San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin plans to seek $1.5 million from the mayor’s office to pay for a proposed auto burglary assistance fund that would reimburse city residents for the cost of their shattered windows.

The request comes as San Francisco remains under siege by marauding thieves who ransack tens of thousands of vehicles every year, driving the city’s property crime rate to the highest in the nation.

According to the Police Department’s statistics, 25,677 people reported having their vehicles broken into last year. The number is down from 2017, when San Francisco saw an all-time high of 31,000 reported break-ins. Even so, the city is still seeing near-record numbers of cases.

“Auto burglaries are the No. 1 way people in San Francisco are directly impacted by crime,” Boudin said. “While we know there’s more work to do, this is something we can do today to step up and support victims.”

While criminals often target tourists who may be unaware of the crisis and leave their rental vehicles and luggage inside unattended, the district attorney’s office estimated that 8,910 city residents last year were hit.

The $1.5 million in the office’s new budget includes money to pay for two victim advocates to process claims from people whose vehicles are registered in San Francisco.

Boudin will unveil the new budget during a public hearing at the district attorney’s office Wednesday. The process is part of a new policy requiring city departments to hold public hearings before submitting proposed budgets to the mayor’s office.

Last year, the district attorney’s office budget was just under $74.6 million. Some of that money comes from state and federal sources, but around 85% is funded by the city. The office is seeking nearly $75.3 million in next year’s budget to pay for the auto burglary assistance fund and other programs.

Whether the mayor’s office will pony up the cash is unknown. District Attorney George Gascón, who left office in October to run for the same job in Los Angeles, asked the mayor’s office for $1 million to fund an auto-burglary task force in 2018. Then-Mayor Mark Farrell, however, turned it down.

Boudin ran for district attorney on a platform that included expanding victims’ rights and restorative justice. During his campaign leading to the Nov. 5 election, he even suggested creating a mobile auto-glass repair operation to respond to the scenes of car break-ins and repair windows.

He said that focusing on reimbursing city residents for their busted windows is a first step in a larger plan.

“We would love to make it a program for everybody if the city is willing to fund it,” Boudin said. “But given the nature of the mayor’s budget guidance that’s asking agencies to decrease their budgets, we wanted to initiate a pilot program to serve San Francisco residents.”

In December, Mayor London Breed asked city departments to shrink their budgets by 3.5% in each of the next two fiscal years to deal with a projected $420 million budget shortfall over those fiscal years.

Since auto burglaries peaked in 2017, various city agencies have shifted how they respond to the problem. The perpetrators often strike quickly and vanish in a flash, making it challenging for police to catch anyone in the act. The Police Department only makes arrests in around 1.6% of cases.

Police Chief Bill Scott has adjusted resources to include more foot patrols as a deterrent in the most troubled areas. The city has also required rental car companies to warn people about the problem and has posted signs at many popular tourist destinations like Alamo Square and the Palace of Fine Arts.

Boudin said he’s working with the Police Department to continue to combat the problem, but in the meantime, fixing victims windows is “the minimum the city should do.”

“I want to show leadership around victims’ rights,” he said. “I want the city to put its money where its mouth is. I hope the city would be willing to help me support victims.”

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky