In an interview with Bloomberg News earlier this week, San Francisco Mayor London Breed commented on the lack of remote workers returning to offices across the city, saying that the low office vacancy rates are prompting her to attempt to attract new types of businesses to the downtown area .

“Life as we knew it before the pandemic is not going to go back,” Breed told Bloomberg News. “This whole work-from-home thing is here to stay.”

The outlet noted that attitude represents a shift for breed, who tried a myriad of tactics to bring workers back. The report said office vacancies in San Francisco struck a record high of 25.5% in the third quarter, and return-to-office rates have hovered around 40% of pre-pandemic levels, representing one of the lowest rates among large metros areas in the U.S

Breed told Bloomberg News that the number of city employees who have returned to work is smaller than expected.

“We thought people would miss working around other people, but they do not,” she said.

The remote work policies of tech companies are part of the problem, Breed said. She pointed to Salesforce, the large software company headed in part by Marc Benioff, as an example. Salesforce is the city’s largest private employer, and its offices occupy San Francisco’s tallest office tower.

“[Marc is] very supportive of the city, continues to contribute that support to schools and to other great causes, but the building is empty, and that’s a real problem,” Breed said. “Ultimately I can’t force or mandate, right? These companies are making the decisions that they believe that are in their best interests.”

Breed’s point is that a lack of workers in the office hurts the city’s economy. Empty buildings depress property values, which affects the amount the city makes in property tax revenue. Workers are also using public transportation at lower rates, and are spending less on goods at local businesses since they spend more time inside their homes.

Without returning employees to in-person work at higher rates, Breed said she’ll be attempting to coax businesses in growing industries, such as biotechnology and green technology, to fill empty office space.

You can read the entire Bloomberg News article here.

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Late yesterday, the Coalition on Homelessness and seven individual plaintiffs filed suit against the City and County of San Francisco and Mayor London Breed for their efforts to criminalize homelessness through an array of brutal policing practices that violate the constitutional rights of unhoused San Franciscans. The plaintiffs are also seeking a preliminary injunction to stop these practices on an emergency basis. Plaintiffs are represented by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, as well as the global law firm Latham & Watkins LLP.

For years, San Francisco has claimed that it is taking steps to address the City’s homelessness crisis. But in fact, the City is forcing unhoused people out of sight—destroying their survival belongings and citing and arresting them for sleeping in public when they have no shelter to go to. San Francisco has more laws penalizing homelessness than any other place in California, and possibly America. These regressive mass incarceration era policies only perpetuate San Francisco’s homelessness crisis and scapegoat unhoused people for the City’s egregious failure to support affordable housing for San Francisco residents.

San Francisco lacks—and has always lacked—adequate affordable housing and shelter for thousands of unhoused San Franciscans. San Francisco’s threats, citations, arrests, and removal of unhoused residents from public spaces therefore violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The City is also engaged in a practice of illegally seizing and destroying the personal belongings of unhoused residents in violation of the Fourth Amendment. These practices help San Francisco claim that it is solving the homelessness crisis—when it has actually just swept it under the rug.

San Francisco’s homelessness crisis is one of unaffordability. When longstanding residents can no longer afford to stay in their homes, they are forced out onto the street. San Francisco’s politicians have understood this for years, but they have failed to act. Instead, the City has consistently relied on tough-on-crime policies to respond to homelessness instead of addressing the root cause of the problem: the clear lack of permanent affordable housing.

This is immoral, cruel, costly, and ultimately counterproductive—not to mention unconstitutional. The City knows this because it constantly violates its own policies that purport to require a humane, services-first approach to the homelessness crisis. The reality is that unhoused San Franciscans wake up to find their survival belongings seized and destroyed as they face criminal penalties for sleeping outside even though the city has little to nothing to offer San Francisco’s unhoused residents in terms of shelter, housing, and services. This lawsuit combines massive amounts of public data with eyewitness accounts to expose the City’s unlawful conduct, which makes it almost impossible for the thousands of affected San Franciscans to exit homelessness.

Those experiencing homelessness in San Francisco are disproportionately people of color due to decades of discrimination in housing, education, healthcare and the criminal justice system. Today, for example, Black people comprise 6% of San Francisco’s general population but make up 37% of the City’s unhoused population. Black renters in San Francisco still face some of the worst housing discrimination anywhere in the country. That targeted exclusion has only exacerbated the homelessness crisis for people of color.

San Franciscans deserve real solutions to homelessness. That starts and ends with the City actually investing in affordable housing. This lawsuit seeks to hold the City to account for its unconstitutional attack on unhoused San Franciscans. The City cannot punish unhoused people for a housing crisis it created.

Client statements:

Plaintiff Nathaniel Vaughn, a life-long San Franciscan who recently became unhoused, reflects: “We do not deserve to be treated like criminals and to have our belongings thrown in the trash when we are at our most vulnerable.”

Plaintiff Toro Castaño notes the impact this has on unhoused people: “The City’s sweeps [are] a dehumanizing disruption to the small ounce of stability that I was trying to build for myself during one of the hardest times of my life.”

Plaintiff Sarah Cronk says the same: “We are just trying to scrape by and build as much of a life for ourselves as possible—with both dignity and safety. The City makes that impossible for us.”

Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness: “San Francisco’s homelessness crisis is its affordable housing crisis. Instead of investing in permanent affordable housing, the city has spent millions of dollars to rid our neighborhoods of visible signs of homelessness. Punitive approaches make homelessness worse, as it only makes it harder for people to access already limited services, find employment and secure stable housing.”

