17 ms·

A Safer San Francisco

93 points by stevenpetryk 5y ago

seoaeu 5y ago
Increased police funding, increased surveillance, and harsher sentencing... Not exactly the public safety reforms that many were hoping for.
- PhoenixReborn 5y ago
  Perhaps not, but it's clear that reduced police funding and enforcement hasn't been working...so I think it's a natural shift in the other direction from leadership. While I'm sure many in SF will be disappointed by this, many others will probably be much happier.
  - DoctorNick 5y ago
    This is misleading. Police funding was never actually reduced. The proposed funding shift, as paltry as it was (only 120 million), never actually happened: https://www.sfweekly.com/news/is-san-francisco-re-funding-the-police/ https://www.sfweekly.com/news/is-san-francisco-re-funding-th...
    - PhoenixReborn 5y ago
      Ah, thanks for the correction. The policy I had in mind when writing the above comment was the one on petty theft: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1273848 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1273848
  - beeboop 5y ago
    >but it's clear that reduced police funding and enforcement hasn't been working based on what evidence?
- thehappypm 5y ago
  Yeah, these might actually work.
  - Tiktaalik 5y ago
    Just like how Regan's War on Drugs worked.
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      Because every societal issue is identical.
      - thevardanian 5y ago
        Because other countries like Singapore or Japan, which have world class cities, actually care about their citizens and provide them with real support. This kind of dogmatic thinking in America will literally be the end of it. "Beatings will continue until morale improves", was not meant to be advice.
        thehappypm 5y ago
        Singapore is basically a police state
        egg1 5y ago
        Sorry, but if Singapore and Japan are your ideas of what liberal reform looks like, I've got a bridge to sell you. The kind of lawlessness you see in American and European cities is shocking to anyone coming from these places. Both countries are paternalistic, statist societies controlled by right-wing governments since WW2. Singapore's safety comes from harsh punishment for antisocial behaviors, from caning for vandalism all the way to execution for drug trafficking. Japan is a bit softer on this front but strict cultural norms are enforced by society as a whole. They have freedom of speech but start rioting the way BLM did in 2020 and you can expect the government to use a few "emergency powers" with overwhelming support from the public. Yes, they've implemented a few social safety nets here and there that resemble the welfare system in Western Europe, but they also don't hesitate to use the full power of the state (and public shaming) to crack down on deviant behavior.
- diogenescynic 5y ago
  Really? Who has been to San Francisco and actually thought we need to further reduce sentencing or that there was too much police? I think most feel the opposite and SF doesn’t exactly mass-incarcerate… I am all for applying the rule of law for once but I am skeptical this is anything more than a PR tactic. Nothing of consequence will change until leadership in SF is thrown out and that will likely never happen.
  - jjj123 5y ago
    I live in SF and think that there’s an okay amount of police. I don’t want enhanced police presence. Increased social services sounds like a better way to spend that money to me.
    - diogenescynic 5y ago
      Do you really think SF is lacking in social services? I think the problem is people don’t really want them and can’t be forced to use them so it’s just a waste of resources. Every year millions more are dumped into social programs and the problem has only gotten worse. SF has shown the road to hell is paved in good intentions. I moved out of SF because there were constantly tweakers camping in my garage area and cops took hours to respond and they didn’t even do anything, drug users just came back repeatedly after cops left. SF is fine for the champagne liberals living on Nob Hill with private security but everyone else is living in a place where rule of law barely exists.
      - jjj123 5y ago
        I think we probably have a difference of opinion of what problem we should solve. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this sounds like the problem you want to solve: drug users and homeless people make you feel unsafe, and you want to feel more safe. I don’t personally feel unsafe in SF, at all. The problem I’d like to solve is this: how can we get help to people who need it? Be that unhoused people, people struggling with mental health issues, people who are addicted to drugs. I don’t know if more social services will help solve my problem, you’re right that we spend a lot of money on it and it doesn’t seem to work all that well. But I do know that more policing will absolutely not solve my problem, it will only make it worse. It might solve yours though, as there won’t be as much drug use and theft with increased police presence. I’m not saying either problem is objectively the right or wrong one. I don’t think there is an objective answer. Just want to show you why people like myself are not looking for an increase in SFPD funding. Edited for clarity.
- suyash 5y ago
  Increase surveillance sounds right out of sci-fi movie..remember "pre-crime" ?
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    Putting up more cctv cameras is not remotely in the realm of science fiction. It's present-level tech more widely deployed. Privacy advocates won't like it, but that doesn't make it anything like precrime.
- DoctorNick 5y ago
  "It's the only way to keep those "people" off the streets." – San Francisco resident, 2024 ("Past Tense, Part I")
  - emikulic 5y ago
    Great episode. I rewatched it recently and it was just a bit too real.
- darth_avocado 5y ago
  Isn’t this always the case with ANY government? Use crisis to get access to more funding that they can waste like the rest and more power to control more of its citizens. I’d for once like them to more efficiently use the billions that they already spend and amend policies that have created this crisis in the first place.
