her grandmother in Auburn, where she joined her new high school\u2019s cheerleading team. Below: Amber at a graduation party.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Amber Richmond<\/p>\n She got out when she was 21, attending Narcotic Anonymous meetings and determined to stay sober. But when her mother started asking her to buy drugs for her, Amber started using again.\u00a0<\/p>\n Their relationship grew rocky, and in 2015, Amber left with her boyfriend to stay with an uncle in San Francisco. Early in the visit, her uncle\u2019s girlfriend took her to Union Square, where Amber saw people using drugs in public for the first time.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShe gives me some heroin, I shoot up,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I thought, \u2018I am never leaving here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI knew it was killing me\u201d<\/p>\n Her uncle\u2019s girlfriend taught Amber to \u201cboost\u201d shoplifted items for cash. She spent it on drugs, injecting a cocktail of heroin and crystal meth that people on the street called \u201cgoofballs.\u201d She crashed with friends, saved up for cheap hotel rooms or slept outside around the Civic Center neighborhood.<\/p>\n Austin Abbott, the boyfriend who came to the city with Amber, said he revived her from at least 15 overdoses during their first years in the city. In 2017, when Amber was in her mid-twenties, she was trying to steal packages from a building lobby when she felt suddenly weak, with a searing pain in her back.\u00a0<\/p>\n She went to the hospital, fading in and out of consciousness. \u201cThey took my blood, and next thing you know, I wake up and I\u2019m in a different hospital. And they told me, \u2018You need to have open heart surgery.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Amber had endocarditis, a life-threatening heart infection<\/a> often caused by injecting drugs. She had another emergency surgery a few weeks later, then spent three months in an inpatient facility. Her doctors gave her methadone daily. When that wasn\u2019t enough to supplement Amber\u2019s cravings, she had friends bring heroin when they came to visit.\u00a0<\/p>\n In early 2019, Amber lost her mother to the same heart condition. By the time Amber moved into her first apartment a year later, she felt ready to quit. \u201cI knew it was killing me,\u201d she said.\u00a0 Amber inspects a laptop that was donated to her as she sits in her room at the Hotel\u00a0Minna on Monday, May 25, 2020. Richmond was homeless and said she was renting a room in a hotel after losing her spot at a Navigation Center.<\/p>\n Lea Suzuki\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n It\u2019s not typical for addiction to worsen after people are housed, said Jennifer\u00a0Friedenbach of the Coalition on Homelessness, but the experience is not unheard of.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGenerally, it\u2019s much easier to recover when you\u2019re in housing,\u201d Friedenbach said. \u201cOf course, there\u2019s going to be some exceptions. And in some cases, people have communities out on the streets, and when they get housing, there\u2019s a fair amount of isolation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Many of the city\u2019s supportive housing options offer community activities and mental health services for this reason. Emily Cohen, a spokesperson for San Francisco\u2019s homelessness department, said the city was working to offer recovery resources to people \u201cinside and outside\u201d permanent supportive housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEnsuring that individuals, regardless of their housing situation, can receive the assistance they need to facilitate their recovery journey is an ideal to strive for,\u201d Cohen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n It can be harder to make those city resources available to people whose housing is federally funded. The city experimented with expanding case management resources to federally-funded housing during the pandemic, although that pilot operated on a far smaller scale than the national Section 8 program.<\/p>\n Amber points to a sign she made to encourage hand washing on the front door of the Bryant Navigation Center on Thursday, March 19, 2020. Richmond said after she made the sign, the staff made 20 copies which she placed around the center.<\/p>\n Lea Suzuki\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n But even if Amber had been placed in supportive housing instead, she\u2019s not sure she would have been able to recover any faster. Many of the city-funded units she stayed in with friends were \u201cdrug dens,\u201d she said\u00a0\u2014 a Chronicle investigation found that 166 people fatally overdosed<\/a> in city-funded hotels in 2020 and 2021, around the time when Amber was moving into her first apartment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0
Housing-first advocates argue that treatment shouldn\u2019t be a prerequisite to housing, and that while some people like Amber still struggle, it\u2019s easier for most to get sober once they\u2019re off the streets.\u00a0Studies consistently show<\/a> that providing housing with no requirement to enter treatment is life-saving and cost-effective.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u00a0
But inside the apartment, she felt severed from her friends and the city resources that had been offered when she was homeless.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n