The facility is about 400 feet from a daycare, on the same street as a large family housing complex and less than a quarter-mile from a children’s park. According to the state’s Megan’s Law database, all but one of the 32 residents committed or attempted a sex offense against a minor.

The issue drew renewed attention after conservative activist Christopher Rufo posted a video on Sept. 30 showing the faces of more than a dozen residents. Rufo described the facility as a place where California was placing convicted child sex offenders in residential neighborhoods. Mahmood shared the video and called the allegations concerning, while later criticizing Rufo’s rhetoric as “reprehensible” and describing it as Islamophobic and transphobic.

Mahmood said state law limits what the city can do. “Due to state law, there’s not much at this time that we can do,” he said.

California voters approved Jessica’s Law in 2006, imposing restrictions on where registered sex offenders could live, including a 2,000-foot buffer from schools and parks where children gather. In 2015, the California Supreme Court ruled that the restriction could be applied only on an individual basis, finding that a blanket ban limited housing options after incarceration and worsened homelessness.

The Taylor Street facility is the Tenderloin’s only private housing site for formerly incarcerated people and can accommodate as many as 240 residents. It is operated by GEO Group, a for-profit prison company with contracts with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the federal Bureau of Prisons. GEO Group has faced protests over its work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and allegations about conditions and abuse at its facilities.

Mahmood and other supervisors launched an investigation into the halfway house last year in an effort to close it, but that effort did not succeed. He said city officials are considering whether to hold another hearing. Because the facility receives no city funding, he said, the city has limited control over it.

Community advocates with Turk x Taylor, who want GEO Group to leave San Francisco, say people who have served their sentences should be able to live in the city and access rehabilitation. Their focus, said group leader Chandra Laborde, is on how GEO Group treats residents, not on blaming people who have completed their sentences.

Mahmood said the presence of registered sex offenders remains a concern, but is legal unless other laws are violated. “We 100% need a halfway house in San Francisco,” he said. “I just don’t think the Tenderloin is necessarily the place for it, and GEO Group is definitely not the right operator.”