you madam speaker uh I rise today with an update on the condition of San Francisco uh a city whose Fate has been largely shaped by uh several politicians uh of prominence here in Washington DC uh foremost among them uh vice president kamla Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi I think it's important for all Americans to understand the tragedy of San Francisco what has happened to one of America's most beautiful cities because the same radical failed policies that have caused San Francisco's Decline and collapse are gaining increasing traction uh in Washington DC so uh I want to go over just a few of the reasons why it is that as the San Francisco Chronicle put it last year this city is quote on the verge of collapse indeed in many ways my entire State of California offers a preview of where our country has been headed but San Francisco offers an even Starker warning it is the part of our state where failed policies radical politics and public corruption are in their most advanced stage and where residents are most rapidly fleeing in an article headlined San Francisco falls into the Abyss UCLA economics professor Lee Ohanian writes quote no major American city has failed at the same level as Detroit whose population dropped from 1.85 million people in 1950 to about 630,000 today move over Detroit he writes Here Comes San Francisco which lost 6.3% of its population between 2019 and 2021 a rate of decline larger than any two-year period in Detroit's history and unprecedented among any major US city the city is declining faster than any major US city in the history of our country and the reasons are not a mystery foremost among them are crime drug addiction homelessness waste unaffordability failing school and failing schools all a result of failed governance so let's just start with the crime situation in San Francisco which is a city that has had a progressive progression of self-described progressive prosecutors starting with now Vice President Harris who has used that term to describe herself Progressive prosecutor uh followed by uh others in her mold George gascon uh and then chasa Bodin who was ultimately recalled from Office uh by voters now on a state level California law has essentially legalized many forms of crime making theft of merchandise below $950 a Mis demeanor as well as the POS possession of even class A drugs in practice this means offenders are rarely of ever prosecuted and in many cases businesses have stopped even reporting losses San Francisco's anti-law enforcement Pro policies have compounded these problems for example uh a few years ago in 2020 San Francisco defunded the police shifting $120 million away from law enforcement if you park your car while in the city the advice is just to leave the doors open and make make sure there are no valuables inside that will at least spare you the cost of replacing your windshield last year the Castro Merchants Association representing 125 business owners wrote a scathing scathing letter regarding the city's failure to address the lawlessness around them one said we're just seeing constant vandalism constant drug use in public people passed out on the sidewalk people having psychotic breakdowns and it's just not something a small business owner should have to deal with on top of these General problems relating relating to Crime retail theft car thefts is the issue of drug use walking through San Francisco you will see open drug use and drug dealing with an open air drug Market uh scene that is so rampant that even last year Governor Gavin Nome sent in the National Guard ostensibly to get it under control while California has among the most the highest rates of illegal drug use in the country San Francisco is well above the national average with 22% of the population in the San Francisco Oakland Fremont area using an illegal drug in the last year tragically the number of Overdose deaths has skyrocketed from 2020 from from 222 uh to now 647 in a given year things only got worse during the covid shutdowns as far more people in the city died from overdoses than from covid facing among the most punishing lockdowns in the country emergency room Mental Health visits increase substantially especially for young people it certainly doesn't help matter matters that the supply of drugs is so abundant thanks to the crisis at our border largely overseen uh by uh this administration's borders are vice president kamla Harris and it should be noted that San Francisco declared itself a sanctuary City long before California became a sanctuary State on that note the current Vice President also played a starring role when she was district attorney abiding by the city's Sanctuary policies and then when she was the state's attorney general she actually paved the way for California to become a sanctuary state by opposing a federal law meant to stop Sanctuary jurisdictions a third issue that one will confront immediately in San Francisco is homelessness and this is very much connected to the crisis of crime drug use and mental health the explosion of homelessness in San Francisco once again what California leads the nation in homelessness San Francisco is worst of all between 2005 and 2020 the number number of homeless increased from 5,44 to 8,124 during that same period homelessness declin significantly Nationwide within a three-year span complaints of homeless encampments to the city's 311 line increase from 2 to 