San Francisco’s local government is a very dirty joke

Unfortunately, while San Francisco’s new mayor, London Breed, recognizes these challenges, she doesn’t seem to have any original solutions. Responding to the abundant fecal matter and used needles that now litter San Francisco’s streets, Breed simply wants more money for cleanups. That seems like a poor idea when one considers that San Francisco streets have never been more dirty, despite skyrocketing street cleaning budgets in recent years. As an NBC News report notes, the “street cleaning budget has nearly doubled in just the past five years from $33.4 million during the 2012-2013 fiscal year, to $65.4 million in the current 2017-2018 budget.”

The most obvious solution here would be to start enforcing laws. But when asked whether she will punish those who use streets as toilets, the mayor defers to the far-left advocates who oppose penalties. Instead, Breed says she wants homeless advocacy groups “to talk to their clients, who, unfortunately, were mostly responsible for the conditions of our streets.”

This speaks to the city’s idiotic approach to its epidemic of homelessness. As it has for decades, the city just wants to keep throwing money at the problem. The NBC News investigative team found that “San Francisco is slated to spend nearly $280 million this year on housing and services for the homeless — a roughly 40 percent increase compared to just five years ago. Over that same span, however, the number of homeless in the city has largely remained the same at about 7,500 people, according to city counts.”

Now, $280 million divided by 7,500 is $37,333. Think about that: San Francisco is spending $37,333 a year on each homeless resident and it still cannot grapple with the problem. Nor, it seems, can the San Francisco Police Department. While very well funded, the SFPD continues to see worsening priority-call response times.

Something is very wrong here.

Homelessness is a human tragedy that deserves sympathy. But there is no excuse for littering needles and excrement on public sidewalks. That choice is a grievous affront to the residents who pay for the services that homeless citizens rely on. And boy, do those residents pay for it. In addition to its extortionate property and business tax rates, San Francisco adds a surcharge to the state sales tax for a whopping total of 8.5 percent. And get this, San Francisco’s hyper-left-wing city council is also working toward a city income tax that would remove even more money from residents’ wallets.

Of course, the residents ultimately only have themselves to blame here. Their refusal to demand more from their polticians — more aggressive policing, more aggressive accountability of bloated administrative budgets, and more value for money on the taxes they pay — San Franciscans can’t really complain about their socialist experiences. But when the major tech firms start realizing they have better options elsewhere with lower costs and higher quality of life, and take their tax receipts with them, perhaps Bay area residents will start asking for a better deal.