San Francisco response times improve, but inequality between neighborhoods grows

San Francisco’s 911 system is improving citywide, but the gains are not landing evenly. In neighborhoods already strained by drug markets, disorder and frequent emergency calls, residents and district leaders say slower police service still shapes daily life, even as wealthier areas are seeing quicker responses.

The city’s benchmark is clear: 90% of emergency calls should be answered within 15 seconds. Mayor Daniel Lurie said San Francisco had fallen to 72% in October 2023, then climbed back above the standard in recent months. The city said it exceeded the benchmark again in January 2026 and March 2026, and had been at 86% or higher since June 2025.

That progress does not tell the whole story. SF.gov’s Public Safety Scorecard tracks response times separately for Priority A, B and C calls, and the widening gap between neighborhoods suggests that some parts of the city are still absorbing more of the system’s strain than others. In SoMa and the Tenderloin corridor, residents have kept pressing the San Francisco Police Department at city hearings about slow response times, especially when calls involve open-air drug use, assaults or other urgent disturbances.

Staffing remains the central constraint. A 2023 San Francisco Police Department staffing analysis found a deficit of 485 sworn officers and 233 civilian employees compared with recommended levels. The same analysis showed 1,589 sworn officers on hand in June 2023, well short of the recommended 2,074, and 420 civilian staff compared with a recommended 653. City leaders have linked faster 911 answer times to more staffing, less mandatory overtime and technology upgrades, but the department is still trying to rebuild capacity across a city with uneven public-safety demands.

Those pressure points are likely to grow. Boundary changes for Southern Station are set to take effect on Oct. 1, 2026, and Mission Local reported they are expected to increase calls for service by an estimated 23%. Related boundary-analysis documents warned the broader Southern District changes could bring nearly a 25% increase in calls for service and a 29% increase in crime incident reports. For neighborhoods already carrying a heavy load, that means the city will have to decide whether it is truly redistributing police work or simply asking the same blocks to absorb more.

Lurie has been highlighting broader public-safety progress, including his claim that citywide crime fell nearly 30% in his first year in office. But the test now is narrower and more immediate: whether San Francisco can bring slower-response neighborhoods up to the same standard as the rest of the city, before the next round of added work pushes the gap wider.