A majority of California voters have said they consider the two largest cities in the United States to be “less safe” than other cities in the country.
The survey, conducted by Inside California Politics/Emerson Collegehighlighted the attitude in The Golden State ahead of the March primaries.
Voters were asked whether they thought Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego were “about as safe as other major cities, less safe or safer.”
Of all respondents, 54 percent thought Los Angeles was less safe compared to other major cities and 59 percent agreed for San Francisco.
Forty-nine percent of voters thought Sacramento was as safe as other major cities, and 51 percent agreed for San Diego.
Of all respondents, 54 percent believe Los Angeles is less safe compared to other major cities
Fifty-nine percent of respondents also said they felt San Francisco was less safe compared to other areas
Homeless people are pictured in San Francisco, California, the United States, December 23, 2023
The survey surveyed 1,087 registered voters between January 11 and 14, with a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percent.
Broken down by political affiliation, Republican voters tended to agree that the cities named in the survey were “less safe,” with the exception of San Diego.
The poll found that 74.3 percent of registered Republicans described Los Angeles as “less safe,” and another 74.5 percent felt the same about San Francisco.
While 46.8 percent of registered Democrats thought Los Angeles was “less safe,” 54.3 percent felt the same about San Francisco.
Eleven percent of all respondents said they thought crime was the biggest problem currently facing the state, while the economy was considered the most important problem.
Despite the state’s widespread homelessness problem, only 11 percent felt it was the most important problem facing the state.
The issue has become so serious that Gov. Gavin Newsom last week asked the Supreme Court to help him resolve the crisis by allowing him to ban rough sleeping.
The justices agreed Friday that a lower court was wrong to rule that a ban on homeless people in public places was unconstitutional.
It comes after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that anti-camping ordinances in San Francisco violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom discusses his proposed state budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year during a press conference in Sacramento, California
Newsom insists he takes responsibility for California’s growing homelessness crisis
Despite the state’s widespread homelessness problem, only 11 percent felt it was the most important problem facing the state
Newsom has repeatedly pledged to “take matters into his own hands” as the city faces an exodus of businesses from a drug-plagued city, and has urged the nation’s highest court “not to tie its hands tie’.
“California has invested billions to address homelessness, but court rulings have tied the hands of state and local governments in tackling this problem,” he said Friday.
“The Supreme Court can now correct course and end the costly delays caused by lawsuits that have plagued our efforts to clear camps and provide services to those in need.”
A quarter of a million people have fled the Bay Area since the start of 2020, Newsweek reported in June.
The governor said the state is investing in behavioral health and mental health reforms, claiming he has taken 68,000 people off the streets and removed 6,000 encampments since he became governor in 2019.
But many of those encampments were removed for the APEC summit in November, where Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, among other world leaders and thousands of delegates, descended on the city.
And residents told Dailymail.com the problem has returned with a vengeance since safety barriers were removed.
Nearly 100 retailers in downtown San Francisco have closed since the start of the COVID pandemic, a drop of more than 50 percent, according to a recent report
The city center has suffered from the proliferation of homeless camps, open-air drug markets and rampant theft
About 100 retailers in downtown San Francisco have closed since the COVID pandemic began — a drop of more than 50 percent from 2019.
Office vacancy rates hit a record high of 34 percent in September as shops were pushed out of the city center by increased crime and economists warned the city was entering an “urban doom loop.”
The city is expected to record more than 800 drug deaths in 2023 – which would be the highest year on record: 2020, when 726 people died.
August was the deadliest month, with an average of someone dying from an overdose every nine hours, while in October an average of two people died per day.