The General Services Administration rejected calls to shut down the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco, insisting the crime-ridden property is still safe enough for government employees to show up for work.
GSA, in a letter to Sen. Joni Ernst, said agencies are free to make their own decisions about letting employees work from home over safety concerns but said they don’t see a reason to shutter the building.
“The building is a safe and secure space for Federal employees and the visiting public,” GSA said in the letter, which The Washington Times has reviewed.
That’s tough to square with San Francisco’s crime data that shows 20 criminal incidents on the street in front of the building in February alone, including a strong-arm robbery, three grand thefts and an assault with serious bodily injury.
“Federal employees shouldn’t have to fear for their lives trying to get to and from work. That is why I am calling on the GSA to shut down this building until it no longer poses a threat to public safety,” the senator told The Times in a statement.
The situation spiraled over the summer as employees complained of muggings and having to push their way through open-air drug sales to get into their offices.
It was so bad that Health and Human Services, one of the federal agencies that occupies the building, urged employees to telework.
“Sometimes I come home and cry after seeing what I see,” a federal employee told the San Francisco Standard last fall.
Those sentiments prompted Ms. Ernst to demand answers from GSA in late October.
Since then, the city’s crime map shows 92 criminal incidents outside the building. There were seven weapons offenses, one robbery, one serious assault, five frauds, 10 grand thefts, three sex crimes and a host of drug and alcohol cases.
GSA’s headquarters in Washington is relatively safe in comparison. The capital city’s crime map shows just two incidents of theft in the surrounding streets during the last four months and no assaults or robberies at all.
The Times asked GSA whether it tracks crime data and how it makes decisions on building security. The agency didn’t respond to those inquiries.
A 2017 report by the Congressional Research Service said the government struggles with evaluating risks at its buildings.
A brief comparison, though, suggests the Pelosi building is a significant outlier in terms of crime.
The Times looked at some of the agencies that are tenants in the San Francisco building and compared them to their headquarters buildings in Washington and found that, like GSA, their employees here were far safer.
The crime map for the streets around HHS’s headquarters in southwest Washington shows just one criminal incident from November until now — a theft. The Agriculture Department also recorded just one theft around its D.C. headquarters.
The Transportation Department was somewhat more troubling, with 12 incidents from November through late February, including one robbery. The other incidents were all thefts of some sort or another.
The Times reached out to labor union representatives at the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents employees at many of those agencies that work in the building, but did not receive replies.
HHS also didn’t respond to questions about its current work posture at the Pelosi building.
In GSA’s Feb. 15 letter to Ms. Ernst, Associate Administrator Gianelle Rivera said they have made enhancements to try to keep people safe.
Officers from the Federal Protective Service, a Homeland Security division that polices government buildings, have stepped up patrols and now man “secure checkpoints” at the building. FPS also adds more manpower during the morning and afternoon commutes to help employees get into and out of work safely, Ms. Rivera said.
She said GSA and FPS hold biweekly meetings to talk about the building, GSA runs a monthly safety meeting with the federal agency tenants and has contracted with a firm to suggest other security improvements.
And in a symbolically freighted move, FPS added fencing to block off some areas.
The use of a fence by a Homeland Security agency has drawn scorn because the department has opposed similar fence-building exercises on the southern border.
Ms. Rivera said they resorted to fencing because it works.
“The purpose of the fencing is to change the behavior of people in the immediate vicinity of the building,” she wrote.
That is the same reasoning Border Patrol agents give for why they supported President Trump’s border wall construction, saying it changes migrants’ crossing patterns and funnels them into areas where agents can nab them.
Homeland Security didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.
The building opened in 2007 at the corner of Seventh and Mission Streets. It was supposed to be groundbreaking in its design, with “sustainability” features, a “democratic layout” for employees and a special focus on letting the public have access via a large plaza.
Congress added Mrs. Pelosi’s name to the building in 2022 as a parting gift when she finished her history-making second term as speaker of the House.
Ms. Ernst said there was something striking about the building being named after Mrs. Pelosi, who maintains a district office in the building.
“Perhaps it’s fitting that this over-imposing building plagued by theft and criminal activity, where little — if any — work is being done on behalf of the people, stands as a memorial to the legacy of the former speaker of the House,” Mr. Ernst added.
Reached this week, Mrs. Pelosi’s spokesperson Aaron Bennett pointed back to a statement from last summer, when the HHS work-from-home directive first went out, saying they had met with the U.S. attorney’s office to discuss safety.
“Federal, state and local law enforcement — in coordination with public health officials and stakeholders — are working hard to address the acute crises of fentanyl trafficking and related violence in certain areas of the city,” Mr. Bennett said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.