San Francisco: From Doom Loop to Boom Loop

From “Doom Loop” to “Boom Loop,” San Francisco could be turning the corner on all the crime, chaos and death. A new mayor and new approach to the homeless drug crisis could be the game changer. Here’s part 1 of our series in the Bay Area.

Parts of San Francisco have been described as being stuck in a perpetual doom loop.

A never-ending pattern of crime, chaos, and death.

But some of the most problematic neighborhoods in the city could be getting ready to break out of this vicious cycle.

“Is the Tenderloin looking better?” I ask a local resident.

“Oh yeah, it is,” he responds.

That’s because new mayor Daniel Lurie is on a mission to reclaim what was once a thriving downtown core and restore law and order on the streets.

“If you are selling drugs in this city, we’re coming after you,” Lurie says.

In this multi-part series with Frontlines Turning Point USA and Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth & Poverty, we’re spotlighting the early stages of what could be San Francisco’s comeback story.

“I think there’s a renewed sense of hope and optimism here,” says Lurie.

Lurie invited us along as he personally checked in on business owners, letting them know he’s walking with them every step of the way.

The mayor’s focus on public safety is already being amplified in some of the most notorious hot spots like the Tenderloin and South of Market.

Cops are clearing out drug dens and the black market of stolen goods, with a strong police presence more visible than ever.

Just ask JJ Smith, a citizen journalist and social media influencer who lives in the area.

“He has implemented some good stuff,” Smith says of Lurie.

He’s been holding public officials accountable by documenting the urban decay and human suffering for years.

Smith recently opened up this small cafe in the Tenderloin as a sign of confidence in Lurie’s turnaround story.

But the situation is far from perfect.

“Mayor Lurie, helping clean up the streets? Is it looking better?” I ask one resident.

“It’s too early to comment,” he responds.

Honduran drug dealers still operate in this sanctuary city, staying a few steps ahead of ICE agents who are desperately trying to capture them.

On a tour of the city with Smith, one man approached me and said, “Hey buddy, you need any?” Smith told me it was a Honduran drug dealer.

“They’re killing kids out here and they don’t care,” says one woman.

And when the sun sets, the streets still look like a horror show.

“They’re suffering from drug addiction,” says Smith.

“The Mission District looks like hell,” says Tom Wolf.

The new mayor is inheriting what Wolf calls the epicenter of drug tourism on the west coast.

“If I hadn’t been locked up, I’d be dead right now,” Wolf explains.

Wolf is a recovering addict himself and his lived experience has the mayor’s attention.

“The narrative about drugs and homelessness has completely changed.”

He says homelessness on the streets is primarily being fueled by the fentanyl crisis, mental illness, and failed public policies to address it.

“So you have a place to stay?” I ask one man on the street.

“I do,” he says.

“Why do you come out here then?”

“‘Cause a lot of my friends are over here.”

Wolf explains, “There’s a subset of people on the street that are going to have to be forced into drug treatment. That’s part of the deal.”

That’s why Lurie just signed a new directive called “Breaking the Cycle” that will focus more resources and funding on drug treatment and recovery.

But in order to chart a new path forward, Lurie is still trying to clean up the mess from prior administrations.

Then he has to assess what’s working and what’s not.

Two public policies that are now being heavily scrutinized by his administration: Housing First and harm reduction.

Housing First is a federally-funded program that was supposed to end unsheltered homelessness in America by building out apartments for everyone living on the streets, no strings attached.

But after more than a decade and billions spent in taxpayer dollars, homelessness, especially on the west coast, is at an all-time high.

Then there’s fentanyl — a game changer that’s made matters worse on the streets.

Even with the harm reduction approach, where state-funded non-profits give away meth pipes and needles to prevent the spread of disease, at least two people die of drug overdoses in San Francisco each day, which has led to thousands of deaths just in the past few years.

“Everyone’s smoking fentanyl,” I observe after witnessing a harm reduction handout. “They’re using the supplies they were just given.”

“Yeah,” confirms Smith.

When our team was on the ground in the Mission District, workers with the San Francisco AIDS Foundation never offered addicts treatment options.

“Did they say, hey, you wanna get off fentanyl? Here’s a place you can go to get off fentanyl. Did they tell you where to go?” I ask one man.

“Uh, no they didn’t,” he responds.

Instead, they handed out supplies like candy on an assembly line.

“They didn’t offer you any treatment or detox?” I ask another man, named Mike.

“No,” Mike says.

Even drug users like Mike say this is enabling his problem.

As we look through the bag he was given, I spot foil. “What do you need all this foil for?” I ask him.

“For smoking the fetty, fentanyl,” he says.

“Is there any safe way to smoke fetty?” I ask.

“It’s fetty, there’s nothing safe about that s***,” he tells me. “Don’t touch that s***. You can OD and die.”

Supervisor Matt Dorsey is also a recovering addict and one of Mayor Lurie’s strongest allies.

“Nothing we are doing to tolerate or enable public drug use in our city is helping anybody,” says Dorsey.

Dorsey says even his more progressive colleagues are starting to realize there needs to be a course correction.

“We can never again get into a situation like this where we have just lost control,” he says. “I think ultimately it’s going to get more people in recovery and it will save a lot of lives.”

But with real change comes pushback from the people with a different vision for the most vulnerable in San Francisco.

“We have Housing First for a small portion of the population,” says Jennifer Friedenbach, “so we can’t say something has failed that we actually haven’t tried.”

Friedenbach is the Executive Director at the Coalition on Homelessness, a far-left activist group that insists homelessness is caused by capitalism, systemic racism, and a lack of affordable housing.

The non-profit has also sued the city over encampment sweeps and Friedenbach is already critical of the mayor’s new policies.

“We have a lot of hope that Lurie will move in the direction of actual solutions rather than tried and failed policies like the war on drugs,” says Friedenbach.

“There’s no choice to stay on the streets any longer,” Lurie tells me. “We need people in treatment.”

Lurie says the city’s culture of enablement and inhumane conditions will transition into one of accountability, recovery, and true compassion, hoping to rewrite the narrative from Doom Loop to Boom Loop.

“I’m prioritizing San Francisco and San Francisco residents,” says Lurie, “and what I say to people is, be patient — don’t be too patient — but it’s going to take us some time to overcome the challenges.”

Just One Year Ago

Housing First and so called “harm reduction” strategies are being heavily scrutinized by the new administration. Just one year ago, parts of the city looked like hell. Those very same neighborhoods are starting to improve.