Hundreds of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services in San Francisco have been told to work from home due to the high level of crime in the area around its office, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The department recommended that employees worked remotely “for the foreseeable future,” the report says, citing an August 4 memo sent to staff, a copy of which the Chronicle said it had obtained.
The advice was given to workers “in light of the conditions at the (Federal Building),” Cheryl R. Campbell, assistant secretary for administration at the department, said, per the report.
The Federal Building is located at 90 7th Street in San Francisco, which is known to be a drug hotspot, with dealers often peddling drugs near or across the street from the building, the Chronicle reported.
Two men were charged in May on suspicion of carrying out drug deals in full view of surveillance cameras from the Federal Building, per a June press release from the US attorney’s office.
San Francisco has been battling a drug epidemic and a homelessness crisis in recent years.
The California governor’s office said in June that in just six weeks the California Highway Patrol had seized more than four kilos of fentanyl in the Tenderloin and the “immediate surrounding area” of San Francisco.
It claimed that this was “enough to kill” the city’s entire population nearly three times over.
Elon Musk has also spoken out about crime in the city, where his company X, formerly known as Twitter, is headquartered.
“Violent crime in SF is horrific,” Musk said in a tweet in April.
The US Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
Source: Insider
