San Francisco's RESET sobering center has processed roughly 600 people since opening on Sixth Street in May, and Sheriff Paul Miyamoto is already angling to build more. There's just one problem: the metric he's using to declare victory doesn't tell you whether anyone got better.

The RESET Center was pitched as a humane alternative to jail — a place where people picked up for public intoxication or drug use could sober up in leather recliners and accept referrals to longer-term care. Two months in, the sheriff's office says nearly 30% of people admitted have taken those referrals. But harm reduction advocates are pressing an uncomfortable question: what does a "referral" actually mean, and does it lead anywhere?

Sheriff Miyamoto has been bullish on the facility at 444 Sixth St. since it opened May 4, and his confidence has only grown. Speaking to the San Francisco Standard last week, he cited the 600-person milestone as proof the model works. He said the center has saved deputies time, reduced jail bookings, and given people under the influence a way to avoid criminal records. His stated next step: duplicating the model in other parts of the city. "We came into this thinking that this would just be the beginning of a long-term plan, where we would have additional resources and centers like this," he told the Standard.

But the headline success figure — that nearly 30% of people admitted accepted referrals to longer-term services — is harder to assess than it sounds. Justice Dumlao, an advocate with the Treatment on Demand Coalition and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, told the Standard they couldn't say what that number actually represents. "I'm not sure if that referral means handing someone a pamphlet, scheduling someone a meeting, or driving them to the place where that service is being provided," Dumlao said. "In my head, a successful referral is scheduling an appointment for somebody and making sure that the program staff know how to get involved."

That distinction matters. A pamphlet is not treatment. A scheduled appointment someone doesn't show up to is not recovery. The sheriff's office told the Standard that clients receive transportation to other facilities via the taxi service Flywheel — but the center doesn't appear to publicly track whether clients actually arrive or what happens after they leave.

The "voluntary" framing has also continued to draw scrutiny. RESET was promoted as unlocked and non-carceral — a departure from the county jail just around the corner. But the fine print complicates that. Sheriff's spokesperson Tara Moriarty clarified to the Standard that "if someone chooses to leave, they may be subject to rearrest and booked into the county jail." Six people have been transferred directly from RESET to jail since the facility opened. And of the 767 total admission events logged, about 17% involved people who had been there before — suggesting the model isn't consistently interrupting patterns of use for a meaningful share of clients. (The "around 600" figure reflects unique individuals; the gap between those numbers is the repeat-visit rate.)

This is territory The Dissent flagged when the center opened. Our coverage in May questioned whether the "unlocked door" framing obscured a coercive design — and whether the entire concept amounted to a rebrand of short-term detention without the infrastructure to connect people to the services they need. Those questions still don't have official answers.

Budget timing sharpens the stakes. The sheriff acknowledged he hasn't formally requested funding for additional RESET locations, calling it "budget season" where "everything's under scrutiny." But he made clear where his office stands: "we're all of the opinion that we could use another one of these centers."

Dumlao thinks that's premature at best and damaging at worst. More RESET centers would likely mean less money for harm reduction services that advocates trust — and that are already facing cuts in the city's forthcoming fiscal 2027 budget. "I don't think we need more RESET Centers," Dumlao told the Standard. "These are issues that require a really sensitive approach and take time in order to determine whether they are effective or not."

The sheriff is moving on a different clock. Six hundred admissions in two months is a number. Whether it's a result is a question the RESET Center hasn't yet built the infrastructure to answer — and may not need to, if expansion plans advance before anyone asks it.