SF is safer than many of its peers, but some people seem to really want to paint the city as a failure. "Rampant crime" is one obvious way to do that. Over time the narrative leaks into the broader consciousness.
Chicago deals with the same.
I feel pretty confident that some of this is astroturfing from people with political ideologies trying to score points on blue states, but it seems to be quite effective however it is accomplished. People can be quick to scare, and appeals to their sense of personal safety are quite powerful.
People are conflating street homelessness with crime. Seeing homeless people in their neighborhood makes people feel guilty and uncomfortable, so they demand that the police remove them from public view.
Because there is no coherent strategy to deal with housing in North America, this will continue to get worse. For whatever reason, reactionary public opinion is fine spending inordinate sums of money on policing, but freaks out when it is directed toward public housing, which in the long term is a much cheaper solution.
https://missionlocal.org/2023/04/bob-lee-killing-arrest-made...
The murder rate in San Francisco is preposterously low.