View the San Francisco for Thursday, August 8, 2024
Michelin Guide inspectors described the interior of Hilda and Jesse as a “winsome space that calls to mind a modernist diner.Aphotic, the seafood restaurant located in the SoMa neighborhood, is known for distilling spirts in-house as part of its beverage program, which was recognized by Michelin Guide inspectors at this year’s ceremony.
Husband-and-wife chefs David Fisher and Serena Chow Fisher opened 7 Adams, a fine dining restaurant situated in Japantown, last November.From left: Fontaine Sherman, Executive Director Donna Hilliard and Brandon Grant of the Code Tenderloin Night Navigation team are seen in U.N. Plaza. Each night, a white van carrying a handful of public-health workers pulls up to a Tenderloin street corner at around 7 p.m. Clad in black hoodies and gray hoodies, they emerge wielding clipboards, ready for a long night ahead. They call out to passersby and walk up to groups posted up on the sidewalk at U.N. Plaza or at Market and McAllister streets, offering to connect people to substance-abuse treatment services and — within the last few months — to arrange remote appointments with doctors who can prescribe opioid-addiction medication. This is the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Night Navigation street-care team. The workforce-development nonprofit Code Tenderloin provides staffing, carrying out the agency’s latest pilot program: its Nighttime Telehealth initiative. Since October 2023, the team has operated from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. in the Tenderloin, reaching out to bystanders and neighborhood residents to connect them with city services. Since March, Night Navigation staffers have, from 8 p.m. to midnight, connected people who say they want addiction treatment with doctors for telehealth appointments. The City says workers have, so far, facilitated 920 virtual visits. Eighty-five percent of patients have opted to begin treatment with buprenorphine — a common treatment for opioid-use disorder — and 315 people have picked up prescriptions for the medication. Another 33 people have started methadone treatment, which is only administered through licensed clinics. San Francisco public-health officials said they’re encouraged by the Night Navigation team and Nighttime Telehealth program’s progress, but the scope of both has been limited so far. The City said it hopes to ultimately expand the programs in order to contend with its ongoing opioid crisis, with San Franciscothan all but one since officials started tracking such deaths in 2020: last year, when The City set a record with 810 overdose deaths. “We know it sounds crazy, but we think it really works ... to actually meet people right at that time and connect them to help versus saying, ‘OK, we’ll get you to a clinic tomorrow,’” Donna Hilliard, the executive director of Code Tenderloin and the Night Navigation team supervisor, told The Examiner. “Everything changes within 24 hours.”Night Navigation team members are primarily people whose lives have previously been affected by drugs or crime. Fontaine Sherman said he used to sell crack cocaine in another city, allowing him to relate to people he meets in the Tenderloin. He said his daughter is also struggling with addiction to methamphetamines, and he “ to connect with her, too” while she’s going through her experience in San Francisco. Sherman said the people he encounters are largely looking for “someone to talk to” — but public drug use in San Francisco is not like anything he had previously experienced, he said.Fentanyl has been the primary driver of The City’s deadly drug overdoses, with nearly 72% of the deaths recorded this year attributed to the drug. That’s down from 2023, when almost 81% of San Francisco’s fatal overdoses were attributed to the opioid. On a recent weeknight in U.N. Plaza, Nelly Pierce said she met lead night navigator Douglas Liu just 20 minutes after she smoked fentanyl. Pierce, seven months pregnant, estimated to The Examiner that she smokes a gram a day. Liu connected Pierce with a doctor to discuss what medication and treatment would work best for her. She said she had previously been prescribed a buprenorphine treatment containing an overdose-reversal drug that made her feel very ill, preferring methadone but unable to maintain the necessary daily appointments.Nelly Pierce, left, speaks remotely with a doctor in an effort to treat her fentanyl-use disorder, with help from Douglas Liu of the Code Tenderloin Night Navigation team in U.N. Plaza. “I hate doing dope,” said Pierce, who self-identified as a former heroin user. “But my body needs it.” Liu said fentanyl users have a maximum of five years until the drug’s harsh qualities “start to break down the body,” leading to persistent body sores and circulation issues. Some patients have required foot amputations to address the latter.Theopolis Tolliver, 40, talking with a doctor tin a telehealth visit before being placed into a shelter to treat his fentanyl-use disorder on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. This was a concern of one patient who spoke with Liu, who reported having trouble standing up due to issues with his feet. That patient, Theopolis Tolliver, told The Examiner that he had used fentanyl for around five years now, coming to San Francisco from Santa Rosa to follow the availability of the drug.“I’ve been wanting to do it for a minute now,” Tolliver, a self-identified former heroin user, said. “I’m kind of ready to get on with my life. I’m really far behind.”Johnathan Evans told The Examiner that he was just looking for a warm place to sleep and some help getting food. He said he continues to use crystal methamphetamine after crushing his foot in a workplace accident. “ is the whole reason I’ve been able to get up,” he said, but he also said he smokes weed to help with blood circulation.Johnathan Evans getting placed into a shelter from Douglas Liu of the Code Tenderloin Night Navigation Team in the UN Plaza, San Francisco on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. Despite his declining an offer of treatment, the team found Evans a bed at a shelter and transported him there. Liu said that’s not an uncommon occurrence. “People can’t always make rational decisions in all this instability,” he said. “The body’s worn out, nobody can think when a person hasn’t eaten or they haven’t slept.” After getting some rest and a meal, Liu said, patients are sometimes more inclined to think about their overall health. That, he said, is one of the team’s primary goals. Others who opt to receive treatment, such as Pierce, are taken to a hotel in the Tenderloin that’s part of the Department of Public Health’s RESTORE program. The site is a noncongregant shelter with 20 beds, where people can stay in their own rooms for up to seven days while they begin