henning 5y ago
Too late. I and many other people voted with our feet and left. We bought a decent house in a decent neighborhood that had 5x the square footage of our old apartment and only pay a few hundred dollars more for the mortgage than we were paying in rent. People leave things on their porches and they don't get stolen! It's amazing.
- ShrigmaMale 5y ago
  Honestly dense cities suck. Why anybody would pay so much for such a small space with neighbors so near I just don't get. Good for you getting out.
  - pvarangot 5y ago
    The parties and the restaurants. If it was not for that I wouldn't be in SF or any other city.
    - henning 5y ago
      The restaurants are the only part of the Bay Area I actually miss.
      - mensetmanusman 5y ago
        Apparently an analysis was done in restaurant menu items and gentrification is making it worse because cooks don’t make enough to live close to work, so there are fewer skilled ones and hence fewer items and more salads :)
    - thomasahle 5y ago
      I don't often go to parties, and I prefer to cook at home. I guess it was a mistake for me to move to SF :D It's nice that it's not as warm as the south bay though.
      - pvarangot 5y ago
supperburg 5y ago
> Securing emergency police funding The irony of this is like looking into the sun
perihelions 5y ago
The lede (in my opinion) is SFC plans to repeal their 2019 moratorium on facial recognition surveillance*, to free the city government to fight terrorists etc. >"While this legislation created a clear public process and transparency relating to surveillance technologies, it also created barriers for law enforcement when responding to public safety emergencies. It hobbled law enforcement when confronting life-threatening incidents like active shooters, suspected terrorist events, hostage taking, kidnapping, natural disasters, or looting." *(The blogpost doesn't explicitly name "facial recognition", but from context I understand she's referring to this law [0] that was frequently discussed on HN [1]). [0] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/14/18623897/san-francisco-facial-recognition-ban-explained https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/14/18623897/san-francisco-... [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=san%20francisco%20facial%20recognition https://hn.algolia.com/?query=san%20francisco%20facial%20rec...
- wahern 5y ago
  > The blogpost doesn't explicitly name "facial recognition", but from context I understand she's referring to this law [0] that was frequently discussed on HN I don't think that's right. That facial recognition bill was largely for show. Since 2006 San Francisco has had strict limitations on the placement of public-facing surveillance cameras by the city. They're virtually unheard of. There are exceptions, but as far as I can tell cameras have mostly dwindled further since shortly after the original legislation as each successive administration became less inclined to even try to seek permission to install a camera somewhere. The biggest exception by far, and also relatively recent (2016, AFAICT), was permitting the use of police body cameras. Because there are so few city surveillance cameras, the police created a program to work with businesses and homeowners to make it easier to access their security footage. But as mentioned by Breed, in 2019 the city passed a law to limit that as well. Anyhow, so long as people are wearing masks then facial recognition doesn't provide any benefit, presuming it even could.
carabiner 5y ago
London Breed is such a weird dystopic name.
edelsohn 5y ago
Will San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin support this shift in approach?
- nwah1 5y ago
  Actions speak louder than words. The man explicitly is against the most basic duties of his position, and has followed through on that by not prosecuting people for all sorts of crimes.
- orangepurple 5y ago
  I think so. The article talks about a vague initiative to make more arrests. The majority of SF criminals are out on the streets the next day after they are arrested. If you want meaningful change first audit the funds disbursement of organizations which allegedly exist to aid the homeless of SF. You may be shocked to discover what is actually happening.
- fourstar 5y ago
  Of course he will. He wants re-election. But he's a rat like the rest of them.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    This argument is like 'the rest of them', uninformed, cynical, accomplishes nothing but poisons civic discussion. Maybe the politicians we get are an outome of our actions.
    - fourstar 5y ago
      >Our actions Like the one you made when you moved to California to exploit the job market and vote in a bunch of BS that you will never experience since you will most likely move back to where you originated from once you make enough money to escape the rat race? Yeah I can generalize, too.
- diebeforei485 5y ago
  Doesn't matter. He's very unpopular, he's likely to be recalled. Meanwhile actual families and kids who live in the Tenderloin and face public safety issues on the daily need our help.
gkop 5y ago
Breed’s been mayor since 2018 and was a supervisor before that since 2015. How come she’s just launching a public safety plan now? And when is she going to take responsibility for her role in getting us to where we are now?
- xvedejas 5y ago
  The board of supervisors has most of the power in SF government (despite that, the mayor traditionally takes most of the blame). It seems that Breed's hands were tied until a situation where the board's majority would cooperate. The board's majority is a faction that often opposes Breed.
  - throwaway829 5y ago
    When CVS said they were closing 6 SF stores primarily because of retail theft Breed said CVS was using that as an excuse for their poor sales performance. She seemed completely disconnected from what's been happening in SF.
