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A Sequoia Capital billionaire partner wrote a fiery op-ed tearing apart the state of San Francisco, where residents and businesses are fleeing in droves as drug use and homelessness overwhelm the city.
Michal Moritz, 68, wrote in the financial times how the city ‘bans plastic straws but allows plastic needles,’ noting that the city saw more deaths from drug overdoses between 2020 and 2022 than from COVID-19.
Moritz’s comments came on the eve of San Francisco’s State of the City address, in which he predicted Mayor London Breed would likely not address San Francisco’s many ailments and instead focus on its awakened virtues. .
Sequoia Capital is headquartered in Menlo Park, just south of downtown San Francisco, which has been nearly deserted during rush hour in recent weeks as scores of companies large and small have fled the city.
Homelessness is at its highest in nearly 20 years in San Francisco today, and local businesses have threatened to stop paying taxes unless the city cleans up the colonies of tents and tarps that have grown up throughout from the neighborhood streets.
Michal Moritz, 68, wrote in the Financial Times how the city “bans plastic straws but allows plastic needles.” Moritz is a partner at Sequoia Capital.
One of many homeless encampments scattered throughout downtown San Francisco.
Moritz listed the many issues facing San Francisco and said Mayor Breed should mention it in her speech.
‘A deserted center; the flight of medium and large companies and large conventions’, he wrote.
‘Highest commercial office vacancy rates of any major city in the US; planning policies that amount to a virtual border wall surrounding the city; housing costs that make it prohibitively expensive for all but the rich or the poorest,” he continued.
He also pointed to the city’s ailing school system, where he said there is only 55 percent proficiency in English, 46 percent in math and just 9 percent proficiency in math for black students.
Moritz said that without handling the city’s drug and homelessness problems, any effort to solve the rest of the city’s problems “will be fruitless.”
“Fentanyl, the synthetic drug that is 50 times more powerful and a fraction of the cost of heroin, has turned many city blocks into zombie zones,” he wrote.
“Beyond the staggering waste of potential, drug use and homeless tents consume a huge chunk of San Francisco’s $13.95 billion annual budget. Direct city spending on homelessness increased from approximately $200 million for fiscal year 2016 to $680 million this year.
“Even this number is not close to the actual costs because it does not include the burden that drugs and homelessness place on police, fire and public works departments, local hospitals and the judiciary.”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed. It has been criticized for allowing drug use to flourish.
A drug needle in a dirty street. Moritz pointed out the irony of banning plastic straws while promoting the use of plastic syringes.
Homeless tents set up on a San Francisco street. Companies threaten to stop paying taxes until they are eliminated
The number of homeless people in San Francisco was counted in February of last year at nearly 8,000, the second-highest number of any year since 2005, according to the official government count that is done every three years.
Major crime in San Francisco is up 7.4 percent so far last year over the same period in 2021, with assaults up 11.1 percent and robberies up 5.2 percent. .
A recent poll found that the majority of San Franciscans believe their city is going downhill, with a third planning to leave the city within three years.
Some residents blame Mayor Breed, whose previous popularity for guiding the city through the pandemic appears to have waned amid rising crime, the fentanyl epidemic and other issues.
One specific harm reduction policy that failed was the opening of the Tenderloin Center last year, which was meant to help alleviate the city’s homeless and drug crisis.
It cost taxpayers a whopping $22 million and was meant to be a “safe place” for addicts to “get high without being robbed” and without fear of a fatal overdose.
A crowd of homeless people camped out on a San Francisco street.
Homeless in downtown San Francisco. There is currently a 20-year maximum for homeless people in the city.
Users also had to be directed to help centers, though during its first four months of operations, it only referred 18 people out of the more than 23,000 welcomed to the site. Overall, less than one percent of visits ended in a ‘full link’ to behavioral health programs.
Officials also hoped the site would offer a place to deal with the homelessness crisis the city has faced in recent months and years.
Despite their efforts, in 2022 more than 500 people died of overdoses in San Francisco. In 2021, that number was 641.
Mayor Breed had originally allocated just $10 million for the project, but it quickly increased to more than double that estimate.
In total, about 400 people received assistance each day at the center, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
A large portion of those who took advantage of the site used it specifically for shelter or food.