Mayor Lurie Strengthens Good Neighbor Policy to Ensure Safer, Cleaner Streets Around City-Funded Health Facilities

SAN FRANCISCO – Mayor Daniel Lurie today unveiled a strengthened citywide Health and Human Services Good Neighbor Policy, establishing a unified standard for how city-funded housing, health, shelter, and social service providers contribute to safe, clean, and welcoming communities around the sites they run. Under the new policy, Department of Public Health (DPH) and Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) providers running facilities across the city will have clear, consistent expectations for maintaining street conditions near their sites and responding to concerns raised by community members—providing accountability for residents by bolstering and simplifying a policy that had previously been inconsistent across city departments and difficult to enforce.

The Good Neighbor Policy builds on more than a year of progress under Mayor Lurie’s Breaking the Cycle plan to transform the city’s homelessness and behavioral health response. Earlier this year, Mayor Lurie announced that unsheltered homelessness in San Francisco had fallen 22% to its lowest level in 15 years, while the city has a record-low number of tent encampments and large vehicles on the streets after moving hundreds of families from RVs into stable housing. Under Mayor Lurie’s leadership, the city has consolidated street outreach to help increase shelter placements by 40%, ended a policy that allowed for the distribution of fentanyl smoking supplies without connection to counseling or treatment, and stood up more than 600 new treatment-focused beds.

“Every San Franciscan deserves a safe and clean neighborhood, and every person struggling on our streets deserves a real path to treatment and stability. Our stronger Good Neighbor Policy holds government and our partners accountable for delivering both,” said Mayor Lurie. “When a community steps up to accept a new facility and help get people off the street, they should be able to feel confident that the provider will support them and ensure street conditions are acceptable. With this new policy, we are giving neighbors and providers clear expectations, consistency across neighborhoods, and open communication so issues can be addressed quickly.”

Key components of the new policy include:

• Operational Accountability: Facilities must adhere to rigorous standards for site management, including three daily perimeter checks, regular waste disposal, and discouraging excessive noise, sidewalk blockage, and disruptive behavior.
• Proactive Communication: Providers are required to maintain accessible channels for community members to report and raise concerns, ensuring timely responses and open dialogue.
• Scope of Responsibility: The policy applies to operations within a facility footprint and on the building perimeter, including frontage and adjacent sidewalks.  
• Unified Standards: By applying these requirements across city-funded contracts in multiple departments, the policy ensures a predictable and fair experience for all stakeholders.

If a provider is not meeting its obligations at a given site, the policy outlines a tiered enforcement process. The four tiers include an initial notice, technical assistance from the city, formal corrective actions including staffing adjustments, and contract remedies.  

“Our goal is to ensure that essential services for our most vulnerable residents operate in a way that is respectful, communicative, and integrated into the fabric of our neighborhoods,” said HSH Executive Director Mike Levine. “This policy outlines clear expectations for providers to maintain safe, clean, and welcoming environments, both within their walls and in the areas immediately surrounding their sites.”

The Good Neighbor Policy applies to all HSH-funded sites and all DPH client-serving program contracts, helping to unify expectations across city departments. DPH houses the largest number of client-serving programs across the city.

“Sites where the Department of Health and its contractors are serving clients are essential to our mission of keeping the community healthy and ensuring that vulnerable populations have access to services and care,” said DPH Director Dan Tsai. “At the same time, we have a responsibility to keep these sites safe and welcoming for the broader community. The Good Neighbor Policy’s consistent guidelines help us successfully operate our sites at a high standard that people of San Francisco deserve. We look forward to continuing to build trust with our neighbors as we remain a critical resource for the individuals and families who depend on us for critical services.”

The city worked closely with health and human service providers to develop this revised policy and ensure that it is impactful and implementable, with systems in place to hold program operators accountable. The final policy reflects extensive collaboration with service providers, community organizations, residents, businesses, clients, neighbors, and city partners.

Before the policy goes into effect this fall, the city will train shelter, housing, and health service site operators on implementation while finalizing an integrated digital tool that will reduce duplicative paperwork, improve consistency, and give frontline staff greater clarity about Good Neighbor expectations. During the implementation process, the city will assess whether sites funded by other city departments could be added for inclusion in the new policy.

“San Francisco’s Good Neighbor Policy establishes clear standards for safety and cleanliness and is crucial to building trust with the communities we serve,” said Steve Adami, Executive Director of The Salvation Army’s “The Way Out” Program. “Being a good neighbor means maintaining safe and clean surroundings, listening and responding to community concerns, and holding ourselves and those we serve accountable to clear expectations. When service providers, residents, businesses, and program participants all take responsibility for their impact on the community, neighborhoods thrive and our programs become stronger and more successful.”

The new policy will roll out in phases, beginning today with publication of the final policy and then followed by provider training and development of the Good Neighbor digital app. Training, testing, and implementation will scale through the fall, with citywide enforcement expected to begin by January once the app is fully deployed.