A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Voters in San Francisco recently elected nonprofit executive Daniel Lurie as its new mayor. He unseated London Breed, who held the office since 2018. Now, Lurie is a Democrat. And it's his first elected office, where he'll lead one of the country's wealthiest cities - one where economic inequity remains a stubborn issue. So I asked him what he considers to be San Francisco's greatest challenges.
DANIEL LURIE: Public safety is our No. 1. We need to make sure that we create more mental health and drug treatment beds for people that are experiencing behavioral health crises on our streets. We can no longer allow people to do drugs and die on our streets. And part of that means getting people off the street and into the help that they need and they deserve, and we have failed to deliver on that front.
MARTÍNEZ: Your predecessor, London Breed, started sweeps of unhoused encampments after the Supreme Court's ruling on anti-camping laws. Will you continue this enforcement?
LURIE: What we're going to do is we're going to offer people shelter beds. We're going to offer people bus tickets home. And then we're going to build those mental health and drug treatment beds. We are going to give people on the streets those three options, but there will no longer be an option to stay on our streets.
MARTÍNEZ: If people will no longer be allowed to stay on the streets, does that mean that you'll involuntarily remove mentally ill people, like Mayor Eric Adams did in New York City?
LURIE: We need to mandate treatment. We have the ability to do that with state law now. But you can't do it unless you have the beds, and we have not built enough mental health beds. We have a proposition that we passed in March. Prop 1 allows us to draw down up to hundreds of millions of dollars from the state. It was a $6 billion bond. So let's draw down funding from that bond. Let's stand up more mental health beds, more locked treatment beds. But yes, we have to mandate treatment if somebody is unable to take care of themselves.
MARTÍNEZ: But how do you mandate treatment without things possibly getting ugly? 'Cause a lot of times, the visuals on something like that can be something that's unsettling for people to see.
LURIE: A, come walk with me. I'll show you the visuals. They're upsetting for us to see right now. Allowing people to openly use drugs, to be in the throes of mental health crises, is not humane, so we want to take care of people. We can do this compassionately. This is not trying to rip somebody off the street. This is getting people into treatment, into care, so that they can get better and lead productive lives.
MARTÍNEZ: What does a resolution to homelessness look like to you? I mean, is success on this issue having residents of San Francisco not see homeless people in their eyeline?
LURIE: No. I think, A - I think it's a really good question, and we always have to take our values into account. And that really means we're going to see tents on our street. We're not going to see people suffering needlessly on our streets.
MARTÍNEZ: A statewide audit found that California does not have current information on the ongoing costs of homelessness. It's the California Interagency Council on Homelessness. And it was discovered that they had not analyzed any data past 2021. So how will you be able to account for the money that is spent to show the residents of San Francisco that this is money that is well spent?
LURIE: It's a great question. We're going to have transparency and accountability at every level of my administration. We're going to have results-based funding. We're going to lean heavily on data in my administration, and making sure that every department head knows that accountability and transparency is going to be key and core to everything that we do.
MARTÍNEZ: You mentioned this transition phase. Sam Altman is part of your transition team. He's the CEO of OpenAI. What do you think the benefits are of bringing someone from the tech world into your government?
LURIE: He's advising our transition, just like six others are. Sam is a global leader focused on making San Francisco a better place for everybody. He wants to grow his company here. I want him to do that, just like I want other small businesses to grow their businesses here in San Francisco.
MARTÍNEZ: So a year from the time you're sworn in, Mayor-elect, where do you hope to see the city of San Francisco?
LURIE: I want, in a year from now, people from around the Bay Area and around the country saying, I got to go back to San Francisco. San Francisco is the place that everything is happening. And, A, I'm telling you and every one of your listeners - do not count out San Francisco. When we are at our best - and we're going to get back there - we are the greatest city in the world.
MARTÍNEZ: I mean, people leave their hearts in San Francisco, right? I mean (laughter)...
LURIE: There you go, A.
MARTÍNEZ: Right?
LURIE: There you go.
MARTÍNEZ: That is San Francisco's mayor-elect, Daniel Lurie. Thank you very much.
LURIE: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "(I LEFT MY HEART) IN SAN FRANCISCO")
TONY BENNETT: (Singing) I left my heart in... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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