Ben Carson in S.F.:
HUD secretary visits Potrero Hill public housing project, rebuffs invitation to meet with Mayor Breed.
He came, he saw, he offered nothing specific.
In his first visit to San Francisco as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson paid a quick visit to a public housing project in Potrero Hill, dodged an invitation to meet with the mayor, and left — all in the space of about an hour.
Carson came a week after the Trump administration said it was exploring ways of addressing California’s homelessness crisis, including spurring more housing development. His purpose in visiting the housing project was to “listen” and gather facts, Carson said.
The secretary showed up at 11 a.m. in an SUV,
rolled quickly past a knot of about 40 protesters and then exited his vehicle and went inside to visit with residents. Among protestors’ chants: “Trump, Carson, you’re to blame, making people homeless is your game.”
President Trump, meanwhile, landed at about the same time in Mountain View to attend a fundraiser on the Peninsula. He did not join Carson’s visit in San Francisco.
After visiting with residents for 20 minutes, Carson emerged to speak with reporters for another 20 minutes. He said he had no concrete proposals to share, and no promises of new federal funding for handling homelessness.
“We are here to look at some of the factors that are driving homelessness and also to listen to what people have to say,” Carson said.
Carson suggested that both overregulation and opposition to housing have contributed to the increase in homelessness.
“The places that have the most regulation also have the highest prices and the most homelessness,” he said. “Therefore it would only seem logical to attack those things that seem to be driving the crisis.”
Carson rejected Gov. Gavin Newsom’s demand that the federal government invest in more Section 8 lowincome housing vouchers, instead saying that the federal government could offer “help” to local cities to better use existing vouchers.
Some residents of Potrero Annex said they were grateful for his visit, but unsure whether it would lead to action.
“It’s nice that he came, but the proof is in the pudding,” said resident Uzuri PeaseGreene.
The Trump administration has talked about encouraging more housing development through deregulation and leaning harder on encampments with police enforcement, but has not issued any specific proposals.
On his flight Tuesday from New Mexico to Mountain View, the president told reporters he would be talking to Carson about homelessness, and said he was considering creation of an “individual task force” to address the issue. He added that “the people of San Francisco are fed up.”
Trump sent a delegation to Los Angeles last week to examine homelessness there, and the trip was greeted with skepticism by local leaders — though they welcomed the possibility of help. That same reaction held for Northern California.
The project that Carson visited Tuesday at 1101 Connecticut Ave. is a 72unit affordable housing development that opened in May. It’s the first project to be completed as part of the Potrero Hill master plan that’s part of HOPE SF.
HOPE SF is a largescale development effort intended to alleviate intergenerational poverty and create mixedincome communities while avoiding displacement. In Potrero Hill, the plan calls for rebuilding 619 units of public housing and creating 1,000 other new homes aimed at a range of incomes.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed invited Carson to visit with her during his trip, but he did not respond, according to her staff.
She said she would have liked to encourage Carson to send more money to San Francisco for homeless services and affordable and supportive housing, pointing out that federal support for lowincome housing has lagged for decades.
The Potrero Hill complex, she said, is an inspiring example of what can be done with extra investment. It was built with several different types of funding, including city money and federal tax credits.
“As someone who grew up in public housing, I can remember how bad the conditions were back then, and I am extremely proud of San Francisco’s commitment to rebuilding and preserving our public housing units,” Breed said.