FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Contact: Mayor’s Office of Communications, 415-554-6131
 

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MAYOR LONDON BREED ANNOUNCES ADDITIONAL BUDGET INVESTMENTS FOR NEIGHBORHOOD CLEANING PROGRAMS
Roughly $725,000 added to budget to help Fix-It Team address cleanliness and quality-of-life concerns in San Francisco communities

San Francisco, CA– Mayor London N. Breed today proposed roughly $725,000 in additional investments to support the City’s Fix-It Team, a multiagency unit that focuses on improving cleanliness and quality-of-life in San Francisco neighborhoods.

“Ensuring that our streets are clean and safe is a basic duty of city government and it’s clear that the City must do a better job,” said Mayor London Breed. “This proposal will expand street cleaning, add more trashcans throughout the city and increase public safety.”

The two-year budget amendment announced by Mayor Breed will further benefit the Fix-It Team, which quickly responds to quality-of-life concerns, such as graffiti, broken streetlights and unpainted curbs in local communities. The Fix-It Team is in the process of increasing from 29 zones to 35 zones, further offering assistance to communities across San Francisco. The funding increases were determined based on the needs that residents have identified.

“The Fix-It team has a proven track record of working closely with constituents to make our streets cleaner and safer,” said Board of Supervisors President Malia Cohen. “I’ve seen their responsiveness and effectiveness across District 10 and across San Francisco. I am thrilled to see this expanded investment in clean and healthy streets.”

The additional budget investments will provide $250,000 to the Downtown Streets Team, a unit comprised of formerly homelessness individuals that works with the Fix-It Team on street cleaning programs. Mayor Breed’s budget will also feature $75,000 to support the installation of 20 new BigBelly bins—containers that use real-time technology and automatic compactors, allowing them to hold five times more waste than a regular receptacle.

In addition, $100,000 will be included to add fencing around public parking lots, helping to reduce incidents of vandalism and graffiti, and $15,000 will be added to install solar-powered motion-detection lights for 300 households, creating better illumination for streets and sidewalks.

The additional budget investments will also support increased video surveillance systems for Community Benefit Districts, as a way to discourage public dumping, and provide funding for new locks on residential trash bins for approximately 200 households throughout San Francisco.

“Since Fix-It began in 2016, we have visited 29 neighborhoods, interacted with more than 1,300 residents and completed 3,800 fixes,” said Fix-It Director Sandra Zuniga. “This investment will strengthen our ability to respond to issues across the city in a timely, effective manner.”

The Mayor’s proposed amendments will be presented later today at the Board of Supervisors, when the Board is scheduled to have a first reading of the budget.

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