62 each and every day meanwhile the share of the homeless population that is unsheltered has also gone up in recent years fourthly is the waste situation between 2014 and 2018 in San Francisco calls about human feces doubled to 2ou 2,933 $100 million was spent on street cleaning in 2019 alone in a three-year span the city replaced 300 lamp posts corroded by urine the overall condition of many areas is something that no American should ever have to experience especially kids walking to school speaking of kids San Francisco Unified has the second widest achievement gap of any School District in California with over 500 over 5,000 students a cal matters investigation from 2017 found that San Francisco had the worst black student achievement rate of any county in California just 19% of black students in San Francisco passed the state's reading test compared with 31% Statewide this was before Co while California was last in the nation and getting students back to school San Francisco was worst of all keeping schools closed not only in 2020 but through the end of the 2020 2021 school year while they refused to actually operate schools the district instead spent time on a commission to rename them even proposing taking Abraham Lincoln's name off of an elementary school the district then came up with a scheme to scam the state by pretending to open for the last two weeks of the school year in order to get millions of dollars in extra funding predictably test scores have since plummeted even further the citizens of San Francisco by the way responded by recalling three of the Schoolboard members from Office each by over 70% of the vote a fifth issue is bureaucracy it costs an estimated $100,000 to build one tiny home for the homeless 10 times more than even other places in the Bay Area almost 1.2 $1.2 million is the cost to build a single unit of affordable housing this is the city where it takes 87 permits 1,000 days of meetings and 500,000 nvs to build residential housing Pro projects San Francisco politicians boast that they brought home the bacon when they acquired a one point brought home a 1.7 million doll taxpayer funded toilet as the San Francisco Chronicle put it puts it San Francisco's bureaucracy isn't just incompetent and comically inefficient it is a corroding force in our life they say spiritually yes but also literally they call it corruption Board of born of needlessly complicated bureaucracy the public transportation system is a model of mismanagement with the Bay Area Rapid Transit facing a 1.1 billion dollar deficit over five years with trains that are dangerous to ride and that rarely show up on time no wonder ridership has plummeted and they're projecting a $728 million deficit this is for the city of the whole over the next two over a span of two fiscal years finally there's the cost of living a survey from The Economist intelligence unit found that San Francisco is one of the 10 most expensive cities to live in in the world average rent for a one-bedroom of department is over dollars according to data from the California Association of reals a San Franciscan needs to make nearly $400,000 to buy a median income home the cost of utilities groceries and other Goods is also well above the national average the city has simply become unaffordable for far too many people now this is the political situation this is the reality on the ground in San Francisco and it is directly linked to the political culture of radicalism that has developed in that City over the course of the last say decade and a half um and what's truly alarming is that many of the people who have had positions of leadership like Gavin Newsome and kamla Harris and Nancy Pelosi have assumed greater power over our state and over our country indeed uh California has seen its own population decline significantly in fact we led the nation and outbound U-Haul rentals over the course of four years as you saw many of those problems I just discussed for for uh San Francisco start to become uh problems for the entire State and are indeed now starting to become problems for the entire country now I personally believe it's not too late to turn that particular City around and for proof you can look at the communities of my district well California as a whole is declining and 53 out of 58 of its counties are declining the vast majority of my district is growing plaster County and fulam for instance are growing as much as anywhere in the state our communities are rated among the best in California to live raise a family and retire while California as I said leads the nation in U-Haul departures Roseville is the second place city in the entire country in U-Haul arrivals many of the people leaving San Francisco in fact come to my district for safer communities a more affordable cost of living better schools and an overall quality of life we still face headwinds of misguided policies enacted at the state level but we strive to use the tools of local governance and Community Partnerships to do what is do what is best for our citizens this is the model that our state should strive for and it's the model that many other states are following and it's the model for our country to reverse the policies that have gotten us so off track in three years if we are going to get ourselves back on the right trajectory as a country then we should indeed look to s s Francisco as a model but it is a model of precisely what not to do