Attorney statements:

“The City is using unhoused residents as the scapegoats for a crisis of economic and racial justice that it helped to create. San Francisco should fight to end homelessness. But the only real solution to San Francisco’s homelessness crisis is housing. Instead of solving homelessness, the City has invested in carceral policies that make the crisis worse. That’s not only unconstitutional, it’s also just bad policy. We should expect better far better from our political leaders.” – Zal Shroff, Senior Staff Attorney, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the Bay Area

“Racism is embedded in the criminalization of homelessness in San Francisco as people of color are disproportionately targeted by anti-homeless ordinances. The current system is complaint-driven, allowing housed residents to dictate traumatizing enforcement against unhoused people who attempt to live in whiter, gentrifying neighborhoods. This suggests that the City is doing more to appear wealthy homeowners than it is to support the health and wellbeing of the most vulnerable with real opportunities out of homelessness. Through the lawsuit, we aim to lay bare the City’s illusory shelter options and end the racist results that criminalization produces.” – John Do, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California

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“When you execute a plea deal, it needs to be one that’s responsible. Right? It needs to be one that’s proportionate to your criminal history and your current crime, and it needs to also put you in a position not to reoffend,” she said.

Jenkins also found fault with what she saw as Boudin’s rigid adherence to progressive policies.

“Much of the issue with Chesa that I see is that refusal to change course, even when he sees policies aren’t working,” she said. “Even when the public is screaming out, ‘Hey, we support reform, but this type of reform is not effective in balancing public safety.'”

Jenkins now inherits an office she once called “a sinking ship.” On Thursday, she acknowledged that lingering instability, vowing to “restore office morale to a much higher place,” and pledging equal treatment for DA prosecutors hired before and after Boudin’s arrival.

Breed emphasized that Jenkins, like Boudin, is committed to criminal justice reform. “This is not just about locking people up and throwing away the key,” she said. “This is not what we’re about in this city. This is about striking a balance and doing what’s right.”

Of the numerous candidates Breed interviewed for the job, Jenkins “stood out” as someone who not only recognized the need for compassion and understanding in the prosecutorial process, but also prioritized accountability and justice, the mayor said. “That balance of fairness is what made her stand apart.”

Jenkins, 40, was born and raised in the Bay Area and worked in private practice before joining the DA’s office in 2014 as a prosecutor in the misdemeanors unit. She worked her way up to the general felonies unit, where she prosecuted hate crimes for nearly two years, and then served in the homicide unit until her resignation in protest last fall.

Brooke Jenkins, Mayor London Breed’s pick for district attorney, enters a press conference at City Hall on July 7, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

Set to be sworn in Friday, she will take over an office that has seen more than its share of turnover in recent years. Former DA Kamala Harris left the position to become California Attorney General in 2011, and her replacement, George Gascón, resigned in 2019 to run for Los Angeles DA.

Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of the progressive Prosecutors Alliance of California, and a Boudin supporter, said the new DA’s first task should be preventing a mass exodus of attorneys.

“It’s better for victims and survivors of crime to not have a lot of turnover of their case from one lawyer to the next and one advocate to the next,” she said.

Jenkins, however, won’t have much time to get comfortable in the job. In November, voters will decide whether she or another candidate fills out the remaining year in Boudin’s term. If she wins, Jenkins will face voters again in 2023 if she decides to seek a full four-year term.

According to a source familiar with the process, the mayor has spent “every day” since last month’s recall election thinking about this appointment, and held more than a dozen meetings at City Hall with community groups, former DA office staff, judges and various law enforcement officials. She also met with advocates for crime victims, as well as supporters and opponents of Boudin’s recall, the source said.

Breed reportedly asked potential appointees for their take on issues such as how to prosecute domestic violence, drug arrests and weapons charges. According to the mayor’s office, Breed wanted someone with prosecutorial experience who also was a supporter of criminal justice reform.

Although Breed did not take a formal position on Boudin’s recall, she had openly criticized his leadership, and it was evident she supported his removal from office, two-and-a-half years after he edged out her handpicked appointee, Suzy Loftus, in a very close election.

New San Francisco district attorney Brooke Jenkins listens to Mayor London Breed introduce her during a press conference at City Hall on July 7, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

In addition to Jenkins, the mayor also reportedly considered Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Nancy Tung, who ran unsuccessfully for the job in 2019. Other potential candidates included SF Superior Court Judge Eric Fleming, a former prosecutor in the DA’s office, and Supervisor Catherine Stefani , who endorsed Boudin’s recall.

Efforts to recall Boudin, a progressive reformer, began not long after he took office in 2020, just as the pandemic began turning life upside down. San Francisco’s courts were included in the mass shutdown of in-person government operations, resulting in much slower prosecutions and resolutions of pending cases.

Boudin’s tenure also coincided with a sharp rise in anti-Asian hate crimes — both in San Francisco and across the country — as well as viral videos of organized “smash-and-grab” incidents at upscale stores in Union Square that fueled a general but often unfounded perception that crime was rising and Boudin was to blame.

“I think people being alone, people being isolated and existing through social media kind of led to a heightened sense that our city wasn’t safe, and [Boudin] took the blame for it,” said former police commissioner and recall opponent John Hamasaki. “He took the fall for it.”

Hamasaki, who was a strong critic of the San Francisco Police Department while he served as commissioner, noted that although the recall was framed by national media as a referendum on Boudin’s progressive policies, “within the recall crowd, there was never any specificity as to what they wanted — just that Boudin is doing a bad job and needs to be recalled.”

Indeed, shortly after the election, Breed insisted that she was not looking for a DA who would turn away from criminal justice reforms, which are broadly popular in San Francisco.

That sentiment was echoed by DeBerry.

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San Francisco’s 47-year-old mayor, London Breed, grew up in this city of postcard views, but much of that was not part of her youth. “I grew up in poverty,” she said. “I grew up in public housing, so I wasn’t really exposed early on to all of the beauty that you see now. I didn’t know some of these neighborhoods even existed in San Francisco.”

For this mayor who has risen from poverty, fighting the city’s inequality is one of her major challenges. In an area that’s home to many of the world’s most valuable companies, San Francisco now counts 8,000 homeless people, the fourth highest rate of any US city, and that has been made worse by some of the country’s highest housing prices.

Smash-and-grab robberies, along with car break-ins, have become their own postcard, underscored by the fact that police solve less than seven percent of those property crimes, infuriating both residents and the city’s more than $6 billion tourism industry.

Correspondent John Blackstone asked Breed, “You said yourself, many people in the city don’t feel safe here any longer.”

