Pelosi calls San Francisco HHS office closure 'shortsighted'

SAN FRANCISCO - The Trump administration has announced plans to close the San Francisco Department of Health and Human Services office this spring.

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, in a statement issued Tuesday morning, called the decision "shortsighted."

"The HHS Region 9 office in San Francisco directly serves the needs of millions of Americans in the Bay Area, the state of California and beyond," Pelosi said in a statement. "By closing our regional office, the Trump Administration would choose to put the health and safety of Bay Area residents and all Californians in jeopardy, gut vital public health initiatives like the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, and potentially axe hundreds of career civil servant jobs held by hardworking Californians.

Pelosi said she and her colleagues are "examining all possible avenues to fight back," and urged the administration to reconsider.

Impacts

Local perspective:

Tyler TerMeer, the CEO of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation said the closure could seriously impact his organization's mission.

"We are concerned about the ability of HHS to coordinate services and programming without a local office that knows our city and the region," TerMeer said. "Any small change is a significant hit to us, and so a closure like this is an abrupt hit to our progress."

Former HHS employee Tina Warren said the closure was "very sad."

"This is an office that has a purpose that I really love and care about," Warren said. "I worry about the people who benefit from this program, and my colleagues. I understand there's a desire to reduce the federal workforce, but this isn't the right way to do it. It seems unnecessary and confusing for everybody."

The HHS Region 9 office, located in the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building at 7th and Mission Streets, is home to federal health programs including Medicare and Medicaid, as well as resources for substance abuse and mental health. The facility also houses the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program, which serves California, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada and six American territories.

"This shortsighted office closure would lead to critical service slowdowns for San Franciscans to get the resources they need and detrimental impacts to our public health response capabilities – all in the name of so-called ‘government efficiency,’" Pelosi said. "It is notable that this reported decision was made by the Trump Administration’s leading vaccine denialist, Secretary Kennedy, whose extreme views on public health are out of step with the vast majority of the American people. Make no mistake: the reported plans to restructure HHS and close the San Francisco regional office would directly harm our most vulnerable communities and make America sicker."

Featured

article

Mass layoffs begin at HHS, CDC, NIH, FDA

Lines of HHS employees arrived at work Tuesday to see if they still had a job, by checking if their badges still worked.

Zooming out

Big picture view:

The closure is part of a larger effort to reduce spending on public health initiatives. HHS announced on March 27 a "dramatic restructuring" that would shrink its workforce from 82,000 employees to 62,000, and reduce the number of regional offices from 10 to five.

That news came only a few days after the department announced plans to terminate $11 billion in funding for state and local public health agencies across the country. California stands to lose $972 million in public health funding if the order is carried out.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced on Tuesday that he has filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration, arguing the termination is unlawful.

He and 22 other attorneys general have formed a coalition that brought the suit against HHS and its Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The suit marks the ninth such case against the administration.

What's at stake

What they're saying:

"Over and over, I've made clear that my office will only take legal action against the Trump Administration when it breaks the law. Unfortunately, but predictably, that has happened once again," Bonta said in a statement. "Congress explicitly authorized funding for the grants at issue to help keep our country healthy and protect us from future pandemics. HHS and its Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cannot unilaterally do away with that critical federal funding. We know how high the stakes are in our respective states — thousands of jobs and key public health programs and initiatives could be eliminated."

Those HHS funds go toward grants that support public health initiatives including:

• Identifying, tracking and addressing infectious diseases
• Ensuring access to immunizations
• Modernizing critical public health infrastructure

The Trump administration stated funding for those grants is "no longer necessary" because the grants were appropriated through laws stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, which is over.

The lawsuit alleges that termination notices violate the Administration Procedures Act because they are "arbitrary and capricious," and that there was no assessment of the grants or analysis of the benefits of the funding, nor of the consequences of termination.