A federal Cabinet agency wants people to avoid the Nancy Pelosi Building. It’s too unsafe.
The Department of Health and Human Services recently warned its San Francisco staff, which is housed in that building named for the former House speaker, to work from home due to unsafe, high-crime conditions in nearby neighborhoods.
The building, run by the General Services Administration and protected by Federal Protective Services officers, also holds offices of the Departments of Labor and Transportation, as well as the office of the eponymous Democrat, whose House district contains the building.
On Aug. 4, HHS Assistant Secretary for Administration Cheryl Campbell sent out a memo addressing all agency employees in “Region IX,” an appellation that includes California and other states in the Western U.S.
Employees currently teleworking as well as those choosing not to telework were told to make the switch to working from home for the foreseeable future due to the unspecified “conditions” near the Pelosi building in the city’s SoMa (South of Market) neighborhood, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which acquired the memo last week.
The GSA insists that use of the building is still safe.
“The building is a safe and secure space for federal employees and the visiting public. There are a number of security controls GSA employs to make sure the building is safe including Federal Protective Services officers at the building and secure checkpoints,” GSA Public Affairs Officer Richard Stebbins told the Chronicle.
The building itself might be well-policed, but that isn’t the end of the story.
The unsafe conditions alluded to in the HHS memo include the activity of a large open-air drug market near the federal building.
San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey, whose District 6 includes the SoMa neighborhood, said that crime issues also had decimated staff positions at a nearby day-care center used by the federal employees.
“They shared with me that they are doing everything they can to hire people to do child-care work and among 18-19 applications, a large majority of them decided they had no interest in working there once they found out where the location was,” Mr. Dorsey told KGO-TV.
Maintaining the levels of police necessary to mitigate the drug, crime and homelessness issues had also proven difficult, Mr. Dorsey elaborated.
While the other tenants have made no indication of having employees stick to their homes, one former law enforcement official and current area security consultant was not surprised at the move given the state of the SoMa neighborhood.
“SoMa is one of those places in the city where I have a hard time getting my employees to go to for jobs, because they just don’t feel safe going there. … This is all the continued culmination of years and years of policy changes, crime problems, and so much more. They’re making federal agencies, who are usually all in on a location for a long time, want to work remotely,” Frank Ma told the California Globe.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.