Ex-President of BOS: San Francisco Used to Be Safe — Here's What Changed Everything | Angela Alioto

San Francisco is the most beautiful city in this nation, probably in the world. How is it for you living in San Francisco now? It's not my city. I'm a born and raised San Franciscan. It's in my blood. I would never not be in San Francisco as much as I would be out of town. But right now, it's just not safe. And you can't really find a place that you feel is safe. Why do you think this is happening? They want to create more. They want to create more laws that are going to make this more the same bad situation. My guest today is Angela Aliotto, former San Francisco County Supervisor. Today, she'll talk about why San Francisco is not safe anymore and the reasons behind the decline. I think the whole homeless business, business is corrupt. It's very ugly. I never dreamed they would be doing what they did with it. We found one organization that was spending $75 on administration and $25 on the homeless person. Wow. Okay, $75 on admin. So 75% of their funding will go to their... And believe it or not, that was the... Themselves. That's right. And that happens all the time. That's why it's corrupt. I'm Siamak Orami. Welcome to California Insider. Angela, it's great to have you. Welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you. We want to talk to you about the situation in San Francisco. Your friend Don Carminiani, who was the former commissioner, fire commissioner, got attacked. Can you tell us more about what happened? Well, basically, his mother lives on that street. It's in the marina. And the marina has notoriously been a very safe place to live. Very safe place to live. So right now, we've got a lot of homeless people that are on Lombard and Divisadero and all those streets near where his mother lives. You know, I need to point out, when I say homeless people, homeless people are very different categories. Okay? There's not... Homeless people that are just a paycheck away from having a home are totally different than homeless people that have become criminals on the street. Or they were criminals before they came on the street. So they're totally... You have to triage what the word homelessness means. You can't treat all of homelessness the same because they're very different. So what happened is, Don's mother, an elderly lady, called her son, said, Could you please come do something about these homeless people that are below my window? And they're smoking something that is very intoxicating. And could you come move them? So he drove over to his mother's house to move them. While he was asking them to leave, there were three of them. Clearly, you know, criminal activity. You know, not your local 80-year-old couple that just got kicked out of their house. No, these guys are in a business. And it's different than homelessness. So when he moved two of them... Like doing drugs and all that? Yeah, and you know, parts of cars, parts of bicycles, the whole... You know, stealing, basically. And the third person was behind him with a crowbar. And beat him up on his head. It's just horrible. You know, I watch a lot. I've seen a lot. I've been through a lot. I could not watch that video. I saw it the other day and it was shocking. It was shocking, hitting his head with that crowbar. So he has a cracked skull. Half of his face was off of his face. They had to put it back on. And his skull needs surgery again. And he has no teeth. And it's brain. You know, it's his brain. It's terrible. Absolutely terrible. They should have never been in the position to be able to do that to another citizen. They should have never been sitting out in front. They should have never been allowed to walk around with a deadly weapon like a crowbar. They should not be allowed to do illegal drugs in the street. They just should not be allowed to. But they're allowed to. It's a given that that's going to happen. We need a district attorney who's going to enforce the law. And we don't have that. Now, you are a resident there. You're a longtime resident. Born and raised. Born and raised there, right? Grandparent. One grandparent. I have four grandparents from Sicily. One grandparent was, they were pregnant with her when they came here. So I have one grandparent born in San Francisco in the 1880s. And your father was the mayor. My father was the mayor of San Francisco in 66, 66 to 77. And how does, and you've served in the government. I was president of the Board of Supervisors and I served eight years. And what does it, how is it for you living in San Francisco now? It's not my city. It's a very personal thing. I mean, San Francisco is the most beautiful city in this nation. Probably in the world, maybe. Up there, you know, with places like Venice and Paris. San Francisco is absolutely gorgeous. The landscape, the panorama of San Francisco cannot be beaten. The weather of San Francisco cannot be beaten. It's one of the most beautiful cities in the world. To see the decay, to see the amount of crime. It's rampant. I cannot go to Walgreens to pick up medicine. I won't do it. I won't go alone. I did it three weeks ago and it was a horrible experience. It's out of control