Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie, a political newbie with very deep pockets, is set to take the helm of San Francisco after the city’s first Black woman mayor, London Breed, conceded her race for reelection on Thursday.
Breed, who took office for the first time in 2018 after the death of Mayor Ed Lee and then ran for a full four-year term in 2019, steered the city through the difficult pandemic years, but was seen as widely responsible for the worsening homelessness, drug, and housing affordability crisis in San Francisco. Newsweek contacted Mayor Breed’s office for comment by email on Friday early morning, outside of standard working hours.
While the three issues were seen among the city’s main problems already in 2018, the COVID-19 health emergency exacerbated the situation. An exodus of workers throughout the pandemic years left the city emptied and bruised, while an explosion of crime in San Francisco’s downtown, as well as the pandemic lockdowns, led to the closure of several shops through the past few years.
Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie speaks during a campaign meet-and-greet event on October 30, 2024 in San Francisco, California. In a shock to the city, he has ousted Mayor London Breed.
Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie speaks during a campaign meet-and-greet event on October 30, 2024 in San Francisco, California. In a shock to the city, he has ousted Mayor London Breed.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Although San Francisco has started a process of recovery from this drop in quality of life, the city’s homelessness population has skyrocketed in the past few years; home prices have remained high, despite a decline in demand after the pandemic; and fentanyl is still a very visible problem.
Social-media platforms are flooded with videos of young people celebrating Donald Trump’s victory at college campuses across the country, showing the broad support the Republican candidate enjoyed among Gen Zers, despite Kamala Harris’ efforts to get first-time voters on her side.
For the five Democrats who challenged her on the ballot on November 5, including Lurie, Breed is to blame for letting San Francisco’s problems become worse in the past six years.
The 47-year-old heir to the Levi Strauss jeans company fortune injected at least $8.6 million of his own money and $1 million donation from his mother into his campaign for mayor, as reported by The New York Times. He made being a political outsider his main strength.
Very much like Donald Trump, who took over U.S. politics by a storm in 2016 as a wealthy political outsider with no experience at any level of government, statewide or nationwide, promising to make America great again, Lurie has triumphed with his vow to bring San Francisco back to its former glory. Crucially, just like Breed, he is a Democrat.
While Trump’s focus has been on immigration, Lurie’s has been on San Francisco’s homelessness problem. The latest data from San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing shows a total of 8,323 people were experiencing homelessness in the city in 2024, up from 7,754 in 2022. Of these, 52 percent—or 4,354—were unsheltered.
Lurie’s credentials to tackle San Francisco’s homelessness crisis are the work he has done with his antipoverty nonprofit Tipping Point Community, which has built tiny home shelters and permanent subsidized housing for unhoused people in the city. Lurie says the nonprofit has helped more than 6,000 people transition into permanent housing or prevent them from becoming homeless in the first place.
While critics said the success he has obtained with his nonprofit cannot be replicated citywide because of the cost involved and the methods used by Tipping Point Community, Lurie has said that he can, promising to create a shelter system of 1,500 beds in six months.
In a speech delivered on election night, he also promised to help small businesses thrive in the city, hire more police officers, and make Chinese American residents feel safe after a series of recent anti-Asian attacks in the streets of San Francisco.
In a speech on the same night, Breed, a San Francisco native who grew up in poverty in the same city where Lurie was raised in luxury by his billionaire family, accused Lurie of “buying the race” with his big spending.
“It has been really one of the most sad and horrible things I’ve seen in politics in San Francisco, that someone would take their wealth and just basically buy this office,” Breed said, addressing her supporters at a soul food restaurant in the city. “It’s really unfortunate and pretty disgusting.”
In her concession speech delivered later in the night, however, she promised a smooth transition of power before Lurie is set to take office in January. “At the end of the day, this job is bigger than any one person, and what matters is that we keep moving this city forward,” Breed said in her concession speech. “I know we are both committed to improving this city we love.”
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source link
