“Fix our city!” The chant was repeated by a crowd of about 50 workers from San Francisco’s Human Services Agency who deal with the city’s most visible open wounds — homelessness and addiction.
The workers are demanding that the city fill vacancies and provide training support ahead of the implementation of Proposition F on Jan. 1, 2025.
Prop F, approved by San Francisco voters in the March 5 election, will require HSA workers to screen applicants for substance abuse before clearing them to receive benefits in the County Adult Assistance Programs, or CAAP.
The burden is on the eligibility worker and whether they reasonably suspect an applicant is using illegal drugs. People who are recommended for drug treatment will be required to enter and stay in a treatment program in order to continue receiving the benefits.
“That puts us in a position of making a determination that we really don’t have any background or training or education in,” said HSA worker Jesse Stanton, who spoke at the protest in front of the HSA building.
Stanton says the city is good at hiring eligibility workers but fails to properly train and onboard them. He calculated that his job classification, eligibility worker, has a vacancy rate of 40 percent.
In an email, the HSA said the current staff vacancy rate for the entire County Adult Assistance Programs is 6 percent, which the agency says is in line with expected staff attrition rates.
Stanton said his department is woefully overburdened, which only slows the processing time. He says CAAP applicants, some of the most vulnerable residents of the city, must wait 45 to 90 days to be interviewed before they even find out if they are eligible for benefits.
“It is just soul crushing when somebody makes that application and they’re not aware of how long it’s going to take. Despair sets in right at that moment. And that delay is strictly a function of our staffing,” Stanton said.
The eligibility workers are also concerned that the new requirements will lead to potential harmful situations. Currently, when benefits are declined, Stanton said, applicants can sometimes get upset. The additional questions and mandates could escalate such scenarios to a dangerous level.
“That’s an invitation right there to an argument about whether I’ve judged properly that you have a drug problem. There’s a lot of different ways that manifests — throwing paper, throwing, pens, attempting to strike the worker, spitting, just becoming verbally abusive, refusing to leave, insisting to see another worker, to see somebody who looks like them,” he said.
“The safety concern is that there is a large number of people who either use some sort of drug or have mental challenges that make them appear to be under the influence at times. I would say that is a larger percentage of the population,” Stanton said.
That’s an invitation right there to an argument about whether I’ve judged properly that you have a drug problem. There’s a lot of different ways that manifests — throwing paper, throwing, pens, attempting to strike the worker, spitting, just becoming verbally abusive, refusing to leave, insisting to see another worker, to see somebody who looks like them.
Jesse Stanton, HSA worker
CAAP serves single adults under age 65 with no dependent children. Benefits include employment assistance, housing or shelter, utilities and food. In 2023, housed CAAP recipients received about $712 per month and a cash grant of up to $109 per month.
The San Francisco city controller, in a statement associated with the ordinance, estimated that costs of Prop F will be offset by annual savings of between $100,000 and $2 million from recipients who are no longer eligible to receive aid. But the workers said the ordinance provides no immediate funding or staffing.
The protesting workers are represented by Service Employees International Union Local 1021, which represents about 1,500 agency workers. The union filed an unfair labor practice charge with the California Public Employment Relations Board. Their current collective bargaining agreement expires June 30.
