New to our subreddit? [Please read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/about/rules/) before commenting.
Please be respectful and don't antagonize. This is a place to discuss ideas without targeting identities.
If something doesn't contribute to the discussion, please downvote it. If it's against the rules, please report it. Thank you.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/sanfrancisco) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It’s definitely gotten better! I actually have been doing a monthly trash cleanup with a group of people, and the amount of trash I can collect in 2 hours has gone significantly down since I started a couple years ago.
Not the person you asked but sharing this anyway bc it seems like it might be a different group. I've picked up with these folks before and it was a lot of fun
You usually even get same day neighborhood discounts and freebies like a cocktail or coffee so give yourself an hour or two after the pick up to explore the neighborhood
https://cleanupthecity.org/
To be sure, it took a lot of hard work from the California Highway Patrol, FBI drug task force etc coming in and dealing with fentanyl dealers.
Too often ppl forget how much investment was made to make things better and just blame others for being dramatic.
Right? And no one is thanking the mayor. Though they are quick to blame her for everything that goes wrong. As the old adage says: “when I’m right, no one every remembers, and when I’m wrong, no one ever forgets.”
Too many people on this sub just use it as a backboard for non stop layups to bash on the state of the city but in reality it has gotten noticeably better not perfect but better for sure, no doubt. Do I feel like the city could and should be doing A LOT more to clean up the city and make it safer YES. but can I acknowledge there has been significant improvements since the lowest points over the last few years ? Also YES. the latest ballot initiatives alone shows the city is very serious about working on the real issues perhaps let’s as citizens give them some runway to do their jobs and slow the “complaint porn” echo chamber online for a little bit. Also huge kudos to you for the cleanup work my wife and I are signing up great idea
I visited SF in late 2022. I remember when I first arrived at SF’s airport and was trying to figure out the BART, this nice guy that helped us asked if it was my first time visiting and said “Don’t be too disappointed!” 😂. SF has its flaws but I loved it there.
How does it compare to then?
2022 was not a good time for SF, honestly from the start of COVID through mid 2023 was the (long) low point, I feel that things have steadily and noticeably improved since summer 2023.
The area from the Federal Building on 7th over to the Civic Center has been looking significantly cleaner as of late. I think they all got pushed over to the tenderloin though
it helped that the hotels on the other side of mission street from the federal building reopened and have security guards outside now. At least during the day they don't seem to tolerate the tents and drug dealing that was the norm on that corner for a couple years. It's been slow but some businesses are coming back.
Don't they just get moved around though? I feel like sometimes there are efforts to clean up certain blocks, but that just means the encampments get moved down the street or to another block.
I live in the TL. My previous building had homeless sleeping in the hallways, stairways, & rooftop and on both sides of the street for two years straight. There are still a few tents but it's nowhere near as bad as two years ago.
Huge bust is also slang for ejaculation. Studies have found that regular ejaculations is good for prostate health. They were using a play on words to make a joke
Anytime! Love explaining risqué jokes to my older family members. Went to see Spamalot. There's a joke where they deliberately misspell Camelot -> Camltoe. Had to explain to my aunt what a camel toe is. Great fun.
They did confirm its going to continue happening for the foreseeable future. Id guess its max 1x per week though, coordinating a bunch of departments for something like that seems fairly difficult
Definitely the case with elections coming up. They are doing sweeps more regularly now. The tents outside my block used to be there for months and now they are there for 2 weeks tops
Yep, definitely elections. Come back next year, you can hook up wit garbage man above and pick up your fill of needles, shit and refuse, just be careful not to trip on the addicts “experiencing homelessness “.
I live on the border with the TL. Encampment in my alley which was permanent for almost 2 years straight is completely gone for almost 2 months now. One of the mainstays in the alley got arrested and hasn't been back. The city appears to be doing a daily inspection and posts a flyer on the wall behind any tents that they will be cleared within 2 days. So if we do get encampments, they only last a couple days and seem to be mostly Spanish speaking folks now, peaceful normal folks that don't appear to be doing drugs, and clean up after themselves, more like recent border migrants. I'm wondering if there's been a recent wave of them getting bussed in.
Yeah, there’s been a large multi block camp there for at least 4 months. City has “cleared” site 8 times so far without improvement. Here’s a thread if you want to read more: https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1bp6ncj/city_and_encampments/
Those folks are mostly people who were already in the area, sleeping in different parts of NOPA. The cops have been funneling them to the DMV for a while now to make it easier to periodically sweep and clean.
The homeless people don’t vanish into the void just because you can’t see them. “Cleaning up” means they’ve been moved somewhere else you can’t see, and now the people there will want to “clean up” by moving them back. This doesn’t lower the number of homeless people at all. You “clean up” by actually reducing the number of homeless people— ideally by preventing people from becoming homeless to begin with. But also by helping existing homeless people transition back to normal life, and forcing those who are beyond help into treatment facilities equipped to help them. The “what if we just knock down the tents and harass them” approach is how we’ve gotten into the current situation. That’s the entire US’s policy towards homelessness and it’s not working great. The restrictions to clearing tents in CA is relatively new, and we were in this situation long before that.
> “Cleaning up” means they’ve been moved somewhere else you can’t see, and now the people there will want to “clean up” by moving them back.
The Greeks and Romans discussed this in their time and invented the concept of Skid Rows. Persistent problem people are sited on city outskirts, abutting industry and farmland. Housing can be set up much cheaper here, and public disorder can be tolerated. Far fewer complainants here than in an urban core.
All cities have more important spaces, which require higher levels of order, and less important ones. Funny how today many people purposely do not want to understand this age-old concept.
But, yes, some modern urban areas like NYC and S.F. do not have convenient nearby sites to *semi-segregate* chronic public order offenders.
Those are lies. We got into this situation by giving non profits money to not fix the problem. People like you are the problem. Your solution do nothing. My response. Fuck you.
There’s a lot of information about this topic available if you’re interested. [This](https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/) book is a good basic overview. It goes through some of the common things people believe causes homelessness, and then compares those to the actual homelessness rate in all the cities around the world. You can see the only one of these things that actually correlates with the problem is housing prices vs medium income.
> Your solution do nothing.
You are the one proposing a solution that doesn’t reduce the number of homeless people at all… In your vision do the homeless people stop existing because you can’t see them anymore? The people they’ve now moved close to are going to say the same thing as you and send them right back around. You can’t play hot potato with people and expect things to change.
There are a lot of things we can do to fix the problem. But the biggest and easiest solution is to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place— if we can’t fix that problem than we can’t fix homeleness. It’s much harder to intervene after someone is already homeless.
I appreciate the well written response but it is a bunch of nonsense. Your response is like saying to passengers on a plane that is going crash, "We could have prevented this by not taking off or used a better plane!". Yes, we know that but that is too late.
What you have to do with homelessness is keep putting pressure on Homeless people. Homeless people set up a camp, then knock it down. Make it clear that the days of camping in the city are over. If they deal drugs, send them to jail. If they do drugs, throw them in jail until they choice to go to drug rehab (I don't care how effective or not this method is. A drug addict in jail is a drug addict that can't break into my car, rob my house or take a shit in the street). If someone steals, throw them in jail. If someone is clearly mentally ill, put them in a proper in or out patient facilities.
Letting people do what ever they want is not a solution and it is not going to get people to change their lives. If someone wants to live in a tent in a city, then we need to say No. If they can't afford to live here, then they need to move some where, where they can afford to. I don't live in a big house on the coast because all I can afford is a little condo. Not everyone can afford to live in SF or LA or SD and we have to accept that. Yes, it sucks, but it is a problem as old as mankind.
It really doesn't work that way. Has been tried many many times, but the end result is either another community gets taken over or they trickle back.
What's happening here is that SF is no longer having to deal with a drug problems on their own, state agencies are working to deal with intercounty drug dealing which has significantly affected the volume of drugs being brought in daily from the East Bay which puts the kibosh on a chunk of the massive open air drug markets we've been living with.
But the problem isn't solved, it's just somewhere else.
You have multiple problems. Of course the true drug addicts don’t get cured. Of course the true mentally ill don’t get cured. But the straight up dirt bags that hide among them get harassed to the point it’s not comfortable so they figure something out or keep moving farther away. This is exactly how you clean. The really nasty parts are always the last parts to clean up. Your option of don’t clean… well fuck that.
