Interview: Jackie Fielder talks homelessness, 16th St. and disagreeing with Mayor Lurie

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In January, Mission Local interviewed District 9 supervisor Jackie Fielder about her first days in office, when she called the issue of illegal vending and street conditions one of the district’s “tremendous challenges.”

Four months later, we checked back in and delved specifically into the street conditions around the 16th Street BART Plaza and nearby streets, which have become a nexus of the new mayoral administration’s goal of cleaning up public spaces across the city. 

Since her campaign, Fielder has described conditions at the plaza as a high priority. On Wednesday, April 23, shortly before a town hall about 16th and Mission, Fielder spoke with Mission Local about where she agrees, and disagrees, with the current administration’s efforts to address criminal activity in the area.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Mission Local: You’ve said that your office has been monitoring the 16th Street BART plazas on a daily basis. What are your thoughts six weeks into the arrival of the police command center? 

Jackie Fielder: I ride the bus and I hop off at 16th Street to look for myself. There’s no one quick solution. The first step is to have attention on it — my office, but also the mayor’s office. I was glad that the mayor took me up on an offer to walk around to see for himself what residents, business owners, community organizations and folks passing through see on a daily basis. I don’t know that we’ve seen a mayor who has given as much attention to 16th Street as Daniel Lurie. I’ll give him credit for that. 

I want to see more treatment, more shelter and housing. But, it’s hard to divorce this conversation from the enforcement actions and the attention that’s been given to Sixth Street [another focus of the mayor’s efforts to crack down on public drug use] and other areas of the city. 

ML: What do you think has been missing so far in these police operations?

Fielder: I think there might be just fundamental differences in how people think about the problem of homelessness, mental illness and public drug use.

I’m of the belief that people are not going anywhere, and that’s why we see displacement after enforcement actions. Even now, as the police presence is concentrated at the plaza, you see a lot of activity in the alleyways. The presumption from those that want an enforcement approach only is that if you make it uncomfortable — as we’ve heard from our district attorney — enough for people, they’ll leave. I hate to break it to people, but some of these people are part of the community. 

It’s disappointing to see that the city has, under this mayor, dramatically increased their arrests of homeless people for sleeping on the streets. That’s largely thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court decision that our city attorney, David Chiu, helped with the amicus brief around the Grants Pass decision [In June 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that it was legal for municipalities to fine, move, or incarcerate people even if they have no shelter for them to go to]. The presumption is that people will go away. The problem is, they’re not going to.

We have always been a place looking out for the most vulnerable. I think District 9 exemplifies that. We’ve been a place for misfits, for people who have been rejected from their families for being queer, for minorities and people of color. We have a history of looking out for the most vulnerable people. 

I think San Francisco is heading in a way that’s quite the opposite of being a city only for the rich and those who can afford to live here, and screw everyone else. I don’t think that’s what District 9 believes. We need somewhere for people to go if they can’t hang out in the plazas or the alleyways. They need to be able to exist somewhere. 

There has not been a commensurate increase in absorbing people through treatment, respite centers or sobering centers. The administration has acknowledged that. We’re currently looking for a site for people to get treatment when they’re ready. There are costs that we have to put up. Law enforcement is the more politically expedient way, because it shows that you’re doing something. Rarely, we’ve seen the media hold the city accountable for what happens after these actions.

ML: You’re a supporter of people having access to treatment, to low-income housing. Mayor Lurie said that the city was going to deliver 1,500 shelter beds within six months. That sounded pretty ambitious, and that’s proven to be. Assuming that the city doesn’t have the facilities to offer a shelter bed to every single person, what do you do in between?

Fielder: I don’t think it’s impossible. There’s different types of shelter, right? You can have a hotel. You can have a tiny cabin on a parking lot. You can have a safe site parking for RVs. But in a lot of instances, it is actually more economically reasonable to get someone housed and pay for that. 

Given this mayor’s vast connections in the corporate world, I have a difference of opinion with him around how that money should come to us. I think that the wealthiest people should be taxed. We see rising inequality, especially in this city, one of the wealthiest and also most inequitable cities in the country. 

He would rather have philanthropy and have wealthy benefactors dictate where the money goes, because they want to make sure that it’s being spent well. There’s empirical studies where guaranteed basic income for family homelessness is highly successful. That includes case studies from San Francisco and Los Angeles. 

Back to what to do in the meantime — that’s exactly it. There’s not a lot of attention to what to do in the meantime. Certain places exist already, which is great. We’re trying to make sure that all of our community partners and departments are aware of what does exist for people to go seek resources and respite and showers and all of that. They need somewhere to exist.

ML: You mentioned the connections the mayor has with private donors. You had some concerns with the “behested” language in the mayor’s fentanyl ordinance. [Lurie, with board approval, eased language around “behested payments” that allow elected officials to solicit private funds for public projects.] Do you think there should be a cap on how much money the city can receive from private donors?

