The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper: Season 1, Episode 5

1 - 5: What Happened to San Francisco?

One of America's most beloved and beautiful cities struggles with a crisis of homelessness, drugs, and crime. How did it come to this?

CNN Anchor Sara Sidner examines the political and social issues plaguing the city of San Francisco, the metropolis at the center of the 1960s counterculture movement that became the center of the modern technological revolution. The City by the Bay is now at the forefront of the nation's homelessness, mental illness, and drug addiction crises. Some residents worry Northern California's largest municipality could become a so-called failed city. In this episode, Sidner goes behind the headlines in the city that she loves to meet the lawmakers and residents on the front lines of this issue. 

Sidner has a candid conversation with San Francisco Mayor London Breed on some of her most controversial policies and sits down with former Mayor Willie Brown, who discusses the decades-long legacy of homelessness in the Bay Area. She also spends time with mothers who have come together to fight the deadly drug problem there and talks with those struggling with homelessness and drug addiction themselves.