Panoramic view of famous Golden Gate Bridge from scenic Baker Beach, San Francisco, CA. (Photo: canadastock/Shutterstock)
One Year Out Of San Francisco: How Leaving Has Affected Former Residents
Former residents tell the Globe what finally broke them in moving out of the city in the past year.
By Evan Symon, June 29, 2023 2:30 am
With San Francisco experiencing everything from high crime to continued high rents to businesses fleeing the city the last several years, many residents have left the city. From 2020 to 2022, 65,000 fled San Francisco alone. Some went to nearby or bordering cities, with many moving to places like Stockton, to take advantage of cheaper housing and lower crime rates while still being close enough to commute. Others stayed in-state, with a large contingent of former residents heading to Los Angeles and San Diego. Still others moved out of state entirely. The Globe talked to those in the first group on Wednesday, those willing to leave the city, but didn’t want to leave the area.
Despite the worsening conditions in the city, many former residents found the possible move difficult to fathom and put off any notion of it until conditions reached a breaking point.
“My family had been in San Francisco for generations,” Marcus O’Brien, who moved away from San Francisco to Roseville a year ago, shared with the Globe. “There were family members who survived the Earthquake and I still remember my grandfather, a WWII veteran, talking in that old San Francisco accent that sounded like he was from Brooklyn. It’s a special city, and there is history everywhere.”
“Something shifted 10 or 15 years ago though. It may have been tech taking off or a change of people in charge, but there was a change in the air so to speak. Then you started seeing more and more of the tents going up. A lot of people brushed that off as part of the recession, but they stayed. Then more reports of drugs came on the news. Then there was talk of not charging some criminals with crimes.”
“It didn’t happen overnight. One swing of the axe didn’t chop down the tree. It was many many things. For my family, the beginning of the end was COVID. Middle class people like us were not getting any help it seemed, while the homeless were getting hotels and calls of drug use outside our Victorian went unanswered.”
“The breaking point was in 2021. We are fortunate enough to have a small plot big enough for a flower garden and my Mom had put in a bunch of flowers. I’m not going to say where in the city this was, but if you passed by it, you would definitely notice it. One day in 2021, my parents awoke to see a tent freshly plastered over the garden. We managed to get them out, but everything was ruined, and the SFPD did nothing even though it was private property and there was damages. It wasn’t just that, but my mom had been the sole remaining vote to stay in the city by that point, and that just did it.”
“Roseville is about two hours from San Francisco on an average day, so commuting was hard until I got a remote job earlier this year. It’s honestly been better out here, as Sacramento is nice. But my heart, so to speak, is still in San Francisco. Aesthetically, I miss it a lot. But what is now, you know, you just can’t live there.”
Former residents still love San Francisco, but can’t live there
Another former resident, Helen Chu, also reached a similar breaking point.
“We were always a typical Chinese-American family in San Francisco,” says Chu, who moved to Stockton last year. “Mom and Dad ran the restaurant, kids would work in it. We were known for having a live goose with us because we got an egg in an order accidently and me and my sister decided to see if it could be hatched and it did. So if you were at a Chinese restaurant in the 90s in San Francisco with two girls playing with a goose outside on a red ribbon leash, that was us. We could keep the goose as long as we had straight A’s, and that motivated us!”
“I would say it was progressive, the way everything happened. For as much as everyone associates San Francisco with the tech industry or hippies or whatever, in a lot of the city, it just didn’t ring out for awhile. When the first dot com boom happened, all we really noticed in our part of the city was a few white people working for eBay or something moved in nearby and visited our restaurant often. That was it.”
“I went to college in the Midwest, so I would just come home for winter break and the summer, and this was in the early 2010s, and it really started to change then. Each time I came back, it seemed like something else was off in the neighborhood. Then I moved back after graduating and it really took off. Our restaurant, which had never been robbed, was held up. Then again. And again. My poor mom had to call 911 one day in 2018 because there was a dead junkie behind our restaurant. We never had to deal directly with the homeless or things like car crimes, but others around us did.”
“And this decade was worse. COVID nearly killed the restaurant, but then just how many vagrants stayed around here killed it. You asked what the breaking point was, that was it for us. No one wants to go to your restaurant if they can’t get through all the people just hanging around outside. You know that video from earlier this year where a business owner sprayed a homeless woman with a hose? My dad did that right before the restaurant had to close for good last year, and thankfully it wasn’t caught on film.”
