Category: Update

by Kevin Truong : sfstandard – excerpt

The value of one of Downtown San Francisco’s largest luxury apartment buildings has been cut nearly in half, according to commercial real estate data provider Trepp.

NEMA, the glass-covered tower at 8 10th St., has seen its value drop from $543.6 million in 2018 to $279 million. Trepp notes that this decline means the value sits well below the loan balance, making the debt more expensive than the property itself.

The Real Deal first reported the news…(more)

By Griffin Jones : missionlocal – excerpt

The SF-Marin Food Bank announced in a sobering 8 a.m. press conference that, by 2025, a majority of the food-distribution services introduced during the pandemic will be closed or reduced, significantly affecting the growing number of hungry households in San Francisco.

Over the next two years, all 21 Pop-Up Pantries introduced during the pandemic will close. And, by January 2024, the Home Delivered Groceries program, serving seniors, families and people at their households will be reduced by 40 percent.

Currently, upwards of 18,000 households rely on the farmers market-style pop-ups each week. Around 13,000 San Francisco households receive weekly food deliveries…(more)

By Adam Shanks : sfexaminer – excerpt

The deal was recommended by the Budget and Finance Committee on Wednesday but still requires approval by the Board of Supervisors.

At the root of Peskin’s proposal is his dismay over the quick turnover among the department’s district captains, many of whom took higher-level posts in the department’s expanding command staff.

In the police district that covers many of the high-tourist neighborhoods Peskin represents — including Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf — a district captain hasn’t spent more than three years on the job in more than a decade.

District captains manage specific geographical areas in The City, and usually keep in close contact with neighborhood leaders — including supervisors. Members of the command staff, such as assistant chiefs and commanders, have broader responsibilities…(more)

By David Sjostedt : sfstandard – excerpt

A commission in charge of holding San Francisco accountable for its response to the drug and mental health crises hasn’t been able to hold a proper meeting for more than seven months as the city’s elected leaders neglect to fill its seats.

There are currently only six active members on the 17-person Behavioral Health Commission, an oversight body with the power to draft policy and conduct reviews of programs run by the city’s Behavioral Health Department. The department has a $592 million annual budget and is responsible for providing mental health and drug treatment services.

Because there are fewer than nine active members, the commission lacks a quorum and hasn’t been able to wield much of its power or hold meetings since February….

Victor Young, a clerk for the Board of Supervisors, told The Standard there are eight people who have pending applications to serve on the commission. However, he said it’s difficult to find qualified members for the commission due to the types of experience needed for each seat…

Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who is chair of the rules committee, which evaluates commission applicants, said he’s working on legislation that would shrink the commission from 17 members to 11. He told The Standard the commission’s stringent eligibility requirements have imposed barriers for him and other supervisors to appoint commissioners. …(more)

Sounds like a typical state bill that sets up a system doomed to fail.

By Josh John :sfstandard – excerpt

Mayor London Breed’s road to reelection is getting as crowded as a WrestleMania ring, and there will likely be no shortage of skullduggery and political body slams between now and November 2024.

Supervisor Ahsha Safaí announced his candidacy in the spring and immediately started taking digs at Breed as a weak leader. Anti-poverty nonprofit founder Daniel Lurie launched his campaign last week and a day later was attacking the mayor’s plan to force drug-addicted welfare recipients into treatment. As the moderate candidates duke it out, the door is open for a progressive to carve out a lane and take advantage of the city’s ranked-choice voting system.

But so far, no one has emerged to … wait … no, it can’t be … bah gawd, is that Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s theme music?!…(more)

All right, Josh, you have our attention. You deserve a read today. Let me get a cup of coffee to mull that one over.

By Emily Hoeven : sfchronicle – excerpt

Despite his many years in politics, Gov. Gavin Newsom still has an uncanny ability to shoot himself in the foot.

Newsom’s knack for backing himself into corners of his own making, issuing bold statements that crumble under the slightest pressure, and pursuing grand visions without much regard to details, has defined his response to his second U.S. Senate appointment…

In 2021, amid reports about Feinstein’s dwindling health and mental acuity, Newsom vowed to appoint a Black woman to her Senate seat if she were to resign before her term ended in 2024. The promise was apparently intended to placate Black women voters — often considered the backbone of the Democratic Party — angered that he didn’t choose a Black woman to replace Kamala Harris in the Senate when she was elected Vice President. (Newsom instead picked longtime ally Alex Padilla, highlighting the fact that he would be California’s first Latino U.S. Senator.)

