Since taking office, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has moved with notable urgency to confront one of the city’s most visible and painful realities: disorder on our streets. The results are undeniable. Encampments have been reduced in several corridors, sidewalks look cleaner, and commercial districts that had felt abandoned are beginning to breathe again. For many residents and business owners, this change feels long overdue. It sends a message that the city is no longer willing to normalize chaos, open drug use, and the slow erosion of public space.
Anyone who walks our neighborhoods can see that much of what has plagued our sidewalks in recent years is tied to addiction and untreated mental illness. The arrival of fentanyl did not just add another drug to the mix; it transformed the crisis into something far more lethal and visible. People bent over, frozen in place, trapped in a cycle that robs them of dignity and health. This is not compassion. This is a humanitarian failure. Restoring order is not cruelty; allowing people to waste away in public is.
In that sense, Mayor Lurie deserves credit for acting where others hesitated. For too long, City Hall appeared paralyzed by ideology and fear of political backlash. The public grew tired of being told that nothing could be done. The mayor’s more assertive approach signals a shift: San Francisco is reclaiming its streets, parks, and commercial corridors for families, workers, and visitors. That matters for public safety, for small businesses, and for the city’s image…