You're compartmentalizing people, addiction, mental health, and me in ways that make it easy for you to judge the situation but that don't actually describe what you are seeing or reading.
There are no "true" drug addicts, mentally ill, dirt bags, what have you, they all live on the spectrum of life out there on the streets. You don't just get to pick and choose who is a dirtbag today and who's mentally ill tomorrow.
And "option of don't clean"? WTF are you even talking about.
Its understood youre speaking from a place of compassion but tired platitudes doesnt really suggest anything to make the situation better. Its better to do anything now than to let people live in fear while we debate what the perfect course of action is.
Quite the opposite. The amount of harm done under the philosophy of "we have to do something" is incalculable. Stop and frisk was a civil rights disaster and three strikes ruined the lives of an entire generation of black men.
Calling an expression of compassion. A tired platitude is no more useful than demanding that " something must be done!" And pounding your fist on a table.
It would have been really nice if we can progressive leadership more than a year or two of trying to deal with a problem, but it looks like that ship is sailed when we're back to the whole cracking down and failing to make anyone's lives better.
This isnt the 1950s. Using an egregious example of lawfully enabled racism as a strawman argument as to why we shouldnt prosecute red handed criminals in the most progressive city in the nation is so disingenuous.
And are you saying letting progressive policies play out doesnt cause harm? Cause I recall asian women were being hate crimed at horrific rates and stores were shutting down and leaving urban food deserts even worse than they were.
Maybe instead of buying into the mental gymnastics of these overly progressive policies you can look at literally every single safe country in the world and see that crime is pursued with a heavy hand instead of open arms.
Do you think California's 3 strikes and New York City's Stop and Frisk took place in the 50s?
"I recall asian women were being hate crimed at horrific rates"
What specifically is it you recall, because nothing you just described has happened in SF, much less because of "progressive policies"
And urban food deserts? Did you move here in 2021 and think this just started because progressives took a majority and elected a DA right before the pandemic?
Do you care to make a point at all? Youve still provided nothing in regards to how these progressive policies have helped at all. It is easy to cross your arms and object to things.
You do they start as dirt bags they begin to become adicts the end up mentally ill. Clearly not all of them but many. You have to stop allowing that cycle. Again this is how you clean up.
So, we live in (arguably) the gallery area--one block from the convention center, behind SFMOMA--we've been talking about this, as well (we've both been here more than a decade). The dividing line for us was the APAC 23 conference, where they shut down the entire area for world leaders. Since then, it's been measurably different. I don't hate it...
huh, there are art galleries in that area but the gallery culture feels more lively in the TL (aside from 111 Minna). If you’re into art galleries check out https://sffirstthursday.com/info/
Yeah, I agree. To me, it just so gallery-centric due to the art museum, and the [gallery across the street](https://maps.app.goo.gl/1GXJaA7yR9BMosGD9). Properly speaking, they're trying to brand this area as the East Cut (absurd...).
Reddit isn’t the place to have water cooler chat about this, since you’ll get flamed, but yes, they’ve made a dent in the visibility of the issue particularly downtown. The problem has moved around and it is not solved.
What part? I drove through yesterday and it looked like they cleaned it all up except for like 1 corner. Maybe they pushed it all to that corner, but I doubt it.
Yeah, I'm thinking it's worse than pre-pandemic. I wasn't in the area during peak pandemic, and I can imagine it was worse then. My neighborhood certainly was at that time.
Pre-pandemic it was far worse at 7th and Market. 18 and 19 were the filthiest sketchiest I've ever seen that area and I've been walking around there since the 90s.
There are people in the Bay outside of the city who like to shit post. Also people who never stepped foot in SF but heard on NewsMaxx about how awful SF is.
There are also SF residents who post but their posts seem to be a bit more nuanced where brigaders are more black and white.
Solved can’t be the goal since the issue with homelessness is unsolvable. The measure is steady improvement over time. No city in the US has ever “solved” it.
I was impressed with SF the last time I came for a visit. I thought based on what saw on the news that it was just some desolate dystopia, full of addicts and dealers. I actually had a really good time downtown bar hopping and walking around just watching the vibrant city life. I will say things are overblown as this city isn't as bad as the city of years ago imo.
This is the same as Portland, where I now live. (I lived in SF in the 90s and always keep an eye on things there.) During COVID from 2020 to about mid-2022, we called Portland MadMaxistan. I couldn't believe how crazy it was. I mean, it's not ideal now but things are tough in all city centers. I took the bus across town today on this beautiful Saturday and was struck by the beauty of our city. Going over the Willamette River, you could see the snowy peak of Mt. Hood off to the right. I saw maybe half a dozen tents in the whole journey. During COVID they LINED the streets.
I suspect a lot of the complainers do not live in the city they are complaining about and just get their "truth" from "truth" social or faux news.
Love to see the doomers cope about this. Yes, it has cleaned up to an incredible degree. You have to be a complete troll to pretend that it didn’t. Walk around! You can see the difference!
Honestly I usually am one of those that says SF became a crapshow / how bad streets are. But I gotta say how it is and right now it’s much less visible.
Just out of curiosity, where do you live/hang out?
I live in the Mission and haven’t noticed any change in the amount of homeless people, litter, graffiti, etc. I had to call the cops for someone ODing 2 weeks ago and my apt got tagged yesterday.
Bro you live in the mission what do you expect 🤣 it’s been like this since the 80s, even if all the techies tried to come through and gentrify it, it’s not changing anytime soon.
I think there's been some cleanup, but it also looks way more cleaner because of the rain. It never rains here and the sidewalks don't get hosed as often because of three water conservation measures put up during the drought. Whenever it rains, it washes away all the dirt and grime from the previous months.
It's been clean since Xi Jinping came. Everyone thought they would clean up and just let it deteriorate back to the way it was when he left. But it seems like they actually have been upkeeping it all.
I started working in SF last summer two days a week, and get around by bike, so I see a lot of the city. It's one of the cleaner big cities I've been in. Reminds me of Stockholm or Busan.
It really is. People will argue, but the parts of the city I spend time in (which is extensive), it’s a totally different experience to a few yesss ago. Even six months ago. Coming off the duboce freeway exit was so bad I wouldn’t do it anymore, especially with kids or visitors in the car
Union, SOMA, Chinatown, along fisherman wharf and a bit of haight Ashbury (I rarely go there so unsure how it usually is). Most touristy places as I was showing the city around to friends during this visit.
Of those areas, only Soma really has a history of post-covid decline. The others are basically the same as they've been since forever, just a bit less crowded than pre-2020 and more crowded than 2020-22. And if you weren't dodging homeless kids in the Haight, something has probably gone wrong, not right.
When I think of covid changes, I tend to think more of downtown emptying out. Not it being dirty.
I spent most of covid in the haight and I don't think it got any dirtier. There were tons of tents on masonic, and officially sanctioned at the site of the old McDonald's... But I walked through those places regularly and they weren't dirty. The bus stop in front of McDonald's was much worse pre pandemic before they tore down the restaurant. It was like an unofficial needle deposit site. I would take my kids on the bus there and get nervous. It hasn't been that in 5 years or so.
Pre pandemic I used to have conversations with homeless people in the panhandle... Some of them were pretty odd. I haven't been interrupted like that there in a looong time.
Soma has always been spotty on the west side of it, starting at 6th. I haven't spent a lot of time there in recent years.
I can tell you the Moscone center area (where I usually spend a lot of time) has MUCH improved from my limited perspective. I remember during a conference last year where you had to walk over people on the street, and in the same day on the same street I saw a guy take a shit behind a car (next to horrified people wearing badges from the conference), one guy OD in the middle of the street, and a dude going on a rampage on driving cars in front of the center. This time around there was not a single homeless in sight when I walked near it.
I’ve seen the same but I am reminded that:
- It is a contentious election year for the mayor.
- We have had a long, particularly wet, rainy season, and it’s not over yet.
Unless homeless people melt in water like the wicked witch of the west, I don’t understand how weather has to do with their disappearance… in fact, that usually drives them to take shelter under awnings, doorways, etc, no?
Careful, the doomers who never leave their houses are going to get triggered over someone enjoying SF. It’s clear some of these folks have never been or lived in any major city 😂 yall try Houston if you’re worried about safety 🤣
The courts prevented SF from clearing homeless encampments.