taking medication for their opioid addictions. They also meet with a case manager to address other needs. “Seven days is the length of a microdose of buprenorphine,” said Taylor Cuffaro, a nurse practitioner with San Francisco Community Health Center who works at the site. Oublic-health officials asked The Examiner not to share its location due to concerns about the residents’ privacy. During that week, Cuffaro said, patients gradually receive more medication each day while weaning themselves off the opioids they’re using. “At about day six, you’ve stopped entirely the opioid that you’ve been using on the street,” Cuffaro said. “At that point, your body has become accustomed to the buprenorphine in its system, and we’ve got you at a decent steady state of medication.” During that time, public-health department and Community Health Center nurses are available to help occupants with any potential withdrawal symptoms and other medical concerns. Cuffaro said that often, once patients have a good night’s sleep and are starting on their opioid-treatment medications, they’re able to turn their attention to issues they otherwise might’ve ignored. “Then they’re like, ‘Oh, my knee,’ or ‘I was supposed to see a nephrologist for my kidney two years ago,’” they said. “We really integrate them back into their primary care in that week.” San Francisco Community Health Center Nurse Practitioner Taylor Cuffaro pictured on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. If occupants feel that they’re still not ready once they arrive, they can check themselves out before the week is up. Those who complete the full week are then connected to some type of residential-treatment bed, shelter or other housing, usually within 36 hours. Sometimes people stay longer if they aren’t connected to places that meet their specific needs, such as one resident who Cuffaro said has been at the Tenderloin hotel for nearly a month while awaiting a shelter that will house them, their partner and their service animal. “We will not kick you out on the street if you want residential treatment, and we’re the ones that don’t have the bed available,” Cuffaro said.In its first year of operations, the Night Navigation team and its associated programs have clear limitations. The team has access to one transport van, leading to long wait times for people who’ve decided to accept treatment. The Tenderloin hotel itself has only 20 available beds for occupants transported there by the Night Navigation team. Furthermore, the telehealth program only has one physician on call during a typical night. Officials said the team coordinates around a dozen calls a night, organizing 27 on its most productive one.citywide. San Francisco has a little more than 2,500 residential treatment beds and about 3,900 shelter beds. It also has an estimated unhoused population of around 8,300 people, of which nearly 4,000 are sheltered. Twenty-three percent of the people who have died of overdoses this year had no fixed addresses, a far higher percentage than unhoused residents represent in San Francisco’s overall population. The Tenderloin also continues to be the neighborhood in which many of The City’s drug-overdose deaths are occuring. Of the 374 fatal overdoses recorded through June, 229 were located in ZIP codes that are in the neighborhood. A Department of Public Health spokesperson said officials hope to expand the programs in the neighborhood based on the preliminary success of the first few months. The spokesperson said the department intends to add more treatment beds at more sites, hire additional staff and train additional physicians for the telehealth calls. Participants in the programs said they’re already making a difference. Pierce, the pregnant mother, said she was looking forward to working with her case manager to restart methadone treatment and regularly visit a doctor.State Controller Malia Cohen, right, presents a check from the state Unclaimed Property Program to members of the Japanese American Citizens League San Francisco Chapter.Except this five-figure haul was found in a lost savings account. California State Controller Malia Cohen, a former president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, presented members of the organizationearlier this week for two unclaimed properties — money that was left in an inactive financial account for more than three years and transferred to the state. “This is a historic moment,” Cohen said at the Tuesday ceremony, which was held inside the JACL’s San Francisco headquarters in the heart of Japantown. Leaders of the nonprofit said they had lost financial documents — due in part to the death of a board member — that had information about a bank account the organization owned. But nobody knew where the account was or how much money was in it.“It was quite a dramatic thing for us, because our chapter never fundraises,” said Emily Murase, a member of the JACL’s Board of Directors. “So for us, who operate on people’s kindness ... this was significant.”include forgotten bank accounts, stocks, estates and uncashed cashier’s checks. Cohen said she has used the program herself, recovering an apartment security deposit she had forgotten about paying after moving elsewhere. She said the property-management company turned it over to the state. For the JACL, the unclaimed funds took the form of a $69 membership fee and a $24,016 savings certificate. Cohen said she wanted to present the check in person because San Francisco is her hometown and she knows how critical funds like these are for local community organizations. The Richmond district native and Lowell High School graduate continues to live in The City — she has a home in the Bayview — even while working in Sacramento. “I know how much this check is going to mean to cultural communities,” she said. “This is a big deal. This is a lot of money that will be very well spent and I’m excited to just be a small part.” JACL leaders said they haven’t decided how the funds will be spent yet, but they know at least some will bethe organization hopes to build on a wall facing Geary Boulevard at the entrance of Peace Plaza, artfully depicting the 116-year history of Japantown.“With this additional funding that was discovered, we’re going to be able to move forward with this project and hopefully enhance the Japantown visitors and generations’ experience in Japantown,” said Judy Hamaguchi, JACL’s San Francisco chapter president.“I’m hopeful that today is only the tip of the iceberg, and that people will be inspired to go to the website to check out to see if they have their own money,” she said.Click and hold your mouse button on the page to select the area you wish to save or print. You can click and drag the clipping box to move it or click and drag in the bottom right corner to resize it. 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