“Even if we had survived to this year, so much of our business came from businesses downtown, so with all those vacancies now, we would have had to close soon anyway. I still have a job in the city. It is a long commute from Stockton, but I do it for the cheaper rent, and because my Mom finally got the space for a garden she always wanted but never had room for in the city.”
“Yeah, I miss San Francisco. The Chinese community is amazing there, and the food just isn’t quite the same in Stockton. But you also don’t have to worry about walking around at night here. Also, we all still believe in California to turn around, but that just doesn’t extend to San Francisco right now. I go in and out of the city 5 days a week, and every day I think I can go back, but after driving a few blocks in and I see what happened, it’s usually gone.”
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Appreciate the first-hand-experience interviews, Evan Symon. Provides good insight and interest in what the heck has been going on up there in S.F. the deep conflicts people have when they really want to stay in their city but just can’t do it any longer.
We’ve had a very large influx of San Franciscan’s moving into South Placer County. I hope they don’t expect to use the politics that ultimately made San Francisco what it has become. We are an area with conservative values that are transmitted to our elected leaders. That is why living in South Placer is so enjoyable.
There has been an influx of SF Bay Area people moving into Sacramento and El Dorado counties as well. Unfortunately many of these transplants seem to bring their failed liberal Democrat voting habits with them? The few Biden signs we saw in our neighborhood during the 2020 presidential election were in front of homes purchased by people from the SF Bay Area.
One can be [quite] conservative but vote fervently for Biden. Trump is an unmitigated disaster. I am an old school Republican with old school expectations of competence, knowledge, integrity, and intelligence – all of which Biden’s opponent completely lacks. i’ll disagree with Biden on many domestic policies [his foreign policies are generally excellent] but he is an excellent human being.
Gwen Myers and Samantha: Oh I know, S.F. transplants who haven’t learned a thing are a big problem, and it makes me sad to think of it happening in wonderful places like South Placer and El Dorado Counties, places I know about and which have a permanent warm place in my heart from frequent past visits (I live in Southern California). All the more reason for S.F. to gets its act together ASAP. But can the city be brought back to sanity in fewer than a couple of decades? sigh
We have no plans to leave San Francisco.
Goodness, it must be so much worse in SF than we have imagined when Stockton is considered a safe place.
“COVID nearly killed the restaurant……….”
I submit to you that it wasn’t Covid that nearly killed the restaurant; it was failed “leadership” that not only nearly killed your restaurant, but DID kill many others. Covid could have been dealt with without shutting down the state! Newsom wanted to be “King” for a day, that lasted 3 years, and he’d be doing it now without the pushback!! Unlike Helen Chu, I don’t believe that CA can be saved!! If my husband were well, we’d have been gone 3 years ago!
Left SoCal twenty years ago and never looked back (fam there since the 20s). In Central Texas now and consider myself a Texan. Best thing about TX is part time legislature. meets for 6 mos every two years!! What a concept!
I live in San Francisco. Everything in this article rings true. I have lived here most of my life. There are still some things I like about the city, but fewer all the time. Many of the qualities and characteristics that defined SF to me are gone, extinct, destroyed. Most of my friends have moved away, some have died. I now have deep roots here so it’s difficult to leave, even if it is a diminished place. Anyway, I can’t figure out where else to go. I like city life and I don’t like really hot climates. It is my belief that SF is facing its biggest crisis since the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906. Maybe worse than that, because then it seems people had a real can-do attitude to rebuild. Now the city does nothing but squabble and is in the grip of a minority of extreme leftists who apparently want to destroy everything, and others just go along with it. To those worried about San Franciscans who transplant themselves to other places: If I do that you won’t have to worry about me. I used to be an old fashioned “JFK liberal” Democrat. Now you couldn’t get me to vote for a Democrat if you held a gun to my head.
This article provides a compelling look at the impact of leaving San Francisco, capturing both the challenges and unexpected benefits many former residents experience. I appreciate how you highlighted the emotional journey involved in such a significant life change, as well as the diverse perspectives shared. It’s fascinating to hear about the newfound clarity and improved quality of life some have found outside the city. It would be interesting to explore more about how these transitions have influenced their relationships and connections to the Bay Area. Thank you for shedding light on this important topic!
Thank you for sharing these reflections on life after leaving San Francisco. It’s fascinating to hear how the change has impacted former residents, both positively and negatively. The insights about adjusting to different lifestyles and the sense of community in new places are particularly poignant. It would be interesting to explore how these experiences compare across different demographics and what lessons can be learned for those still in the city. Your article raises important questions about belonging and the evolving nature of home!