“Yeah, and I think that’s why we’re working on it,” she replied, “with making sure we’re able to add more police officers. We’re working on it by having alternatives to policing, to respond to people who are dealing with mental health challenges.”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed with correspondent John Blackstone.

CBS News

After Breed was elected four years ago, she picked up a broom and planned to spent tens of millions of dollars a year cleaning the streets. In total, San Francisco is spending one billion city, state and federal dollars on homelessness.

“Every single morning there are people who work for the City and County of San Francisco cleaning up where you wouldn’t even know it’s the same neighborhood,” Breed said. “And even before noon, we’re dealing with some of the same challenges of the litter and the feces and the urine and some of the other issues that many of us are frustrated over.”

Those frustrations, particularly over crime, may be making this famously liberal city a little less liberal. In a recall this month, voters threw out the district attorney whom critics called “soft” on crime. That followed the recall in February of left-leaning school board members who’d focused on renaming buildings rather than reopening them during the pandemic.

On the national stage, politics here are a juicy target for critics on the right. On Fox News, conservative commentator Jesse Watters described San Francisco as “a tech mecca surrounded by a filthy moat of degeneracy, lawlessness, criminals and drugs.”

It is rhetoric with a long legacy, that was amplified in 2007 when a San Francisco Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, became the first female Speaker of the House. Republicans talked disdainfully about “San Francisco values.” On “The Bill O’Reilly Show,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said, “I mean, Nancy Pelosi represents a San Francisco values ​​system.”

Blackstone asked Breed, “What are San Francisco values?”

“I think San Francisco values ​​really consist of pushing the envelope and willing to try things that may make people uncomfortable for the purpose of really turning people’s lives around,” she replied.

“But it seems to me the problem that San Francisco faces is that, for people on the right, it’s become shorthand for ‘liberal crazies.'”

“Yeah, and again, there’s nothing I can do about that, other than to make sure that we’re taking care of our city,” said Breed. “We’re cleaning it up, we’re keeping people safe, and we’re doing the things that make the people who live, work, and visit here happy.”

In December the mayor broke from the city’s often-lenient policies when she announced plans to get tough on crime: “And it comes to an end when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement, more aggressive with the changes in our policies , and less tolerant of all the bulls*** that has destroyed our city.”

San Francisco has been struggling with homelessness, and a rise in car break-ins and other property crimes.

CBS News

Blackstone asked, “I looked at the police dashboard. The retail theft, that’s up this year. Is your crackdown on crime working?”

“I don’t think it’s a fair assessment, to take statistics and then to equate them to a major headline around San Francisco being dangerous,” she said, “especially in light of when you look at our homicide rate, in particular, and when you look at the number of cases we’ve been able to solve, and the number of people that we’ve been able to hold accountable.”

FBI violent crime statistics confirm: at least 65 other cities have higher rates of murder, rape and assault than San Francisco. But highly-visible crimes, like car thefts and shoplifting, are up nearly 17% so far this year compared to last year.

Breed said, “I don’t think numbers mean anything when something happens to you. And so, ultimately, we’ve gotta do a better job with improving how people feel in the city.”

Among the improvements the mayor is proud of is a transformed corner in a tough neighborhood. “The corner of Hyde and Turk, this used to be a notorious area where there was a lot of drug-dealing and drug-using and all kind of things going on there. You go there today and there’s a park, a brand-new park there, and kids are now using the park.”

The Turk-Hyde Mini Park was created for preschoolers in the heart of the Tenderloin.

CBS News

Blackstone asked, “Let me ask you just to explain San Francisco to an outsider.”

“Ooh, that’s a hard one!” Breed laughed. “Complicated. Unique. Beautiful. Crazy. Wild. Fun. Innovative. Challenging. All of those things and more.”

Like any other American city, San Francisco has plenty of problems, but much like any other big city mayor, London Breed is her city’s biggest fan: “I love San Francisco, even though it’s a complex city with all of its challenges, its issues . But it’s a place of beauty. It’s a place of hope. It’s a place of opportunity.”

For more information:

Story produced by John Goodwin and Christine Weicher. Editor: Ben McCormick.

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Always blunt, Breed professes to be unconcerned about facing voters.

“I don’t do this job,” Breed said, “in fear of losing it.”

In some important ways, Breed’s entire political orientation has been defined by her relationship with law enforcement.

She grew up in the Plaza East housing project in the city’s Western Addition neighborhood, where gunfire was commonplace and the San Francisco of ornate Victorian homes and rapidly acquired fortunes felt distant. She did not know her father and her mother was barely in the picture, so Breed was raised by her grandmother. Her brother struggled with addiction and was later sentenced to 44 years after a woman was killed by oncoming traffic when her brother pushed her from a getaway car, according to prosecutors. Breed’s sister died of a drug overdose.

Breed’s childhood gave her a nuanced view of law enforcement. She speaks often of the tension between residents both distrusting and needing the police, and she regularly derides white liberals who proclaim to know what Black voters want from the police.

Growing up, people saw “corrupt officers who did things like plant dope on people or would beat people down,” Breed said in an interview earlier this year with POLITICO. But people also suffered from the predation by others in the community, and Breed believes that rejecting a role for law enforcement is tantamount to abandoning those communities. She recounted the death of a friend who was shot “like a dog” in the street. “The worst part about that is not even a peep” came from police critics on the left, she said, “as if he doesn’t even matter.”

“The implication that people don’t want police or law enforcement in their communities,” Breed said, “I think it’s a false narrative.”

Her perspective on what was possible stemmed from interactions with people who helped her glimpse a better life. As a teenager, Breed babysat for the children of Shauna Marshall, the former dean of the University of California’s Hastings School of Law. Breed was friends with another young woman who lived across the street from Marshall, who remembered Breed as shy.

“One of the things I admire about London Breed is how against all odds and her background she has become so successful, and one of the reasons she said she was so shy — she’d never met a Black lawyer before,” Marshall said. “I don’t know if she’d met any lawyers, let alone a Black woman.”