- ummonk 5y ago
  Her hands were tied. She had to wait until things are bad enough that the board of supervisors - the majority of whom are hostile to her - get forced to play along.
  - pm90 5y ago
    This. People saying she has been forced by tech exodus or whatever are betraying a lack of understanding of how sf politics works. The recent BOS decision to reject a couple of housing developments on fairly spurious grounds has really shown how stupidly political and out of touch the BOS is; to make them get along with anything requires a crisis. Side note: my mental model of the BOS is the Pawnee town council from the TV show Parks and Recreation; the real life folks seem to operate along depressingly similar lines.
- diogenescynic 5y ago
  She’s trying to save her own skin and wants to get re-elected so she’s trying to pretend she’s going to fix this problem she helped create. Then she’ll ignore it and do nothing again.
blueyes 5y ago
Two things: 1) San Francisco has suffered from a massive tech exodus during COVID and its lockdowns, exacerbated with many municipal policies: https://sfciti.org/sf-tech-exodus/ https://sfciti.org/sf-tech-exodus/ 2) The city has only been saved from deep budgetary cuts by a massive federal bailout: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Federal-stimulus-nearly-wipes-away-San-16010321.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Federal-stimulu... Which is not a sustainable strategy. I interpret this announcement as Breed recognizing many of her administration's policies have have a disastrous effect on the SF tax base, and for the tax base to return, she needs to clean up the city. I'll be watching the numbers to see if the city can turn itself around. A lot of the companies that went remote due to COVID or went to Miami due to politics will never go back.
- DoctorNick 5y ago
  "clean up the city" = further brutalize the poor and unhoused.
  - bostonsre 5y ago
    What would you call positively helping the poor and unhoused that also results in literally cleaner and safer streets?
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      Offering them some form of housing that provides a modicum of humanizing privacy would be a great start.
      - HideousKojima 5y ago
        ~50% of the homeless are severely mentally ill and/or on hard drugs, giving them housing won't fix their behavioral problems.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
DoctorNick 5y ago
Only 3 years away from Sanctuary Districts: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District
- diogenescynic 5y ago
  Definitely seems like we’re part of the way there. You only see these problems to this degree on the west coast. LA, SF, Portland, Seattle. It’s not hard to figure it out.
gpickett00 5y ago
As expected, all of the comments here are very critical of this without proposing something new. What are some alternate proposals to solve these problems?
- beeboop 5y ago
  Socialized medicine and mental health care. Social safety nets. Meaningful jobs programs. Less policing and more community resources. Reforms on how prescription drugs that lead to addiction problems are prescribed. Free care, at the expense of pharmaceutical companies, for human beings who have had their lives ruined due to inadequate care from the medical community who have been misled by the pharma industry. Accountability for our leadership that has been bought and sold by corporate interests. The list goes on. There's a lot that can be done. Increasing policing and cracking down on drugs have both proven to be damaging, but it's the only thing the uncompassionate and out-of-touch know how to do in response to problems they refuse to address.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    ...and UBI and social housing.
    - beeboop 5y ago
      Yes
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    Not a fan of SF policy or Breed, but how much of that can realistically be done at the city level?
    - beeboop 5y ago
      Regardless of the difficulty, an attempt should be made towards all or at least some of these ideas. Just speculating that it's too difficult and not even trying shouldn't be acceptable. That said, I think plenty of this is realistic and achievable - just not with the voters we currently have. Maybe the next generation will be more compassionate and in my old age I can see the beginning of progress.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cletus 5y ago
The most interesting thing about San Francisco, to me at least, is just ignorant some residents seem to be of just how bad the situation is. You simply can't walk down the Mission or anywhere near the Tenderloin and not see open drug use, drug dealing, homelessness and crime. By "ignorance" I mean I know a lot of people who work in tech (as I do), many of whom live in SF. I'm actually shocked at how often they'll tell me how amazing SF is. Like where do they live? Do they go out? I really don't get it. I'm against the culture of mass incarceration but not prosecuting thefts below $950 [1] isn't the answer. There's no simple answer here. There are lots of contributing factors. But pretty high on that list is income inequality and housing unaffordability. If it were up to me, I'd also get rid of the "are you a felon?" question that permanently excludes you from many jobs, renting somewhere to live and generally from many aspects of society, forever, with no recourse. If you do your time then your record should be expunged (except for sentencing for future convictions). Some crimes may exclude you from certain jobs (eg sexual or violent crimes and working with children). But it should be pretty limited. Felons should certainly not be stripped of the ability to vote. That should be illegal. If you exclude felons from society, what do you expect these people to do when crime is the only way they can support themselves? [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/us/san-francisco-shoplifting-epidemic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/us/san-francisco-shoplift...
- rectang 5y ago
