Run by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), the COVID-19 Alternative Housing Program provides a host of amenities to drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and parasitic thieves and scammers.         

Otherwise known as Untermenschen, the German word for “subhumans.”     

Or Unters, for short.        

It works in two stages:    

Stage 1: Move the “homeless” into the city’s hotels—at city expense.

Stage 2: Provide them with not only free food and shelter but free alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes. 

“Managed alcohol and tobacco use makes it possible to increase the number of guests who stay in isolation and quarantine and, notably, protects the health of people who might otherwise need hospital care for life-threatening alcohol withdrawal,” says DPH spokeswoman Jenna Lane.

A typical cockroach scene

Notice the word “guests.” As if San Francisco—or any city—should welcome hordes of drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and outright bums as assets to its community. 

“Many isolation and quarantine guests tell us they use these substances daily,” says Lane, “and this period in our care has allowed some people to connect for the first time with addiction treatment and harm reduction therapy.”

DPH said in a statement that these “guests” are screened for substance addictions and asked if they’d like to stop or have support to reduce their use.

If they say they want to remain alcoholics and/or drug addicts, they’re provided with their substance of choice.

The department also provides methadone for “guests” who are addicted to opioids.

DPH staffers have helped people buy “medical marijuana,” the agency told local affiliate ABC7.

But the agency doesn’t “facilitate purchases of recreational cannabis,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, SFGate.

A typical San Francisco scene: Unters’ tents in front of City Hall

When they’re not swallowing alcohol or injecting, swallowing or sniffing drugs, many of San Francisco’s “guests” spend a lot of their time ripping off retail stores.

Walgreens drug stores have proven a particular target for these DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums—the four groups that make up 90% of the “homeless” population.

“I feel sorry for the clerks, they are regularly being verbally assaulted,” a regular customer, Sebastian Luke, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“The clerks say there is nothing they can do. They say Walgreens’ policy is to not get involved. They don’t want anyone getting injured or getting sued, so the guys just keep coming in and taking whatever they want.”

“Retail theft across our San Francisco stores has continued to increase in the past few months to five times our chain average,” Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso told the Chronicle.

“During this time to help combat this issue, we increased our investments in security measures in stores across the city to 46 times our chain average in an effort to provide a safe environment.” 

As a result, Walgreens has closed at least 22 stores in San Francisco since 2019. 

One store in the San Francisco area reportedly lost $1,000 a day to theft. 

CVS Pharmacy has instructed its employees to not intervene because the thieves so often attack them.

Many shoplifters then sell their stolen goods on the street—often near the store where they stole them.

Until December, 2024, theft under $950 was considered a misdemeanor. Many prosecutors chose to free those charged rather than holding them in jail. The maximum sentence they could get: Six months. 

In November, 2024, voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36, which stiffened penalties for shoplifting. Thieves can now get up to three years in jail or prison if they’ve been twice convicted for certain theft offenses.

Low-income and disabled seniors who depend on these disappearing drug stores for prescriptions are especially at risk. 

Some stores in the city are refusing to let themselves be ripped off.

Target’s largest store, at Geary and Masonic, is guarded by armed security from IPS. Its officers wear dark green uniforms resembling those of sheriff’s deputies and carry .40 caliber automatics.

They are unfailingly courteous—but don’t hesitate to restrain anyone who poses a threat to customers or is apparently stealing merchandise.

Of course, corporations aren’t in business to lose money. So costs for such security are passed on to customers.

Many DDMBs refuse to enter the city’s available shelters. Some claim these places are dangerous—understandably so, since they’re peopled with drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and outright bums. 

But another reason why many of these shelters go unused is: They don’t allow their “guests” to drink up or drug up.

The city makes no effort to force DDMBs to shut down their tent encampments that block sidewalks and pose a threat to public health through their accompanying feces, urine and used hypodermic needles.

If a citizen complains about a DDMB blocking a sidewalk, police may ask him to enter a shelter. But if he refuses, he’s simply left where he is. Thus, the “rights” of DDMBs take precedence over the rights of tax-paying San Franciscans.

The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen“ campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.” These are essentially holding pens for DDMBs until they can be “navigated” to permanent housing. 

