San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that viral videos showing crime and homelessness in the streets of San Francisco were not accurate.
Anchor Martha Raddatz said, “I know it annoys you when people look at the city and say it’s either dangerous or crime-ridden or drugs are a huge problem, but you’ve got your own citizens saying the same thing. I think about 17% think the city’s on the right track.”
Breed said, “Well, San Francisco is doing a lot to help combat some of the challenges that we face. We are a major city. During the COVID pandemic, as you see, San Francisco shut down first, and we got a lot of attention. From a numbers perspective, when you look at homelessness in San Francisco, we have, since 2018, helped over 10,000 people exit homelessness in San Francisco. When you look at the data of what is happening with our crime numbers over the past five years, they are showing a decline, especially with car break-ins, burglaries, and other challenges that people are talking about. In comparison to other U.S. cities, San Francisco is really at the bottom. So I get that people feel that there are problems and there are concerns. They see the viral videos, and they think, oh, what’s going on in San Francisco?”
Raddatz said, “But those statistics are from people who live here. 17% think it’s on the right track. They live here.”
Breed said, “But it’s not always attributed just to the issues around crime, you know? It’s attributed to the issues around homelessness as well. It’s significant to really continue to do the work that we’re doing so that people cannot only see and feel the difference.”
She added, “When people are coming to San Francisco, they are surprised that things aren’t as bad as what they thought they were. Are things perfect in San Francisco? No, they’re not, but we continue to work aggressively at it in order to solve some of our most pressing problems.”
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