SF mayor race: Asha Safaí addresses housing, homelessness, drug crisis

SAN FRANCISCO ( KRON ) — San Francisco City Supervisor Asha Safaí became the first high-profile candidate to declare his plans to run against incumbent Mayor London Breed back in May 2023. An Iranian-American, Safaí served on the Board of Supervisors since 2016, representing District 11.

A labor activist, Safai previously worked with the city’s Department of Public Works and Housing authority under former Mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom. KRON 4’s Stephanie Lin sat down with Safaí to discuss his platform, including his plans to address the city’s first responder staffing shortage.

Below are excerpts from that interview. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Stephanie: Why are you running for mayor?

Safaí: I’m running for mayor because I truly love this city. And I’ve dedicated almost half my life in public service here […] and I feel like, you know, for me, representing working families, being a voice for immigrants, being the only immigrant in this race, I feel like that voice needs to be heard. We need to make sure that San Francisco remains the city for all San Franciscans, not just the billionaires or billionaire families or, you know, extremely low income, but everyone in between.

Stephanie: San Francisco is a beautiful city. But it’s got some significant problems. Affordable housing shortage, police staffing shortage, open air drug markets. How do you explain to voters that this happened while you were in office?

Safaí: What I would say is, is that we have done some really good things over the last decade plus in the city. I’ve been on the board for almost eight years. We experienced a massive pandemic. But at the same time, the way our city is set up is we are a strong mayor city. The mayor has the power to hire and fire department heads. The mayor has the power to appoint the majority of every single oversight body and commission. And most importantly, the mayor has the final say on funding allocations and how money is spent […]

If the Mayor’s not doing their job it all emanates from there. So, I think we have a crisis in leadership.

Stephanie: Your opponent Mark Farrell, he said that he wants to fire Police Chief Bill Scott. Is that something that you agree with?

Safaí: I would put it in a different way. I would say when I come into office, there’s going to be a lot of changes in the heads of many departments. So, police would be one […] MTA would be another. Department of Public Health would be another. I mean, we have an overdose crisis. Yes, we have to arrest the drug dealers, but we need to get the people that need the recovery and treatment. We need to stop the overdoses. 811 died from overdose last year. We need to create overdose prevention centers. We need to encourage and build a lot more abstinence based drug free housing.

Stephanie: What do you say to the moms who have lost their children to drugs obtained in the Tenderloin?

Safaí: We definitely have a tremendous drug trade on the streets. It’s one of the reasons why I have said, you know, in my first year in office, I would have a satellite office in the Tenderloin from the mayor’s office, even though the mayor’s office and city hall is very close. Having presence there on the ground on a daily basis from the mayor, with the police department walking the beats on the foot patrols, but also having the crisis people to intervene with those that are using drugs.

Stephanie: Let’s talk a bit about the homelessness crisis. One of your opponents says that he thinks he can clean all homeless encampments off the streets in six months. Do you think that’s a feasible plan? If not, how would you do it?

Safaí: One of the things that’s missing right now in our city is we don’t even know how many people are on the streets suffering because we only count every two years. It’s not an accurate way to have an idea. Part of my five-point homeless plan is we will be counting and ensuring that we’re measuring success on an aggressive and consistent basis. We will go into neighborhoods, will count, we’ll understand our street population, and then work with the district supervisors. We will set up plans for each neighborhood after we’ve had that census. We’ve got to create more non congregate, single use space. In my administration, that will be a top priority, either a hotel voucher or non congregate space.

Stephanie: Are you in favor of encampment sweeps, or no?

Safaí: I think sweep is a jarring term. I think the right way to do it is the way I’ve described where you go in with the medical health professionals, you go in with Department of Emergency Management, you go in with all the right people. You make the consistent offers for single use, shelter, space, or vouchers. You get people off the streets in a humane and consistent way. And then you create the no-camping zones. But if you’re just doing it for the day to come, sleep down the sidewalk, take people’s belongings, bag and tag, move on…that’s not going to have a lasting effect.

Stephanie: Let’s talk about affordable housing. How can we build more?

Safaí: So I looked at my district when I came into office. Nothing had been built in 40, 50 years. We looked at empty lots. We looked along commercial corridors. We looked at both 100% government funded and also privately funded developments. Here we are, seven and a half years later, 600 units of housing have been built. 65% of it is for working families. It is affordable in a more expanded definition, and we worked hard for that to include low income and working families. So I know we can do it because I’ve done it in my district. We want to take that model city wide. There’s a lot of conversation about zoning and adding more housing, but we also have to think about who we’re adding the housing for and ensuring that, as I said in the beginning, San Francisco remains a city for all San Franciscans.

Stephanie: What is your plan to revitalize the downtown area?

Safaí: So, first and foremost, we have to make it safe and clean. My plan is about proactive community policing, getting officers out and about in the areas where the crimes have been committed. I have a proposal say let’s make public works, a 24 hour department, expand the amount of time that cleaning is happening. The larger plan that I put forward that I think will have a significant impact is bringing more public universities into the downtown. We have a number of satellite campuses there, but we want to create more people studying and living in that environment. So a real downtown campus. So I had put forward a piece of proposal that said, let’s create a downtown public downtown university fund. We can go buy a few buildings, put an RFP together, or we can partner with public universities.

Stephanie: What is the biggest challenge you see facing the city of San Francisco and how would you address it?

Safaí: My number one, I think the biggest challenge is this overdose crisis. Nothing else plagues our city more than that and everything else stems from it. Yes, we want to revitalize our downtown. We want to get people back into the offices. Yes, we want to get tourism back. But the thing that’s kind of hanging the cloud that’s hanging over San Francisco’s head right now is this overdose crisis.

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