Later, Marshall helped secure Breed a high school job working for Marshall’s relative at a center helping women transition from welfare to work. A supportive middle school teacher gave a breed an important incentive to succeed by telling her she needed to be on good behavior to remain in the school band. A high school teacher guided breed through the college application process after a visit from a recruiter from the University of California, Davis. Breed ultimately did get into and attend Davis, where she ended up switching from chemistry to a political science major. A graduate degree in public administration followed.

“I know the possibilities of what can happen when things go great in the city and what it can mean for someone’s life,” Breed said. “It’s the difference between me going to college and becoming mayor and giving back to the community in the way that I have and, sadly, my brother, who is incarcerated.”

Her political career began with a series of positions linked to Mayor Willie Brown. Breed interned in the Brown administration and worked on his 1999 re-election campaign, and in 2002 — at Brown’s urging — Breed, then 28, became executive director of the African American Art & Culture Complex, giving her a prominent role in the city’s civic life.

When an opportunity to run for the board of supervisors arrived in 2012, Breed’s background had gone from a barrier to an asset. The people who rallied early behind Breed’s run — both Black and white — saw in her someone whose life experience instilled in her a genuine desire to make policy work for San Franciscans.

“Her whole backstory is not only compelling, but it really spoke to me that here’s a person who’s been on the wrong side of so much that’s gone wrong in San Francisco for the last 50 years,” said Ted Loewenberg, who had met Breed before she ran for supervisor in his capacity heading the Haight Ashbury Improvement Association.

There is a term San Francisco political insiders like to use: “city family.” It typically refers to the inner circle of power surrounding and flowing from Brown, whose political successors include Gov. Gavin Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris — and, depending on whom you ask, Breed, as well. Those mayors, from Brown to Newsom to former Mayor Ed Lee, have generally aligned with business interests and gone to battle with left-leaning boards of supervisors.

Breed has always pushed back against attempts to locate her within that sphere of influence. “I wouldn’t say I was all that powerful or anything,” Breed said in an interview. During that first board of supervisors run she bridled at the notion she was just another Brown protégé, fuming to a reporter after an event that Brown “didn’t wipe my ass when I was a baby,” adding, “I don’t do what no motherfucking body tells me to do.”

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San Francisco loves an ambitious goal. In 2003, the city set the objective to produce zero waste by 2020. In 2014, it vowed to reach zero traffic-related fatalities by 2024. And in 2015, it pledged to get to zero HIV infections and preventable deaths by 2020.

None of those things happened.

Arbitrary time limits have been abandoned (zero waste), quietly erased from the website (vision zero) or extended (HIV infections and deaths).

And so it’s hard not to see the new plan Mayor London Breed announced this week to house every transgender person experiencing homelessness by 2027 with skepticism. She announced the plan after a dramatic week, where several queer community groups came out against her now reversed decision not to march in the Pride Parade.

It’s not easy to tackle intractable, systemic problems on a tight deadline. But Breed’s timing further begged the question: Can we really end homelessness in the transgender community in five short years? Or was her promise empty politicking in the wake of a queer backlash?

All signs pointed to politicking. And on Twitter, her plan was attacked accordingly. But the more I dug into it, the more legitimate I found the proposal to be. Part of that is because the plan came from the community it’s designed to serve; it was presented by the city’s Trans Advisory Committee. The proposal includes a long-term rental assistance program, and $6.5 million spread over two years for behavioral health, nonprofit support and to acquire a building to house LGBTQ youth.

Trans people in San Francisco are 18 times more likely to experience homelessness than the general population, according to Our Trans Home SF, but they’re underserved; many organizations are not well-versed in pronouns, gender-affirming care, name changes, or in managing trauma. As a result, many homeless trans people don’t engage with traditional services, falling through the cracks in an already difficult-to-navigate system. Breed’s proposed funding could allow small nonprofit organizations that hire from the community to increase their staffing and training to help clients navigate the city’s complicated housing process.

Joaquin Remora is the director of Our Trans Home SF, the city’s first housing program for trans and gender nonconforming people. In March, he helped open the city’s first navigation center specifically to serve trans and gender nonconforming people. Breed’s proposal would provide residents of both with additional rental subsidies to help them move into permanent housing, where they pay only a portion of their income toward rent.

“The goal of navigation centers and transitional housing programs is to prepare someone, so that by the time they go out and live on their own, they’re going to succeed,” Remora said. But finding homes for people ready to leave these temporary facilities has been tricky. The 150 subsidized housing proposed in the budget would be a big help.

Nonetheless, the framing of Breed’s plan — to “solve” homelessness in the trans community — irked some people. Concerns that it won’t hold up legally appear to be unfounded; trans people experience homelessness at a higher rate, justifying these efforts. But if homelessness in one group is solvable, isn’t it for everyone? And why do they get priority over homeless moms or seniors?

Shahada Hull, who is not transgender, but is homeless and trying to find housing, told me she’s concerned that the city is prioritizing one population for housing over another. “It’s not fair, because we’re all standing in line,” she said, noting that it seems, “like the city’s just focusing on just them.”

Remora said he encounters this perspective a fair amount in his work and always reminds people of the intersectionality of identities. “Trans people can be moms and elders,” he noted, adding that there have always been resources available for other populations. This is the first time, however, that a significant investment is being made to meet the needs of trans people.

The city estimates that at any given time, there are approximately 400 trans and gender nonconforming residents experiencing homelessness — few enough that the problem may be possible to tackle.

For this plan to work, it’s going to have to evolve and expand based on need — and become sustainable past the city’s 2027 goal. That means securing long-term funding to house people in perpetuity. But something as easily overlooked as paying staff well also has to be part of the solution. Many of the city’s social service organizations hire people with similar lived experiences of those they’ll be working with. But caring for one’s personal trauma, while helping a client work through theirs, can be an exhaustive task.

“Making jobs sustainable is the No. 1 most-important thing,” Remora said, referencing the city’s high turnover rate of case workers. He’s seen how staff who are well-compensated and trained have stronger, longer-lasting relationships with clients — which builds trust between providers and those in need, helping people to access the services they need to move indoors.