because there's no law enforcement. We have a great San Francisco Police Department. They're discouraged. Their morale is very down. We have a minimum staffing of 2,200. But we don't have 2,200. We have something like 14, 15, and 400 of them are about to retire. And the new group coming in is much smaller than it was when I was president of the Board of Supervisors. So there's not a will to staff the police officers in San Francisco. The mayor can say we're going to bring it up to minimum staffing. The Board of Supervisors can say we're going to bring it up to minimum staffing. But they don't do it. You know, they say it, they don't do it. So the situation is we have very little law enforcement. We have crazy people who have gone, by crazy I mean criminal, who have gone wild. We have the mentally ill. I have a very sore spot in my heart for the mentally ill. Because we know what to do with mentally ill people. We know. We're not doing it. Now when you said you don't want to go to Walgreens, what does it look like for us that don't live in San Francisco? The other day I went to Walgreens, about two weeks ago. Actually it was the same day that Don got beat up. So I'm not sure, maybe that's three weeks ago now. You know when you get older, time just disappears. It could have been 30 years ago, I don't know. Time is going so fast anyways. I parked my car and I went in. And when I went in there were two police officers inside. And they said they wanted to escort me. And I said, okay, that's fine with me. What's going on? And they said, no, it's just a lot of, you know, stealing. So they did. And then when I left, I went out to my car. And there was a van with a guy in it. He wasn't in it. He was out of the driver's seat and he was fixing, allegedly fixing something. And he was blocking my car. And there were two people in the back of his van that you could see through a very thin film of glass. Okay, so I turned around. I said, I'm not going to deal with this guy. He's intentionally blocking my car. I'm going to go back in and get the two police officers. So I go back in. I mean, I'm just shopping at Walgreens. I'm not shopping at Cartier. You're not going to get the jewelry or something. You know, it's not like I'm shopping at Gucci where I'm going to come out with, you know, I don't do, first of all, I don't do that. But second of all, I was just trying to get normal stuff. And so the police officers came out and they fought with the police officers. They did not want to move. And I was very happy that I didn't fight with them. Because again, I'm Sicilian. So you don't want to get mad. I didn't want to have to beat up that man. But he wasn't going to touch my car. So to me, you know, I have a ranch outside of town. And I'm there much more now than I ever would have been. I'm a born and raised San Franciscan. It's in my blood. I would never not be in San Francisco as much as I would be out of town. But right now, it's just not safe. And you can't really find a place that you feel is safe. Why do you think this is happening? Does it have to do anything with the homeless issue that you guys have? Horrible laws that are allowing, they want to create more. They want to create more laws that are going to make this more the same bad situation. It's the laws that have been implemented in not making sure people don't stay on the street. I have a very interesting history here. Because when I was a supervisor and president of the board in 96, 97, 98, we did a lot of laws that were meant to do good to take people off the street, to give them the proper permanent supportive housing. Those three words are very important in order to deal with the homeless population. Very important. And each one of them has a subsection. Permanent doesn't mean six months. Permanent doesn't mean a hut or a shelter. Shelters are terrible. Permanent means a permanent unit assuming that person can live in it and understand four walls, a kitchen, and a bathroom without hurting themselves. That's permanent. Supportive means a minute clinic, like a medical clinic on the first floor within a seven block area. So we would have in the 90s and early 2000s, we would have had maybe 10 minute clinics at the bottom. So there's immediate medical assistance, minute clinics. And permanent supportive housing has got to be a real house, not a box, not something that is not a real house. So Gavin Newsom and I did a 10-year plan in 2004. We were so successful. We housed over 7,800 people. We housed them with a lack of recidivism of 92%. They stayed there. 92% of the 7,800 stayed in the permanent supportive housing that we created. So we created it in 2004. It was for 10 years for the chronically homeless. That's people that stay on the street for six years or more. Generally speaking, it's a 41-year-old white male who is triple diagnosed with triple medical issues. That's generally what the analysis of a chronically homeless person. Is that person addicted to drugs as well or is it in mental illness drugs? Generally speaking, yes. And then a large part of that, sick. It's crazy that we don't take care of our vets. It's crazy. And then the vet situation becomes a mental health situation and we just don't nip it in the bud. At any rate, our plan went into effect. It was highly successful. 