Experience with San Francisco or Alameda county?

I'm still a little ways off from even starting the process, but I'd love to hear about your experiences if you've been a foster/foster-adoptive parent in San Francisco or Alameda county. I live in San Francisco, but I might end up in Oakland or Berkeley when it's time for kids. I'd love to hear stories, good, bad, and mixed, from either side of the bay. I've met three fost-adopt families that were thriving with their adopted children and had nothing bad to say about the process. I met one foster parent couple who fostered a baby who RU'd to a good situation after about six months, and they still babysit sometimes due to a good relationship with the mom. And I met one foster parent couple who took a 13 year old as their first placement (no bios) and all they had to say was "Never foster a teenager." They disrupted after about eight months. The behaviors they mentioned to me didn't sound extreme, so I don't know if it was an issue of expectations, training, support, or what. They didn't say anything negative about the agency/county, just the category of teenagers. From reading these boards and a few foster parent blogs, it sounds like the system is an absolute mess in many places. What I've learned is that being a foster parent involves the hard work of caring for kids, and also the hard work of dealing with a majorly dysfunctional system. But the four real life local examples haven't said anything bad about the system. Small sample, so I'm just wondering, are things better here in the Bay Area than in other parts of the country? What was your experience around here like?