Supervisors extend lease for Tenderloin Linkage Center for six months while seeking budget and monitoring data

San Francisco — The Budget & Finance Committee on May 18 approved a six-month extension of the city’s lease at 1170 Market Street to continue the Tenderloin Linkage Center (TLC), a high-use harm-reduction and navigation site that opened under the mayor’s Tenderloin emergency response.

Director of Real Estate Andrico Penick explained the lease extension would preserve the site through December 2022 at the same terms as the original emergency lease (base rent $75,000 per month for city-used floors). DPH program leads said the center is open daily 8 a.m.–8 p.m. and offers meals, showers, laundry, harm-reduction supplies, naloxone distribution and on-site housing navigation. "People come to get respite from the streets, connect to basic needs and then also to engage with our health navigators and service navigators," a DPH program lead said.

Community members and providers — including Code Tenderloin staff and residents who use the center — delivered sustained public testimony describing rehousing, job placement and life-saving connections. Dale Seymour, a longtime Tenderloin resident and outreach worker, told the committee the center gave people a path off the street: "My sobriety is worth a whole bunch more than $30,000 — this is not an experiment," Seymour said.

But supervisors pressed DPH for stronger written evidence of cost-effectiveness and asked for a plan showing how continued operation would be funded in the mayor’s budget. The Budget & Legislative Analyst noted the TLC’s monthly operating costs and recommended the Board request a post-emergency plan from DPH describing long-term operations after the emergency proclamation expired.

The committee approved two non-substantive amendments to the lease resolution (to incorporate planning findings) and voted to forward the item to the full Board with a positive recommendation as amended, with the expectation that the department will deliver budget detail and monitoring information for the Board’s review.

What happens next: The lease extension and amended resolution will go to the full Board. Supervisors asked DPH to submit a formal budget and monitoring report that documents outcomes (housing placements, service connections) and cost estimates in advance of any decision on a longer-term site commitment.