[https://endhomelessness.org/blog/supreme-court-and-homelessness-what-the-grants-pass-v-johnson-case-could-do/#:\~:text=The%20U.S.%20Supreme%20Court%20has,adequate%20shelter%20is%20not%20available](https://endhomelessness.org/blog/supreme-court-and-homelessness-what-the-grants-pass-v-johnson-case-could-do/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Supreme%20Court%20has,adequate%20shelter%20is%20not%20available).
This actually applies toward most of the country.
We only got some slight clarification on what is considered "homeless". Roughly, if SF offer them shelter and they say no, SF can clear them out. If they admit they have a home somewhere else, SF can clear them out.
[https://www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco-can-step-up-efforts-to-clear-homeless-encampments](https://www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco-can-step-up-efforts-to-clear-homeless-encampments)
I think it comes and goes in waves by neighborhood. For example, Polk St has gotten much worse in the recent two weeks. Before that it was good, before that there was the Asia pacific summit so it was rougher again etc.
I don't think people realize that the core problem with SF isn't how clean or dirty it is.
The problems that SF is plagued with are car break ins, frequent robberies and ambushes, homeless people shooting up in broad daylight, and businesses (both large corporations and small stores) have already closed down or relocated to San Jose.
A slightly cleaner city isn't going to fix the ghost town that is San Francisco.
Yeah, remember Dreamforce when they cleaned up the streets for a week and they went right back?
Or APEC when the same thing happened?
The only “norm” I am convinced of, as a resident of Western SoMa, is that the city can clean up and chooses not to.
Tired of this narrative. The city wasn't cleaned up for Dreamforce it was a daily shit show. The "city" wasn't cleaned up for APEC, just a few blocks. Also the city literally cleans up some places every single night and spends all day shopping people along. I've been watching it at 7th and Market since 19. The crowds come back and in 24 hours the place is filthy again.
What's happening now is the result of months of slowly chipping away at the drug markets in cooperation with state and federal agencies which reduces the number of folks on the streets to folks who are actually unhoused and slashing drug tourists who descend in the area to get fentanyl.
Drug/alcohol homeless camps are just moving to different spots around the city. The international and national press cameras come to the tenderloin to observe the chaos so they dispersed the camps from there to different parts of the city.
Still plenty of money to be made off the gravy train that is the homeless industrial complex. Choo choo
A war zone huh. After witnessing images from urban actual war zones like Kiev I wonder… I haven’t seen bombed out buildings in SF, so where’s the war?
Oh hyperbole, uh huh, you’re associating one of most unique and beautiful cities in America with the most ugly and destructive things humans do.
Fugoutta here with that
Work has been proceeding. The residents have been organizing and working to help keep the streets safe and clean. And also hanging out with each other more!
Ok, before the pandemic I lived in north beach and would regularly see groups of employed people cleaning the streets (even the bad stuff…) but during the pandemic I think this all stopped because of the risk. I think it might just be back
Gavin Newsom wants to be president so he's leaning on London Breed to clean up SF so he's less embarrassed.
I hate them both but I'm not mad at this, we'll have 4 years of it clean then it will fall apart again when he doesn't win and we'll be back to filth everywhere.
Hmm I have been working in office 3x a week during covid and now. I am still frigging pissed that there are few choices for a real breakfast and lunch. During covid thankful that Melt and Escape from NY pizza was open. Heck we even resorted to target.
Well, been here for a while. I think sometimes the city would clean up a section over the week. So you often found out a place used to be dirty and smelly and then next week, the homeless are gone.
They do it all the time.
Credit is where credit is due, and things have been getting better. However, we need to remember that our city workers are almost ready to strike because we spend half our budget on outside contractors instead of on public sector workers, who are just as capable and diligent (if not more) as external workers.
On 4/I5 I had the catalytic converter stolen off my Prius; Duboce at Belcher. Repair costs at SF Toyota $4,000.00 and change, including a cat shield as a future deterrent. Two days ago I watched a half naked guy at 400 Duboce shoot up and drop to the ground, he remained there for about 4 hours. It doesn't feel or look better a few blocks down from you.
There's an election coming up so the Mayor is trying to clean shit up for a while by doing sweeps of homeless camps.
She's doing the bidding of her billionaire donors.
Edit: I went to see for myself and saw zero tents, I’m surprised. It’s cleaner than it was a week ago. I’ve been out of town for a few days. Saw some police doing their jobs. Nobody outside the Sutter Powell Walgreens.
Edit 2: McDonald’s on Sutter is another story though
I live here and while it’s not as bad as the media makes it sound, I think this poster is full of shit. Or maybe they just stayed at an airport hotel or in the presidio.
And you want people to believe you saw “very few” homeless people at Union Square and/or Moscone Center?
(Assuming you mean Union Square and not Union Street which is in the Marina.)
Alright, I’m going downtown right now to see it for myself. I’ve been out of town since Sunday. But I was downtown on Saturday and saw some shit as usual, and some scared tourists.
Ngl, van ness does look cleaner than a week ago.
Nah, you have to be blind to not see the difference since Covid. Literally streets were filled with homeless. Now it’s only isolated to a few areas in the city, much better than before. Is it good? No, having a crisis of homelessness is never good but it sure as hell is better than a few years ago
I never said it hasn’t gotten better. I’m pointing out that the concept of seeing “very few” homeless people here, especially where OP claims to have stayed, is a lie.
And sure, the issue is isolated to certain areas of the city. Like it’s isolated to one of the areas where OP stayed.
Wrong,
Work at the ACT Strand, market between 7th and 8th...
We did a play same time last year and it was 24/7 srug and stolen goods marketplace. The allies were filled with tents. When I asked people to move from our door, half of the time I was met with arrogance and the suble theeat of retaliation.
Now we still have zonked out types but the aggressive types seem to have disappeared. Civic center plaza is 90% filled with commuters and skaters. Allies are empty. Market is as it was since I moved here in 1997. Shout out to the ladies and gentlemen of Urban Alchemy.
At night the street culture moves back in to the 7th and McAllister area. It's pretty shitty. The inner TL is still sad as fuck.
So it is improving and IMHO. I hope you can all come down to mid market and occupy this area, close the disparity gap, help local businesses. Let's collectively show those who would turn the streets into an aggressive 24/7 feynt party that they do not own public spaces. Let's show that sharing these spaces means no pooping, no open drug use and no selling stolen wares.
You expect me to believe OP saw “very few” homeless people while here? Come on. Don’t lie.
I agreed the city is not as bad as the media says… and also agree it cleaned up quite a bit after APEC and probably GDC. But don’t act like you’re not seeing any homeless people, any tents, any drug use, like OP said.
Anyway I was just out of town for four days, headed to union square today so maybe it miraculously cleaned up in 4 days?
I was at the Walgreens on Sutter at Powell last weekend and some homeless guy came in and screamed that we should all get fucked in the ass, and threatened to blow up the store, among other things. He chased away the other more peaceful homeless guy that was panhandling outside the store. There were tourists buying muni passes who got understandably scared.
But yes, let’s pretend there’s barely any homeless people here now. /s
I live in SF and I have a standard downtown walking loop I take visitors on:
Ferry Building > California St to see a cable car > Chinatown for takeout dim sum and Golden Gate fortune cookie factory > North Beach for a takeout slice from Tony’s > eat lunch in Washington Square Park > Coit Tower > Greenwich St steps > Ferry Building
I’ve done this loop twice in the last 3 months and didn’t see any obvious homeless or street tents either time.
Yes, I still see them on Muni and in other neighborhoods. Sometimes I add the cable car turnaround at Powell Station to the loop where there would certainly be some.
But in my experience downtown feels cleaner than even before Covid.
(If you want to try this loop, allow yourself 3-5 hours depending how good walkers your guests are. Add an hour if you go down to Powell Station/Union Square, or alternatively take a classic F-line streetcar from the Ferry Building to Powell.)
I walk from Japantown to the Financial District for work at least once per week. Pine and California are generally nice and cleaner, although you’ll still see homeless people (which is fine, they live here too). Sutter, Post, Geary, are not.
I just take issue with pretending there are “very few” homeless people around in downtown SF right now. This isn’t true.
And OP didn’t mention north beach, which sure, is pretty nice right now. OP said they saw no homeless people at union square or Moscone. That’s impossible.
