San Francisco Spends Millions Serving Liquor to Homeless Alcoholics

“This is one of the most mind-blowing things I’ve ever heard,” is one of many comments of shock—and anger—left by social media users this week.

When you hear that taxpayers are spending millions each year on programs for the homeless, most folks expect things like shelter beds, job training, or addiction recovery services. One could be forgiven for not expecting a government-backed initiative that, among other things, hands out shots of alcohol to chronically homeless alcoholics—to the tune of tens of millions of dollars across five years.

Look no further than San Francisco’s Managed Alcohol Program (MAP). Run through the Department of Public Health in partnership with Community Forward SF, the program dispenses vodka, beer, and wine to homeless alcoholics. That’s not all they do—participants also allegedly receive temporary housing, meals, medical care, and enrichment activities—but it’s the free booze that has drawn viral levels of scrutiny online.

That, and the fact that the program has only served 55 clients in its existence. It is reported that the NGO receives $16 million in taxpayer funds annually. 

If you’re doing the math at home, that equates to about $1.45 million per individual. A staggering figure, critics argue.

“If this is true, this is one of the most mind-blowing things I’ve ever heard,” one Twitter/X user comments.

“The whole thing is very odd to me and just doesn't feel right. Providing free drugs to drug addicts doesn't solve their problems. It just stretches them out,” said Adam Nathan, Chair of the Salvation Army San Francisco's advisory board. “Where's the recovery in all of this?”

City officials have attested that the Managed Alcohol Program itself runs on a smaller budget—roughly $5 million a year for a 20-bed facility—and that higher figures likely reflect Community Forward SF’s overall contracts rather than the program alone. Even so—whether the total is $5 million a year or $15 million—critics say the outcome looks the same.

“That's still a wild amount per person for handing out booze,” says another user. “Harm reduction or just kicking the can down the street? Time for real audits on these programs!”

Indeed, spending millions annually to serve a few dozen people over several years produces an alarmingly high per-client cost, with little public evidence of meaningful recovery or exit from homelessness—despite the NGO claiming that their “innovative model has shown to be extremely effective.” They did not provide any qualitative data to measure that affectiveness, however, so you’ll have to take them at their word.

“This program funnels millions annually into indefinitely supplying alcohol to a handful of severe cases under the guise of harm reduction, with no public longitudinal data after 5+ years showing meaningful transitions to sobriety, sustained recovery, or cycle-breaking—despite calls in the literature for exactly that tracking,” said systems pathologist Margaret Hamby. “When SF's broader addiction/homelessness spending already lacks accountability and impact proof, this opacity on long-term ROI is indefensible grift disguised as compassion.”

Taxpayers are already on edge after revelations of widespread fraud in Minnesota exposed how easily social services dollars can be misused. That scrutiny has spilled west, with some—President Trump among them—arguing that California’s sprawling social-services bureaucracy may be harboring even deeper, still-unexposed abuses. This was reaffirmed by a recent audit by Newsom’s own office which flagged $72 billion of the state’s funds as being highly vulnerable to fraud.

Independent reporters are starting to dig deeper. In San Diego, for example, Amy Reichert’s investigation into childcare programs found “ghost daycares”—facilities that reported enrollment on state records but had few or no children present during unannounced state inspections, sometimes with serious safety violations—not dissimilar to the ones found by Nick Shirley in Minnesota. Hers is just one example of a growing effort to trace where taxpayer money is going and to expose fraud in states with poor track records on transparency and fiscal management.

One wonders if San Francisco’s MAP is truly the first and only of its kind. Several users have tagged Nick Shirley in response to the story about the initiative, seemingly suggesting that should be the next area of focus in his investigations into fraud.

“It never ends. They are robbing our tax dollars through these NGO’s. Where is it ending up?” asks one Twitter/X user.

“I identify as homeless. Where is this facility located?” jokes another.