Policies on crime, homelessness are ‘working’ in San Francisco: Mayor London Breed

two years ago when the United States offered to host this Summit we knew we need a location Dynamic and diverse and as APAC itself they pick in San Francisco here we are mayor breed congratulations uh being a mayor crazy I think it's the hardest job in American politics President Biden opening the Asia Pacific economic cooperation Summit in San Francisco this week the city has struggled like many in recent years with homelessness rampant drug use and crime so we talked with mayor London breed the first black woman in the role a lifelong Bay Area resident who grew up in poverty and now a fierce advocate for the city she leads you know and I know it annoys you when people look at the city and say it's either dangerous or crimer ridden or drugs are a huge problem but you've got your own citizens saying the same thing I think about s % think the city's on the right track well San Francisco is doing a lot to help combat some of the challenges that we face I mean we are a major city uh during the co pandemic as you see San Francisco shut down first and we got a lot of attention from a numbers perspective when you look at um homelessness in San Francisco uh we have since 2018 helped over 10,000 people exit homelessness in San Francisco when you look at the data of what is happening with our crime numbers over the past 5 years they are showing a decline especially with car break-ins burglaries and other challenges that people are are talking about and in comparison to other us City San Francisco is really at the bottom so I get that people feel that there are problems and there are concerns they see the viral videos and they think oh what's going on in San Francisco and then what is happening but those those statistics are from people who live here the 17% think it's on the right track they live here but it's not always attributed just to the issues around crime you know it's attributed to the issues around homelessness as well is significant to really continue to do the work that we're doing so that people can not only see and feel the difference but when people are coming to San Francisco they are surprised that things aren't as bad as what they thought they were are things perfect in San Francisco no they're not but we continue to work aggressively at it in order to solve some of our most pressing problems breed was elected mayor in 2018 and her ideas have not been without controversy the city was sued over clearing homeless encampments last year and her proposal to mandate drug screenings for welfare recipients has drawn comparisons to Reagan Era policies you know that your critics will also say look now she's gone too far right and she's criminalizing homelessness or wanting drug tests for for welfare recipients do you think you're coming down too hard on this I grew up in the most challenging conditions of the city and lived over 20 years of my life in public housing in the midst of the crack P epidemic that destroyed our community so I've lived in these kinds of conditions no it's not always the popular thing to do and this is not about right or left this is about do we want to save lives you have experience with addiction you lost your sister to an overdose a brother in prison tell me what that was like and how you got where you are today well in my community that was normal it wasn't just my family that suffered a lot of Challen challenges it was everyone I Liv next to my grandmother was very No Nonsense you know you either go to school or you can't live here and so I I decided I'm gonna go to school and I'm GNA get good grades and plus growing up in poverty I didn't want to live like that the rest of my life I felt that there was something better and fortunately I was able to go to college but that didn't happen for everyone that grew up around me despite the challenges her City faces breed maintains steadfast optimism about San Francisco's future what worries you most well I I must say that I have hope I have optimism about the future because we you know people always say hope isn't a plan well I have an economic recovery plan I have a homeless plan and the the thing that gives me hope is the fact that finally some of the policy decisions some of the financial investments they are working and they are making a difference they are attracting businesses new leases are being signed in the downtown area and other parts of the city you're not going to tell me you're worried about anything well part of it is it's it's really part as a leader it's important that I am confident about the condition of the city and that I'm continuing to communicate the message necessary to ensure that people know how these things are working I think the thing I'm worried about the most is people don't always get an opportunity to see or to understand exactly how these things are working to make a difference in San Francisco so we got to work harder on our communication strategy you are optimistic and you are doing things and you're making changes but people see what's happening they do see but here's the problem with that it's not just San Francisco cities all over this country are experiencing challenges with drug use with fentanyl with methamphetamines and other things of that nature the difference is how we are handling it here in San Francisco we have made the courageous decision to make a rest of not only people who are dealing drugs but people who are using drugs so at the end of the day yes we have problems s I'm not pretending that we don't but we can't just throw our hands up we have to keep working towards Solutions and we have to be prepared to make the hard decisions to get to a better place our thanks to Mayor breed hi everyone George Stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel if you'd like to get more videos show highlights and watch live event coverage click on the right over here to subscribe to our Channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts thanks for watching

Channel: ABC News

Views: 9,063

Keywords: Breed, COVID, Francisco, George, London, Martha, Raddatz, San, Stephanopoulos, This, Week, city, cleaning, clearing, controversy, crime, data, drugs, election, encampment, encampments, fentanyl, homeless, homelessness, mayorship, numbers, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-105014786, pandemic, policy

Id: 4XrizAgGv_M

Length: 6min 30sec (390 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 19 2023