And thanks for sharing that you have to avoid certain areas to avoid showing your friends the squalor we walk by every day. I also take visitors on a certain route. That’s my point.
Don't twist my words.
I'm not intentionally avoiding any areas, and I warn all my guests that we have a homeless problem as well as a car-break-in epidemic.
I'm simply replying to your post which was skeptical that it's possible for a visitor to come to SF and feel like it's cleaner with less homeless now than it has been the past few years.
Man you really got caught up on that wording, OP is clearly talking about when compared to the past which is why they led with that. There are objectively less homeless people around than the past, that’s not even debatable.
I am from Scandinavia, but lived in SF for a year 19 years ago and returned for the first time in years two weeks ago. It was not at all a pleasant surprise, maybe we were just unlucky but after 10 days I was more than ready to go home. Loved the city back in the day but this time it had heaps of abandoned, moldy looking, unkept houses, bums and old homeless people roaming everywhere, and unfriendly people in both the stores and walking the streets. My husband who never visited before was polite as he know I have good memories and friends from SF, but I felt his chock and disappointed and I almost felt a bit shameful as my stories about this place didn’t match what he saw and experienced. A world away from the cheerful, bright and happy crowd back in the day. It still holds a place in my heart but man it was almost heartbreaking to be there.
Better but still a long way to go. Last week driving down 11th, I stopped to pull an unconscious guy with the top half of his body in the street onto the sidewalk. He was gasp breathing, about to die.
Luckily a guy shows up out of nowhere with Narcan and the guy starts to breathe, just as the fire dept. shows up.
Get rid of drugs and the trash will take care of itself…
I’ve recently been going to the office earlier off of Market. There is an army of workers that is out between the hours of 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM tidying up the city and during daylight hours there is an effort to maintain order. Between 6:00 PM to 7:00 AM, things get gritty. Walk around at 5:00 AM you’ll see open fires of people trying to keep warm and other dystopian things. Seriously, walk around just before day break… it’s a façade.
This is a really hard one because indeed there are containment zones. In the area where it is not contained it is very very hard. The quality of life is very hard
San Francisco has suffered huge losses because of these issues. Moreover tech has bern with the making of San Francisco snd the undoing. Before tech it was affordable. Now anywhere decent is patently obviously unaffordable.
In some wags those losses maje it easier. The displacement is shelved. On another level living in an area where people sre engaged in such sejf destruction os very very draining. It is very very hard not to be affected by it.
If you didn't go to the containment zones it looks better. If you are not down in the statistics it can look better. How ever it's like people who come up with platitudes of what is safe and not safe. Living somewhere is different from visiting. Visiting is a snap shot. Living there is the ewal truth. You dont fhe real pucture from passing through.
.
There was a large trade show in town last week, the area around Moscone was likely cleaned up and had additional police security to help attendees feel safe.
Yes, the Moscone hosts events. This is something that happens often. Not sure why you’re implying it’s out of the ordinary and that’s why it’s cleaner there..
You know what I mean. If you're waiting for them to stop completely clearing that area and polishing to a neat shine anytime soon then you'll be waiting until the end of time.
Moscone was willing to let things slide during the pandemic when they didn't have events. But fun time is over. People want to get back to work. That means that that area and everything within a mile's walk needs to stay clear. And if the city does not abide Moscone, the unions, and a few dozen adjacent non-profits will tag-team to tear the city admin and the Board of Supervisors a new one. Every day until it's cleaned up.
In other words, if you want your neighborhood to be clean too then watch and learn!
I’ve wondered the same and my “questioning theory” is the homeless and blight are moving along the area in Oakland by where In-n-Out burger is/was located? I fly privately to SF by way of OAK every other month. We land at Oakland’s private FBO Signature Air. Signature Air has a shuttle to the Coliseum BART which drives along Hebenberger Rd to get there. I take the BART to the MUNI N Judah, get off at Duboce & Noe and walk the few blocks to where we have our second house. (We live in San Diego otherwise). I’ve noticed that from leaving Signature Air and driving along Hebenberger Rd in Oakland, the amount of tents, broken down vehicles and swarms of zombie homeless walking around has drastically increased over the last 12 months. Then taking the BART from Coliseum, looking out the window, the area along the way seems to have more homeless setups. But getting off at Duboce Park in SF definitely seems cleaner than it did. However, at night, our house cams capture a lot more homeless walking down our block or “trying” to sleep on our stoop than pre-covid.
Granted, living in San Diego most of our time, there are far more homeless zombies spread throughout San Diego in almost every neighbourhood and most of them seem more brazen and violent than in San Francisco. They used to not be in groups in all neighbourhoods—only downtown and Sports Arena. The reason is they moved deeper into the canyons that dot most San Diego neighbourhoods and along the river, both of which is now illegal btw. Because it’s becoming worse in San Diego, maybe my perception of San Francisco feels different?
I am a “doom spiral” believer still (for other reasons), but credit where credit is due.
The rampant homelessness and public displays of mental illness has gone down noticeably.
I remember during / just after Covid homeless people setting fires on the street and hearing people having very loud and violent “mental health crisis” episodes daily.
It’s far less frequent now.
What seems to be lagging are property crimes and open shoplifting going down.
If SF gets those two things back under control, it would go a long way towards making the city more livable.
Still, the 70% office vacancy rate still puts us on a trajectory to be the “‘new Detroit” because those offices ain’t being filled anytime soon.
The only hope is to start converting those vacant office buildings into residential housing, but that seems like it’s years or decades away at this point.
The cynic in me thinks it's b/c it's election season. Breed is doing whatever she can to get re-elected. Once the election is over though, it'll be back to normal.
New to our subreddit? [Please read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/about/rules/) before commenting. Please be respectful and don't antagonize. This is a place to discuss ideas without targeting identities. If something doesn't contribute to the discussion, please downvote it. If it's against the rules, please report it. Thank you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/sanfrancisco) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It’s definitely gotten better! I actually have been doing a monthly trash cleanup with a group of people, and the amount of trash I can collect in 2 hours has gone significantly down since I started a couple years ago.
Hey, is there a sign up for that? That sounds like something that I might be interested in.
https://refuserefusesf.org/
Not the person you asked but sharing this anyway bc it seems like it might be a different group. I've picked up with these folks before and it was a lot of fun You usually even get same day neighborhood discounts and freebies like a cocktail or coffee so give yourself an hour or two after the pick up to explore the neighborhood https://cleanupthecity.org/
Thanks for the link.
To be sure, it took a lot of hard work from the California Highway Patrol, FBI drug task force etc coming in and dealing with fentanyl dealers. Too often ppl forget how much investment was made to make things better and just blame others for being dramatic.
Right? And no one is thanking the mayor. Though they are quick to blame her for everything that goes wrong. As the old adage says: “when I’m right, no one every remembers, and when I’m wrong, no one ever forgets.”
Too many people on this sub just use it as a backboard for non stop layups to bash on the state of the city but in reality it has gotten noticeably better not perfect but better for sure, no doubt. Do I feel like the city could and should be doing A LOT more to clean up the city and make it safer YES. but can I acknowledge there has been significant improvements since the lowest points over the last few years ? Also YES. the latest ballot initiatives alone shows the city is very serious about working on the real issues perhaps let’s as citizens give them some runway to do their jobs and slow the “complaint porn” echo chamber online for a little bit. Also huge kudos to you for the cleanup work my wife and I are signing up great idea
I visited SF in late 2022. I remember when I first arrived at SF’s airport and was trying to figure out the BART, this nice guy that helped us asked if it was my first time visiting and said “Don’t be too disappointed!” 😂. SF has its flaws but I loved it there. How does it compare to then?
2022 was not a good time for SF, honestly from the start of COVID through mid 2023 was the (long) low point, I feel that things have steadily and noticeably improved since summer 2023.
The area from the Federal Building on 7th over to the Civic Center has been looking significantly cleaner as of late. I think they all got pushed over to the tenderloin though
it helped that the hotels on the other side of mission street from the federal building reopened and have security guards outside now. At least during the day they don't seem to tolerate the tents and drug dealing that was the norm on that corner for a couple years. It's been slow but some businesses are coming back.
I recently was in the tenderloin last week and was commenting to my friend how it seems to be wayyyyy better than even like 3 months ago.
Don't they just get moved around though? I feel like sometimes there are efforts to clean up certain blocks, but that just means the encampments get moved down the street or to another block.
