Let's start with what's good here. Throwing someone in a drunk tank at county jail for being publicly intoxicated is expensive, clogs up an already overwhelmed booking system, and does exactly nothing to address the underlying issue. If someone is hammered on Market Street at 2 PM on a Tuesday, a jail cell isn't going to fix what got them there. A dedicated facility with some level of medical oversight is, on paper, a smarter use of resources.

But let's not kid ourselves about what this is. The word "involuntary" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this announcement. People arrested for public intoxication will be forced to undergo a hold until they sober up. That's not a wellness retreat — it's state-mandated detention under a friendlier name. Whether the building has bars or beanbag chairs, the person inside didn't choose to be there.

The bigger question the city keeps dodging: is this a genuine step in a coherent strategy, or just another standalone program that lets officials claim progress at a press conference? San Francisco has spent staggering sums on homelessness and addiction services over the past decade, and the streets of SoMa — the very neighborhood hosting this new center — remain a daily testament to how little that spending has accomplished.

If the RESET Center actually connects people to longer-term treatment, helps reduce repeat emergency calls, and costs less than cycling individuals through jail, then great — we're all for it. Fiscal sanity and human decency aren't mutually exclusive.

But if this is just another revolving door with a nicer lobby, taxpayers deserve to know. We'll be watching the numbers. The city should publish them.