311 Complaints by Neighborhood in 2015

The number of 311 complaints jumped 24 percent in San Francisco last year to 350,000, with residents of the Inner Mission and South of Market neighborhoods registering the most.

Not too surprisingly, the most common complaint was related to sidewalk and street cleaning, followed by graffiti.

311 Complaints by Reason in 2015

And according to the data compiled by RentCafe, the intersection of 18th and Mission generated the most complaints overall.

22 thoughts on “311 Complaints Jumped 24 Percent in San Francisco Last Year”
  1. Is there any data on how many complaints were logged via the 311 app, or how many people downloaded the app in the last year? I’m curious if the app is making 311 more accessible to the public.

  2. Gee, almost as if the trouble-makers are being herded into the Inner Mission, where coincidentally the sharpest lines have been drawn between developers eager to “build, build, build” and posturing “community” members who want to preserve whatever is the polar opposite. So the city responds with “ok, we’ll show you gritty!” Installing a Mission Station captain who is loathe to enforce the law, and other SFPD stations telling every last bad actor in town to move their acts to the Mission.

    Meanwhile, in most of the rest of the city 4-6 officers will arrive in minutes if someone so much as opens an beer or sits on a stoop. Who’s stuck in the middle? Why the tens of thousands of people who live in the Mission, of course. But who cares about them, right Campos? Right Lee? Right Perea?

  3. I use it all the time for corner dumpling and homeless issues. They’re pretty good about picking up the junk within two hours. Homeless issues, not as active.

  4. Not surprised. I live along Cesar Chavez and have called about getting all the trash and weeds removed, but no action follows. The city spends millions of dollars on pretty landscaping but no routine maintenance.

  5. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that most of the blight is centered in the immigrant communities. If San Francisco wants to be a Sanctuary City, it will never be a nice or clean city. You simply cannot have it both ways. Anyone who thinks this is a racist or xenophobic statement needs to travel to Central America or East Asia and see for themselves.

  6. It’s an increasingly bigger, fractured, greedy City now, with people much more out for themselves, with a much lower sense of community feel. I think all that is feeding into the increase.

    1. I remember about 8 years ago while waiting for the 38 near Van Ness, a woman dropped a wad of money on her way into a now closed bar. I ran and grabbed her lost loot and was berated by several of my fellow muni riders for not keeping the money myself. I’m as anti-techie/newb as the next guy, but plenty of veteran San Franciscans have zero love for their fellow citizen. It’s just one anecdote, but to me it shows how some of the natives were never that desirable to begin with.

  7. Uh, not the case, actually. Its street campers by and large. They have been herded into the Mission from SOMA and Mission Bay by the intense development activity there and police directing them (as was noted during Superbowl fiasco).

    There is some graffiti involved and the Mission has long been a favorite spot for taggers, but otherwise its not so much randomly tossed trash per se, it’s the detritus of the tent camps. Detritus being a kind word for you know what. Get the app and see for yourself.

    1. It’s not just the campers. My corner near Potrero/24th is a regular dumping ground for old mattresses and broken furniture. I’m getting the app.

  8. More people, more 311 calls. Plus greater awareness of 311 as a service. Curious if they track complaints by resident vs non-residents.

  9. I’m glad we’re complaining a lot in the Mission; shame no one is listening or doing anything about it. Hey there city government! We pay taxes too! Just like residents of other neighborhoods. (I use the term “We” to mean those who live in legal housing; the bums, urchins, thieves, and roaming campers aren’t real citizens, yet they seem to have more rights than the rest of us.)

    The mission is the third world, complete with third-world issues — dirty, garbage strewn streets, lawless sidewalks full of illegal street vendors, vehicles parked wherever they want, vagrants, and drugged “urchins” stripping your (stolen) bike, a lively rich:poor divide, and a government that barely functions and provides very little to the average citizen.

    1. The Mission is the most ‘progressive’ and demanding of the city’s services while fighting tooth and nail to block all development. Believe it or not, that development actually leads to neighborhood improvements. Developers pay for affordable housing, rec centers, park improvements, transit improvements, neighborhood security etc. By denying all of that, the message is loud and clear: the mission will become the slum of San Francisco.

  10. Anyone ever consider jumping in and taking care of minor things like refuse themselves? Do it all the time. IMO San Franciscans get the city they deserve.

  11. 311 complaints I make in Bayview are routinely “closed” without anything actually being done. It always takes repeated complaints to get any action.

    People routinely park all over the sidewalk at times nearly blocking my front gate from opening. Unbelievable amounts of trash and junk thrown on the street daily only yards from our bay. Derelicts at the corner wandering into any corner to indiscriminately piss and sh*t as close to your front door as possible. And of course, the gunfire. I sweep and pick up trash on my block 3 times a week.

    I’d move back to the mission in a second if I could afford it.

  12. I use the 311 app almost daily for illegal dumping and while I want it picked up, I think the city is enabling more dumping with this. I can only imagine how much we are spending paying city workers to drive around in DPW pick-ups collecting old furniture and construction debris.

    Seems our money might be well spent on a big education and crack down campaign. From what I see, the problem stems from illegal units with no garbage service, new citizens with different customs, half rate contractors who don’t want to pay dump fees and people who think they are recycling by leaving it out for someone else to reuse. And of course, inconsiderate jackasses but that will never change.

  13. we’re in outer flatter noe and thought a lot about beautifying our home when we first purchased – paint, security gate removed (it was the last on the block), oversized vintage entry light. all done ourselves i might add, including the 3 story paint job and muriatic acid treatment to marble. neighbors started making a few changes (new planting and new lights, cleaning and painting) in response. i still sweep my sidewalk 3x/week, but it was daily until my 95yo neighbor and co-sweeper first became homebound, (after a jogger knocked her down and didn’t stop), and then she left for a nursing room.

    just that loss changed so much. she kept everyone, including the street population, in check.

    the sidewalks are dirtier. they were always littered due to a natural wind effect and proximity to a bar and its natural alcohol effect, but broken furniture seems to pop up far more then moving days. we had a block long “tip the can over” event in march. my entry planters were damaged by thrown wine bottles. my well lit portico is apparently just what the neighborhood needed, including an occasional wailing drunk or unconscious injection drug user. i hosed human piss off my upper steps last week and twice during coldest weather this past winter awoke to bodies blocking our front doors.

    i’ve called a lot of city services in the last 12 months but didn’t even know about this number/app. that said, none of the categories on the list are what is impacting my street. we need more rapid response and assistance with the mentally ill and the mentally altered and i don’t think that should necessarily be a police call.

    and for $2.8MM you can buy a condo on my block!

  14. How about a map layer of where the meth and heroin addiction problems are worst. May be a correlation since the addicts tend to do their thing out in the streets. ?

  15. as the wealthy move in and overpay for their apartments and houses, they suddenly “expect” to get what they paid for. Only now are people realizing that going all in on a house or condo or renting that apartment while working for Goggle or Mapple doesn’t mean the City gives a sh*t, and their neighbors certainly don’t.

    Someone wrote that in San Francisco you are always paying more and always getting less, and that is what people like to do. Hence, the complaints and whatnot. So suck on that, while you’re whining in your overpriced real estate…

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