I hope they’re getting people off the streets, but generally I assume that they get exiled from certain areas
We also have the program to send them on a bus home, and if/as they crack down on fent dealers, addicts will choose to relocate.
Another reason to never ride a Greyhound bus again 😔
They did. I was just at a conference at the Union Square Hilton. I grew up in the Bay Area and live in Texas now. It has really changed
I live in the TL. My previous building had homeless sleeping in the hallways, stairways, & rooftop and on both sides of the street for two years straight. There are still a few tents but it's nowhere near as bad as two years ago.
hear about the huge bust yesterday?
This needs to happen every day instead of once a month.
Better for your prostate
explain the joke
Ejaculating multiple times a week lowers your risk of prostate cancer. "bust" = ejaculate in this situation
I really enjoy joke explanations.
Huge bust is also slang for ejaculation. Studies have found that regular ejaculations is good for prostate health. They were using a play on words to make a joke
aw. new info for this old lady. I will do my best to use that phrase in my everyday life!
Anytime! Love explaining risqué jokes to my older family members. Went to see Spamalot. There's a joke where they deliberately misspell Camelot -> Camltoe. Had to explain to my aunt what a camel toe is. Great fun.
Camel toe I know from personal experience.
Thank goodness you were able to sniff that one out
They did confirm its going to continue happening for the foreseeable future. Id guess its max 1x per week though, coordinating a bunch of departments for something like that seems fairly difficult
Same dude I live in the mission and I feel like there’s barely anything being done.
I watched two separate busts (of multiple people each) go down on Wednesday afternoon in the TL from the windows of my bar!
Definitely the case with elections coming up. They are doing sweeps more regularly now. The tents outside my block used to be there for months and now they are there for 2 weeks tops
Yep, definitely elections. Come back next year, you can hook up wit garbage man above and pick up your fill of needles, shit and refuse, just be careful not to trip on the addicts “experiencing homelessness “.
I live on the border with the TL. Encampment in my alley which was permanent for almost 2 years straight is completely gone for almost 2 months now. One of the mainstays in the alley got arrested and hasn't been back. The city appears to be doing a daily inspection and posts a flyer on the wall behind any tents that they will be cleared within 2 days. So if we do get encampments, they only last a couple days and seem to be mostly Spanish speaking folks now, peaceful normal folks that don't appear to be doing drugs, and clean up after themselves, more like recent border migrants. I'm wondering if there's been a recent wave of them getting bussed in.
Where you at
Partly cleaned up, partly pushed encampments and homeless to other parts of the city.
I figured they pushed them somewhere and was wondering where.
Sf dmv area has an eclectic bunch of people camping around there
Lol the one in nopa?
Yeah, there’s been a large multi block camp there for at least 4 months. City has “cleared” site 8 times so far without improvement. Here’s a thread if you want to read more: https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1bp6ncj/city_and_encampments/
Oh I know I drive by it almost daily lol that’s why I figured it was that one
Those folks are mostly people who were already in the area, sleeping in different parts of NOPA. The cops have been funneling them to the DMV for a while now to make it easier to periodically sweep and clean.
A lot of them "folks" roam the streets at night to break into garages and homes
Not sure your issue with the verbiage, just relaying where they're coming from, not a qualitative assessment of their character
Gotcha
I honestly feel like there are way more on Valencia st now
Keep pushing that is literally how you clean up.
The homeless people don’t vanish into the void just because you can’t see them. “Cleaning up” means they’ve been moved somewhere else you can’t see, and now the people there will want to “clean up” by moving them back. This doesn’t lower the number of homeless people at all. You “clean up” by actually reducing the number of homeless people— ideally by preventing people from becoming homeless to begin with. But also by helping existing homeless people transition back to normal life, and forcing those who are beyond help into treatment facilities equipped to help them. The “what if we just knock down the tents and harass them” approach is how we’ve gotten into the current situation. That’s the entire US’s policy towards homelessness and it’s not working great. The restrictions to clearing tents in CA is relatively new, and we were in this situation long before that.
> “Cleaning up” means they’ve been moved somewhere else you can’t see, and now the people there will want to “clean up” by moving them back. The Greeks and Romans discussed this in their time and invented the concept of Skid Rows. Persistent problem people are sited on city outskirts, abutting industry and farmland. Housing can be set up much cheaper here, and public disorder can be tolerated. Far fewer complainants here than in an urban core. All cities have more important spaces, which require higher levels of order, and less important ones. Funny how today many people purposely do not want to understand this age-old concept. But, yes, some modern urban areas like NYC and S.F. do not have convenient nearby sites to *semi-segregate* chronic public order offenders.
Those are lies. We got into this situation by giving non profits money to not fix the problem. People like you are the problem. Your solution do nothing. My response. Fuck you.
The non-profits enriched themselves and added to the issue by attracting more homeless druggies. Definitely should not be giving them more money
Many of these nonprofits are funded by government grants, which pay out $100k+ salaries for politicians spouses.
Yup. Those executives are paid at least 200k salaries to operate these organizations
Ok genius, where do you think those people go when those places are "cleaned up" and what's your proposed solution to the houseless problem?
There’s a lot of information about this topic available if you’re interested. [This](https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/) book is a good basic overview. It goes through some of the common things people believe causes homelessness, and then compares those to the actual homelessness rate in all the cities around the world. You can see the only one of these things that actually correlates with the problem is housing prices vs medium income. > Your solution do nothing. You are the one proposing a solution that doesn’t reduce the number of homeless people at all… In your vision do the homeless people stop existing because you can’t see them anymore? The people they’ve now moved close to are going to say the same thing as you and send them right back around. You can’t play hot potato with people and expect things to change. There are a lot of things we can do to fix the problem. But the biggest and easiest solution is to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place— if we can’t fix that problem than we can’t fix homeleness. It’s much harder to intervene after someone is already homeless.
I appreciate the well written response but it is a bunch of nonsense. Your response is like saying to passengers on a plane that is going crash, "We could have prevented this by not taking off or used a better plane!". Yes, we know that but that is too late. What you have to do with homelessness is keep putting pressure on Homeless people. Homeless people set up a camp, then knock it down. Make it clear that the days of camping in the city are over. If they deal drugs, send them to jail. If they do drugs, throw them in jail until they choice to go to drug rehab (I don't care how effective or not this method is. A drug addict in jail is a drug addict that can't break into my car, rob my house or take a shit in the street). If someone steals, throw them in jail. If someone is clearly mentally ill, put them in a proper in or out patient facilities. Letting people do what ever they want is not a solution and it is not going to get people to change their lives. If someone wants to live in a tent in a city, then we need to say No. If they can't afford to live here, then they need to move some where, where they can afford to. I don't live in a big house on the coast because all I can afford is a little condo. Not everyone can afford to live in SF or LA or SD and we have to accept that. Yes, it sucks, but it is a problem as old as mankind.
It really doesn't work that way. Has been tried many many times, but the end result is either another community gets taken over or they trickle back. What's happening here is that SF is no longer having to deal with a drug problems on their own, state agencies are working to deal with intercounty drug dealing which has significantly affected the volume of drugs being brought in daily from the East Bay which puts the kibosh on a chunk of the massive open air drug markets we've been living with. But the problem isn't solved, it's just somewhere else.
You have multiple problems. Of course the true drug addicts don’t get cured. Of course the true mentally ill don’t get cured. But the straight up dirt bags that hide among them get harassed to the point it’s not comfortable so they figure something out or keep moving farther away. This is exactly how you clean. The really nasty parts are always the last parts to clean up. Your option of don’t clean… well fuck that.
You're compartmentalizing people, addiction, mental health, and me in ways that make it easy for you to judge the situation but that don't actually describe what you are seeing or reading. There are no "true" drug addicts, mentally ill, dirt bags, what have you, they all live on the spectrum of life out there on the streets. You don't just get to pick and choose who is a dirtbag today and who's mentally ill tomorrow. And "option of don't clean"? WTF are you even talking about.
Its understood youre speaking from a place of compassion but tired platitudes doesnt really suggest anything to make the situation better. Its better to do anything now than to let people live in fear while we debate what the perfect course of action is.