2012 came along. Gavin was in Sacramento. I was left to deal with continuing the plan when we had a mayor who, Ed Lee was a very close friend of mine. Very good guy. Very well-meaning guy. But they allowed tech to come in. They gave tech tax incentives to come to San Francisco. And when they did that, when they took the housing that was in the pipeline for our permanent supportive housing, they took it out. So they took 18 buildings out of the pipeline that we had specified for the chronically homeless in our successful plan. And so by 2014, everybody was in the street again. The same people? No, our state. No, new people. Our state. People like Jim and Yanni just got there from New Orleans. They had just gotten there. People come to San Francisco because the programs are way too lenient. And I'm at fault for that to a degree. Is it because they can do drugs freely there? No, no, no. It's against the law to do drugs freely. It's against the law to buy drugs. It's against the law. You can't enforce it anymore. Now they want to bring you into these centers where you sit there and you choose cocaine, heroin, injections, and you inject yourself in front of people that stand there with a Norcon can that will save your life if you overdose. This doesn't make any sense, right? Well, to me it doesn't. To us, it doesn't also. Supervisor Asha Safai, he's also Iranian. Very, very, very good supervisor in the city and county of San Francisco. Hopefully he goes for higher office. I listened to him. He came to my house on Saturday to discuss the situation. And I understand what they think. That if you get this person in a room where you're watching them do what they're going to do in the street, you have the opportunity to save them. But you can't tell me after 35 years of working with homeless people, you can't convince me that that same person is going to do it two blocks down the street. They're not going to go, oh, today I'm going to go to a safe place in case I'm going to kill myself. I just think it's giving drugs to people that are made to feel like it's safe and legal and it is not legal. If you want to make it legal, make it legal. But it's not legal. This episode is sponsored by Midas Gold Group. Saudi Arabia has said they're open to accepting currencies for oil other than the dollar. Kissinger set up a petro-business agreement with the Saudis in the 1970s enshrining the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. This could be shattered. The grave consequences would be felt by every American. The Fed and politicians have abused the management of our monetary and fiscal policy. They have thrown an anchor on Americans with over $200 trillion in debt. That includes owed entitlements. We also have the BRICS countries forming an alliance to control commodities we need. Would they give them up for devalued dollars? Will they back their currencies with commodities while we back with nothing? 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And those are the guys we need to get. Those are the guys we need to get. The drug dealers, the guys that are trafficking children and trafficking. We've got this situation now where the drug dealer on the street is trafficked. That person was trafficked by the person above them. So they're taken kind of essentially they're taken to work for them on the street. So essentially they're trafficked from are they immigrants? Everybody. A lot of immigrants but everybody. So trafficking from above to this person. This person has a better life by doing what this person says and they go out and sell drugs. So now what are we going to do? We're going to arrest people that were trafficked? It's very ugly. Enter homeless camps and obviously the outside for people trying to go to the drugstore. So some things that I did at the time are being misused. Let me give you an example. I ran for mayor in 1991 just missed it and the gentleman that won was a guy named Frank Jordan. He and I made a deal I was president of the Board of Supervisors for the city and county of San Francisco that we would have emergency needle exchange legislation. So that is my baby. But in its form in 1995 we were saving people from HIV. People were getting AIDS HIV to be symptomatic from the needles. Okay. So if we went in and you give me 10 dirty needles I'll give you 10 clean needles. Okay. That's a little different than what's happening today. What's happening today is in the last 10 years they bring in needles people are not necessarily HIV and they leave a whole box of needles. And they don't take needles back. The needles are in the street to make other people sick. That is not what I wrote. So what I wrote has become a problem. And looking back on it I probably should have put a sunshine clause where it ends in you know I wrote it in 95 maybe it should have ended in 2000 when there were when HIV was being the cocktail was coming into formation and HIV was being curtailed to a degree. Maybe I should have put a sun I never dreamed they would be doing what they did with it. Now they're planning they're thinking about spending 1.5 billion