San Francisco's mayor is starting to unite fractured city

Democrats nationally may be in turmoil, but liberals in San Francisco are hopeful the new mayor’s collaborative approach will help solve entrenched problems in a city recently known for its bitter infighting and chaotic streets. Daniel Lurie, an heir to the the Levi Strauss fortune and anti-poverty nonprofit founder with no elected experience, beat out incumbent London Breed in November after spending nearly $10 million of his own money.

Voters embraced his promise to make government work again after years of San Francisco attracting national attention for its empty downtown, open-air drug use and sprawling tent encampments.

Earnest and affable, Lurie is often outside City Hall, talking to merchants and residents, both housed and unhoused. He’s reached out to supervisors, including those who feuded with Breed, asking questions and inviting input on thorny topics.

In an interview marking 100 days in office, Lurie said San Francisco is cleaning up its act with safer streets. He brushed off concerns over the involvement of corporate executives in his administration and declined to talk about Republican President Donald Trump’s potential impact on San Francisco. “I was elected to turn this city around,” Lurie said. “And I want everybody in San Francisco to know that their mayor is focused on getting results for San Franciscans.”

Some elected officials feel hopeful about working together again after years of gridlock. Connie Chan, a progressive supervisor, says she’s already had more discussions with Lurie than she ever had with Breed. “We feel cautiously optimistic despite a lot of attacks that we’ve seen from the federal government on San Francisco as a city and, of course, California as a state,” Chan said. Frustrations over car break-ins and retail theft have simmered for years, with voters ousting progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin in June 2022, and approving measures last year to expand police powers.

Lurie has inherited a city where reported crime and the number of visible tents are down, thanks in part to inroads made under Breed for more housing. Lurie’s policy goals are similar to his predecessor — more police and more shelter and treatment options. But he also has the advantage of being a new face with no stated aspirations for higher office, someone who can recruit business executives and fellow philanthropists for their time and money. His board-approved fentanyl legislation expedites hiring and contracting for new behavioral health initiatives and expanded shelter capacity. He wants to add 1,500 new shelter beds and has streamlined outreach programs.

And he’s proposed rezoning to build more housing.

Lurie has taken to stopping the car to jump out and talk to people who appear to be in distress. He asks if they want help — even though it’s not always available. And he wants to drive home the message that San Francisco will no longer let people do what they want in public at the expense of others. “That behaviour just can’t be tolerated any longer because families are scared,” Lurie said. Some leaders on the left have given him the benefit of the doubt, granting him powers they likely would not have given his predecessor. Chan, for instance, endorsed legislation ceding board oversight to Lurie to battle the fentanyl crisis, after seeing how committed he was to listening to and compromising with her office on the proposed legislation.

Lurie has announced new rules around distributing free drug use paraphernalia, going against the city’s decades-old practice of promoting harm reduction. City-funded nonprofits will have to offer treatment options before giving out supplies; they will no longer be allowed to distribute smoking supplies, like tin foil and pipes, in parks and sidewalks. The changes will make it more difficult to engage drug users for whom abstinence is not an immediate option, advocates said.

Tyler TerMeer of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which provides assistance to people dealing with substance abuse, said he’s disappointed in the policy shift but hopeful that Lurie will listen to experts who’ve been doing this work for decades. While overdose deaths were down last year from 2023, there were still roughly 630 that were recorded in the city.

Lurie founded the nonprofit Tipping Point Community in 2005, which has raised more than $400 million to house, employ and educate people living in poverty. Its work has won Lurie fans among advocates working to keep people off the city’s streets. At the same time, he comes from a family that is deeply embedded in San Francisco’s history and identity: He is an heir to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune through his mother, Mimi Haas.

He’s turned to that circle for two new boards stacked with Silicon Valley leaders and other business executives to address downtown’s battered image and bring back tourists and tech workers. The boards include executives from Google and Gap as well as philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, crypto billionaire Chris Larsen and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Lurie’s recruiting of rich CEOs has raised concerns among some who say the wealthy already have plenty of influence.

“I’m not one to trust billionaires all that much with the direction that they’ll take our city, or our country as we’re seeing right now,” said Anand Singh, president of Unite Here Local 2, which represents hotel workers. But, he added, “the mayor has demonstrated that he does want to listen to working people.”

Lurie said criticism over the influence of tech and money in city politics “divided San Francisco in the past” and that this is a new San Francisco. “I want business to be here. I want those jobs here. I want that tax revenue here,” he said. “And I want them to be part of rebuilding San Francisco.” Lurie’s political honeymoon may soon end — he must figure out how to solve what is at least an $800 million gap in the city’s budget over the next two years. He didn’t say what might be cut but said he is ready to make tough decisions.

Supervisor Jackie Fielder, a progressive Democrat, said she appreciates Lurie’s candidness and has been impressed with how he engages with constituents and supervisors. But Fielder introduced a proposal this week that could test the collaborative spirit. Her measure would grant children the right to shelter, which would upend Lurie’s current policy of limiting homeless families to 90 days at a shelter.

She hopes Lurie remembers that tech companies may come and go but neighborhood businesses and communities will remain. “He has done a good job of shaking as many hands as possible but when it comes to policy decisions, we will see in his budget what are his actual priorities,” she said.