California is a beautiful state run by absolutely terrible people. Those Democrats have driven the state into the ground. In San Francisco, a city where Gavin Newsom was once mayor, things are so bad thanks to Leftist policies that residents are forced to fork over tons of cash to help keep their neighborhoods safe.
🚨NEW: San Francisco residents forced to spend $820K of their own money on private security guards because @GavinNewsom has created open-air drug markets, defunded the police and ordered cops not to arrest anyone. pic.twitter.com/a3qnnIvNhi
— Dapper Detective (@Dapper_Det) December 10, 2025
For 24 hours a day, seven days a week, private security workers patrol 109 blocks of the Soma neighborhood.
Erin Kametani of ASPIS Solutions spoke with the media about the company's work. "If there's anybody that's on the sidewalk, blocking doorways, blocking garage ways, or mainly blocking the sidewalk where people can't pass through, we basically walk up to them, we address it, we ask them if they can relocate."
The guards are not armed. They are paid by the Soma West Community Benefit District (CBD), which has spent more than $800,000 on the services. The CBD's main job is to keep the neighborhood clean and welcoming, but residents felt they had no other choice but to hire private security.
Alex Ludlum, Executive Director of the Soma West Community Benefit District, also spoke to the media. "We need more security because of the population of street addicts, and the reason they're here, is because the city has concentrated all the facilities and services that enable their lifestyle in this area."
The CBD created a map showing where all those services are located, and they're all concentrated in one neighborhood. "The city is designing pockets of poverty, and they're putting it here," Ludlum said.
Recommended
"This was actually attacked about four, five times now," said Soma resident Fernando Senegal, showing a security fence with obvious damage. "This was blowtorched, this was hacksawed open. This was right here was kicked in. They took a crowbar to it."
Residents also call the security service instead of the police. "Frankly, our building calls the CBD for safety patrols now instead of the police, because we'll get a response within a timely manner," said Reese Isbell of the Soma West Neighborhood Association.
Of course, many neighborhoods can't afford to hire private security, and the Democrats who run those cities have no interest in addressing the crime and violence. Now that the media are reporting on this, we have to wonder if the Democrats in Sacramento will push to prohibit the hiring of private security firms.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member