How well is San Francisco delivering for its residents?
The city’s controller tries to answer that question every year with its “Annual Performance Results” report, on what services San Francisco offers and how many people are using them, from public transit to libraries.
The latest report, released last fall, includes data on city departments from July 2023 through June 2024. The big takeaway: San Francisco is on the long road to recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Fewer people are using public transit or visiting libraries than before the pandemic. Some basic services are struggling, too. Ambulances, for example, are not getting to people in need quickly enough. More homeless people were tallied in the biannual “point-in-time” count.
There are bright spots. More people showed up in the homeless count than before the pandemic. But, more of the city’s unhoused who were tallied in the homeless count are using shelter beds.
Both violent and nonviolent crime were also generally down in San Francisco. One area, in particular, saw a precipitous drop: Reported thefts from vehicles, a driver of property crime in the city, reached its lowest level in recent years.
San Francisco’s next annual performance report is due later this year.
The graph that showed ‘Thefts from vehicles lowest in recent years’ actually showed us that it was on the rise as we recovered from Covid, then dropped sharply the year of our mayoral election. I always felt that Breed woke up just a little too late to the reality that if she wanted to keep being mayor, she needed to get to work. But maybe in her heart, she did not want to be mayor anymore.
You write about the pandemic as though it was over. It is not over. Hundreds of people still die from Covid every week. And then there is Long Covid, from which I suffer, that continues on and on with unpleasant surprises.
I don’t think they mean that there are no scars left from Covid, just that society is normalizing Covid and moving on with it.
Carolyn, I am sorry you have long covid. I hope you recover from it. Last week, 94 people died of Covid in the US. Previous lows have been in the 200 – 500 per week range. Currently 0.4% of deaths in the US are from Covid. While Covid continues to sicken and kill people, the pandemic is over. A pandemic is “a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease over a whole country or the world at a particular time.” While that was true, it is not true now.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#maps_percent-covid-deaths
Actually the pandemic is now endemic. Covid is here now just like the flu.
Thanks for reporting
Covid played a role as did Mayor Breeds administration.
They let things fall apart .
Time to stop blaming and move forward .
Until the city gets control of the illegal activity, the crime and promotes business , and helps the citizens restore their neighborhoods , we are stuck .
Where are the jobs?
If money is only going out , no one is coming in , the situation is not sustainable .