If approved by the Board of Supervisors, Breed’s budget proposal will provide a much-needed influx of funds to support the trans community. And while ending trans homelessness may seem ambitious, particularly in the wake of San Francisco’s struggles to hit other goals, many cities across the country have had success in eliminating homelessness among certain populations. New Orleans, Houston and Philadelphia, for example, all claim to have ended homelessness among their veteran populations by expanding services, providing rental assistance and responding quickly if someone loses their home.

There are countless examples of San Francisco politicians receiving accolades for grand plans that then quietly fizzle out. The timing of Breed’s announcement and her recent conflict with the queer community certainly made this latest effort seem like political grandstanding. But digging deeper, it’s clear there was thoughtful attention paid to tackling a deeply complicated social crisis. With a commitment to permanent investment, we may just be able to end trans homelessness by 2027.

Nuala Bishari is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist and editorial writer. Email: nuala.bishari@sfchronicle.com

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The San Francisco Elections Commission has moved up to Friday its special meeting to consider removing its three appointees helping to redraw the city’s 11 supervisory districts ahead of the fall races for the even-numbered seats. Its doing so has added an explosive element to the already chaotic redistricting process that is supposed to wrap up next week.

Groups such as the League of Women Voters, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus, and ACLU SF Chapter have raised concerns to the elections body about its trio of appointees on the San Francisco Redistricting Task Force. They include queer task force member Chasel Lee, along with vice chair Ditka Reiner and Raynell Cooper.

“For months, dozens of historically and systemically excluded communities in San Francisco have put in substantial time and effort to tell the task force about their communities of interest and how their communities should be respected in the draft maps. Yet, with just a few days left in the mapping process, the needs of many of those groups have been left out of the draft supervisor maps made by the task force,” wrote the league and law caucus in an April 6 letter to the elections commissioners.

The oversight body had voted Wednesday to hold a special meeting on Sunday to consider removing its redistricting appointees, as the Bay Area Reporter reported in an online story April 6. But it announced Thursday it would instead meet tomorrow (April 8) at 1:30 pm in Room 416 at City Hall.

Its decision to wade into the matter days before the redistricting task force is to send a final map to the Board of Supervisors by April 15 has angered not only the task force members but also local leaders. Mayor London Breed and gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) both denounced the elections commission “last minute political inference” on Thursday.

“This undermines and corrupts what is supposed to be a transparent and non-partisan process. This is neither transparency nor good government,” stated Breed. “The Elections Commission should recognize that a decision to remove members of the public who have served this city for months would destroy the integrity of the redistricting process. Let’s finish the process as it’s designed and allow the appointed members of the body to exercise their independence free from threats or attacks.”

Wiener called it a “shocking and unprecedented step” and a “power grab” in a statement early Thursday when the special meeting was still set for Sunday. If the elections commission were to appoint new people to the redistricting task force then “those appointees will take their seats under a shadow, literally the day before the task force is required to publish its final map,” stated Wiener.

He was referring to the fact that to meet the April 15 deadline called for in the city’s charter, the task force must publish its proposed final map by Tuesday, April 12, to comply with a 72-hour public notice rule. Even if new appointees are approved Friday, they would be parachuting into a process that has been underway for months, noted Wiener.

Any new appointees, he stated, “would cast that critical vote, affecting San Francisco governance for a decade, without having participated in the months-long public process and many hours of public comment that the Task Force facilitated.”

District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney, whose district boundaries will see major changes due to it gaining the most new residents over the last decade amid a glut of new housing development, also told the BAR he opposes the move by the elections oversight body.

“I do not support removing the task force members appointed by the Elections Commission. While there are decisions they’ve made that I’ve disagreed with, the independence of the redistricting task force is essential and must be protected. They should continue to serve and complete their work,” stated Haney, who could be resigning from the board if he is elected later this month to the vacant 17th Assembly District seat.

Wiener specifically called out District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston and District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin for “leading the charge to get the Elections Commission to take this inappropriate, unprecedented step, based on his unhappiness with the proposed lines for his own district.”

Preston has made no secret about his displeasure with the maps the redistricting task force has proposed, as they will carve up his district into multiple other supervisor districts. For instance, the Haight and Lower Haight are currently proposed to be moved into District 8 with the LGBTQ Castro district, similar to how those neighborhoods had been combined in the district represented in the late 1970s by gay supervisor Harvey Milk, back when it was known as District 5.

“The most conservative forces in this city realize they can’t win district elections in a fair fight, so they’re not just moving the goalposts, they’re throwing the rules out the window,” Preston tweeted on Tuesday, asking people to “speak out against this blatant gerrymandering.”

Other areas of today’s District 5 would end up in Districts 1 and 2, while its remaining neighborhoods of Alamo Square, Japantown and the Western Addition are proposed to be combined with the Transgender District in the Tenderloin. LGBTQ leaders from both the Tenderloin and western South of Market have lambasted the plan to split them apart and have repeatedly called on the redistricting task force to keep them together in the future District 6.

In the early hours of April 7 the redistricting task force had voted to place on the agenda of one of its meetings in the coming days a resolution opposing the removal of the three commissioners. Chair the Reverend Arnold Townsend had pledged to show up at the Sunday meeting to speak out about the matter.

Task force member Matthew Castillon made the motion to have the body vote on a resolution opposing the elections commission’s decision and offered to write it.

“I cannot think of anyone who has higher integrity than these three people,” he said.

None of the three directly addressed the elections commission’s decision during the meeting, though Cooper hinted to it at one point.

“I will try not to be overly self defensive given though the earlier events in this place could be a place I am coming from,” he said.

In the meantime, the redistricting task force continued with its work, regrouping at 3 pm Thursday for another marathon session to redraw the city’s local political map. As it stood going into the meeting, gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s residence on Valencia Street would be drawn into District 9.

If that were to be adopted then he would need to move in order to run for reelection to the District 8 seat in November. Mandelman is currently the lone LGBTQ supervisor on the board.

