San Francisco, California, once considered one of the greatest cities in the country, has quickly developed a new reputation for filth, homelessness, and rampant public drug use. But while many blame the city’s liberal, soft-on-crime policies for the decline, city Supervisor Dean Preston, who oversees a district inhabited by 50 percent of the city’s homeless, says that the crisis was caused entirely by capitalism.
Preston, who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2019, represents the city’s 5th District, which includes the downtown Tenderloin neighborhood notorious for its open-air drug markets and homeless encampments. A 2022 report from The San Francisco Chronicle found that nearly half of the city’s homeless lived in this district as of last year.
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However, according to the district’s Democratic Socialist supervisor, nationwide economic policies are exclusively to blame for the situation.
“I think what you’re seeing in the Tenderloin is absolutely the result of capitalism and what happens in capitalism to the people at the bottom rungs,” Preston said in an interview with British outlet UnHerd.
“The biggest driver of why folks are on the street is because they lost their jobs, income or were evicted from their homes, usually for not being able to pay the rent,” he continued. “So you have major landlords literally causing folks to lose their homes, and real estate speculation making it impossible for folks to find an affordable place to live.”
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Preston went on to criticize the city’s “inconsistent” approach to handling flagrant drug users.
“I think it’s completely counterproductive to be arresting people for doing drugs,” he said. “Like, what’s the objective?”
When pressed on the issue by UnHerd host Freddie Sayers, Preston elaborated.
“The thing is, it has gotten worse, right? Because the approach that we’ve taken is very inconsistent as a city,” he said. “Ramping up enforcement activities, whether it’s … sweeps of homeless people or drug use, doing a series of arrests, usually timed with some news cycle and then a few days later, a few weeks later, a few months later, the same thing happens.”
According to the latest reports, San Francisco recorded 84 drug overdose deaths in August — equivalent to five every two days. If that pace continues, the city will surpass 800 overdose deaths in 2023, beating the record of 720 in 2020.
Preston also denounced the idea that homeless encampments and drug markets make the area less safe for residents. “I don’t think every instance of poverty or addiction or behavioral health issue is a safety threat to someone walking by. I mean, there’s a lot of people who are doing things that are very harmful to themselves on the streets, who aren’t necessarily a safety threat,” he said.
He concluded by discussing his plans to further defund San Francisco’s law enforcement groups, pledging to cut $100 million out of the “very, very bloated police budget.” San Francsico Mayor London Breed — who Preston replaced on the Board of Supervisors in 2019—redirected $120 million from the police budget to social justice causes during the 2020 George Floyd riots. However, she later backtracked amid a troubling shortage of officers in 2021.
In September, Tesla CEO Elon Musk accused Preston of being “the person most responsible for the destruction of San Francisco” and called for him to be fired.
Absolutely.
Also, Dean Preston needs to be fired. He is arguably the person most responsible for the destruction of San Francisco.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 22, 2023
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