Tensions over treatment facility: San Mateo residents say facility would ruin neighborhood, while recovery advocates say opposition continues harmful stereotypes 

“The county has viable alternatives today … that will reduce community impact and lower the political risks that divide us,” David Long, board member of the San Mateo Park Neighborhood Association, said.

Some individuals in the crowd shouted in agreement, or disagreement, to voice their frustration — yelling phrases like “not in our backyard” — and urged leaders to engage in hot-seat-style questioning in the middle of the crowd. 

Other locations residents proposed include the former sobering station on Mahler Road in Burlingame and by Tower Road, where the county has a variety of services.

As currently proposed, the project would be located at 101 N. El Camino Real, along the county’s major corridor, which sits at the edge of the affluent Baywood neighborhood, and the commercial downtown district. It would comprise 16 sobering center beds — a jail alternative for nonviolent DUI offenders — 17 detox beds and 36 beds for residential treatment services, all of which would prohibit alcohol, illicit substances and outside loitering. Clients are also not allowed to bring vehicles on-site. 

The nonprofit running the facility, Horizon Services, was awarded the third and final round of funding from Proposition 1, a 2024 ballot measure that goes toward building and upgrading critical behavioral health infrastructure and facilities throughout the state. For nonprofits like Horizon Services, and the county’s Behavioral Health and Recovery Services Division, the measure offered a unique opportunity to build an integrated facility that would otherwise have further entrenched widening treatment gaps or fallen on the county to fund.

Opposition quickly intensified over the past month with residents citing numerous concerns — namely that crime would increase, congestion would worsen and even that clients would walk onto school property and prey on children. The closest school is about two blocks away.

Horizon Chief Program Officer Derya Ozes said while attending the community meeting that only nonviolent individuals would be eligible to enter the programs, which require a robust intake process.

“If they are a danger to self or others, that would trigger our team automatically to call the authorities so the client can be transferred over to emergency services because we are not a crisis unit,” Ozes said. “That’s the irony. We are a clinic where individuals who are motivated receive treatment.”

The fierce neighborhood opposition highlights what recovery and mental health experts say is a perpetuation of a harmful stereotype — that even nonviolent clients in active recovery are dangerous criminals and child predators that should be kept away from the rest of society.

“Neighbors have legitimate questions about safety, about traffic, and those neighbors deserve real answers, but opposition to these projects is frequently rooted in what people think somebody who is in recovery looks like,” Robb Layne, executive director of California Association of Alcohol & Drug Program Executives, said. “If someone says, ‘I support recovery, but I don’t support it in my community’… then they do not support recovery.”

Resident backlash

In response to the onslaught of backlash, the county and Horizon held the community meeting Tuesday, March 24, at the San Mateo County Event Center with the intention of casually conversing with residents and answering questions in a “more intimate environment,” Horizon CEO Jaime Campos said.

Residents like Randy McMills, who was in attendance, said parents would never be able to let their children walk home alone again if the facility was built and that clients would be “roaming around” the area.

“There are many other properties that are much more ideal,” he said.  

Sue Delehanty said she was frustrated to only find out about the proposal in February, via Nextdoor, and that Horizon should “stick it where it won’t be around other residents of any kind.”

Residents also wrote feedback on sheets of paper, with one person stating that “sanitation would be a problem all day” and that families of addicts should “relocate their problems.” Others said it would create more traffic at a dangerous intersection. Many attendees wore pins that said “Treatment Yes, Location No.” 

But San Mateo resident Jordan Kessler, who was also in attendance, said it’s hard to believe they actually care about providing high-quality drug treatment when they’re simultaneously describing those seeking recovery in such a disparaging way.

“None of them cared that the [sobering station] was by a continuation school,” Kessler said, referring to a former location in Burlingame. “Being a drug addict, particularly one who has chosen to seek treatment, does not make you any more dangerous to children than anyone else.”

Pushback to such facilities is not uncommon, especially in more affluent areas, said Adrian Maldonado, who has been sober from drugs for over two decades and still works in the recovery field in San Mateo County and San Francisco.  

“They’re really good at clutching pearls and appealing to dog whistles when it suits them, so the real issue in that is, ‘we’re going to have all these crazy drug addicts and Black and brown people in my neighborhood,’ but the reality is they already have them,” Maldonado said. “In a reasonable society, how are we going to address people who have significant and legitimate behavioral health concerns if we shun them?”

Affluent community acceptance

But he’s also experienced firsthand how affluent communities can eventually accept and embrace treatment facilities in their neighborhood. Several decades ago, the infamous Delancey Street Foundation — an organization known for its substance use rehabilitation program  — acquired property in the exclusive Pacific Heights neighborhood in San Francisco, much to the chagrin of the residents, Maldonado said. 

