Proposition D, Laguna Honda zoning changes

Proposition D

Laguna Honda zoning changes

NO

We agree with one of the basic premises of this measure: Laguna Honda hospital, which is designed as a long-term care facility for seniors, has been used improperly as a dumping ground for violent mental patients. That's caused real safety problems for the patients and the staff.

But Prop. D doesn't offer a public health solution. This is a zoning measure, and it's an inappropriately blunt instrument to use for a complex and nuanced problem.

For starters, the issue of sending patients who don't fit the traditional Laguna Honda profile to that facility is tricky. What should the public health director do when there's no room at San Francisco General for someone who urgently needs medical care, and there happens to be space, and qualified staff, available at Laguna Honda? Is it better to risk an imperfect patient mix or to toss a mentally ill homeless person out on the streets? That's a dilemma San Francisco doctors face every day, in a health care, social service, and housing crisis that shows no signs of quickly going away — and it's not the sort of decision that ought to be made with a ballot initiative.

Besides, since this is a zoning plan (and could never be changed except with another vote of the people), it would restrict any future use of the Laguna Honda campus. Health care needs change; half a century ago, Laguna Honda was a tuberculosis sanatorium. The place is being rebuilt anyway; in the future, there would be many public health uses that would make sense for the site.

There's another big problem too: The way Prop. D is worded, it would open the door for private nursing-home development not only at Laguna Honda but at 1,600 sites that are zoned for public use around the city. Vote no. SFBG