Poll: Asian Americans don’t feel safe in San Francisco; only 14% predict improvement

September 23, 2022

Asian American residents in San Francisco feel less safe than other groups, according to a recent poll by the San Francisco Chronicle.

As part of its SFNext project, the paper conducted a survey of 1,653 local residents belonging to different racial groups and released its findings on Sept. 14.

Based on the results, only 14% of the 490 Asian respondents believed that living in San Francisco will be better in the next two years.

The figure is the lowest rate among all ethnic groups and significantly lower than the overall 22% of all the respondents who are positive that living in the city will soon change for the better. Meanwhile, 44% of Asian Americans think that living in the city will even be worse in two years, which exceeds the 35% overall who similarly think so.

The poll, conducted in late June and July, asked over 90 questions about different facets of living in San Francisco.

Asian Americans, who make up over a third of the population in the city, cited mostly safety/crime as San Francisco’s biggest issue. The other groups mostly selected homelessness as the top problem.

Among the Asian respondents, only 20% praised Mayor London Breed for doing an excellent or good job, 16% said the same about the police and only 9% for the Board of Supervisors.

The rest of the respondents ranked the performance of city officials a few percentage points higher overall.

Tenderloin resident Jade Le, a victim of four unprovoked attacks during the pandemic, lamented that she’s often terrified to leave her apartment.

While they acknowledged the crime problem in the city, Asian respondents were found to be the least likely to report being victimized by a crime.

However, some Asian residents have been able to exhibit their growing dissatisfaction by contributing to civic efforts, including the recalls of three school board members and District Attorney Chesa Boudin this year.

Featured Image via KTVU FOX 2

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