If you've been following the saga of San Francisco over the past several years, you may recall that there was a time, pre-Covid, when San Francisco was regularly making news for filthy streets, rampant homelessness, open drug abuse and petty theft. 

Arguably there was some effort made at improving the situation over the past 7-8 years, especially as it became clear many SF residents had had enough. Voters recalled DA Chesa Boudin and elected a mayor who promised to clean up the streets. But looking back over nearly a decade of promises and activity it's not clear the city has made that much progress. 

The city did hire a PR firm in 2023 to work on its image and that seemed to help for a while, but just 18 months later you still see the same old problems popping up in local news reports. And with SF facing a big budget crisis, some of those old problems seem to be on the verge of getting worse.

For instance, after years of efforts to clean the sidewalks to get rid of used needles and human feces it's possible the public works budget is going to be cut.

With the city facing an $876 million deficit and potential layoffs, the department in charge of scrubbing excrement off sidewalks and sweeping litter out of gutters could reduce its services, according to an initial budget proposal from the Department of Public Works.

If the trims occur, it would be a gut punch in a city battling a national perception of dirty, chaotic streets. It would also make Mayor Daniel Lurie’s job much more challenging: In addition to tackling homelessness and the fentanyl crisis, he has promised to make San Francisco sparkling clean. 

“We don’t want to see cuts in street cleaning,” Public Works spokesperson Rachel Gordon told The Standard. “But it is a possibility in San Francisco.” Gordon clarified that the budget is in the early draft stages and won’t be finalized until the summer.

Even worse than that, the city has a growing problem with rats, a problem that reports blame on climate change.

A study of 16 major cities (14 in North America, plus Amsterdam and Tokyo) over an average of 12 years, published last month in Science Advances, found that climate change is fueling a hemisphere-wide population boom for Rattus rattus, the black rat. In the case of San Francisco, the population has grown by more than 10% — more than every other city in the study besides Washington, D.C.

If you keep reading you eventually find out there's more to the story of why rat populations are suddenly surging in SF.

 Exterminator Maria Talacona, cofounder of the Bay Area’s Mighty Men Pest Control, is all too familiar with it. “We’re definitely seeing an increase in rodent activity anywhere buildings are extremely close together,” Talacona said, adding that this living nightmare is “my favorite thing to talk about.”...

Talacona said, the other reason for the exploding rat population is the state’s new approach to poison. To protect the health of birds, mountain lions, and other animals that may consume poisoned rats, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill in 2024 that prohibited the use of anticoagulant rodenticides, leading the Center for Biological Diversity to crow that “California OKs strongest rat poison restrictions in nation.” Talacona likened that approach to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Protecting mountain lions and and coyotes from poisoned rats doesn't make much sense because neither mountain lions or coyotes are likely to be prowling through the inner city environments where rats are making their homes. In other words, if the goal here was to create or restore some kind of natural predatory-prey relationship, it's not going to work in the center of the city.

And then there's crime. Violent crime and even property crime dropped last year but the city still has persistent problems with theft. A Safeway store that just closed in the Fillmore district was seeing $7,000 worth of shoplifting per day.

Safeway said it will close its 1335 Webster St. store Feb. 7 due to rampant theft and safety fears. 

One Gardaworld private security guard, who spoke on condition of anonymity, estimated the store loses roughly $7,000 a day to shoplifters.

A story published Sunday by the SF Chronicle gives an example of how the same frequent flyers keep making life difficult for SF business owners thanks to a judicial culture that passes them along time after time.

For the past two years, San Francisco cafe owner Hrag Kalebjian said, the same man has stolen more than a thousand dollars worth of merchandise from his establishment. The man comes into Henry’s House of Coffee in the Sunset District and grabs drinks and food without paying, sometimes cursing at or spitting at Kalebjian and his staff, he said.

The pattern has continued despite Kalebjian’s repeated calls to the police. Officers are always sympathetic, he said, but the man is usually gone by the time they arrive...

In November, the man was arrested for theft but it’s not clear where it took place, court records show. After he failed to show up for his court date in December, police arrested him, but he was let out on diversion over the objection of a prosecuting attorney. He was also arrested in January for petty theft and other charges after allegedly stealing from a business in San Francisco. He was then released without bond and ordered to complete a theft awareness class or five hours of community service...

His next court date relating to the January theft charges at another business is in July. It’s unclear if he’ll continue to stay away from Kalebjian’s cafe.

Here's my prediction for the outcome of the next case: Nothing will happen. The homeless person will get a slap on the wrist and be released and then will go back to stealing all over again.

This is really a metaphor for the city as whole. Everyone is aware of the problems but nothing ever seems to change despite lots of talk and promises to make improvements. My guess is that this same thief will still be on the street five years from now, still mentally ill and/or drug addicted and still stealing routinely from local business owners. It's a shame but at this point it's hardly a surprise.