In San Francisco, many city departments play a role to help people experiencing homelessness and maintain safe and healthy streets.
The San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team (SFHOT)
SFHOT provides regular outreach and engagement to the most vulnerable individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness by offering them appropriate and available resources. SFHOT outreaches to individuals, including people living in large encampments, and connects them to services and health care, assesses them for housing, and offers placement into available shelter programs. To learn more about how SFHOT conducts its work, please visit the Outreach page.
The City’s Healthy Streets Operation Center (HSOC)
All San Franciscans deserve healthy and safe streets, regardless of their housing status. HSOC is a collaborative of more than 11 city agencies, including HSH, which addresses large encampments in order to protect the health and safety of everyone. HSOC also conducts bi-monthly counts of tents, structures and vehicles, which are available on an online dashboard, along with further information about HSOC activity.
The Street Crisis Response Team (SCRT)
SCRT is a collaboration between the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), the San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD), and the Department of Emergency Management (DEM). Their aim is to provide the most appropriate clinical interventions and care coordination for people who are experiencing behavioral health crises in public spaces. This approach reduces law enforcement encounters and unnecessary emergency room use. Each team includes one community paramedic, one behavioral health clinician, and one behavioral health peer specialist. Some 911 calls regarding people experiencing behavioral health crises will be routed to the Street Crisis Response Team. More information on the Street Crisis Response Team is available.
The Street Overdose Response Team (SORT)
SORT proactively identifies, engages, and follows up with individuals who have survived an overdose in order to prevent another, possibly fatal one from occurring. Teams include a street medicine specialist from DPH and a community paramedic from the SFFD and will eventually expand to include Peer Specialists and Behavioral Health Clinicians from CBO partners. SORT builds on our successful street outreach model of care by connecting with people in critical moments—the moment they are being resuscitated, or as they come out of hospitals, clinics or other settings from drug overdoses—and offering them services, include the opioid use medicine buprenorphine, rescue kits that include the opioid-blocker naloxone, educational materials, and support getting into substance use treatment facilities, housing or shelter. More information on the Street Overdose Response Team is available.
The Street Wellness Response Team (SWRT)
SWRT consists of community paramedics from the San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD) and Homeless Outreach Team members (SFHOT). They focus on well-being checks and situations that require immediate attention, but do not meet the threshold of an acute behavioral health crisis. This includes situations such as someone with obvious wounds, people who are lying down or sleeping, or someone inappropriately clothed for the weather. More information on the Street Overdose Response Team is available.