Fielder: It’s not even just about what the city receives. I have questions about how philanthropy and the billionaires behind them are making decisions or strong recommendations for the city. The coupling of power with money, money and the ability to input how city funds are spent — that makes me pretty cautious. 

I want to make sure that government officials are making decisions in the best interest of San Francisco residents, and not billionaires. 

Certainly they are funding some valid and needed initiatives, but it’s also the relationship between contractors and city departments. There is a ton of pressure from a few shelter contractors to have a shorter length of stay policy for families. That has had a ton of play with the homelessness department and the mayor. I’m advocating for a longer length of stay, as long as the city is not committing adequate resources to house homeless families. There’s just a very weird alignment of big philanthropy and some of our top city officials making decisions, some of which may be sound policy-wise. But it just makes me nervous.

ML: You mentioned that you were looking for a treatment facility. Is this facility in District 9?

Fielder: I’m looking in District 9, for sure. I know the mayor’s office is looking all throughout the city for sites. It’s really unfortunate to see the District 6 supervisor reject a completely state-funded treatment facility in his district, I believe on the grounds that they already have a lot. I’m all for ensuring that District 9 is welcoming.

ML: Has your office identified a site of interest?

Fielder: The mayor’s office has identified a couple sites. My office is always looking for more. I’ve been pretty adamant that some of the shelters be for families. We need to expand the capacity to ensure that the families on the waitlist also are able to use emergency shelter.

ML: Are you able to share the location of these potential sites?

Fielder: Not ready to share at the moment, because it’s not clear how solid that is. But when I know, I’ll let you know.

ML Would they be shelter beds and treatment?

Fielder: I don’t know. It’s kind of in the hands of the mayor’s office. I specifically lobbied for family shelters.

ML: A statement that you shared a couple weeks ago mentioned street vending reform. Does this mean that you support Sen. Scott Wiener’s legislation?

Fielder: When it comes to food vending, our local codes are out of compliance with a 2022 law that was passed. There are a lot of decisions to be made around where, specifically, food vendors can be, that the city has kind of punted indefinitely. I want to be able to give certainty to food vendors who are part of our community.

When it comes to retail and merchandise vending, as you know, Scott Wiener has introduced a bill to make it so that police officers would be able to enforce vending laws. Right now, under a 2018 law that decriminalized vending, only Department of Public Works employees can do that. 

When I had this all-hands meeting with the Vendors Association, with Public Works employees, BART and community organizations back in February, it seemed like the Public Works employees indicated that things were getting better. I’m sympathetic to their not wanting to be in the role of enforcement officers, and it’s a huge demand on city resources to have two employees from two different departments conducting this. 

At the same time, even though we’re a sanctuary city, I have serious concerns about exposing our immigrant population to more law enforcement. We’re seeing, in real time, that the Trump administration is not honoring due process, and is even deporting people that are legally here.

Regardless of how this bill goes, we need to get every aspect of vending, whether it’s food or retail, up to code. There’s still just a segment of Mission Street that is open to permanent vending. I want to be able to expand that area where legitimate vendors are allowed to be. 

It’s a lot more complicated than I had thought. We’ve talked about the red tape on small businesses, home remodels and housing development. The same red tape exists for vendors, both retail and food. The Office of Economic Workforce Development, Public Works, Department of Public Health, the Fire Department — all of these individual departments that are responsible for certain parts of public health and safety. 

It’s a whole nightmare, because they could get rejected without really knowing the reasons. So the reform that we’re undertaking is also about sorting out who has the power to map where vendors can be. 

ML: You talked about a proven strategy to address the drug crisis. You also talked about a budget for 16th Street. Can you elaborate?

Fielder: There is a model that is proven to have worked in Zurich, Switzerland. Back in the ’90s. Zurich was facing very similar issues when it comes to public drug use. People deteriorating in public parks and on public streets and sidewalks. 

They wanted to bring people inside and get them treatment and help. The majority of the people that they identified as using drugs had then been put onto medicated-assisted therapy. They had pretty big success with it. It’s called the Four Pillars. Dean Preston asked the budget and legislative analyst to come up with a report on it. 

The four pillars are enforcement, treatment, harm reduction and prevention. I would love to know how much of each pillar we’re investing in as a city government. The other big nugget from there is that there was a lot of collaboration: Learning and shadowing between street outreach workers, medical practitioners and law enforcement. Law enforcement going through academy training had to also learn about harm reduction and safe consumption sites. 

When it comes to the budget, there’s a lot of talk of austerity, but I think — especially as it relates to 16th Street — what we need the most is investment. Investing in treatment. Investing in activations of the plazas. Investing in youth violence intervention programs. Investing in respite centers. Investing in shelters. 

ML: How has it been, being a District 9 Supervisor? Has it been as busy as you thought? 

Fielder: It’s been a lot busier than I thought. I love this job. I love representing District 9. I really hope, in my second half of the year, to get more out into the community to share what we’ve been working on, and to get people’s feedback. But it’s been really rewarding so far.