Why do California politicians—especially those in San Francisco—cater so fervently to hardcore drug addicts, hardcore alcoholics, the mentally ill and those who refuse to work?                                         

In his 2021 bestseller, San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, author Michael Shellenberger provides the answer. According to its dust jacket: 

“San Francisco and other West Coast cities — Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland — had gone beyond merely tolerating homelessness, drug dealing, and crime to actively enabling them.

“San Fransicko reveals that the underlying problem isn’t a lack of housing or money for social programs. The real problem is an ideology that designates some people, by identity or experience, as victims entitled to destructive behaviors. The result is an undermining of the values that make cities, and civilization itself, possible.”

In December, 2022, the Palo Alto-based cloud computing company VMware canceled its contract with the Moscone Center for its 2023 conference and said it would relocate the event.

No specific reason was given. But it’s almost a certainty that the city’s refusal to get tough on the druggies, drunks, mentals and bums who infest its streets and accost its tourists is a major one.

This is only the latest blow to a city that depends overwhelmingly on tourism for its economic prosperity—if not survival.

San Francisco saw the steepest drop of any major metro with a loss of $1.68 billion—or 68.8%—when compared with 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been especially hard on the city. Huge numbers of tech workers who once flooded into San Francisco began working at home. And a great many of them still do.

Thus, those businesses—such as restaurants—which had benefitted from their presence are now desperate to stay afloat.

But even before the pandemic, an exodus of high-profile conventions had already started—such as Oracle’s CloudWorld—which left San Francisco for Las Vegas.

Unlike VMware, CloudWorld did cite the reasons for its departure: Filthy street conditions and exorbitant hotel prices.  

San Francisco’s politicians—its Mayor and the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors—like to think of the city as a city-state. That is: As a power comparable to ancient Sparta or Athens.

Reality proves otherwise.

San Francisco is not an economic powerhouse like New York City. It’s not an entertainment capital like Hollywood. It’s not a political center like Washington, D.C.

Here is what San Francisco is:

• It’s a small (46.87 square miles) city with a relatively modest population (815,201).
• Its largest industry is tourism.
• This generates more than $8.4 billion annually for the local economy and supports over 71,000 jobs.  

And if the tourism industry disappears, so will San Francisco. 

Meet the new untouchables of San Francisco: Hardcore drug addicts. Hardcore alcoholics. The mentally ill. Parasitic scam artists/thieves who refuse to work for a living. 

If you doubt it, consider the following:

If you are a firefighter, police officer, paramedic or schoolteacher, and want to live in San Francisco, forget it.

According to Rent Cafe, which provides apartment listings directly from top property managers: “The average [monthly] rent for an apartment in San Francisco is $2,879.” And “the average size for a San Francisco apartment is 739 square feet.”

So unless you’re a hugely successful IT professional—or narcotics dealer—your chances of being able to afford a San Francisco apartment are lower than Donald Trump’s of winning a “Mr. Congeniality” contest.

But there’s hope for you yet—if you’re a Druggie, Drunk, Mental or Bum (DDMBs). 

Why? 

Because the previous Mayor of San Francisco—London Breed—and Board of Supervisors have deliberately created an Untermenschen-friendly program that actually encourages such people to move to the city.

Run by the city’s Department of Public Health (DPH) it’s called the COVID-19 Alternative Housing Program. And it works in two stages:

Stage 1: Move the “homeless” into the city’s hotels—at city expense.

Stage 2: Provide them with not only free food and shelter but free alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes. 

According to a May 11, 2020 story in City Journal.org:

“The program’s primary purpose is to keep homeless people, the majority of whom are addicts, out of harm’s way during the pandemic. By getting their substance of choice delivered, the thinking goes, the guests may be more apt to remain in their government-funded rooms.

“Another purpose of the program is to protect the public against the spread of coronavirus. The city doesn’t want homeless people who should be staying in their rooms roaming the neighborhood in search of the substances, potentially infecting others.”   

But the agency doesn’t require that its addict “guests” remain quarantined. It merely asks that they do so.

After news about these deliveries leaked on social media, DPH claimed that “rumors that guests of San Francisco’s alternative housing program are receiving taxpayer-funded deliveries of alcohol, cannabis and tobacco are false.”

Except that the reports weren’t false.

The program is funded by private philanthropists. Nevertheless:  

• DPH administers and oversees the program.
• It’s staffed by city workers, including doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers and security personnel.
• The department manages, stores and distributes the substances.
• Employee time is involved.

Thus, the program is financed by taxpayers, even if an outside group provides some of the funding.