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Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advised hundreds of employees in San Francisco to work remotely for the foreseeable future due to public safety concerns outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building on Seventh Street.
The imposing, 18-story tower on the corner of Seventh and Mission streets houses various federal agencies, including HHS, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the office of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. The area is also home to one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets, where dozens of dealers and users congregate on a daily basis.
HHS Assistant Secretary for Administration Cheryl R. Campbell issued the stay-home recommendation in an Aug. 4 memo to regional leaders.
“In light of the conditions at the (Federal Building) we recommend employees … maximize the use of telework for the foreseeable future,” Campbell wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Chronicle.
“This recommendation should be extended to all Region IX employees, including those not currently utilizing telework flexibilities,” Campbell wrote, referring to the federal government zone that includes California and other Western states.
The memo came on the same day that, according to Axios, President Biden’s White House chief of staff called for more federal employees to return to their offices after years of remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was not immediately clear whether other tenants in the building had issued similar directives. Officials with Pelosi’s office and the Department of Labor said they have been working closely with local and federal law enforcement to ensure safety for their staffers, but they have not advised employees to work from home.
The building has long been a locus of some of the city’s most intractable problems.
Dozens of dealers routinely plant themselves on, next to or across the street from the property, operating in shifts as users smoke, snort or shoot up their recent purchases. The property’s concrete benches are an especially popular site for users to get high, socialize or pass out.
While Pelosi’s five-person staff was not advised to work remotely, she raised concerns about the building’s tenant safety last week in a meeting with the U.S. attorney for the northern district of California, according to officials with her office.
“The safety of workers in our federal buildings has always been a priority for Speaker Emerita Pelosi, whether in the building or on their commutes,” Pelosi spokesperson Aaron Bennett said in a statement.
“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.”
Pelosi recently secured more federal law enforcement assistance in cracking down on the city’s fentanyl crisis in the Tenderloin and SoMa areas. San Francisco is one of the cities included in a federal program called Operation Overdrive, which targets drug traffickers in areas with the highest levels of drug-related violence and overdoses.
The Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building is maintained by the federal General Services Administration, and policing is handled by Federal Protective Services.
Richard Stebbins, a public affairs officer for GSA, said the agency coordinates with San Francisco police to enhance safety outside of the building, which includes routine patrols and camera systems around the perimeter of the building.
“The building is a safe and secure space for federal employees and the visiting public,” Stebbins said in an email to the Chronicle. “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.”
Officials with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Federal Protective Service, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But a tenant of the building familiar with recent decisions said the agency and GSA have recently implemented a number of new security measures to address safety concerns. This included pulling FPS personnel from other nearby properties for additional security, a pending vote on funds for an additional “roving” guard dedicated to the property, and creating a “BART Buddies” program that has escorts on call from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. to walk employees to and from BART.
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