A Better Mission Is Possible

Our District 9 Supervisor needs to be accountable for conditions in the Mission. It is their job to coordinate the various resources needed to fix these problems.

They have been "working on it" for years and failing. We do not need more committees, taxes, or idealistic and unrealistic programs. We have heard enough blaming other departments or leaders.

We do not share their elite ideological obsessions. We want clean, safe streets. We want these problems fixed now.

1. Street homelessness is not acceptable in the Mission

When a person suffers extreme misfortune, we as a society should help them get back on their feet. We all benefit from this. It helps the individual person to regain their dignity and build their life back. It allows them to contribute back to their community, which helps society at large.

But when people abuse our support, while refusing assistance, that is not OK. It is not fair that a very small number of people should be allowed to take advantage of our public spaces to do hard drugs like meth and fentanyl, steal, dump trash everywhere, or urinate and defecate in public. It is not compassionate to allow people to fall further into lives of addiction, crime, and poor health. When we allow this to continue, we are enabling their bad behavior, not helping them. And we signalling to others that it's OK to come to our neighborhood and do the same, a vicious cycle that will only get worse.

There is also the issue of quality of life for the rest of us. There are 45,000 residents of the Mission. The huge majority of us are law-abiding. So why do we allow only a few hundred homeless individuals to flout the law, taking up our shared public resources with encampments? Why do we allow them to dump garbage and trash in our streets? Who among us hasn't crossed the street to put distance between us and a raving, unhinged homeless person?

Most of us would rather walk down a clean, unoccupied sidewalk, free of intimidation or fear.  Most people would support getting people off the street and into treatment or housing, or moved to areas where they are not reducing quality of life for others.

In many cities, it takes less than 24 hours for problematic encampments to be removed, and their inhabitants connected with services or asked to leave.

Why do our elected officials spend years endlessly arguing, forming committees, and raising taxes to supposedly address these problems? Addressing Street Homelessness in the Mission has been Supervisor Ronen's #1 priority for years. Why do these problems only get worse, never better? 

“I've been here trying to work on this issue for 13 years, and I'm just out of ideas” - Hillary Ronen, District 9 (the Mission) Supervisor

2. Crime is not acceptable in the Mission

We've got a serious crime problem in the Mission. And you don't need "data" to tell you this. Just ask yourself: 

• Am I comfortable leaving belongings in my car in the Mission, or do I worry my windows will get smashed and my property stolen?

• Have I heard of people being assaulted, robbed, or mugged recently in the Mission?

• Given the choice, would I prefer not to live in a street-level apartment?

• Do I need to make sure to pick up my packages or mail quickly so they don't get stolen?

• Do I feel safe walking at night in the Mission?

If Ensuring Public Safety in District 9 Neighborhoods has been Hillary Ronen's #2 priority for years, why is it getting worse?

San Francisco, and the Mission in particular, has a massive property crime problem. Studies show that police presence reduces crime, but police presence is at an all-time low in the Mission. This is not surprising, since our District Supervisor specifically called for less police, without replacing them with any other solution for stopping property crime:

3. We do not accept that solutions in the Mission are "too complicated"

Other neighborhoods in San Francisco do not have the level of crime and problem homelessness that we have in the Mission. Therefore it must be possible to solve these problems in San Francisco. Why is it not happening here?

Any complex solution can be broken down into achievable pieces, and this is no different. The only difference is we have a District Supervisor who is either unwilling to solve these problems for us, or incapable. Either way, it is not acceptable for an elected official to spend over 7 years working for our District only for things to continually get worse.

Think about that. Seven years. After 7 years, we should have lots of new places for everyone to live. We should have cleaner streets. We should not have people taking up our sidewalks with their drug dens and crime camps. We should feel safer, not more fearful.

It starts with basic enforcement of laws. 

FAQs

What are the solutions?

Power and responsibility go together. Elected officials must step up and take responsibility for solutions. It is their job to build relationships and coordinate city resources to fix the problems we see in our neighborhood every day. If they are not effective, they need to listen to their constituents, or removed from office so we can try something new. 

Why are you anonymous?

We're afraid of being personally attacked by nonprofit activist groups who operate in the Mission, including groups like Calle 24 and Coalition on Homelessness.

These groups have made it their full-time job to oppose any reasonable efforts to solve these problems. They have monopolized the discourse and gotten in bed with our elected officials. They drum up votes for elected officials in exchange for support for their ineffective ideologies.