Supervisor Matt Dorsey is pushing legislation that would make it easier to evict public housing tenants for drug use — and he's making it personal. Dorsey, who has been open about his own history with addiction, says that under his proposed rules, he himself would have deserved eviction.
Say what you will about the policy, but that's a level of intellectual honesty you almost never see at City Hall.
The legislation would give the San Francisco Housing Authority more tools to remove tenants who use drugs in public housing units, a move Dorsey frames as necessary to protect the safety and livability of housing communities that are already struggling. And he's not wrong about the problem. Anyone who's spent time near SF's public housing developments knows that open drug use isn't just a personal choice — it creates dangerous, chaotic environments for families, children, and neighbors who are trying to hold their lives together.
Predictably, the proposal is drawing fire from the usual corners. Critics argue it criminalizes addiction and punishes vulnerable people who need treatment, not displacement. And that's a fair concern — nobody wants to see someone struggling with addiction tossed onto the street with zero support.
But here's the thing: public housing is a taxpayer-funded resource. It comes with the implicit promise that residents will have a safe place to live. When one tenant's drug use makes the building unlivable for everyone else, whose rights take priority? The person using, or the single mom next door trying to keep her kids safe?
Dorsey's argument is essentially this: compassion without accountability isn't compassion — it's enabling. And the people who suffer most from the status quo aren't the policymakers debating this at City Hall. They're the low-income residents who have nowhere else to go and no choice but to live next to open drug use.
This legislation will face a bruising fight at the Board of Supervisors. But at minimum, Dorsey is forcing a conversation San Francisco has been dodging for years: at what point does tolerance become negligence?