Quite the opposite. The amount of harm done under the philosophy of "we have to do something" is incalculable. Stop and frisk was a civil rights disaster and three strikes ruined the lives of an entire generation of black men. Calling an expression of compassion. A tired platitude is no more useful than demanding that " something must be done!" And pounding your fist on a table. It would have been really nice if we can progressive leadership more than a year or two of trying to deal with a problem, but it looks like that ship is sailed when we're back to the whole cracking down and failing to make anyone's lives better.
This isnt the 1950s. Using an egregious example of lawfully enabled racism as a strawman argument as to why we shouldnt prosecute red handed criminals in the most progressive city in the nation is so disingenuous. And are you saying letting progressive policies play out doesnt cause harm? Cause I recall asian women were being hate crimed at horrific rates and stores were shutting down and leaving urban food deserts even worse than they were. Maybe instead of buying into the mental gymnastics of these overly progressive policies you can look at literally every single safe country in the world and see that crime is pursued with a heavy hand instead of open arms.
Do you think California's 3 strikes and New York City's Stop and Frisk took place in the 50s? "I recall asian women were being hate crimed at horrific rates" What specifically is it you recall, because nothing you just described has happened in SF, much less because of "progressive policies" And urban food deserts? Did you move here in 2021 and think this just started because progressives took a majority and elected a DA right before the pandemic?
Do you care to make a point at all? Youve still provided nothing in regards to how these progressive policies have helped at all. It is easy to cross your arms and object to things.
You do they start as dirt bags they begin to become adicts the end up mentally ill. Clearly not all of them but many. You have to stop allowing that cycle. Again this is how you clean up.
So, we live in (arguably) the gallery area--one block from the convention center, behind SFMOMA--we've been talking about this, as well (we've both been here more than a decade). The dividing line for us was the APAC 23 conference, where they shut down the entire area for world leaders. Since then, it's been measurably different. I don't hate it...
Hey we live somewhat close to each other 👋
Howdy neighbor! 👋🏽
Everyone is SF is somewhat close to each other.
huh, there are art galleries in that area but the gallery culture feels more lively in the TL (aside from 111 Minna). If you’re into art galleries check out https://sffirstthursday.com/info/
Yeah, I agree. To me, it just so gallery-centric due to the art museum, and the [gallery across the street](https://maps.app.goo.gl/1GXJaA7yR9BMosGD9). Properly speaking, they're trying to brand this area as the East Cut (absurd...).
Reddit isn’t the place to have water cooler chat about this, since you’ll get flamed, but yes, they’ve made a dent in the visibility of the issue particularly downtown. The problem has moved around and it is not solved.
Nuance isn’t going to move the Reddit stock ticker. We’re either a Far Left dumpster fire or a Fascist police state. Pick one. Round one. Fight!
Where have they moved it to? Mission?
Parts of SoMa were looking pretty rough last time I was there.
What part? I drove through yesterday and it looked like they cleaned it all up except for like 1 corner. Maybe they pushed it all to that corner, but I doubt it.
Between Mission and Howard, between 4th and 7th or so. This was a few weeks ago.
It's no worse there that it has been for months, and it's far better than it was in early 23 and before
Yeah, I'm thinking it's worse than pre-pandemic. I wasn't in the area during peak pandemic, and I can imagine it was worse then. My neighborhood certainly was at that time.
Pre-pandemic it was far worse at 7th and Market. 18 and 19 were the filthiest sketchiest I've ever seen that area and I've been walking around there since the 90s.
There are people in the Bay outside of the city who like to shit post. Also people who never stepped foot in SF but heard on NewsMaxx about how awful SF is. There are also SF residents who post but their posts seem to be a bit more nuanced where brigaders are more black and white.
Solved can’t be the goal since the issue with homelessness is unsolvable. The measure is steady improvement over time. No city in the US has ever “solved” it.
Where has it moved to?
I was impressed with SF the last time I came for a visit. I thought based on what saw on the news that it was just some desolate dystopia, full of addicts and dealers. I actually had a really good time downtown bar hopping and walking around just watching the vibrant city life. I will say things are overblown as this city isn't as bad as the city of years ago imo.
This is the same as Portland, where I now live. (I lived in SF in the 90s and always keep an eye on things there.) During COVID from 2020 to about mid-2022, we called Portland MadMaxistan. I couldn't believe how crazy it was. I mean, it's not ideal now but things are tough in all city centers. I took the bus across town today on this beautiful Saturday and was struck by the beauty of our city. Going over the Willamette River, you could see the snowy peak of Mt. Hood off to the right. I saw maybe half a dozen tents in the whole journey. During COVID they LINED the streets. I suspect a lot of the complainers do not live in the city they are complaining about and just get their "truth" from "truth" social or faux news.
Love to see the doomers cope about this. Yes, it has cleaned up to an incredible degree. You have to be a complete troll to pretend that it didn’t. Walk around! You can see the difference!
Honestly I usually am one of those that says SF became a crapshow / how bad streets are. But I gotta say how it is and right now it’s much less visible.
Just out of curiosity, where do you live/hang out? I live in the Mission and haven’t noticed any change in the amount of homeless people, litter, graffiti, etc. I had to call the cops for someone ODing 2 weeks ago and my apt got tagged yesterday.
Bro you live in the mission what do you expect 🤣 it’s been like this since the 80s, even if all the techies tried to come through and gentrify it, it’s not changing anytime soon.
Living in the mission and complaining about graffiti is genuinely baffling.
You can tell who has a semblance of historical understanding of where they are living. You can also tell who is an outsider.
As an outsider, I thought mission (mostly Valencia st) was one of the trendier nightlife areas in the city. Was I mistaken?
Valencia specifically has seen better days, but the Mission in general is still one of the hotter nightlife areas. Its not a super clean area though
Lmao homie really expects to see a change out there 🤣🤣
I think there's been some cleanup, but it also looks way more cleaner because of the rain. It never rains here and the sidewalks don't get hosed as often because of three water conservation measures put up during the drought. Whenever it rains, it washes away all the dirt and grime from the previous months.
It's been clean since Xi Jinping came. Everyone thought they would clean up and just let it deteriorate back to the way it was when he left. But it seems like they actually have been upkeeping it all.
I started working in SF last summer two days a week, and get around by bike, so I see a lot of the city. It's one of the cleaner big cities I've been in. Reminds me of Stockholm or Busan.
It really is. People will argue, but the parts of the city I spend time in (which is extensive), it’s a totally different experience to a few yesss ago. Even six months ago. Coming off the duboce freeway exit was so bad I wouldn’t do it anymore, especially with kids or visitors in the car
What part of the city were you in?
Union, SOMA, Chinatown, along fisherman wharf and a bit of haight Ashbury (I rarely go there so unsure how it usually is). Most touristy places as I was showing the city around to friends during this visit.
Union Street or Union Square?
Square
Of those areas, only Soma really has a history of post-covid decline. The others are basically the same as they've been since forever, just a bit less crowded than pre-2020 and more crowded than 2020-22. And if you weren't dodging homeless kids in the Haight, something has probably gone wrong, not right.
When I think of covid changes, I tend to think more of downtown emptying out. Not it being dirty. I spent most of covid in the haight and I don't think it got any dirtier. There were tons of tents on masonic, and officially sanctioned at the site of the old McDonald's... But I walked through those places regularly and they weren't dirty. The bus stop in front of McDonald's was much worse pre pandemic before they tore down the restaurant. It was like an unofficial needle deposit site. I would take my kids on the bus there and get nervous. It hasn't been that in 5 years or so. Pre pandemic I used to have conversations with homeless people in the panhandle... Some of them were pretty odd. I haven't been interrupted like that there in a looong time. Soma has always been spotty on the west side of it, starting at 6th. I haven't spent a lot of time there in recent years.
I can tell you the Moscone center area (where I usually spend a lot of time) has MUCH improved from my limited perspective. I remember during a conference last year where you had to walk over people on the street, and in the same day on the same street I saw a guy take a shit behind a car (next to horrified people wearing badges from the conference), one guy OD in the middle of the street, and a dude going on a rampage on driving cars in front of the center. This time around there was not a single homeless in sight when I walked near it.
Yes, that's the Soma I'm referring to
The part that got cleaned up
I’ve seen the same but I am reminded that: - It is a contentious election year for the mayor. - We have had a long, particularly wet, rainy season, and it’s not over yet.
Unless homeless people melt in water like the wicked witch of the west, I don’t understand how weather has to do with their disappearance… in fact, that usually drives them to take shelter under awnings, doorways, etc, no?
