Leaders have ideas for visit by Trump
Governor, mayor seek federal help on homelessness instead of insults
Gov. Gavin Newsom gave President Trump a wish list for the president’s visit to the Bay Area on Tuesday: Don’t just talk about the “disgrace” of homelessness in California — give us more federal help to combat the problem.
“We can all agree that homelessness is a national crisis decades in the making that demands action at every level of government — local, state and federal,” Newsom wrote in a letter to Trump on Monday that was signed by leaders of organizations representing the state’s counties and cities. While California and local governments have taken action on homelessness, “your administration has proposed significant cuts to public housing and programs like the Community Development Block Grant,” Newsom said.
Trump is expected to attend a fundraiser Tuesday in the Bay Area, the same day Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, is scheduled to be in San Francisco. Carson will tour a Potrero Hill public housing project and visit with HUD employees, according to a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DSan Francisco.
It will be Trump’s first visit to the Bay Area as president. He is expected to attend a fundraiser for his 2020 reelection campaign, but it is not known whether he will make any public appearances regarding homelessness or any other issue.
Trump is also expected to visit Los Angeles, where an administration task force visited last week to talk with officials about that city’s homelessness problem.
Trump railed on the “horrible, horrible” conditions on
the streets in Los Angeles in a rally last month. “What they are doing to our beautiful California is a disgrace to our country,” the president said.
In Northern California, mayors and other community leaders said that they were skeptical Trump would offer much besides insults, but that they would welcome help if it came.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed said she would tell Carson, “Give me money . ... Start with $100 billion and negotiate.”
There were no immediate plans for the two to meet, but the mayor said she would “welcome the opportunity” to speak with Carson about “unjust policies” not just on housing, but regarding immigrants and transgender people as well.
“Unfortunately, what we’ve seen is a significant reduction in investment in affordable housing throughout this country and in San Francisco,” Breed said. “Our request, of course, would be that there needs to be some support and attention paid to affordable housing throughout this country.”
Trump himself has not discussed specific steps the federal government might take to help deal with homelessness and housing, but on Monday the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers released a report tracing what it said were the root causes of homelessness. It blamed local policies such as housing regulation, inadequate policing and guaranteed shelter for people.
In a call with reporters, administration officials offered few specifics on how they came to their conclusions or what policies the administration would be proposing to help cities instead.
The report sought to find out “what is the reason for the high concentration of homelessness in the Northeast or on the West Coast,” said Tomas Philipson, acting chair of the council. “In particular, have state or local government policies contributed to this problem? The simple answer to this question is yes.”
In his letter to Trump, Newsom asked the federal government to provide 50,000 more rental subsidy vouchers for lowincome Californians. He also asked that the value of those vouchers be increased to keep pace with the rising cost of housing in big cities.
“With 50,000 additional vouchers, California could address a significant portion of our unsheltered population, including thousands of veterans, with a timetested strategy to prevent or end homelessness: stable housing,” Newsom wrote.
He added that he was ready to “work in partnership with you to address this crisis.”
Trump has nowhere to go but up in California, where 60% of likely voters surveyed in July disapproved of his job performance, according to the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.
And he could score points nationally if he suggests federal policies for homelessness. It would reinforce his insistence on so many issues that “he alone can fix the problem,” said David McCuan, a professor of political science at Sonoma State University.
Also, “showing the contrast between himself and the Bay Area, he draws attention,” McCuan said. “That helps his campaign because it allows him to grab the public’s attention above all the noise.
“It doesn’t matter that most Californians see him as a carnival barker,” McCuan said. Trump is “speaking to people in other parts of the country.”
And while Trump received only 9.3% of the vote in San Francisco in the 2016 election, he does have some fervent fans here.
“He makes his many supporters here very happy and excited to be in the same room with him,” said Joan Leone, president of the 250member Republican Women of San Francisco Club, who will be attending Tuesday’s fundraiser. “I think he’s hilarious. I absolutely love his rallies.”
The location of the fundraiser has not been released. People who are attending it are being told that cell phones or other forms of audio or video recording will not be allowed. San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Trisha Thadani contributed to this report.