I was just there recently, and noticed a huge difference in the amount of homeless people. It was dramatically less from 2022 when I was there. The city was also much cleaner than a few years ago.

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier. I think gender matters to perception. As a woman, I'm much more concerned about people who appear to be out of it, staggering around, begging, etc. It really bothered me to be harassed in the BART station. And there were a lot of loiterers in the plaza outside. I've been in a lot of big metro systems worldwide. It's rare to be bothered at the ticket machines or have large groups of bums at an inlet point.

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I work in a law firm, have a home, volunteer, and have loitered outside of Bart and Muni stations. Sometimes I’m waiting to meet people so we can take the train together or I’m picking someone up. Not everyone standing around is homeless.

I was there this past week and agree homeless issue is better…though still way worse than DC. Fisherman’s wharf is basically only a tourist destination nation so I wouldn’t call that “seeing the city.”

By comparison, I was in SF in September and it was pretty bad.

And when I was there in 2019 the homeless population was more aggressive (had a can of peaches thrown at me as I walked to the Powell bart, as an example).

I lived in Berkeley in the mid aughts (also a lot of homeless, also felt unsafe at times), and going into SF always felt like an unhinged experience.

Anonymous wrote:It would be great if someone --be it the mayor or the governor--got the city cleaned up because SF was once a beautiful place to visit. Ditto the mayor of DC. So many great museums and beautiful cherry blossoms...but the homeless problem tarnishes everything.

I agree DC needs to do something about the homelessness issue.
My point was I really rarely saw homeless people in SF though so whatever what they have done lately seems to be working at least in the tourist areas.

- OP

Anonymous wrote:FOX "News" is for entertainment only, so don't believe anything they say about anything. Including places in the United States.

Yeah, cause they totally staged all of the video

I posted earlier. I think gender matters to perception. As a woman, I'm much more concerned about people who appear to be out of it, staggering around, begging, etc. It really bothered me to be harassed in the BART station. And there were a lot of loiterers in the plaza outside. I've been in a lot of big metro systems worldwide. It's rare to be bothered at the ticket machines or have large groups of bums at an inlet point.

I think it is area dependent. A colleague booked us hotel rooms online. Homeless on the front steps. Homeless in the lobby. It was awful. We turned around and left. I found rooms where I normally stay on the app and it was fine there.

It would be great if someone --be it the mayor or the governor--got the city cleaned up because SF was once a beautiful place to visit. Ditto the mayor of DC. So many great museums and beautiful cherry blossoms...but the homeless problem tarnishes everything.

Anonymous wrote:This may also be reflective of how bad D.C. is, since you're making a comparison, so SF may not exactly be idyllic, just a little better than D.C., which is pretty bad in that dimension.

Idyllic no. But it was as nice as I remembered it from working there for a few months 20 years ago.

And yes it’s all relative. I put the comparison to DC in there as a reference point - I’m not comparing it to my suburb for instance but rather to other big cities.

- OP

I travel there a few times a year for work- and have been since 2021. I’ve always found the claims to be overblown and don’t feel unsafe walking around in SF.

As long as you’re not near the tenderloin! Just went to a conference around there and hoo boy! It’s like a post apocalyptic scene: fires, trash, open drug use, people disabled, out of sorts, in pain, urinating, etc. I didn’t feel unsafe but it was very sad to see