dollars over the next 3 years in San Francisco and they're saying each bed would be $70,000 for a shelter. We have heard from some guests on the show previous guests that there is some level of corruption or extreme mismanagement in this homeless approach to homelessness. What are your thoughts on this? I think the whole homeless business business is corrupt. And I have for years. And here's the reason. When Gammon and I did the 10 year plan in 2004 to end chronic homelessness we looked at each and every contract. So if you come to me as a homeless person that is mentally ill and you're a vet okay they were putting at the time they were putting people into programs that were 5 months long for mental and then at the end of the 5 months they put you back on the street. You won't make it there's no way. So that's not permanent supportive housing. I'm going to nail in permanent supportive housing is the answer. But nobody wants to do it. So that's one problem where programs ended and didn't have the proper transition into permanent supportive housing. The second problem is we found one organization that was spending 75 dollars on administration. I mean and 25 dollars on the homeless person. Wow. Okay 75 on admin. So 75 percent of their funding will go to their themselves. That's right and that happens all the time that's why it's corrupt. That's why it's corrupt. And believe it or not at that time that was the housing authority and I had a fit. I went out and I cut their budget. I did everything I could do to make them do the right thing for people on the street. Do you think that's happening broadly now? Oh I think now it's almost been masterminded. I think now we have big CEOs doing it. We have pharmaceutical companies doing it. We have huge now it's huge. Now it's a total business. And the problem is the political pressure. So let's say I want to get rid of six programs within the city and county of San Francisco that we pay 200 million dollars to. Okay so two times six that's 12. One point two billion. One point two billion dollars. That's why I'm a lawyer. I can't count. You did well there. I did. I got that one. One point two billion. So if you take a look at those and you realize if you ever do a analysis of their budget you'd be shocked. You would be shocked. We could put every homeless person in San Francisco. You have to bifurcate mental illness. Okay but every homeless person who could do it who was capable of doing it in a hotel room for the next ten years with. With just six programs. Absolutely. With all that money. Where's that money going? The money is going to salaries and. Money is going to in-house. It is not going to get the job done. There is no will to get this job done and now the city is dangerous. Now some of the leaders that we have talked to on this show they're saying that this housing model may not work because the problem the core problem is drug addiction and some others have told us that there's another issue behind the drug addiction. Somebody had trauma or whatever happened to them. Right. They got to drugs. Right. So is there a way to go to the core of it? Have you guys thought about going to the core issue behind it? Because if you get somebody well if somebody gets well then they can actually go and get a job. Potentially get housing. That's why we at the beginning of the 10 year plan. You can go to the city and county of San Francisco website and get the 10 year plan that was 2004 June 29th of 2004. And then you can take a look at June 29th of 2014 the result of the 10 year plan. And it's phenomenal. It was the last two years 12 and 13 where it started to fall apart because we lost the housing. But we have a prelude to it. Preventative care is key. Every homeless person you see on the street you look at them and you go especially women. You look at them and you go how long have you been on the street. If they've been on the street less than two months take them off the street right away. Right away. If they've been on the street 10 days take them off the street right away. Give them something nice comfortable. The money is being thrown at all these places. Put it to the person who can handle it because they haven't been homeless long. Now that's very true of young people that come to the city. They haven't been homeless. They've left home. And they aren't homeless. They have a home. And we did that program too where we sent people back home and then we monitored with their caretaker. So we would monitor with the mom or the grandmother if they needed anything. And that program was highly successful, highly criticized, highly successful. The goal is to give the homeless person a good life with all of the difficulties that homeless person is facing. Which means mental health, vets. The vet situation is just terrible in the sense that we do not take care of our vets who went to fight for us. In that way that 10 year plan was excellent with preventative care. Nipping it in the bud before it happens. If you see a mother on the street with a baby, that's new. That's new. Then a few months later that person is a different person. We have huge success rates. Again it was over 7,000 people. Huge success rates all in jobs, never left their apartment. We have one apartment building on Fremont that I'm very very proud of where the first three or four floors are formerly homeless people. They now have jobs and they now have families and the top floors are high end apartment buildings with views all over the city. Very successful building, mixed use. Now the type of, some people say because of Prop 47, what happens is that the theft, we removed petty with prior so we allowed people to steal and not get caught. Some people say Prop 47 was a big cause of this expansion. It helped it, it wasn't the cause. We've had homelessness now since Dianne Feinstein in the late 80s, middle 80s. Not the cause. 