Less than a month after Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, San Francisco is reverting to a den of homelessness and drugs, according to locals.
"It's recognizable. San Francisco, same as before. Anyone they pushed out of important zones has just slowly crept right back in," Crossfit Golden Gate Gym owner Danielle Rabkin said on "Varney & Co" Tuesday.
In November, President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jingping met during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit (APEC) in San Francisco for a much-anticipated face-to-face — the first since the two leaders met in Indonesia in November 2022.
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Prior to the event, the host city was cleaned up for the arrival of foreign leaders, including President Xi.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., was criticized on social media after admitting that San Francisco, nationally infamous for homelessness, timed a massive cleanup effort ahead of the important U.S.-China summit.
"I know folks are saying, 'Oh they're just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming to town.' That's true, because it's true," Newsom said last month at the unveiling of a new program to plant trees in urban neighborhoods as part of his Clean California initiative launched in 2021.
He added, "It's also true for months and months and months before APEC, we've been having different conversations, and we've raised the bar of expectation between the city, the county, and the state and our federal partners."
Despite the clean-up efforts, Golden Gate City has gone back to "business as usual," leaving business owners like Rabkin to deal with a "tremendously difficult" reality.
"I have vagrants lying in front of the business all the time," the gym owner said. "It's unpleasant. People don't want to live here."
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"I think that's the number one thing that potential customers and customers from the past have left. People don't want to live in a city that's this expensive with such a high cost of living, in such a low quality of life. Nobody wants to be subjected to dodging human feces and needles on sidewalks and exposing their children to open-air intravenous drug use. It's really unpleasant."
The city has considered employing a nonprofit to head homeless outreach programs, spending roughly $37 million. However, the city has spent around $1 billion since 2021 to fix the persistent problem.
"$37 million is a drop in the bucket. Like you said, we spend $1 billion. The city has a $14 billion budget. It's only seven by seven square miles, 49 miles. I don't know where this money's going. I don't know how it's going to be spent. But it's unfathomable that the problem is as bad as it is with the money that is spent," she said.
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Rabkin added that city leaders should stop giving the homeless the option to pitch their tents and live on the streets.
"It's not an option to pitch a tent and sleep on the street. It's not hygienic, it's not humane and it's not right for the law-abiding taxpayers."
FOX News' Jeffrey Clark, Brandon Gillespie and Alexander Hall contributed to this report.