  > You simply can't walk down the Mission or anywhere near the Tenderloin and not see open drug use, drug dealing, homelessness and crime. The Tenderloin was like that in the 1990s. Same with SOMA, the Lower Haight, 6th and Market, and other parts of the city as well but those were places I frequented often enough to have seen it myself.
  - Uhhrrr 5y ago
    I lived in SOMA in the summer of '94, and it was pretty clean. The Tenderloin was bad, and the Lower Haight wasn't great, but neither of those places had tent cities and human poop.
    - 5y ago
notyourwork 5y ago
I saw no mention of feces, poop, shit or excrement.
- Aperocky 5y ago
  Sounds very SF to have 4 references to the same shit.
  - toomanyrichies 5y ago
    It's like how the Inuit have dozens of words for "snow".
    - Aperocky 5y ago
      Slightly wet snow, very fluffy snow, compressed snow, snow that is mixed in ice, snow that just landed, snow... s///
      - adolph 5y ago
        Yellow
- mizzack 5y ago
  But they included a picture of a guy in a respirator powerwashing the sidewalks, so it's implied.
- egberts1 5y ago
  Poop Map of San Francisco https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b6fab720912642b6aedafdb02a76d2a4 https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b6fab72091...
seaourfreed 5y ago
I heard that they put a safer San Francisco in Austin.
- diogenescynic 5y ago
  Better music and bars too.
newaccount2021 5y ago
too late the war for SF has already been fought and is over, and has been over for a few years now Breed can engage in some feel-good measures like temporary clean-ups and crackdowns, but in the end the city doesn't have the will or means to truly reclaim itself for normal humans every tent, needle, bit of human waste that is moved or scrubbed will come back in time if you live in SF, go out tonight and enjoy a walk, knowing that never again in the city's history will the homeless population be as low as it is tonight
taylortrusty 5y ago
About time. Let’s hope NYC’s new mayor follows a similar path.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
It would be awesome if SF felt like a safe place, I wonder how long it will take?
fblp 5y ago
Anyone else find it odd that announcements from the elected mayor are being published on a privately owned site, Medium? Even Trump who used twitter prolifically would still link to official whitehouse government sites for policy announcements
Areibman 5y ago
Does anyone have any good data sources that identify the problems everyone is complaining about? Every source I browse finds that crime is at an all time low. I keep hearing anecdotes about robberies and break -ins, but nobody every has the data. The cynic in me believes people are just using perceived crime as an excuse to leave when in reality, they're just being priced out of the city.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  There is a political aspect too: The reactionaries and GOP have been pushing how dangerous and horrible cities are for many years, major cities being Democratic strongholds. It was a major focus of the GOP and Trump in the last election. It seems like if they repeat anything enough - anything - eventually people of all political stripes take it as assumed fact.
  - zepto 5y ago
    It seems like you keep pushing the narrative that problems with SF are not real and a fabrication of the GOP. You have posted multiple comments doing this. But you don’t live in SF and have no firsthand knowledge. All you are doing is advancing your own political agenda from a remote location through online commenting, with no regard to the truth people here are witnessing.
    - koshergweilo 5y ago
      > with no regard to the truth people here are witnessing I mean, a bunch of anecdotes are still a bunch of anecdotes. Especially on an anonymous internet forum. > All you are doing is advancing your own political agenda from a remote location through online commenting You could say the same thing about those anecdotes you're referring to. For what it's worth there's plenty of other anecdotes to the contrary. I live in the Bay Area and SF is a fun, beautiful city except for the Tenderloin and some parts of Mission street. I'm glad the local government finally taking their heads out of the sand and doing something. Though it's a complicated issue with no easy answers and frankly I'm not holding my breath
newbie789 5y ago
This kind of reads like Mayor Breed will be handing over a whole lot of power and funding to SFPD and whatever tech contractors they’ve partnered with on the basis of… what? The violent crime and open drug use in San Francisco has been famous for a very, very long time. Am I to believe that the open air drug market at the corner of Turk and Hyde was impervious to police intervention for a decade because… the police didn’t have enough money? But now that they’re getting more money, they’re confident that they’ll be able to make it more difficult to buy drugs in an area that’s walkable on foot in like 15 minutes? This whole thing really seems like police grift. A long time ago (back when I used to do drugs), I actually remember patrol cars regularly cruising around that group of blocks and doing NOTHING to interfere with these activities. I’m quite skeptical that handing full control of a big chunk of the city to (what sounds like) cops with a blank check and whatever city personnel that feel like pulling up Palantir or whatever is a good idea. This kind of sounds like a giveaway to cops that have demonstrated for years that they haven’t been intrinsically motivated to clean up anything, ever. Good luck, San Francisco residents!
andy-x 5y ago
When people start recognizing that Mayor Breed is a part of the problem, and not part of the solution, we may get a chance for solving SF issues.
bradgranath 5y ago
"Amending our surveillance ordinance so law enforcement can prevent and interrupt crime in real time" How the hell is this not the headline/discussion here? Ya'll are down in the weeds of some very stupid real estate bullshit, while this shit is going down in your front yard.