San Francisco’s 11 supervisory districts are redrawn every 10 years based on census data so that they each have roughly similar populations. Things the task force considers include boundaries, neighborhoods, and communities of interest.

For information on the task force meetings, visit its website here.

Information for the elections commission special meeting can be found at its website here.

UPDATED 4/7/22 to add comment from Supervisor Matt Haney.

Help keep the Bay Area Reporter going in these tough times. To support local, independent, LGBTQ journalism, consider becoming a BAR member.

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When San Francisco Mayor London Breed arrived at UC Davis for her freshman year, she saw her new classmates surrounded by family. Except for the friend who dropped her off — her belongings in two small bags — she came alone.

Breed would frequently make her way back to the notoriously unsafe housing project in the city’s Western Addition where she was raised by her grandmother. She came not just to visit but often because of tragedy.

“When I was coming home, it was for the funeral of somebody I grew up with,” Breed said in an interview in San Francisco’s ornate Beaux-Arts City Hall. “And I just thought, what if he was here with me? I just imagined them walking around campus, and this could be their life. And that’s what got me involved in public service.”

Breed, 47, is a rising star in California politics because of her stewardship of San Francisco during the pandemic, as well as her efforts to tackle crime, homelessness, addiction and education in a city that is famously — if not always accurately — known for its liberal, live-and-let-live ethos.

Cornel West, left, and Mayor London Breed at a celebration of the Dream Keeper Initiative, which reinvests $120 million from law enforcement into San Francisco’s Black community.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Up for reelection in 2023, Breed received national attention when she didn’t mince words as she declared a state of emergency in the Tenderloin district, beset by overdose deaths, open-air drug dealing, violence and homeless encampments.

“It’s time that the reign of criminals who are destroying our city, it is time for it to come to an end. And it comes to an end when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement. More aggressive with the changes in our policies. And less tolerant of all the bull— that has destroyed our city,” she said in December.

In a break with liberals who have called for defunding law enforcement, Breed’s emergency declaration allowed her to quickly increase police budgets and bypass city bureaucracy to ramp up services to addicts and mentally ill people who are living on the streets. (About one out of every 100 residents of the city is homeless, according to data from the federal government.) The declaration just expired, and some question whether it had a tangible impact.

A homeless encampment in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Regardless, Breed’s approach drew praise at a pivotal moment for San Francisco, which was already struggling with gaping inequality between tech millionaires and working class residents before the pandemic exacerbated the divide and also destroyed tourism in a city that is dependent on visitors from around the globe.

“I can’t help but take risks in order to transform lives so that the experiences that I had growing up doesn’t happen to the next generation.”

London Breed, mayor of San Francisco

After a series of smash-and-grab robberies late last year at luxury stores in San Francisco and other cities in California, police presence in Union Square noticeably increased. An armed guard stands sentry at the entrance of a Louis Vuitton store that was looted, and Macy’s glass storefront remains partly covered with plywood.

“She’s giving voice to something happening in a lot of progressive cities right now,” said Sean Clegg, a Democratic strategist who lived in San Francisco for much of the last three decades. “She’s capturing the mood of the moment.”

But Breed’s efforts have also been faulted by some Democrats who argue she is falling back on failed policies that place the interests of the well-connected above those of the marginalized.

Kaylah Williams, the immediate past president of the city’s Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, pointed to Breed’s opposition to several ballot measures, including a successful 2018 proposition that raised taxes on the city’s largest companies to fund more services for homeless people.

London Breed congratulates newly sworn officers at a San Francisco Police Department graduation ceremony in February.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

“We see time and time again, a lot of corporations and corporate interests put ahead of the interests of working-class San Franciscans,” said Williams, who was the deputy campaign manager for city Dist. Atty. Chesa Boudin.

Breed has repeatedly said that she is “unapologetic” and has rebuked white progressives such as Boudin — who is facing a June recall — as not understanding what it is like to be poor and a minority in San Francisco.

“I can’t help but take risks in order to transform lives so that the experiences that I had growing up doesn’t happen to the next generation,” Breed said recently, speaking at a celebration of a $120-million two-year campaign she created that transferred money from law enforcement budgets to programs aimed at bolstering the city’s Black residents.

Later that day, Breed waved a wand at the reopening of the “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” play at the historic Curran Theater, which had been shuttered for nearly two years because of COVID.

The crowd shows its excitement at the reopening of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” in San Francisco, which was attended by Mayor London Breed.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

“This is really icing on the cake as we start to reopen our city and recover from this pandemic,” she told costumed Harry Potter fans, before cannons shot confetti in the air and celebrants clinked bottles of Butter Beer.

Such moments — including a cameo in a “Matrix” film that was shot in the city and write-ups in Vogue — were unthinkable when she was younger.

::

Breed said her experiences as a child and young woman ground her approach to governance.

She was raised in a roach-infested housing project so dangerous it was called “Outta Control Projects” — or OC.

She never knew her father and her mother was largely absent. A younger sister died of a drug overdose; a brother is imprisoned. A cousin was shot and killed by police. She witnessed her first homicide when she was 12. The men in her family were pimps, hustlers and drug dealers, Breed said.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed, shown holding a picture honoring Lunar New Year, prompts praise and protests as she leads one of the nation’s largest and most complex cities.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

“I just know that we were poor, and it was hard. And there were times where I wanted to go out there and sell drugs and do illegal things in order to have money, and fortunately I didn’t,” Breed said in her office, surrounded by pictures of herself with Democratic luminaries, awards and a desk plaque that reads “What Would Beyonce Do?”

“And I’m glad I didn’t and I’m glad that I’m in a place that could help empower other people so that they don’t feel that they have to choose a path of doing something that can land them dead or in jail or on drugs.”

She and her neighbors were too afraid to speak to police after witnessing officers beat suspects and commit other crimes. But she also remembers the compassion officers showed her aunt, who was developmentally disabled and acted out — experiences that shaped her view of law enforcement as both necessary and needing reform.

“It’s a real balance of making sure that people in communities like I grew up in also feel safe and able to communicate and work with police,” Breed said.

