‘I come from a third world country and it’s not as bad as this’: San Francisco’s homelessness and opioid crises drive away business, as $40m convention cancels because members are too SCARED to walk alone
Convention is canceling its meeting in San Francisco because its board members feel unsafe in the city
Said it had three main concerns: open drug use, threatening behavior and mental illness on display
Last year, a board member was assaulted near the Moscone Center, where conventions are usually held
Tourism is a big business in San Francisco, bringing in around $9billion a year and employing 80,000 people
Mayor-elect London Breed is being urged to increase police foot presence and mental health services
Roughly 7,500 people in the city are homeless and an estimated 22,000 are intravenous drug users
DAILYMAIL.COM
4 July 2018
San Francisco’s spiraling homelessness and opioid crisis is starting to drive away business and tourists, and a $40million medical convention has cancelled after its attendees complained they were too scared to walk the streets alone.
DailyMail.com’s shocking photos of San Francisco, on Tuesday, capture a city in turmoil; with homeless people passed out on the sidewalks, shooting up in the streets and begging for survival.
The issue has become so dire that Chicago-based organizers of a five-day, semi-annual medical convention, which attracts around 15,000 people and pumps $40 million into the local economy, have announced they are moving the event to Los Angeles.
They are blaming the appalling state of San Francisco’s streets where open drug use and threatening behavior are now common.
Post-convention surveys also found the city’s rocketing levels of homelessness and people suffering from serious mental illness on the streets, meant some members were afraid to leave their hotel. One board member was assaulted near Moscone Center last year.
And there are fears that this cancellation could be the tip of the iceberg.
If the city doesn’t act soon to clear up it’s streets, tourism officials warn that it will have a dire impact on tourism, which is San Francisco’s biggest industry, generating $9 billion a year, $725 million in local taxes and providing employment to around 80,000 people. Conventions represent almost 20 per cent of the tourism revenue, bringing in $1.7 billion of the business.
‘It’s the first time that we have had an out-and-out cancellation over the issue, and this is a group that has been coming here every three or four years since the 1980s,’ said Joe D’Alessandro, the president and CEO of S.F. Travel, who declined to name the convention.
‘There was a time when the biggest obstacle to having a convention here was that it can be expensive,’ he said, ‘but now we have this new factor’.
D’Alessandro said other conventions have also expressed concerns.
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