Homicides Hit 70-Year Low
PLUS: A new SoMa RESET center aims to end sidewalk intoxication
What You Need To Know
Here’s what happened around the city for the week of January 4, 2026:
- Homicides Hit 70-Year Low
- A new SoMa RESET center aims to end sidewalk intoxication
- Ruth Ferguson joins City College board
- Blackouts Make PG&E Future in SF Uncertain
- Judge Upholds Great Highway Closure
Homicides Hit 70-Year Low
Published January 9, 2026
The Facts
San Francisco ended 2025 with just 28 homicides — a 20% drop from 2024 and the city’s lowest total since 1954, according to SFPD. Overall crime fell 25%, violent crime declined 18%, and property crime dropped 27%.
The SFPD’s Homicide Unit achieved a 125% clearance rate in 2025, clearing 34 homicides by making arrests or by other means—a significant improvement in solving these cases.
Across all categories, reported crime fell from 36,633 incidents in 2024 to 27,321 in 2025. Robberies dropped 44% (to 3,011), larceny theft fell 22% (to 16,492), burglaries fell 13% (to 3,673), and motor-vehicle thefts fell 24% (to 3,011). One warning sign: reported assaults rose 29% (to 2,046).
The Context
San Francisco wasn’t alone. New York City reported murders down 20% (to 305) in its 2025 year-end NYPD release. Los Angeles tallied 230 homicides in 2025, down nearly 19%, per the Los Angeles Times. Chicago’s murders fell nearly 30% (to 416), according to CBS Chicago.
The GrowSF Take
This is historic progress that proves good policy works. The 125% clearance rate shows what happens when SFPD has the resources and leadership to investigate effectively—and the overall 25% crime drop reflects years of investment in staffing, technology, and enforcement paying off.
A new SoMa RESET center aims to end sidewalk intoxication
Published January 9, 2026
The Facts
Mayor Daniel Lurie says the city will open a SoMa “Rapid Enforcement, Support, Evaluation, and Triage” (RESET center) at 444 6th St., next to the Hall of Justice. The site is intended for people arrested for public intoxication, as an alternative to jail booking or ER transport.
The Sheriff’s Office will oversee RESET with Department of Public Health support, and the contractor running day-to-day operations will be Connections Health Solutions.
The Context
San Francisco already opened a 24/7 “police-friendly” behavioral-health stabilization site at 822 Geary in April 2025—designed for urgent mental-health crises and to reduce ER overload.
RESET is different: it’s built around a custodial intervention (arrest first), focused on hotspots near Sixth Street. The city’s earlier Sixth Street triage center pilot showed how hard it is to change street conditions without faster, more accountable pathways into care.
The GrowSF Take
This is a promising shift: compassion has to include getting people indoors, stabilized, and connected to treatment—not left unconscious on the sidewalk.
But success can’t be vibes. The city should publish clear metrics: officer time saved, repeat bookings, overdoses near Sixth Street, and how many people actually enter treatment after RESET. And if the center creates spillover disorder, the city must adjust operations quickly—because SoMa residents and businesses deserve clean, safe streets.
Ferguson joins City College board
Published January 8, 2026
The Facts
Mayor Daniel Lurie on Monday appointed Ruth Ferguson to the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees, filling the seat vacated when Alan Wong was appointed District 4 Supervisor.
The Context
Ruth Ferguson ran for this seat in November 2024, and placed fifth out of the four seats available, making her the next-highest vote getter after the winners. She narrowly trailed Alan Wong.
City College’s governance and finances have been under scrutiny. In 2024, the accreditor put CCSF on warning status over board dysfunction and fiscal oversight.
That warning was lifted in June 2025, but the underlying challenge remains: aligning spending and programs with enrollment so the college can stay strong for the long haul.
The GrowSF Take
GrowSF backed Ferguson in November 2024, and this appointment is a common-sense way to respect voters while avoiding yet another round of chaos.
We hope Ferguson helps steer City College toward boring, disciplined basics: clear accountability, stable budgets, and a relentless focus on student success and growing enrollment. That’s how you protect Free City College—and keep City College a real engine of opportunity for San Franciscans.
Blackouts Make PG&E Future in SF Uncertain
Published January 9, 2026
The Facts
Several weeks ago, a fire at PG&E’s Mission substation near Eighth and Mission (Dec. 20, 2025) helped trigger a citywide blackout that peaked around 130,000 customers. PG&E says the last ~3,800 customers were restored early Dec. 23, per its outage update.
Then the lights went out again: the Sunset had a brief Christmas Eve outage and the Outer Richmond/Sea Cliff saw another outage Jan. 2, with residents telling The Standard it was their sixth since Dec. 20 in that follow-up.
The Context
PG&E’s 2024 reliability report shows customers experienced an average of 276.4 minutes (4.6 hours) of outages per year, with an average of 1.8 separate outages. While PG&E claims San Francisco has service “almost twice as reliable as the national average” after $3 billion in grid investments, the December 20 outage has renewed calls for public utilities similar to those in Palo Alto and Sacramento.
While the grid may be more reliable than average, it’s gotten harder to understand what you’re paying for. Many customers are on time-of-use rates, where prices depend on when you use power (and on season). Many plans also apply a baseline “Tier 1 vs Tier 2” step-up via the Baseline Allowance.
And the CPUC is shifting more costs into a monthly fixed charge through an income-tiered “flat rate”, and newer solar exports are compensated under the Net Billing Tariff rather than full retail rates, meaning selling power back to grid is worth way less than before.
The GrowSF Take
After repeated outages, it’s rational for families and small businesses to look at solar + whole-home batteries. But with rising fixed fees, lower per‑kWh savings, and weaker sell-back credits, backup power increasingly looks like paying for independence—not a simple ROI.
If we’re serious about resilience, we should also be serious about incentives: PG&E and regulators should be less punitive to households that invest their own money to reduce demand on the grid (solar + storage), not redesign rates so that “opting out” gets hit with higher fixed charges and lower export value.
SF should demand reliability upgrades and clear outage-communication standards, and pursue neighborhood-scale resilience (microgrids) for critical corridors and services.
Judge Upholds Great Highway Closure
Published January 9, 2026
The Facts
A San Francisco Superior Court judge rejected a legal challenge to Proposition K, the 2024 ballot measure that permanently closed the Upper Great Highway to private cars and created Sunset Dunes, according to Han Li at the San Francisco Standard. The City Attorney defended the measure, and plaintiffs say they plan to appeal.
The Context
Voters approved Measure K on Nov. 5, 2024 with 54.73% voting yes. The official voter guide explains it requires the City to pursue any needed approvals to use the corridor as recreation space, while keeping limited exceptions (e.g., emergency and authorized vehicles).
Opposition to the closure prompted the recall of Supervisor Joel Engardio.
The GrowSF Take
This ruling doesn’t mean the Great Highway fight is over—it just means the courts weren’t the place to overturn a citywide vote.
New District 4 Supervisor Alan Wong is backing a 2026 ballot measure to reopen the road to cars on weekdays, according to the San Francisco Standard. But that kind of measure needs four supervisors to sponsor it, and Wong still needs allies.
But despite being a vocal supporter of the recall and opponent of Prop K, our sources tell us that District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan isn’t keen to sign on to Wong’s ballot measure. It seems Chan is happy to use angry voters to knock off one of her political opponents, but now she’s gotten what she wanted and has shifted focus to her congressional race.