Report: Trump To Address San Francisco Homelessness During Visit
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) -- When President Donald Trump travels to the Bay Area on Tuesday for a fundraiser, CNN is reporting the president is also "anticipated to join" his housing secretary, Ben Carson, in San Francisco to talk about solving the homeless crisis.
In his two years in office, the crisis of homelessness has never been at the top of President Trump's agenda, but recently he has begun blasting California and the Bay Area in particular for how the situation has been handled.
"We're going to give them notice. In fact, we gave them notice today," the president declared at a rally in Baltimore on Thursday. "Clean it up, they've go to do something. These are our great American cities and they're an embarrassment what the democrats have let happen."
Where will Tuesday's fundraising event take place? So far, no officials will say.
"Everybody would like to know where the event is but due to Bay Area failure on the president's prior trip as 'candidate Trump' to keep attendees of the event in San Jose safe, I'm sure the secret service is particularly concerned about that issue," said Harmeet Dhillon, a California Republican committeewoman from San Francisco and member of the Trump re-election campaign.
Dhillon is referring to a melee in San Jose at a Trump campaign event in 2016 that led to fisticuffs between protesters and Trump supporters. Dhillon believes the president can make a difference with the crisis of homelessness.
"I live in a very liberal city. Probably 95% of my neighbors on my streets are Democrats. A hundred percent of us believe the crisis is exacerbated by a failure of leadership by the government," Dhillon said.
As for Tuesday's schedule, CNN is quoting a source who is reporting the president will join his secretary of housing, Ben Carson, in San Francisco on Tuesday to talk about "homelessness opportunity zones."
"What he's trying to do is do what Trump always does which is exploit an issue that he sees, give red meat to his base, and talk about doing something when he's actually not going to do anything," said Democratic Assemblyman David Chiu.
Chiu, who is chair of the Assembly's Housing committee, says the president's opportunity zones appear to be an extension of the president's tax cut program.
"The idea that he's going to try to use tax breaks for his wealthiest billionaire friends to try to assist homeless folks doesn't strike us as particularly credible but we look forward to hearing what the president has to say," Chiu said.
