San Francisco’s HHS Office to Close in ‘Irresponsible’ Federal Health Cuts, Pelosi Says

The Trump administration will shutter San Francisco’s Department of Health and Human Services office this spring, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s office confirmed Tuesday as thousands of layoffs began amid wide cuts to the federal health agency.

The regional office, located in the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building at 7th and Mission streets, is the home of federal health programs like Medicaid and Medicare, substance abuse and mental health resources and HIV/AIDS care for the western states of California, Arizona, Hawaii and Nevada, along with six nearby American territories.

It also employs hundreds of San Franciscans, who are among those across the department who began receiving layoff notices on Tuesday morning, according to reporting from the Associated Press.

“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 hard working Californians,” Pelosi said in a statement to KQED.

The nationwide layoffs are part of a massive overhaul led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who announced last week that in the name of the administration’s focus on “government efficiency,” the department would terminate about an eighth of the workforce, or around 10,000 people. Combined with another 10,000 who have already left via early retirement or other means, the department is expected to shrink from about 82,000 employees to 62,000.

Kennedy announced in a statement that he plans to downsize the department, which is responsible for monitoring global trends and disease outbreaks, as well as conducting medical research and housing the Food and Drug Administration and federal health insurance programs.

He plans to halve the number of regional offices, like San Francisco’s, and decrease the number of divisions within the agency.

Notably, the new “Administration for a Healthy America” would merge the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry with three other agencies to “improve coordination of health resources for low income Americans.”

Pelosi said she and other Congress members were “examining all possible avenues to fight back against these irresponsible cuts,” saying that the decision is “shortsighted” and will slow down services for San Franciscans.

“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,” Pelosi wrote in her statement.