Next month, San Francisco will host a big international convention, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC) which is being held Nov. 15-18.
Everyone who is anyone will be there, including President Xi Jinping of China and Joe Biden. Naturally, San Francisco leaders want the city to look its best for the hundreds of important guests who are going to spend somewhere north of $50 million in the city. So the city is going to spend $10 million in taxpayer funds and another $20 million in donated money to try to hide the grim reality that doesn’t show off the city in the best of lights.
The city is going to rid the streets and sidewalks of hot dog vendors and homeless people. Shutting the vendors down is easy if not questionable legality. “I would like to seize as many hot dog carts as possible,” Kyle Thomas, who oversees security and emergency preparedness for San Francisco’s waterfront, said in an August email.
Just to be clear, every hot dog stand is someone’s business and source of income. Perhaps Mr. Thomas should contemplate that before gleefully seizing as many hot dog carts as possible.
There will also be a concerted effort to “coax” homeless people into shelters. That’s easier said than done since courts have ruled that unless the city is able to supply a bed for every single homeless person, they can’t be forced to go into a shelter.
“They’re spending so much money on this and there’s even an ad campaign,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness. The Coalition is at the center of the legal battle that has restricted the city’s ability to deal with its homelessness problem. “It would be so nice if they did something real for folks on the street.”
“This event will require all of us to come together to ensure that San Francisco shows the world that it is one of the great cities of the world,” Sean Elsbernd, Mayor London Breed’s chief of staff, said in an August email to all city departments.
“Great cities of the world” don’t deny that open-air drug markets are a safety issue.
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“It’s less of a safety issue and more of a perception of safety,” Ken Bukowski, the city’s convention director, said in regard to open-air drug use in the area. “We’re working with the city to make sure there is a lot of outreach ahead of APEC.”
The next time someone is rolled in the Tenderloin district for their wallet, we’ll make sure to tell them not to worry, that their wallet was only “perceptively” stolen.
As for the food vendors, Breed has been looking to get rid of them for a year.
Terrence Hong, an official with the city’s public health department, said in an email that his agency would attempt to staff weekly patrols on the waterfront. Hong noted that his department was juggling its own “unique set of marching orders as it pertains to APEC.”
Jeff Cretan, a spokesperson for Breed, said San Francisco has been trying to crack down on unpermitted food vendors for over a year. “APEC or no APEC, that’s what she has been pushing,” he said in an interview.
Tensions are already rising. A city inspector was captured on video this month overturning a street vendor’s cart. The video went viral, sparking local outrage and a city investigation.
Even the rich want a cut of the beautification dollars. “The Legion of Honor, an art museum that’s expected to host a dinner with world leaders, has requested more than $600,000 in improvements, including pressure washing the outdoor facade and modernizing the restrooms” according to Bloomberg. An art museum can’t find a lousy $600 grand to spruce up the venue for a dinner? Sheesh.
How much can San Francisco do to hide the rot? Cosmetically, they can sweep the streets, fix a few broken windows, play musical shelters with homeless people, and slap a fresh coat of paint on a few public buildings. But the rot isn’t in buildings or structures. It’s in the hearts and minds of San Franciscans who continue to deny that homeless people urinating in public on city streets and on private property isn’t a crisis.
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