47 helped, 47 is crazy. Can you tell us more how it did? You can go steal right, as much as you want, up to 950. Up to a certain limit. And then you don't get caught. You can live a lifestyle on the street essentially from theft. Right. 47 just is so wrong in so many ways. Undo the crime. If you don't want it to be a crime, don't have it be a law. Undo the law. Why doesn't that happen? the law and then have 47 come in and say, oh, well, if they break that law, we're going to let them go. Then undo the law. Don't have petty theft. Why do you think that doesn't happen? Because I've been interviewing people for the last three years in California and I haven't seen people going back and trying to undo some, or Prop 47, people are not really, I've talked to a lot of rational people. They don't understand it. Is that what you're saying? A lot of people are criticizing it, but there's another side of it that people are for it. Yeah, what's the good side? Other than what we have, one senator that is just so far out there, he thinks everything is okay. Other than him, how did that help us? How did it help the police officers on the street that get shot in the head just by getting out of a car? How did that help? It created a business of criminals that can live off of criminality, financially. So how can we fix this, Angela? You can undo it. Many people have wanted to undo it. Many people have wanted to undo it. But another, you can fix it by arresting people, you know, arrest people. Do you think the political will will be there in San Francisco? No, but I think it has to be. When people can't go to their local market and shop in peace, I think it will get to that. Downtown's empty, okay? It's not just COVID. They're not coming back just because COVID. They're coming back because the streets are filthy. The homeless situation is heartbreaking. And by the way, homelessness is not particular to San Francisco. It's just that San Francisco has so many laws that make it easier to be homeless. And maybe they need to be undone. And some are people doing drugs in the streets. They're essentially homeless, but a lot of them are on fentanyl and other drugs, right? They're prey, you know what I mean? And they're sitting ducks, so to speak. By the drug dealers and the gangs. Sure. People taking advantage of them and using them in so many ways. So many ways. And, you know, the system just does not have the real desire to end this situation. Now, did you ever think San Francisco would become like this? No, ever. It's inconceivable to me. I got out of the car last night. We were with my granddaughter, taking her to dinner in, well, Venice. It was the Venice border. And I did not worry about anything in my car. I thought, wow, that's a weird, and there are homeless people there. But I have to tell you, you know, they're playing their guitars, they're singing, they're laughing. They're not drugged out shooting up in their arm. It's a different atmosphere. Now, should there be those homeless people? No. They need a home if they want a home. They need a home. That needs to be addressed. But it's a different kind of homelessness. I didn't think about my car being broken into at all. So in San Francisco, that's become pretty normal, right? Oh, nobody leaves anything in their car. Anything. And it still gets broken into. The other night around the corner from me, 27 cars got their windows smashed. There wasn't even anything being taken. They just smashed all the 27 cars. So what's the way to fix this based on your experience? An organizational plan to really house the homeless, permanent supportive housing, an organizational plan to get minimum staffing of the San Francisco police officers, emergency services and fire department, minimum, because all three of those guys worked, men and women worked together, and a mayor and a district attorney who's going to enforce it even if the people that they're hurting to enforce it are their political supporters. The whole problem with the contracting I mentioned earlier, those multimillion dollar contracts, the problem with those contracts is they're all major political supporters that have hundreds of people behind them. So they're donating and they also have the volunteers to go and do campaigns for the people Yes, you don't want to anger them. If you're running for office, you don't want to anger them. Is there a way to get out of this for San Francisco? I think you have to take the hard knocks. We cut, Gavin and I in 2004 cut, I think it