Matt Mahan

I think we should give people opportunities to accept help that needs to be dignified.

They need to be alternatives to the streets.

We've stood up over 2000 indoor placements, interim housing placements, almost all individual rooms with doors that lock, giving people privacy.

These are low barrier alternatives to the streets.

Bring your partner, your pets, your possessions.

We're really trying to meet people where they are.

The good news, two thirds of people say yes.

The bad news, the other third, is so deep in the throes of addiction to substances like meth and fentanyl that they can't make a rational decision about their own self-care.

I believe that it is not compassionate or progressive to leave them to endlessly cycle between streets, emergency rooms, jails, and ultimately die of an overdose.

I think we have a moral duty to intervene, help them detox, and get connected to

a counselor and you have a chance to turn their lives around.

It has to be all levels of government, all hands on deck.

So much law enforcement is done at the local level.

We have a police department with about a thousand officers out on the street enforcing local laws.

They're on the front lines of this crisis, as are our firefighters, social workers.

certainly having federal tools and state, we have the National Guard, we have CHP, we have a variety of tools here.

What I do know though, is that we can reduce demand by intervening in public drug use and getting people into treatment and holding them accountable for turning their lives around.

If we get people into recovery, that's one more customer not available out on the streets to buy these dangerous products.

Well, I think it has to scale up over time.

With Prop 36, I was the first Democratic mayor in the state to come out in support of Prop 36.