Ballot finds 40% of San Francisco residents plan to ditch the town attributable to rampant crime, homelessness
San Francisco could soon become a ghost town if residents keep their word.
A new survey by the city’s Chamber of Commerce found that a whopping 40% of residents will want to leave the city in the next few years due to the rapidly deteriorating quality of life.
The survey showed that crime and homelessness are among the main concerns of residents. Residents do not feel safe in the city and do not trust local officials to make positive changes.
“For the second year in a row, 70% of residents believe that the quality of life in San Francisco has declined,” the chamber wrote in a press release on the survey. “Given the pandemic, these views are hardly surprising. What is striking in the survey results, however, is the strikingly high and constant number of respondents who see homelessness and crime as the main problems facing the city today.
“Around 88% see homelessness getting worse in recent years, and an overwhelming 80% see addressing this homeless crisis as a high priority,” the Chamber noted.
As a direct reprimand for the progressive city’s efforts to weaken the police force, 76% of respondents said increasing the number of police officers in high-crime neighborhoods should be a top priority.
A former resident who just moved from San Francisco to Palm Springs, Florida over the weekend spoke to KPIX-TV about precisely these issues.
“There’s nothing worse than seeing such a beautiful place in such a mess and I really thought I would be sad when the moving companies loaded the last container on Saturday and I’ve never been so relieved,” said Lindsay Stevens.
“I honestly think we’ve seen a massive decline in the quality of life over the past three years and that has only been improved by COVID,” she added. “Homelessness has been a serious problem, people don’t feel safe walking their dogs … the number of break-ins seems to be increasing all the time.”
Another resident, 24-year-old Minku Lee, told the news agency, “I think safety is a huge concern, even two years ago when I originally returned to the city, I never considered certain neighborhoods to be necessarily unsafe. “
He remembered falling victim to a homeless person just the last week while driving a group of friends to happy hour on 3rd Street near Oracle Park.
“He said that even an insult would have knocked me over violently, a slash would have stumbled me, really shocked about the incident,” reported Lee.
The upcoming mass exodus from San Francisco has actually been going on for a few years. In April, TheBlaze reported that of all major US cities, San Francisco lost the most residents in 2019 and 2020 – many of them moved to Florida or Texas.
