David Sjostedt

David writes about people suffering from homelessness, addiction and mental illness in San Francisco.

Swipe below to see some of the hundreds of stories he’s told while working at the San Francisco Standard.

Click the menu for his full portfolio and resume.

Stories

The killer of a skateboarding legend went unnamed for years. Could deaths have been prevented?
Bodies in streets, parks, buses: The everyday horror of stumbling on an overdose victim
300 health department employees with secret side gigs come forward after scandal
Kids are selling drugs and stolen goods in the Tenderloin. It’s an open secret on the city’s roughest blocks
Dead people are on probation in San Francisco as agency’s budget soared
Inside the Bay Area’s ‘huge underground’ wild mushroom market
A mother, an officer, a heartbreaking death: How a program for addicts stumbled on the streets of the Tenderloin
This homeless man cleaned a San Francisco street for 7 years. A nonprofit fights to keep him there
San Francisco drug users forced by dealers to hold narcotics, cash and guns
3 people die of drug overdoses every week in San Francisco supportive housing
San Francisco reverses hundreds of overdoses a month: what happens next?
Drug treatment is available in San Francisco. Why don’t people use it?
Half of San Francisco drug users seeking treatment weren’t admitted, data shows: ‘it’s scandalous’
Your neighbors are dying of fentanyl overdoses—these are the lives they led
Fatal overdoses raise new questions about city-funded drug rehab nonprofit
SF housing nonprofit spends big on politics. Tenants deal with infestations, overdoses
Tenderloin Center clients warn of disaster as controversial drug site heads for closure
Top SF public health official drew second six-figure salary from drug nonprofit as its finances unraveled
Top health official broke city rules in working six-figure nonprofit gig
SF public health official resigns from unauthorized nonprofit gig
Shooting of Tenderloin ‘ambassador’ raises questions about security practices at fast-growing Urban Alchemy
In San Francisco and across California, people with severe mental illness languish untreated in jails, hospitals
As the drug overdose crisis rages, city fails to collect data needed to fight it
Fentanyl is their drug, sugar is their vice. Users explain their desperate need for candy
Why is fentanyl drastically cheaper in San Francisco than in LA, NYC and Philly?