93 points by stevenpetryk 5y ago

Increased police funding, increased surveillance, and harsher sentencing... Not exactly the public safety reforms that many were hoping for.

PhoenixReborn 5y ago
Perhaps not, but it's clear that reduced police funding and enforcement hasn't been working...so I think it's a natural shift in the other direction from leadership. While I'm sure many in SF will be disappointed by this, many others will probably be much happier.
- DoctorNick 5y ago
  This is misleading. Police funding was never actually reduced. The proposed funding shift, as paltry as it was (only 120 million), never actually happened: https://www.sfweekly.com/news/is-san-francisco-re-funding-the-police/ https://www.sfweekly.com/news/is-san-francisco-re-funding-th...
  - PhoenixReborn 5y ago
    Ah, thanks for the correction. The policy I had in mind when writing the above comment was the one on petty theft: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1273848 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1273848
- beeboop 5y ago
  >but it's clear that reduced police funding and enforcement hasn't been working based on what evidence?
thehappypm 5y ago
Yeah, these might actually work.
- Tiktaalik 5y ago
  Just like how Regan's War on Drugs worked.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    Because every societal issue is identical.
    - thevardanian 5y ago
      Because other countries like Singapore or Japan, which have world class cities, actually care about their citizens and provide them with real support. This kind of dogmatic thinking in America will literally be the end of it. "Beatings will continue until morale improves", was not meant to be advice.
      - thehappypm 5y ago
        Singapore is basically a police state
      - egg1 5y ago
        Sorry, but if Singapore and Japan are your ideas of what liberal reform looks like, I've got a bridge to sell you. The kind of lawlessness you see in American and European cities is shocking to anyone coming from these places. Both countries are paternalistic, statist societies controlled by right-wing governments since WW2. Singapore's safety comes from harsh punishment for antisocial behaviors, from caning for vandalism all the way to execution for drug trafficking. Japan is a bit softer on this front but strict cultural norms are enforced by society as a whole. They have freedom of speech but start rioting the way BLM did in 2020 and you can expect the government to use a few "emergency powers" with overwhelming support from the public. Yes, they've implemented a few social safety nets here and there that resemble the welfare system in Western Europe, but they also don't hesitate to use the full power of the state (and public shaming) to crack down on deviant behavior.
diogenescynic 5y ago
Really? Who has been to San Francisco and actually thought we need to further reduce sentencing or that there was too much police? I think most feel the opposite and SF doesn’t exactly mass-incarcerate… I am all for applying the rule of law for once but I am skeptical this is anything more than a PR tactic. Nothing of consequence will change until leadership in SF is thrown out and that will likely never happen.
- jjj123 5y ago
  I live in SF and think that there’s an okay amount of police. I don’t want enhanced police presence. Increased social services sounds like a better way to spend that money to me.
  - diogenescynic 5y ago
    Do you really think SF is lacking in social services? I think the problem is people don’t really want them and can’t be forced to use them so it’s just a waste of resources. Every year millions more are dumped into social programs and the problem has only gotten worse. SF has shown the road to hell is paved in good intentions. I moved out of SF because there were constantly tweakers camping in my garage area and cops took hours to respond and they didn’t even do anything, drug users just came back repeatedly after cops left. SF is fine for the champagne liberals living on Nob Hill with private security but everyone else is living in a place where rule of law barely exists.
    - jjj123 5y ago
      I think we probably have a difference of opinion of what problem we should solve. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this sounds like the problem you want to solve: drug users and homeless people make you feel unsafe, and you want to feel more safe. I don’t personally feel unsafe in SF, at all. The problem I’d like to solve is this: how can we get help to people who need it? Be that unhoused people, people struggling with mental health issues, people who are addicted to drugs. I don’t know if more social services will help solve my problem, you’re right that we spend a lot of money on it and it doesn’t seem to work all that well. But I do know that more policing will absolutely not solve my problem, it will only make it worse. It might solve yours though, as there won’t be as much drug use and theft with increased police presence. I’m not saying either problem is objectively the right or wrong one. I don’t think there is an objective answer. Just want to show you why people like myself are not looking for an increase in SFPD funding. Edited for clarity.
suyash 5y ago
Increase surveillance sounds right out of sci-fi movie..remember "pre-crime" ?
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  Putting up more cctv cameras is not remotely in the realm of science fiction. It's present-level tech more widely deployed. Privacy advocates won't like it, but that doesn't make it anything like precrime.
DoctorNick 5y ago
"It's the only way to keep those "people" off the streets." – San Francisco resident, 2024 ("Past Tense, Part I")
- emikulic 5y ago
  Great episode. I rewatched it recently and it was just a bit too real.
darth_avocado 5y ago
Isn’t this always the case with ANY government? Use crisis to get access to more funding that they can waste like the rest and more power to control more of its citizens. I’d for once like them to more efficiently use the billions that they already spend and amend policies that have created this crisis in the first place.

henning 5y ago

Too late. I and many other people voted with our feet and left. We bought a decent house in a decent neighborhood that had 5x the square footage of our old apartment and only pay a few hundred dollars more for the mortgage than we were paying in rent. People leave things on their porches and they don't get stolen! It's amazing.