“The people in Pac Heights, old money San Francisco, were up in arms that a bunch of drug addicts would be there,” he said.

Despite the growing pains, Delancey Street members, including Maldonado, eventually altered many residents’ negative perceptions about them, as they volunteered and contributed in the community together. 

The key, he added, is to ensure the operator has a zero-tolerance policy for any kind of substance use or inappropriate behavior and retains high-quality staff — something that isn’t always easy when pay for such positions is well below a livable wage in the county.  

“Delancey Street had such a strict model of accountability and behavior and engaging with the community,” he said. “They did enormous amounts of work to build relationships with them. Their mindset was ‘we’re not going to let people do whatever they want … they’re not going to shoot dope or litter.’ They were very strict about their treatment modality.”

Current disapproval

But it seems it’ll take a long time before San Mateo residents are willing to embrace recovering individuals into their community, as crowd members frequently shouted their disapproval for county and nonprofit leaders during the meeting. At one point, Supervisor Noelia Corzo left in the middle of answering a question after repeatedly warning attendees that she’d leave if they didn’t let her finish talking.

It’s reasonable for residents to have concerns, especially when trying to determine whether the operator will fulfill their promises of safety and security, Layne said, and also that they are providing safe and quality care to clients. Horizon’s nearby Palm Avenue detox facility, for instance, is operating under a probationary license due to a 2020 patient safety incident, which Campos said he expects to be lifted by next year.

“We took it seriously, worked closely with the Department of Health Care Services to implement comprehensive improvements … and the results have been validated through strong state and county audits,” Campos said via email. 

Safety threats

There is still no evidence, however, to suggest that such facilities, which prohibit drugs, alcohol and loitering, increase crime or impose safety threats in the surrounding area, Layne added — or that those with substance abuse disorder are more likely to be a child predator than anyone else in the general population. 

Layne cited several studies, including one conducted by Johns Hopkins, revealing that in Baltimore, an individual was “significantly more likely to encounter violent crime near a liquor or corner store than a [drug treatment center].” A Brookings study also showed that local fears of increased crime when a substance use treatment facility is present are “unfounded.”

“It would be wonderful if [residents] were able to say, ‘In this state, or in the city … we have seen that there is a negative effect on children who are in preschools based on the following studies or data,’” Layne said. “Nobody wants children to be unsafe, but show me the data.”

More locally, the San Mateo Police Department responded to roughly 33 calls for service at the Palm Avenue detox facility in 2025, also run by Horizon, though zero arrests were made on the entire block where the facility is located, according to public records data.

The detox facility is also just a few buildings down from a small school.

Between May 1, 2024, to May 1, 2025, there was one arrest made on Mahler Road — where the former sobering station was — and the neighboring Hinckley Road combined. At the Mission Street Recovery sobering station in San Jose, about 1.5% of cases escalate to a second call with a police officer, according to Horizon data.

Other concerns

In response to traffic concerns, Campos has previously said even at weekday peaks, there will likely be less than 20 employees present at any given time. 

By contrast, the four most recently proposed residential developments along El Camino Real in San Mateo will each include anywhere between 38 to more than 600 parking spaces.

Jei Africa, director of the county’s Behavioral Health and Recovery Services, was in attendance at the Tuesday meeting and said there are numerous facilities in the county and region that are in close proximity to residential homes, schools, senior facilities and residents “don’t even know they’re there.”

While Corzo maintains support for the project, the meeting also comes roughly a week after several other county supervisors started expressing skepticism. San Mateo County Supervisor Jackie Speier, has said she doesn’t think the current site is an appropriate place for the facility and has been in talks with state legislators, hoping to get the Department of Health Care Services to accommodate a location change on the application, from the San Mateo site to the former sobering center location on Mahler Road in Burlingame. 

Other supervisors, including Ray Mueller and David Canepa, have also said the board needs to look closer at community outreach processes and location assessment before approving projects. The board had approved about $2 million in October to support the project as part of a routine agenda item. 

But in addition to the strict approval conditions making it unlikely the state would honor such a relocation request, Campos said that survey responses from 10 law enforcement agencies in the county — including Hillsborough and San Mateo — showed that they preferred a location that’s even more centrally located than the former Burlingame site and also supported a new facility that could provide other services, like detox and long-term treatment, under one roof.

Campos maintained the dialogue during the meeting was constructive and that he understands concerns around traffic safety and “ensuring that patients are linked off-site after they’ve completed their treatment in the program.”