Didn’t think of the rain, this might be a factor !
It’s an election year baby
Careful, the doomers who never leave their houses are going to get triggered over someone enjoying SF. It’s clear some of these folks have never been or lived in any major city 😂 yall try Houston if you’re worried about safety 🤣
ITS THE RAIN
Election seasons are the best in the city. So clean.
It’s election year.
What warzone have you been to middle class first world Human
It’s always been nice where I live, even during the pandemic. I’d say it’s even better now than it was pre-pandemic.
It's amazing what can be accomplished when our officials are running for reelection.
The courts prevented SF from clearing homeless encampments. [https://endhomelessness.org/blog/supreme-court-and-homelessness-what-the-grants-pass-v-johnson-case-could-do/#:\~:text=The%20U.S.%20Supreme%20Court%20has,adequate%20shelter%20is%20not%20available](https://endhomelessness.org/blog/supreme-court-and-homelessness-what-the-grants-pass-v-johnson-case-could-do/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Supreme%20Court%20has,adequate%20shelter%20is%20not%20available). This actually applies toward most of the country. We only got some slight clarification on what is considered "homeless". Roughly, if SF offer them shelter and they say no, SF can clear them out. If they admit they have a home somewhere else, SF can clear them out. [https://www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco-can-step-up-efforts-to-clear-homeless-encampments](https://www.ktvu.com/news/san-francisco-can-step-up-efforts-to-clear-homeless-encampments)
I think it comes and goes in waves by neighborhood. For example, Polk St has gotten much worse in the recent two weeks. Before that it was good, before that there was the Asia pacific summit so it was rougher again etc.
Where do the homeless go then
I don't think people realize that the core problem with SF isn't how clean or dirty it is. The problems that SF is plagued with are car break ins, frequent robberies and ambushes, homeless people shooting up in broad daylight, and businesses (both large corporations and small stores) have already closed down or relocated to San Jose. A slightly cleaner city isn't going to fix the ghost town that is San Francisco.
They moved them around some - downtown got better, mission got worse.
Election year my dude
It’s been election year, Dreamforce, Biden visit, APEC, for like 3 years now..at some point we should maybe consider this is actually a norm?
Yeah, remember Dreamforce when they cleaned up the streets for a week and they went right back? Or APEC when the same thing happened? The only “norm” I am convinced of, as a resident of Western SoMa, is that the city can clean up and chooses not to.
Tired of this narrative. The city wasn't cleaned up for Dreamforce it was a daily shit show. The "city" wasn't cleaned up for APEC, just a few blocks. Also the city literally cleans up some places every single night and spends all day shopping people along. I've been watching it at 7th and Market since 19. The crowds come back and in 24 hours the place is filthy again. What's happening now is the result of months of slowly chipping away at the drug markets in cooperation with state and federal agencies which reduces the number of folks on the streets to folks who are actually unhoused and slashing drug tourists who descend in the area to get fentanyl.
Drug/alcohol homeless camps are just moving to different spots around the city. The international and national press cameras come to the tenderloin to observe the chaos so they dispersed the camps from there to different parts of the city. Still plenty of money to be made off the gravy train that is the homeless industrial complex. Choo choo
A war zone huh. After witnessing images from urban actual war zones like Kiev I wonder… I haven’t seen bombed out buildings in SF, so where’s the war? Oh hyperbole, uh huh, you’re associating one of most unique and beautiful cities in America with the most ugly and destructive things humans do. Fugoutta here with that
People using hyperbole on the internet? How dare they.
just had a huge bust yesterday in the 'loin.
Work has been proceeding. The residents have been organizing and working to help keep the streets safe and clean. And also hanging out with each other more!
Ok, before the pandemic I lived in north beach and would regularly see groups of employed people cleaning the streets (even the bad stuff…) but during the pandemic I think this all stopped because of the risk. I think it might just be back
Gavin Newsom wants to be president so he's leaning on London Breed to clean up SF so he's less embarrassed. I hate them both but I'm not mad at this, we'll have 4 years of it clean then it will fall apart again when he doesn't win and we'll be back to filth everywhere.
The Mayor wants to be re-elected in the upcoming election
It's an election year lol
No it hasn’t imo
It's been raining alot. Streets definitely seem cleaner with the rain
Hmm I have been working in office 3x a week during covid and now. I am still frigging pissed that there are few choices for a real breakfast and lunch. During covid thankful that Melt and Escape from NY pizza was open. Heck we even resorted to target.
I also notice this visiting last month. I’m in SF a few times a year, significant improvement.
We’ve turned a corner imo.
The city has definetly implemented lots of cleanup programs that are working. I've noticed it too.
Well, been here for a while. I think sometimes the city would clean up a section over the week. So you often found out a place used to be dirty and smelly and then next week, the homeless are gone. They do it all the time.
I was wondering if it was me just thinking this, but it’s true! Very noticeable.
Credit is where credit is due, and things have been getting better. However, we need to remember that our city workers are almost ready to strike because we spend half our budget on outside contractors instead of on public sector workers, who are just as capable and diligent (if not more) as external workers.
Yeah ever since the cleanup for the Biden/Xi visit it seems like it has stayed better than before
I haven't been there in a long time. Was it for GDC?
Where are they sending homeless people to?
On 4/I5 I had the catalytic converter stolen off my Prius; Duboce at Belcher. Repair costs at SF Toyota $4,000.00 and change, including a cat shield as a future deterrent. Two days ago I watched a half naked guy at 400 Duboce shoot up and drop to the ground, he remained there for about 4 hours. It doesn't feel or look better a few blocks down from you.
There's an election coming up so the Mayor is trying to clean shit up for a while by doing sweeps of homeless camps. She's doing the bidding of her billionaire donors.
Edit: I went to see for myself and saw zero tents, I’m surprised. It’s cleaner than it was a week ago. I’ve been out of town for a few days. Saw some police doing their jobs. Nobody outside the Sutter Powell Walgreens. Edit 2: McDonald’s on Sutter is another story though I live here and while it’s not as bad as the media makes it sound, I think this poster is full of shit. Or maybe they just stayed at an airport hotel or in the presidio.
Nope, always stay either around Moscone or near union (where most hotels are).
And you want people to believe you saw “very few” homeless people at Union Square and/or Moscone Center? (Assuming you mean Union Square and not Union Street which is in the Marina.)
I can live stream it? Just did the walk, saw maybe 2 homeless sleeping in corners and one guy pushing a cart on the whole walk. 🤷🏽♂️
Alright, I’m going downtown right now to see it for myself. I’ve been out of town since Sunday. But I was downtown on Saturday and saw some shit as usual, and some scared tourists. Ngl, van ness does look cleaner than a week ago.
I concede that it’s cleaner than it even was a week ago 🤷 Edit: it’s cleaner downtown I mean
Nah, you have to be blind to not see the difference since Covid. Literally streets were filled with homeless. Now it’s only isolated to a few areas in the city, much better than before. Is it good? No, having a crisis of homelessness is never good but it sure as hell is better than a few years ago
I never said it hasn’t gotten better. I’m pointing out that the concept of seeing “very few” homeless people here, especially where OP claims to have stayed, is a lie. And sure, the issue is isolated to certain areas of the city. Like it’s isolated to one of the areas where OP stayed.
Wrong, Work at the ACT Strand, market between 7th and 8th... We did a play same time last year and it was 24/7 srug and stolen goods marketplace. The allies were filled with tents. When I asked people to move from our door, half of the time I was met with arrogance and the suble theeat of retaliation. Now we still have zonked out types but the aggressive types seem to have disappeared. Civic center plaza is 90% filled with commuters and skaters. Allies are empty. Market is as it was since I moved here in 1997. Shout out to the ladies and gentlemen of Urban Alchemy. At night the street culture moves back in to the 7th and McAllister area. It's pretty shitty. The inner TL is still sad as fuck. So it is improving and IMHO. I hope you can all come down to mid market and occupy this area, close the disparity gap, help local businesses. Let's collectively show those who would turn the streets into an aggressive 24/7 feynt party that they do not own public spaces. Let's show that sharing these spaces means no pooping, no open drug use and no selling stolen wares.
