Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass joined San Francisco Mayor London Breed for a fun and lighthearted conversation earlier this week discussing their roles as the first Black women to be mayors of their cities.
The two mayors on Monday spoke at Manny’s, a civic gathering space for community events and restaurant owned by Manny Yekutiel.
“Mayors have a unique relationship and especially as African American women leading major cities, it’s different,” Breed said.
Bass became the first African American woman to lead California’s state Assembly as speaker from 2008-2010. She also served in Congress for over 10 years before becoming Los Angeles’ mayor.
The mayors discussed the challenges they face as women of color in a leading role.
“I’ve had to have some tough conversations with a lot of very privileged people in this city who feel comfortable talking to me as if I am beneath them. That even happened today,” Breed said. “If I was a white man as mayor, there’s no way they would’ve came at me in the same way.”
The discussion came at a crucial time for Breed in her bid to be reelected this November.
“It’s really hard to vote for someone that’s not investing in the community,” said Reina Tello, a community organizer with PODER SF , an organization that advocates for Latino immigrant families and environmental justice.
Tello was among the protesters who picketed outside of Manny’s to send a message opposing Breed’s recently proposed budget cuts to city departments and nonprofit contracts she deemed non-critical, including community outreach and education programs.
The protesters were with the People’s Budget Coalition, an alliance of more than 100 community organizations and unions that fight for prioritization of San Francisco’s low-income and disenfranchised populations within the city’s budget.
“The budget should not be balanced off the backs of the people of SF,” Tello said.
Breed’s two-year budget plan would slash funding in city departments and contracts in areas including the Department of Children, Youth and their Families and workforce development for immigrants, high school-aged and transitional-aged youth, the People’s Budget Coalition said. The proposed cuts are part of Breed’s attempt to close the city’s $800 million deficit while increasing budget spending for law enforcement.
“Even the protest outside, I want to know the specifics of what the problem is. We made some hard decisions in this budget,” Breed said. “I had to hold certain organizations accountable that weren’t performing. I want to find out specifically what the issues are and whether or not we made a mistake.”
Although they could be heard from inside, the protesters’ chants outside of Manny’s did little to disrupt the conversation between Breed and Bass.
Hurdles and strategies
The mayors addressed their approaches toward tackling hot topic issues such as housing and homelessness.
Bass said she has instituted many executive directives that cut red tape and expedited the process of moving people off the streets.
Breed said she is trying to take a similar approach. However, San Francisco’s rigid rules for building new housing have made it challenging.
“We have built up decades of housing policies that make it virtually impossible to build,” Breed said.
San Francisco is notorious for having some of the highest procedural obstacles in the state for constructing new housing, according to the 2023 San Francisco Housing Policy and Practice Review, a state report that analyzed the flaws in housing policy that have led to extreme delays in getting homes built.
Breed has been trying to combat this problem by introducing “Housing for All,” an executive directive that aims to remove barriers in approvals and accelerate the process of building new housing.
Fentanyl and drug use are the biggest challenges the city has in trying to get people off the streets, Breed said. In trying to offer services to the people on the streets, Breed said that 60 percent are refusing help, 30 percent are accepting help and 10 percent are actually housed.
The city’s total homeless population is more than 8,000, according to a point-in-time count conducted by the city earlier this year. Although homelessness has increased overall, the number of people living on the streets has decreased because shelter capacity has gone up 60 percent, Breed said.
The unhoused population has seen an increase recently because there are more migrants living in cars, Breed said.
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