ShrigmaMale 5y ago
Honestly dense cities suck. Why anybody would pay so much for such a small space with neighbors so near I just don't get. Good for you getting out.
- pvarangot 5y ago
  The parties and the restaurants. If it was not for that I wouldn't be in SF or any other city.
  - henning 5y ago
    The restaurants are the only part of the Bay Area I actually miss.
    - mensetmanusman 5y ago
      Apparently an analysis was done in restaurant menu items and gentrification is making it worse because cooks don’t make enough to live close to work, so there are fewer skilled ones and hence fewer items and more salads :)
  - thomasahle 5y ago
    I don't often go to parties, and I prefer to cook at home. I guess it was a mistake for me to move to SF :D It's nice that it's not as warm as the south bay though.
    - pvarangot 5y ago

supperburg 5y ago

> Securing emergency police funding The irony of this is like looking into the sun

perihelions 5y ago

The lede (in my opinion) is SFC plans to repeal their 2019 moratorium on facial recognition surveillance*, to free the city government to fight terrorists etc. >"While this legislation created a clear public process and transparency relating to surveillance technologies, it also created barriers for law enforcement when responding to public safety emergencies. It hobbled law enforcement when confronting life-threatening incidents like active shooters, suspected terrorist events, hostage taking, kidnapping, natural disasters, or looting." *(The blogpost doesn't explicitly name "facial recognition", but from context I understand she's referring to this law [0] that was frequently discussed on HN [1]). [0] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/14/18623897/san-francisco-facial-recognition-ban-explained https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/14/18623897/san-francisco-... [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=san%20francisco%20facial%20recognition https://hn.algolia.com/?query=san%20francisco%20facial%20rec...

wahern 5y ago
> The blogpost doesn't explicitly name "facial recognition", but from context I understand she's referring to this law [0] that was frequently discussed on HN I don't think that's right. That facial recognition bill was largely for show. Since 2006 San Francisco has had strict limitations on the placement of public-facing surveillance cameras by the city. They're virtually unheard of. There are exceptions, but as far as I can tell cameras have mostly dwindled further since shortly after the original legislation as each successive administration became less inclined to even try to seek permission to install a camera somewhere. The biggest exception by far, and also relatively recent (2016, AFAICT), was permitting the use of police body cameras. Because there are so few city surveillance cameras, the police created a program to work with businesses and homeowners to make it easier to access their security footage. But as mentioned by Breed, in 2019 the city passed a law to limit that as well. Anyhow, so long as people are wearing masks then facial recognition doesn't provide any benefit, presuming it even could.

carabiner 5y ago

London Breed is such a weird dystopic name.

edelsohn 5y ago

Will San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin support this shift in approach?

nwah1 5y ago
Actions speak louder than words. The man explicitly is against the most basic duties of his position, and has followed through on that by not prosecuting people for all sorts of crimes.
orangepurple 5y ago
I think so. The article talks about a vague initiative to make more arrests. The majority of SF criminals are out on the streets the next day after they are arrested. If you want meaningful change first audit the funds disbursement of organizations which allegedly exist to aid the homeless of SF. You may be shocked to discover what is actually happening.
fourstar 5y ago
Of course he will. He wants re-election. But he's a rat like the rest of them.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  This argument is like 'the rest of them', uninformed, cynical, accomplishes nothing but poisons civic discussion. Maybe the politicians we get are an outome of our actions.
  - fourstar 5y ago
    >Our actions Like the one you made when you moved to California to exploit the job market and vote in a bunch of BS that you will never experience since you will most likely move back to where you originated from once you make enough money to escape the rat race? Yeah I can generalize, too.
diebeforei485 5y ago
Doesn't matter. He's very unpopular, he's likely to be recalled. Meanwhile actual families and kids who live in the Tenderloin and face public safety issues on the daily need our help.

gkop 5y ago

Breed’s been mayor since 2018 and was a supervisor before that since 2015. How come she’s just launching a public safety plan now? And when is she going to take responsibility for her role in getting us to where we are now?