A votive candle of Beyonce on the desk of London Breed.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

She attributes her success largely to the women in her life — her grandmother and members of the community who guided her, helping her write college application essays and providing an outlet that led her to stay out of trouble. “It was just so many people, and it was constant,” Breed said.

As part of a city summer program for low-income youth, Breed worked at the Family School starting at age 14. Some employees didn’t want to work with Breed because she was “rambunctious,” so then-administrative assistant Minyon McGriff had the teen assist her in the office.

“She was always a bright, funny, smart kid. She just grew up hard because she grew up in the projects. She was rough around the edges,” said McGriff, 60. “Simple stuff — how to dress, appropriate behavior, basic etiquette — those are a lot of the things she got from us.”

Breed’s experience at the Family School prompted her to create a program in 2018 that offers a paid summer internship to any working-age student in San Francisco who wants one.

London Breed, right, mayor of San Francisco, with a cast member from “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.”

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Such relationships, as well as her sorrow that friends she grew up with could not experience what she did at UC Davis, prompted Breed’s first foray into public service — registering voters for the NAACP while in college. After she graduated, she worked on Willie Brown’s 1999 mayoral campaign and served as executive director of the African American Art & Culture Complex and on several other city entities before winning a seat in 2012 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

She has been dogged by claims that she was a puppet of the machine run by Brown — a legendary force in the city and state’s politics — as well as business leaders, wealthy donors and other power brokers who have long controlled San Francisco politics.

She has repeatedly lashed out at such allegations.

“So why do women have to be a pawn for somebody?” Breed told the Fog City Journal during her 2012 campaign. “Willie Brown didn’t wipe my ass when I was a baby — my grandmother took care of me.”

Brown declined an interview request.

Even some who disagree with Breed’s policies don’t believe she is making decisions based on who supports her.

A homeless encampment in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

“She does truly love San Francisco and she is genuinely committed to a vision of a safer city,” said Jane Kim, who served with Breed on the Board of Supervisors and unsuccessfully ran against her for mayor in 2018. “It’s just that her analysis lands her on the same side with developers and downtown interests.”

Breed was president of the Board of Supervisors when Mayor Ed Lee died in 2017, briefly making her the city’s acting mayor.

She won the special election in 2018 to fill Lee’s term, becoming the city’s first Black female mayor. She promised to prioritize quality-of-life issues and, foreshadowing some of the struggles that would come, she pledged to fight a status quo that she argued had paralyzed the city.

“The politics of ‘no’ has plagued our city for far too long — ‘not on my block, not in my backyard,’” she said.

People move their belongings as San Francisco city workers clean a street in the Tenderloin district.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Political observers say Breed’s tenure got off to an uneven start as she sought to navigate the divide that has typically bedeviled the relationship between the city’s moderate mayors and the more liberal Board of Supervisors.

Once the pandemic hit, Breed was lauded by friends and foes alike for her leadership. San Francisco, with a population of about 874,000, was among the first cities to lock down, and had the lowest per capita death rate of the nation’s largest cities as of December. Three city school board members were recently recalled — ousters Breed backed — for prioritizing the renaming of schools over the reopening of in-person classes and an attempt to end merit-based admissions at a prestigious high school.

Breed has made missteps. She was fined for using her title as she urged then-Gov. Jerry Brown to commute her brother’s prison sentence, for accepting $5,600 in car repairs from the head of San Francisco’s public works department (a former boyfriend) who has since pleaded guilty in a federal corruption case, and for soliciting and accepting donations that exceeded campaign finance limits to help fund a float in the city’s Pride parade.

Like other elected officials, Breed has also received flack for repeatedly being pictured not wearing a mask. When caught dining with several people at the exclusive French Laundry restaurant, she initially acknowledged that she needed to set a better example. But she also blames social media and the press for obsessing over moments she did not wear a mask while eating, drinking or taking a picture.

Breed has been accused of viewing the checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches of government as obstructionism.

“It’s her constant lack of respect for the important role that the Board of Supervisors plays in the life of San Francisco residents, our constituents and their viewpoints that is often disturbing,” said Supervisor Aaron Peskin.

The infighting and lack of trust between the mayor and the board — a perennial of San Francisco politics — have stymied major progress on some of the city’s most intractable problems, but San Francisco State University political science professor Jason McDaniel said voters do not appear to be blaming Breed.

“Historically when we look at mayors, they are the ones held responsible by voters for the cost of housing, the condition of schools, the issue of crime. So far, she has managed not to be the focus of voters’ attention,” he said. “Whether that changes over time is a key question going forward.”

Jim Ross, a veteran San Francisco Democratic strategist, argued that moves that separate Breed from the more liberal elements of the city could be smart politics for an ambitious elected official in a city that served as a springboard for Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Vice President Kamala Harris.

San Francisco has been described as “47 square miles surrounded by reality,” Ross said. “The real question is how does her image project in the reality that’s outside of San Francisco?”

Breed demurs when asked whether she plans to seek for higher office.

“I would never rule that out,” she said. “Because I didn’t think I would run for mayor and here I am.”

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San Francisco Mayor London Breed pledged Wednesday to confront the city’s most pressing issues — including homelessness, public safety, police reform and a COVID-battered economy — during her annual state of the city address, the first she has delivered in-person to a crowd since the pandemic began.

She vowed to add more police officers while continuing to pursue reform in use-of-force issues, to continue her efforts to address drug dealing, mental illness and homelessness on the streets of the tenderloin and to clear the way for more housing construction.

Breed, who is halfway through her first full term, touted her administration’s progress on housing and job creation but acknowledged the city still faces significant challenges. In a year in which discontented voters brought an unprecedented two recalls to the ballot, residents remain deeply divided over how to best solve the city’s biggest problems.

“We cannot sugarcoat it,” Breed told city leaders and employees at the Mission Rock residential and commercial development under construction near Oracle Park. “We have work to do. Our recovery will not be quick, or easy. But it is coming. San Francisco is coming back.”