Not only did many view Newsom’s actions as disrespectful to Feinstein — who had no intention of resigning — but they also came across as politically self-serving, as Newsom at the time was fending off a recall election.

“You don’t have to like Dianne Feinstein to see that pushing her out of her elected position for a Black woman appointment that you could have made when there is an actual vacancy to win a recall to push you out of your elected position is a very bad look,” tweeted Christine Pelosi, daughter of House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and former chair of the California Democratic Party Women’s Caucus…

Eager to generate headlines and to make history, Newsom is great at making bold proclamations — even if he contradicts them moments later.

But a leader who puts good governance first wouldn’t have said anything about Feinstein’s seat unless and until the time came to make a decision.

Forgoing the spotlight, however, has never been Newsom’s strong suit…(more)

I was going to ignore this, but, the extremely negative response Newsom gets from his strategies generates a certain desire to repeat the bad news.

By Associated Press, Contributor Annie Gaus : sfstandard – excerpt

California Gov. Gavin Newsom will name Laphonza Butler, a Democratic strategist and adviser to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat held by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a spokesman in his office said Sunday.

In choosing Butler, Newsom fulfilled his pledge to appoint a Black woman if Feinstein’s seat should become open. However, he had been facing pressure by some Black politicians and advocacy groups to select Rep. Barbara Lee, a prominent Black congresswoman who is already running for the seat…

Butler currently lives in Maryland, according to her Emily’s List biography.

She did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman in Newsom’s office who declined to be named confirmed to The Associated Press that Newsom had chosen Butler…(more)

By Matt Mahan, San Jose Mayor : mercurynews – excerpt

After the 1906 earthquake, San Francisco quickly constructed over 5,600 cottages to house those made homeless by the catastrophe. City leaders didn’t say “a cottage isn’t good enough” or “someone else is to blame” or, worse, “this is unsolvable.”

They recognized that in an emergency, you take emergency action — such as building simple, decent shelters for everyone affected.

They placed these cottages on public land and then, as the emergency ebbed, residents were allowed to relocate them. They were the first homes for thousands of families. You can still find them across the region.

We’ve seen elected officials offer excuse after excuse for our state’s failure to adequately address homelessness. We’ve blamed the courts, we’ve blamed the cost of building housing, and we’ve blamed the homeless…

We don’t have the money to build enough “affordable” housing units at the nearly $1 million per door local governments pay now. But we do have the resources to build secure individual cottages, casitas or safe sleeping units on public land. In San Jose we are building these units at a fraction of the cost and time required by traditional approaches…

The answer is in our history books — and right in front of us. Build low-cost shelter now on public land and then require that everyone live indoors…(more)

By Madison Alvarado : sfpublicpress – excerpt

As a hotly debated lawsuit preventing San Francisco from clearing some encampments makes its way through the courts, data from the city’s Homeless Outreach Team call log and interviews with providers reveal the barriers unhoused people face in seeking shelter.

On a warm evening in late August, Harley received bad news at the Dolores Shelter Program, a site in the Mission for adults experiencing homelessness: There were no walk-up beds available that night.

When another man said a case worker told him the site offered walk-up beds, a shelter employee responded: “I don’t know why they do that. They send you in circles.”

More people toting backpacks and suitcases milled about on the sidewalk beyond the teal metal bars that separated them from a hot meal and bed for the night.

When Harley, who didn’t share his last name, got into a motorcycle accident and lost his job, he also lost stable housing. He said he called San Francisco’s Homeless Outreach Team’s voicemail three times that week asking for help getting into a shelter, but that his calls went unreturned…

From late January 2023 to early August 2023, people left messages in the Homeless Outreach Team’s voicemail system more than 2,000 times requesting shelter, and 68% of those requests were “unable to be fulfilled,” a Public Press investigation found. In most cases, this means that the city was unable to connect with the caller in person or on the phone — because there was not enough information to locate the person, the person did not respond to callbacks, the person’s voicemail box was full or the number was disconnected, or the dispatch team could not find them at a specified location. In few instances, the city was in contact with the person but did not have any shelter beds available to offer the caller… (more)