xvedejas 5y ago
The board of supervisors has most of the power in SF government (despite that, the mayor traditionally takes most of the blame). It seems that Breed's hands were tied until a situation where the board's majority would cooperate. The board's majority is a faction that often opposes Breed.
- throwaway829 5y ago
  When CVS said they were closing 6 SF stores primarily because of retail theft Breed said CVS was using that as an excuse for their poor sales performance. She seemed completely disconnected from what's been happening in SF.
ummonk 5y ago
Her hands were tied. She had to wait until things are bad enough that the board of supervisors - the majority of whom are hostile to her - get forced to play along.
- pm90 5y ago
  This. People saying she has been forced by tech exodus or whatever are betraying a lack of understanding of how sf politics works. The recent BOS decision to reject a couple of housing developments on fairly spurious grounds has really shown how stupidly political and out of touch the BOS is; to make them get along with anything requires a crisis. Side note: my mental model of the BOS is the Pawnee town council from the TV show Parks and Recreation; the real life folks seem to operate along depressingly similar lines.
diogenescynic 5y ago
She’s trying to save her own skin and wants to get re-elected so she’s trying to pretend she’s going to fix this problem she helped create. Then she’ll ignore it and do nothing again.

blueyes 5y ago

Two things: 1) San Francisco has suffered from a massive tech exodus during COVID and its lockdowns, exacerbated with many municipal policies: https://sfciti.org/sf-tech-exodus/ https://sfciti.org/sf-tech-exodus/ 2) The city has only been saved from deep budgetary cuts by a massive federal bailout: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Federal-stimulus-nearly-wipes-away-San-16010321.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Federal-stimulu... Which is not a sustainable strategy. I interpret this announcement as Breed recognizing many of her administration's policies have have a disastrous effect on the SF tax base, and for the tax base to return, she needs to clean up the city. I'll be watching the numbers to see if the city can turn itself around. A lot of the companies that went remote due to COVID or went to Miami due to politics will never go back.

DoctorNick 5y ago
"clean up the city" = further brutalize the poor and unhoused.
- bostonsre 5y ago
  What would you call positively helping the poor and unhoused that also results in literally cleaner and safer streets?
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    Offering them some form of housing that provides a modicum of humanizing privacy would be a great start.
    - HideousKojima 5y ago
      ~50% of the homeless are severely mentally ill and/or on hard drugs, giving them housing won't fix their behavioral problems.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]

DoctorNick 5y ago

Only 3 years away from Sanctuary Districts: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District

diogenescynic 5y ago
Definitely seems like we’re part of the way there. You only see these problems to this degree on the west coast. LA, SF, Portland, Seattle. It’s not hard to figure it out.

gpickett00 5y ago

As expected, all of the comments here are very critical of this without proposing something new. What are some alternate proposals to solve these problems?

beeboop 5y ago
Socialized medicine and mental health care. Social safety nets. Meaningful jobs programs. Less policing and more community resources. Reforms on how prescription drugs that lead to addiction problems are prescribed. Free care, at the expense of pharmaceutical companies, for human beings who have had their lives ruined due to inadequate care from the medical community who have been misled by the pharma industry. Accountability for our leadership that has been bought and sold by corporate interests. The list goes on. There's a lot that can be done. Increasing policing and cracking down on drugs have both proven to be damaging, but it's the only thing the uncompassionate and out-of-touch know how to do in response to problems they refuse to address.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  ...and UBI and social housing.
  - beeboop 5y ago
    Yes
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Not a fan of SF policy or Breed, but how much of that can realistically be done at the city level?
  - beeboop 5y ago
    Regardless of the difficulty, an attempt should be made towards all or at least some of these ideas. Just speculating that it's too difficult and not even trying shouldn't be acceptable. That said, I think plenty of this is realistic and achievable - just not with the voters we currently have. Maybe the next generation will be more compassionate and in my old age I can see the beginning of progress.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

cletus 5y ago

The most interesting thing about San Francisco, to me at least, is just ignorant some residents seem to be of just how bad the situation is. You simply can't walk down the Mission or anywhere near the Tenderloin and not see open drug use, drug dealing, homelessness and crime. By "ignorance" I mean I know a lot of people who work in tech (as I do), many of whom live in SF. I'm actually shocked at how often they'll tell me how amazing SF is. Like where do they live? Do they go out? I really don't get it. I'm against the culture of mass incarceration but not prosecuting thefts below $950 [1] isn't the answer. There's no simple answer here. There are lots of contributing factors. But pretty high on that list is income inequality and housing unaffordability. If it were up to me, I'd also get rid of the "are you a felon?" question that permanently excludes you from many jobs, renting somewhere to live and generally from many aspects of society, forever, with no recourse. If you do your time then your record should be expunged (except for sentencing for future convictions). Some crimes may exclude you from certain jobs (eg sexual or violent crimes and working with children). But it should be pretty limited. Felons should certainly not be stripped of the ability to vote. That should be illegal. If you exclude felons from society, what do you expect these people to do when crime is the only way they can support themselves? [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/us/san-francisco-shoplifting-epidemic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/us/san-francisco-shoplift...

rectang 5y ago
> You simply can't walk down the Mission or anywhere near the Tenderloin and not see open drug use, drug dealing, homelessness and crime. The Tenderloin was like that in the 1990s. Same with SOMA, the Lower Haight, 6th and Market, and other parts of the city as well but those were places I frequented often enough to have seen it myself.
- Uhhrrr 5y ago
  I lived in SOMA in the summer of '94, and it was pretty clean. The Tenderloin was bad, and the Lower Haight wasn't great, but neither of those places had tent cities and human poop.
  - 5y ago

notyourwork 5y ago

I saw no mention of feces, poop, shit or excrement.

