The numbers are getting better. The city isn't keeping up.
The numbers are getting better. The city isn't keeping up.
Property crime is at a two-year low. Graffiti is down 69%. On paper, San Francisco is improving.
But call 911 for a non-emergency and wait nearly two hours. Watch drug incidents climb 31% while overdose calls drop. The gap between the data and daily life is the story right now.
More 911 Calls. Slower Responses. SF's Emergency System Is Getting Stretched.
911 is slower as calls keep rising
Total 911 calls are up 7.5% year-over-year — and the system is buckling. Priority C calls, meaning real problems that aren't immediately life-threatening, now average nearly two hours for a response.
That's not a rounding error. That's a broken window, a suspicious person, a noise complaint — things residents actually call about — going unanswered for the better part of a workday.
Property Crime in SF Has Been Cut Nearly in Half Since 2024
Property crime hit a two-year low
San Francisco recorded 1,127 property crime incidents in March 2026. That's down 68% from the July 2024 peak of 3,521. Year-over-year, it's a 35.7% drop.
This is real. Car break-ins, theft, burglary — the stuff that made SF feel ungovernable two years ago — is genuinely falling. The question is whether it holds.
Fewer Overdose Calls. More Narcan. More Drug Crime. Pick Your Narrative.
Drug data is pointing three directions at once
Overdose 911 calls are down 13.8%. Narcan deployments by SFPD are up 26.9%. Drug crime incidents are up 30.8%. These three numbers can't all be good news.
The most likely read: fewer people are dying, but more people are using — and officers are intervening more often with naloxone while enforcement incidents climb. That's not a solved problem. That's a managed one.
223 New Housing Units Approved in March. Contracts Hit $1.4B.
Housing approvals doubled. Contracts hit $1.4B.
SF approved 223 net new housing units in March via final occupancy — up 119% from February and the highest monthly total since September. City contracts also hit $1.4 billion that month.
223 units won't fix the housing crisis. But it's the pipeline moving, which is more than most recent months can claim. Watch whether April holds the pace or March was a one-month flush.
Offensive Graffiti Reports Have Fallen 59% Since March 2025
Graffiti reports collapsed — for real
SF logged 512 offensive graffiti cases in March 2026, down from 1,675 in March 2025. That's a 69% drop in a single month, year-over-year — and it's part of a sustained decline, not a blip.
This is one of the cleaner wins in the data right now. Whether it reflects less tagging, faster cleanup, or fewer people bothering to report — the visual blight signal is moving in the right direction.
Get this in your inbox every week
Sign up to receive San Francisco, California’s weekly briefing for District 5.