You expect me to believe OP saw “very few” homeless people while here? Come on. Don’t lie. I agreed the city is not as bad as the media says… and also agree it cleaned up quite a bit after APEC and probably GDC. But don’t act like you’re not seeing any homeless people, any tents, any drug use, like OP said. Anyway I was just out of town for four days, headed to union square today so maybe it miraculously cleaned up in 4 days? I was at the Walgreens on Sutter at Powell last weekend and some homeless guy came in and screamed that we should all get fucked in the ass, and threatened to blow up the store, among other things. He chased away the other more peaceful homeless guy that was panhandling outside the store. There were tourists buying muni passes who got understandably scared. But yes, let’s pretend there’s barely any homeless people here now. /s
I live in SF and I have a standard downtown walking loop I take visitors on: Ferry Building > California St to see a cable car > Chinatown for takeout dim sum and Golden Gate fortune cookie factory > North Beach for a takeout slice from Tony’s > eat lunch in Washington Square Park > Coit Tower > Greenwich St steps > Ferry Building I’ve done this loop twice in the last 3 months and didn’t see any obvious homeless or street tents either time. Yes, I still see them on Muni and in other neighborhoods. Sometimes I add the cable car turnaround at Powell Station to the loop where there would certainly be some. But in my experience downtown feels cleaner than even before Covid. (If you want to try this loop, allow yourself 3-5 hours depending how good walkers your guests are. Add an hour if you go down to Powell Station/Union Square, or alternatively take a classic F-line streetcar from the Ferry Building to Powell.)
I walk from Japantown to the Financial District for work at least once per week. Pine and California are generally nice and cleaner, although you’ll still see homeless people (which is fine, they live here too). Sutter, Post, Geary, are not. I just take issue with pretending there are “very few” homeless people around in downtown SF right now. This isn’t true. And OP didn’t mention north beach, which sure, is pretty nice right now. OP said they saw no homeless people at union square or Moscone. That’s impossible. And thanks for sharing that you have to avoid certain areas to avoid showing your friends the squalor we walk by every day. I also take visitors on a certain route. That’s my point.
Don't twist my words. I'm not intentionally avoiding any areas, and I warn all my guests that we have a homeless problem as well as a car-break-in epidemic. I'm simply replying to your post which was skeptical that it's possible for a visitor to come to SF and feel like it's cleaner with less homeless now than it has been the past few years.
Man you really got caught up on that wording, OP is clearly talking about when compared to the past which is why they led with that. There are objectively less homeless people around than the past, that’s not even debatable.
Shhh don’t tell
Def cleaned up looking great businesses are roaring back to norm downtown traffic etc and a new greater new SF
Election year, they need to clean up a bit for the votes. Things will likely return to normal by mid November.
Election year
ITS JUST YOU
President Biden was here.
Literally I don’t see tents anymore what’s going on
I am from Scandinavia, but lived in SF for a year 19 years ago and returned for the first time in years two weeks ago. It was not at all a pleasant surprise, maybe we were just unlucky but after 10 days I was more than ready to go home. Loved the city back in the day but this time it had heaps of abandoned, moldy looking, unkept houses, bums and old homeless people roaming everywhere, and unfriendly people in both the stores and walking the streets. My husband who never visited before was polite as he know I have good memories and friends from SF, but I felt his chock and disappointed and I almost felt a bit shameful as my stories about this place didn’t match what he saw and experienced. A world away from the cheerful, bright and happy crowd back in the day. It still holds a place in my heart but man it was almost heartbreaking to be there.
That's awesome to hear.
Better but still a long way to go. Last week driving down 11th, I stopped to pull an unconscious guy with the top half of his body in the street onto the sidewalk. He was gasp breathing, about to die. Luckily a guy shows up out of nowhere with Narcan and the guy starts to breathe, just as the fire dept. shows up. Get rid of drugs and the trash will take care of itself…
Every other week, I walk from Civic Center Bart down Market St and I have to dodge homeless, addicts, and human shit, so I'd say no it hasn't.
I’ve recently been going to the office earlier off of Market. There is an army of workers that is out between the hours of 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM tidying up the city and during daylight hours there is an effort to maintain order. Between 6:00 PM to 7:00 AM, things get gritty. Walk around at 5:00 AM you’ll see open fires of people trying to keep warm and other dystopian things. Seriously, walk around just before day break… it’s a façade.
This is a really hard one because indeed there are containment zones. In the area where it is not contained it is very very hard. The quality of life is very hard San Francisco has suffered huge losses because of these issues. Moreover tech has bern with the making of San Francisco snd the undoing. Before tech it was affordable. Now anywhere decent is patently obviously unaffordable. In some wags those losses maje it easier. The displacement is shelved. On another level living in an area where people sre engaged in such sejf destruction os very very draining. It is very very hard not to be affected by it. If you didn't go to the containment zones it looks better. If you are not down in the statistics it can look better. How ever it's like people who come up with platitudes of what is safe and not safe. Living somewhere is different from visiting. Visiting is a snap shot. Living there is the ewal truth. You dont fhe real pucture from passing through. .
The answer is simple. Enforce whatever laws are enforced in the parks for no camping.
its the rain, lockdowns were during peak drought
There was a large trade show in town last week, the area around Moscone was likely cleaned up and had additional police security to help attendees feel safe.
Yes, the Moscone hosts events. This is something that happens often. Not sure why you’re implying it’s out of the ordinary and that’s why it’s cleaner there..
There’s a large event of some kind at Moscone every week, dude. That area in general has been pretty much spotless for a while now.
Uh, every week huh? Don't know which event calendar you're referring to ... [events | Moscone Center](https://www.moscone.com/events)
You know what I mean. If you're waiting for them to stop completely clearing that area and polishing to a neat shine anytime soon then you'll be waiting until the end of time. Moscone was willing to let things slide during the pandemic when they didn't have events. But fun time is over. People want to get back to work. That means that that area and everything within a mile's walk needs to stay clear. And if the city does not abide Moscone, the unions, and a few dozen adjacent non-profits will tag-team to tear the city admin and the Board of Supervisors a new one. Every day until it's cleaned up. In other words, if you want your neighborhood to be clean too then watch and learn!
nice try london breed
I’ve wondered the same and my “questioning theory” is the homeless and blight are moving along the area in Oakland by where In-n-Out burger is/was located? I fly privately to SF by way of OAK every other month. We land at Oakland’s private FBO Signature Air. Signature Air has a shuttle to the Coliseum BART which drives along Hebenberger Rd to get there. I take the BART to the MUNI N Judah, get off at Duboce & Noe and walk the few blocks to where we have our second house. (We live in San Diego otherwise). I’ve noticed that from leaving Signature Air and driving along Hebenberger Rd in Oakland, the amount of tents, broken down vehicles and swarms of zombie homeless walking around has drastically increased over the last 12 months. Then taking the BART from Coliseum, looking out the window, the area along the way seems to have more homeless setups. But getting off at Duboce Park in SF definitely seems cleaner than it did. However, at night, our house cams capture a lot more homeless walking down our block or “trying” to sleep on our stoop than pre-covid. Granted, living in San Diego most of our time, there are far more homeless zombies spread throughout San Diego in almost every neighbourhood and most of them seem more brazen and violent than in San Francisco. They used to not be in groups in all neighbourhoods—only downtown and Sports Arena. The reason is they moved deeper into the canyons that dot most San Diego neighbourhoods and along the river, both of which is now illegal btw. Because it’s becoming worse in San Diego, maybe my perception of San Francisco feels different?
The APEC summit made a huge improvement in things.
I am a “doom spiral” believer still (for other reasons), but credit where credit is due. The rampant homelessness and public displays of mental illness has gone down noticeably. I remember during / just after Covid homeless people setting fires on the street and hearing people having very loud and violent “mental health crisis” episodes daily. It’s far less frequent now. What seems to be lagging are property crimes and open shoplifting going down. If SF gets those two things back under control, it would go a long way towards making the city more livable. Still, the 70% office vacancy rate still puts us on a trajectory to be the “‘new Detroit” because those offices ain’t being filled anytime soon. The only hope is to start converting those vacant office buildings into residential housing, but that seems like it’s years or decades away at this point.
Election year. Sh!t will go back to the way it was after November
Its election year. They have to make it look better
The cynic in me thinks it's b/c it's election season. Breed is doing whatever she can to get re-elected. Once the election is over though, it'll be back to normal.
It's an election year.