Breed has become one of the most watched big city mayors in America. Over the last two years, she went from being praised nationally for her handling of the pandemic to being questioned by some over her response to the city’s struggling tenderloin neighborhood and its street conditions.

The mayor gave her speech as San Francisco emerges from yet another COVID-19 surge and on the day the city announced it would lift its vaccination mandate for businesses. She emphasized the city’s response to the pandemic, not just in health outcomes, but changes to the city’s landscape such as allowing outdoor dining and closing roads including JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park to car traffic.

But she acknowledged San Francisco is still struggling in its recovery, with emptier-than-usual office buildings, vacant storefronts and recovering small businesses. Breed has been trying to lure back tourists, conventions and remote workers downtown while battling perceptions that the city isn’t safe, with stories about viral shoplifting and the drug overdose crisis grabbing headlines.

Breed didn’t shy from confronting some of the city’s most divisive issues in Wednesday’s speech.

The mayor started her talk with a recent political win — the landslide recall of three school board members. Breed, who endorsed the recall, is now poised to appoint three new members, potentially tipping the board in a more moderate direction. She argued the recall underscored that public officials should deliver on the essentials, instead of getting distracted by big ideas. She and others who supported the recall criticized the school board members for renaming 44 schools during the pandemic and being slow to reopen classrooms while vulnerable children struggled with online learning.

Breed stressed that the school district’s focus should be on helping families and children who’ve suffered.

Breed also dove into her own perspectives on policing and crime, which have become huge issues for city residents.

Outrage over crime fueled the upcoming June recall vote on progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin, whose policies critics view as too lenient. Data shows that crime in San Francisco is complicated. During the pandemic, some reported crimes including robberies and larceny thefts went down from previous years, while homicides, burglaries and motor vehicle thefts increased since 2019.

Breed hasn’t yet stated her position on Boudin’s recall, but has previously said “I am not necessarily on the same page with a number of things that he’s doing.”

In her speech, Breed mentioned Asian seniors fearful of leaving their homes, Tenderloin families terrorized by drug dealers and Bayview families dealing with gun violence.

“These are complicated problems, with twisted roots that reach well below surface-level solutions,” she said. “But, again, we have the tools to deliver both the basics and the big ideas.” First, she said, “we need law enforcement.”

Breed directly addressed to her critics who oppose an increase in policing.

“And to those who say we don’t need the police — again, I say, listen to the residents. They are speaking louder than ever,” she said. “No, not for a return to the past, like when I was growing up, and there was often a deep mistrust between the community and the police. Even then, we needed the police. We needed them to cease the gunfire. We needed them to protect victims of violence. We just needed them to help us live our lives—not undermine us in our community.”

Breed gained national attention in December when she pledged to step up policing against drug dealers — and users who refused services — as part of her state of emergency to clean up and reduce overdose deaths in the Tenderloin neighborhood. She’s reiterated that she’s open to police getting involved in clearing the Tenderloin’s streets, but data earlier this month showed arrests for drug crimes hadn’t increased since the emergency began.

One issue that’s hamstrung that effort is police staffing shortages, which Breed highlighted Wednesday. San Francisco was 540 officers short of a recommended staffing level as of early March, with 1,636 officers.

Breed also emphasized alternatives in some situations are needed. She mentioned the city’s street crisis response teams, started last year to send mental health professionals to calls of people in mental crisis, and community ambassadors.

Breed also said police were working on reform, which was also critical. Data shows police use of force has decreased in recent years, but Black residents are still between 9.5 to 17 times far more likely to have used force upon them than white residents. Police are completing reform recommendations from the state and federal governments.

Breed also touted her investment in the Black community to address historical inequities, highlighting the Dream Keeper Initiative she created with Board of Supervisors President Shamann Walton to 2020 to pour $60 million annually into Black-led community organizations.

“These are programs that recognize the root causes of crime are driven by poverty. By decades of disinvestment and systemic racism. These are programs that will heal our communities with housing, mental health, education, job training and economic empowerment,” she said. “Let’s be the national model: For reform, for alternatives and for safety.”

While the mayor dove into policing, she didn’t dwell too much in her speech on her push in the tenderloin and the drug crisis that prompted it. Overdoses killed nearly twice as many people in San Francisco as COVID-19 over the past two years. Close to two people a day die of overdoses in the city.

She acknowledged her emergency has stoked debate, but said “the main takeaway is that we can’t continue to accept things as they were.”

“I’m done arguing if it’s okay for people to remain on the streets when we have a place for them to go. Because it’s not. It just isn’t,” she continued. “And to be honest, there are some folks who cannot — or will not — do what’s safe for themselves and for others, so we have to be honest about the need to deal with those struggling with mental illness and we need to make serious changes to our state laws.”

She said she’s been meeting with state leaders to talk about mental health laws — potentially a reference to the ongoing debate about conservatorship, mandated treatment for someone who is a danger to themselves or others.

In 2019, a report found 4,000 people who were homeless and struggling with mental illness and substance use disorder. The city has made slow progress to increase the number of treatment beds — with only 89 of the 400 planned added so far — and to make the care system more cohesive and easier to navigate.

Breed focused more on another challenge prevalent in the Tenderloin: homelessness.

The mayor has highlighted the city is pouring $1 billion into tackling homelessness over the next two years. Most of that money comes from a voter-approved tax that breed didn’t support in 2018.

Her administration will spend some of the funds to reach her goal of creating 1,500 new permanent supportive housing units by June. Breed said the city is on track to exceed by 70% that goal of creating subsidized housing with services for formerly homeless people.

But the city struggles with quickly filling available units, with 10% — or around 850 units — vacant this week, the spokeswoman said. That number covers units getting repaired and those ready for referral, including some where a tenant is already scheduled to move in.

The city is also working to add new shelter beds and reopen beds still shuttered during the pandemic to get to 2,100 short-term shelter beds by July.

Despite the progress, between permanent and temporary housing, there simply isn’t enough for the city’s homeless population. In 2019, a count found around 8,000 unhoused people, but the health department recently estimated 18,000 people citywide are experiencing homelessness.

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