San Francisco is planning an effort to clean up its streets by enforcing and obtaining supplier rules homeless people in shelters like crime is on the rise ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit next month.
Official emails obtained by Bloomberg revealed the details the city will take to improve its image ahead of hosting several world leaders.
“I would like to seize as many hot dog carts as possible,” Kyle Thomas, who oversees safety and emergency preparedness on San Francisco’s waterfront, said in an August email.
According to emails from the San Francisco Port Authority, they are cracking down on illegal street vendors in popular tourist areas ahead of the meeting in hopes of improving the city’s image.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that city employees are being offered body armor to wear while enforcing the city’s street vending rules.
APEC will bring together leaders from 21 member states of the Asia-Pacific region in the city of California discuss how economic growth can be facilitated.
San Francisco will crack down on illegal street vendors and homeless people ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit next month
San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen has proposed a 90-day ban on vendors on Mission Street so authorities can crack down on illegal vendors.
Ronen said Public Works employees have been attacked and illegal vendors are blocking sidewalks while selling illegal or stolen goods.
The summit will take place from November 11 to 17 at the Moscone Convention Center.
“APEC will put us in the spotlight like never before and at that moment we will have the opportunity to showcase the very best of this city,” Mayor London Breed said on Tuesday.
“We’re not hiding our problems, we’re not trying to do something different, we’re going to continue to help get people off the streets like we always have,” Breed said.
“For this event, we must all come together to ensure that San Francisco shows the world that it is one of the great cities in the world,” Sean Elsbernd, Breed’s chief of staff, said in an August email to all city departments.
That includes plans to open additional city shelters to get homeless people off the streets ahead of the rally.
‘In that area we don’t necessarily have encampments, but people struggling with addictions and mental illnesses. They were out at other conventions and they were in the parks and they were in other places,” Breed said.
The APEC meeting is not the first time San Francisco officials have tried to improve San Francisco’s image at a major meeting.
Earlier this year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff criticized the city for only making efforts to improve the area during the company’s annual conference, Dreamforce.
He acknowledged that he had asked for efforts to make the area safer for his AI convention, which draws 40,000 people from around the world. But he wondered, “Why can’t it always be this way?”
San Francisco Police Department Data shows that thefts in the city have increased by 15.4 percent and motor vehicle thefts have increased by 8.9 percent.
San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen said Public Works employees have been attacked and illegal vendors are blocking sidewalks while selling illegal or stolen goods
A homeless woman in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. As of October 22, the city’s theft rate has increased by 15.4 percent and motor vehicle theft has increased by 8.9 percent
Homeless camps line the streets of the Tenderloin District. Hundreds of businesses in the city have closed due to crime, drug use and a homelessness epidemic
Hundreds of businesses in the city have closed due to crime, drug use and a homelessness epidemic.
Economists are calling the Golden Gate city’s crisis a “doom loop,” referring to a city’s decline when tax revenues fall as residents and businesses leave, sending revenues down in a downward spiral that is difficult to reverse.
Starbucks closed seven stores in the city of Golden Gate and Microsoft left its 50,000-square-foot office.
San Francisco’s drug-plagued Tenderloin neighborhood is dubbed the “Million Dollar Mile” by Honduran drug dealers.
As of Oct. 10, there have been 620 overdose deaths in San Francisco, according to city data.