was 240 million dollars in contracts we saw that were not going to the homeless problem itself as opposed to going to an organization that thrives on homelessness. How do people go to bed at night? I don't want to get spiritual on you, but how do people go to bed at night using the money that is to take care of that young kid shooting up on the street? Using it for their salaries? How do they do that? It's inconceivable. So we cut 240 million dollars out and it hurt a little bit in the political arena, but it definitely made a difference towards gearing programs towards really taking the homeless person off the street. That's over now. We have, I think it was a ridiculous number. $2 billion goes to homelessness. $2 billion for 9,000 people. How does any rational person think that even worked out? How does that work out? Now, Angela, why are you being vocal about this? A lot of people haven't taken a stance. Some people are getting frustrated, but why are you being... I'm an advocate. I've worked with homelessness since the beginning of my political career in 89. And I see an answer. I see an answer. I see a conclusion to this nightmare, this misery of people living shame on us. Shame on us. They shouldn't be in the street like that shooting up stuff in their arms that could possibly kill them. Do you have any other thoughts for our audience? I have a lot of opinions, if that's what you mean. But the homeless situation is very near and dear to my heart. It's criminal, I think, what we're doing. And it's getting worse and worse. And then on top of that, for someone like me, what are you doing to my city? Of course my first concern is with the homeless people. But what are you doing to my city? The city's a mess. It's a mess. You know, we had the mayor the other day and the district attorney. Now, in fairness, I ran against her, okay? I ran against her for mayor in 2018, just to make sure that bias is out front. She is like a different person than when she was on the board of supervisors, okay? Totally different person. Until they start enforcing the cutting of these contracts and until they stop allowing well, let me give you an example. The other night, the mayor came on and said, the recent murder of Bob Lee, okay? Okay. Was targeted. Was not random. Okay? It was somebody he knew who knew. Okay? My response to that is, so what? The homeless problem is right in front of your face. Young people are dying in the hundreds. Why does making Bob Lee's murder targeted solve the homeless problem in your mind? What are you thinking? Don Carminiani, you know, he wasn't targeted. He was trying to move people for his very elderly mother. So my point is, there's a mentality. That thinks, oh, if I can prove that this was targeted, then our city is fine to come to again. So it's kind of like putting on a show, essentially. Or hiding the problem. But the logic is crazy. That doesn't mean you or I can go to Walgreens without getting beaten up. You mentioned the mayor is different from how you know her. Is it because of the influence from these non-profits? No. I think it's the high, being mayor of San Francisco is a big deal. I think it's the arrogance that is taken over as opposed to caring about the issues. She's like a different person. Where do you think we will go from here in San Francisco? Let me go back one second on this. Tech left the city. Tech left because of COVID. But tech left because of crime and homelessness and dirty streets. Let's be really clear. For her, the mayor or the board of supervisors or anybody to think that tech is coming back to it's not going to go down and down until it hits a bottom where nobody can take it anymore. And hopefully the right people will be elected into office. That's the only thing I see as a possibility. Because you know what? San Francisco is so beautiful. It's so beautiful. You know, on a sunny beautiful day, the panorama, the streets, the old-time buildings, the history of our gold rush, the history of Barbary Coast. We're just a great city. And we're a great city that's being abused. But you can't take the great cityness away from our city. You can't take it. No matter how bad it gets down here on the political low level, now politics is like low level. It used to be respected. It used to be high level. Now it's like a joke. But you can't take the beauty away from our city. You can't take who she is away from her. So they can get as low as they want, but they're going to come back because San Francisco is so gorgeous. Angela Aliotto, former president of the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco, it was great to have you on California Insider. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. Great to be here. If you like the show and our content, you should go to InsiderCA.com and sign up to our newsletter because we never know what can happen with social media and other platforms in terms of distributing our content. If you like to come on the show and be an insider, you can reach out to us at CAInsider at epochtimesca.com. Again, it's CAInsider at epochtimesca.com. We'd love to have you on the show to tell us what's going on in your field in California. Thank you for watching.