In January, the Cow Hollow Association (CHA) emailed its membership an information piece that asked the question, “
Is San Francisco Quality of Life Dying?
”. We recommended that you watch two investigative documentaries developed by KOMO News Seattle about their city’s blight and its crisis of addiction and mental health problems, and how these compare to San Francisco and LA. The parallels between our cities are undeniable and instructive - our problems are shared by other cities, and we are not alone in our urgent desire to solve them.
We summarized the main conclusions from these documentaries into a short survey that asked CHA members if they agreed with specific statements.
CHA wanted to know if there was sufficient concern and engagement in our community to come together to solve this crisis.
We were inspired by how many members volunteered to step up and do something constructive!
The outpouring of responses was startling. 98% “strongly agreed” or “agreed” with statements of need (
see survey questions
) which addressed effective interventions, enforcement of laws and the political will of our elected officials.
We closed the survey by stating a vital, feasible mission: “There are proven solutions in other communities. Please help to ensure San Francisco's elected and appointed representatives LISTEN to their constituents and DO what is both compassionate and truly effective!”. Here are a couple comments from respondents:
“Elected city officials must start implementing methods
used in other cities to justify the enormous amount of taxpayer
money spent on the "homeless" problem. They must be held accountable.”
“There are over 70 agencies and non-profits attempting to
address the issue, and this needs to stop. Consolidating these
into a more effective response, with lower overhead is needed.
Metrics are needed to track progress, and those producing
positive results would be entitled to increased funding.”
The survey asked if the recipient wants to get involved and help. For those who volunteered and anyone else who wants to explore becoming actively engaged and participate in this effort,
we will host a special meeting to establish a working group to begin building a powerful coalition of concerned citizens and organizations
to reverse San Francisco’s deteriorating quality of life. We will open the discussion to your ideas about leadership, objectives and action plans.
