Though the event wasn’t explicitly a campaign stop, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass all but endorsed Mayor London Breed last night, saying she wants to hold a fundraiser for the San Francisco incumbent facing a tough re-election.
“In November, after you win your re-election, I’m coming up here,” Bass told Breed at Manny’s on 16th and Valencia streets, at a panel featuring the two mayors, moderated by the cafe’s owner, Manny Yekutiel.
Yekutiel had asked Breed and Bass where they would take each other out for a day in their respective cities, and Breed said that she would take Bass to the Presidio Tunnel Tops park.
“Yes, and we’re gonna paint the town,” Breed responded, as audience members cheered and clapped.
Yekutiel then asked Breed and Bass to ask each other a question. Bass didn’t miss a beat. “I want to know: When can I do a fundraiser for you?” she asked.
“Anytime, Mayor Bass,” Breed responded as more people cheered and clapped. “I like that question.”
Bass and Breed are both the first Black female mayors of their respective cities, but have governed differently. Bass, who has a background in drug and recovery programs in South Central Los Angeles, has focused on the city’s homelessness crisis, most recently enlisting the wealthy to contribute to purchasing hotels and buildings for more permanent housing. Meanwhile, Breed, who is up for re-election, focused last year on ending open-air drug dealing and using more police to clean up the city’s sidewalks. During her campaign, she has made every effort to persuade voters that the city’s economy is resurging despite years of post-pandemic decline.
Just outside the venue, a group of protestors targeted Breed’s handling of that deficit. Several held a sign reading, “Breed: Don’t balance the budget on the backs of SF workers,” while two others holding insect costumes held signs reading, “Cockroaches for cuts.”
The protesters’ chants of “Housing, jobs, and education. Stop the cuts, no hesitation” could be heard faintly from inside the event room, and Breed at one point did address those outside: “We made some hard decisions in this budget. And I’m going to be honest, you know, I had to hold certain organizations accountable that weren’t performing,” she said, adding that she would want to speak to the protesters one-on-one to find out “what the issues are and whether or not we made a mistake.”
Still, the mood remained largely cheerful inside as the crowd reacted to the trio’s lighthearted banter.
At one point, Bass, Breed, and Yekutiel joked about Breed’s relationship with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Bass was discussing the high level of partisanship in U.S. Congress, where she was a representative for 12 years, compared to the mostly-liberal Los Angeles City Council.
“There’s differences, but it’s not like they’re on another planet,” Bass said of her city’s councilmembers.
“You’ve been working very closely with them,” Breed pointed out.
“It’s just like that here in San Francisco; it’s the same,” Yekutiel quickly chimed in.
“Stop it, Manny, stop it,” Breed responded playfully as the crowd laughed.
Though, later in the event, Breed suggested that her relationship with the board has improved: “I am grateful that more recently, especially with more members of the board running for, uh, mayor — they are starting to be easier to work with on housing policies.” Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Ahsha Safaí are both challenging Breed for Room 200.
As mayors from cities with significant homeless populations, much of the conversation focused on housing. Bass explained that homelessness was “the reason I ran,” and that Los Angeles is currently offering unhoused people motel rooms.
Bass said that the most important thing the city did last year was “dispel the myth” that people wanted to remain homeless. “They do not want to live like that,” she said. Nevertheless, the sheer scale of the homeless population — 46,000 in the city of Los Angeles and 70,000 in all of Los Angeles County — means homelessness remains a pressing issue.
But Breed painted a starkly different picture. She said that in San Francisco — where, unlike Los Angeles, homeless people are not being offered motels — “60 percent of the people are refusing help, 30 percent are accepting, and 10 percent are actually housed.” Breed identified fentanyl use as a major barrier to providing help to homeless people in San Francisco, even though city data consistently shows that most fatal overdose victims have fixed addresses.
Breed added that, while the number of encampments has decreased in San Francisco, the number of people, particularly migrants, living in cars or RVs has increased recently, requiring the city to change its approach to addressing homelessness.
But ultimately, Breed emphasized, more housing needs to be built. And so, with the help of the more-cooperative Board of Supervisors, “we rezoned the whole damn Downtown,” Breed boasted.
In addition to discussing housing, both mayors reflected on their path to the office, particularly as Black women. Bass said that while people often “doubt” her because of her identity, “I don’t mind being underestimated — because underestimate me, and eventually, you’ll see.”
Breed shared that people often act as though her chief of staff, Sean Elsbernd, who is a white man, is in charge instead of her, “as if someone like me can’t make a decision on my own,” she said. But, in the end, Breed said, the decisions that come out of the mayor’s office are “my responsibility.”
Breed emphasized such responsibility throughout the event. “People don’t want to hear excuses,” Breed said. “They just want you to, you know, do your job.”
I wish Mayor Breed were more like Mayor Bass in acknowledging that yes, people on the streets do want help. It’s not true when Breed says “60 percent of the people are refusing help” — not when the help is a real offer of a safe place to stay, without coercion. But there is so little genuine help on offer. Breed cut the affordable housing budget for two years in a row is now proposing $167 million in cuts to behavioral health treatment over the next few years (https://48hills.org/2024/06/breed-budget-deep-cuts-for-social-services-more-money-to-the-cops/).
As for fentanyl being an obstacle, I recommend the 99% Invisible episode on Housing First (https://overcast.fm/+yIOywLT14). What works is getting people housed right away, instead of expecting them to beat their addictions while they’re still homeless. Housing First so convincingly proved itself to be the most effective way to solve homelessness, even George W. Bush embraced it. Now, SF politicians like Breed, Mandelman and Dorsey want to abandon that insight. They want to drag us back to the 90s with the War on Drugs, so what if all the evidence showed it didn’t work. It’s reactionary populism and a cover for incompetence.