Aperocky 5y ago
Sounds very SF to have 4 references to the same shit.
- toomanyrichies 5y ago
  It's like how the Inuit have dozens of words for "snow".
  - Aperocky 5y ago
    Slightly wet snow, very fluffy snow, compressed snow, snow that is mixed in ice, snow that just landed, snow... s///
    - adolph 5y ago
      Yellow
mizzack 5y ago
But they included a picture of a guy in a respirator powerwashing the sidewalks, so it's implied.
egberts1 5y ago
Poop Map of San Francisco https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b6fab720912642b6aedafdb02a76d2a4 https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b6fab72091...

seaourfreed 5y ago

I heard that they put a safer San Francisco in Austin.

diogenescynic 5y ago
Better music and bars too.

newaccount2021 5y ago

too late the war for SF has already been fought and is over, and has been over for a few years now Breed can engage in some feel-good measures like temporary clean-ups and crackdowns, but in the end the city doesn't have the will or means to truly reclaim itself for normal humans every tent, needle, bit of human waste that is moved or scrubbed will come back in time if you live in SF, go out tonight and enjoy a walk, knowing that never again in the city's history will the homeless population be as low as it is tonight

taylortrusty 5y ago

About time. Let’s hope NYC’s new mayor follows a similar path.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

It would be awesome if SF felt like a safe place, I wonder how long it will take?

fblp 5y ago

Anyone else find it odd that announcements from the elected mayor are being published on a privately owned site, Medium? Even Trump who used twitter prolifically would still link to official whitehouse government sites for policy announcements

Areibman 5y ago

Does anyone have any good data sources that identify the problems everyone is complaining about? Every source I browse finds that crime is at an all time low. I keep hearing anecdotes about robberies and break -ins, but nobody every has the data. The cynic in me believes people are just using perceived crime as an excuse to leave when in reality, they're just being priced out of the city.

wolverine876 5y ago
There is a political aspect too: The reactionaries and GOP have been pushing how dangerous and horrible cities are for many years, major cities being Democratic strongholds. It was a major focus of the GOP and Trump in the last election. It seems like if they repeat anything enough - anything - eventually people of all political stripes take it as assumed fact.
- zepto 5y ago
  It seems like you keep pushing the narrative that problems with SF are not real and a fabrication of the GOP. You have posted multiple comments doing this. But you don’t live in SF and have no firsthand knowledge. All you are doing is advancing your own political agenda from a remote location through online commenting, with no regard to the truth people here are witnessing.
  - koshergweilo 5y ago
    > with no regard to the truth people here are witnessing I mean, a bunch of anecdotes are still a bunch of anecdotes. Especially on an anonymous internet forum. > All you are doing is advancing your own political agenda from a remote location through online commenting You could say the same thing about those anecdotes you're referring to. For what it's worth there's plenty of other anecdotes to the contrary. I live in the Bay Area and SF is a fun, beautiful city except for the Tenderloin and some parts of Mission street. I'm glad the local government finally taking their heads out of the sand and doing something. Though it's a complicated issue with no easy answers and frankly I'm not holding my breath

newbie789 5y ago

This kind of reads like Mayor Breed will be handing over a whole lot of power and funding to SFPD and whatever tech contractors they’ve partnered with on the basis of… what? The violent crime and open drug use in San Francisco has been famous for a very, very long time. Am I to believe that the open air drug market at the corner of Turk and Hyde was impervious to police intervention for a decade because… the police didn’t have enough money? But now that they’re getting more money, they’re confident that they’ll be able to make it more difficult to buy drugs in an area that’s walkable on foot in like 15 minutes? This whole thing really seems like police grift. A long time ago (back when I used to do drugs), I actually remember patrol cars regularly cruising around that group of blocks and doing NOTHING to interfere with these activities. I’m quite skeptical that handing full control of a big chunk of the city to (what sounds like) cops with a blank check and whatever city personnel that feel like pulling up Palantir or whatever is a good idea. This kind of sounds like a giveaway to cops that have demonstrated for years that they haven’t been intrinsically motivated to clean up anything, ever. Good luck, San Francisco residents!

andy-x 5y ago

When people start recognizing that Mayor Breed is a part of the problem, and not part of the solution, we may get a chance for solving SF issues.

bradgranath 5y ago

"Amending our surveillance ordinance so law enforcement can prevent and interrupt crime in real time" How the hell is this not the headline/discussion here? Ya'll are down in the weeds of some very stupid real estate bullshit, while this shit is going down in your front yard.