SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – San Francisco is spending tens of millions of dollars to clean its streets and sidewalks — including providing a service that most other major cities leave to property owners.
A city-commissioned audit found that San Francisco spends more than $50 million per year, including overhead and ongoing funding, on litter collection and sidewalk steam cleaning.
The figure does not represent pressure washing alone. It combines sidewalk washing with the crews and programs that collect litter. Still, the total highlights just how expensive keeping San Francisco’s public spaces presentable has become.
Nearly $48 Million Before Overhead
For fiscal year 2024-25, San Francisco budgeted approximately $47.8 million for comparable street and sidewalk cleaning services before overhead costs were added.
That works out to $59.08 for every resident and more than $1 million per square mile, according to an October 2025 performance audit from the San Francisco Budget and Legislative Analyst.
Los Angeles, despite having a vastly larger population and land area, budgeted $74.7 million. That amounted to just $19.54 per resident and roughly $159,000 per square mile.
In other words, San Francisco budgeted approximately three times as much per person and more than six times as much per square mile as Los Angeles.
San Jose spent about $33 per resident, while Minneapolis spent approximately $15.
The auditors acknowledged that San Francisco offers more cleaning services than the other cities surveyed. Most notably, San Francisco sends city employees to steam clean sidewalks. In most other cities, adjacent property owners handle that work.
What Do San Franciscans Get for the Money?
San Francisco Public Works operates cleaning crews around the clock.
Workers pick up litter, remove dumped furniture and construction debris, clean graffiti, sweep streets and respond to 311 complaints. Crews also steam clean sidewalks and plazas along Market Street and in heavily affected alleys and commercial corridors.
The city’s CleanCorridorsSF program concentrates workers in a different commercial district each Thursday. Crews pick up trash, wash sidewalks, flush roadways, remove graffiti and clean tree wells and catch basins.
Public Works says its employees sometimes begin before sunrise and work with property owners to keep the city’s busiest neighborhoods and commercial corridors “safe, beautiful and inviting,” according to the department’s street-cleaning program page.
For more San Francisco news, restaurant openings and important local updates, sign up for The City.
More Work to Be Done
Despite the spending, San Francisco’s own inspections show that several prominent cleanliness problems have either remained unchanged or become slightly worse.
The Controller’s Office conducted nearly 2,600 in-person inspections between July 2024 and June 2025. Evaluators found that most sidewalks contained at least some litter, although large accumulations were relatively uncommon.
More troublingly, 32% of inspected routes contained at least one large dumped item, up from 27% during the previous fiscal year.
Graffiti appeared on 89% of evaluated routes, with an average of 23 separate instances per route.
Feces — which evaluators did not distinguish as human or animal — appeared on 34% of routes. That was up from 30% one year earlier. The Tenderloin experienced an 18-percentage-point increase in routes where feces was observed.
Overall, the Controller’s Office described conditions as mostly stable, with slight increases in dumping, graffiti and feces. It also emphasized that the average San Francisco street did not contain major accumulations of trash or health hazards, according to its FY25 Street and Sidewalk Maintenance Standards report.
Public Works Disputes the Comparison
Public Works strongly challenged parts of the audit.
The department argued that comparing San Francisco with cities such as Los Angeles and Minneapolis failed to account for differences in population density, climate, topography and service levels.
Officials also noted that San Francisco’s budget covers nine different cleaning services, while the comparison cities offer fewer services. Public Works said cost per resident and cost per square mile are not accepted measures of cleaning quality or effectiveness.
The auditors stood behind their methodology but acknowledged that San Francisco’s unusually broad menu of services could help explain the higher costs.
