January 15, 2024
Keith Lee Sheds Light On Bay Area Homelessness Crisis, Joined by JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon
London Breed, San Francisco’s mayor, tried to downplay Dimon’s comments, but according to SFGate, 66% of voters disapprove of her performance.
MMA fighter turned food reviewer Keith Lee abruptly ended his planned tour of the Bay Area and, in a video explaining why, the TikTok star described the conditions of the people living in the area.
“The people in the Bay are just focused on surviving…the amount of tents…and burnt-up cars that we saw people living in was shocking to say the least,” said Lee, who has 15.6 million followers on the platform.
As CBS News reports, Lee had a glowing review for the Luxe Box, a small, family-owned business. Alysse Williams, the owner of the shop, welcomed Lee’s criticism. “I was glad he brought awareness to it so it can grab the attention of people that can actually help us.”
Lee is not the only figure to criticize the Bay area recently, according to Fortune. In an interview with Fox Business, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase CEO, said “San Francisco is in far worse shape than New York.”
“I think every city, like every country, should be thinking about what makes an attractive city,” Dimon said. “It’s parks, it’s art, but it’s definitely safety, it’s jobs and job creation, it’s the ability to have affordable housing. Any city that doesn’t do a good job will lose its population.”
Dimon pushed for San Francisco to address the affordable housing problem that the city is facing.
“Some of these great companies here, if they can grow jobs here, (San Francisco) it’s great for the city,” he said. “But they need housing. If they can’t get the permits to build affordable housing, they can’t build a new [office] building here and bring in high paid employees.”
London Breed, San Francisco’s mayor, tried to downplay Dimon’s comments, but according to SFGate, 66% of voters disapprove of her performance. Their disapproval centers on voter perception of how she is handling the city’s crime, safety, and housing issues.
Adam Probolsky, whose firm conducted the polling, told SFGate that those numbers should worry Breed’s campaign.
If you want to suggest that this is a close race, go ahead. If you want to suggest that this is a race that’s still to be decided, that’s reasonable, too. But if you are an incumbent mayor, and you have a county supervisor who has—let’s say one-tenth of the TV time … and press time that you do —in the lead, that is a pretty remarkable scenario,” he said.
Parisa Safarzadeh, Breed’s spokesperson, emphasized the mayor’s work around public safety, the economy, and the city’s workforce.
“These efforts have yielded significant progress and milestones.” Safarzadeh said, adding that the city’s homeless rate has dropped to levels it hasn’t been at since 2017. Homeless encampments have decreased by 17% over the last half of 2023.
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