Bay Area

Mayor London Breed Announces Mid-Market Vibrancy and Safety Plan

Increased police presence will combine with community ambassadors to cover every block of the area that stretches from U.N. Plaza to Powell Street

Published

3 years ago

May 19, 2021

Mia Lane

Mayor London N. Breed announced on Tuesday the Mid-Market Vibrancy and Safety Plan, which is aimed at creating a safer and more welcoming environment in the Mid-Market and Tenderloin area.

The plan includes both a visible increase in police presence to deter criminal activity and a community ambassador program to connect people in need with services, and provide a welcoming presence for residents, workers, visitors, and businesses.

Community-based safety ambassadors will be stationed on every block of the area from Powell Station (5th Street) to 8th Street on Market Street and adjacent areas just south of Market Street, UN Plaza, and the Tenderloin blocks bordered by Larkin Street and Eddy Street.

Both the law enforcement and community initiatives will work in tandem to address challenges in the area and coordinate appropriate responses. Funding for this program will be included in Breed’s upcoming budget proposal and will be supplemented by private funding. However, key aspects of this plan will begin immediately using existing funding. This program will also be supported by new State funding secured by UC Hastings.

“All of our residents and workers deserve to feel safe, and this area of the City continues to face a number of challenges that need to be addressed,” said Breed. “With this plan, we’re focusing on both addressing the illegal activity that is unacceptable and will not be allowed to continue, while also building up our community presence so that this area is more welcoming, friendly, and accessible to everyone who lives, works, and visits the area. This effort is really a collaboration with support and guidance from the community, especially the many families with children, workers, and senior communities that live and work here. This sustained, focused approach will make a noticeable difference on the street as our City reopens and we continue to move forward with our economic recovery.”

The plan for Mid-Market is to add additional City, private, and community resources so that law enforcement personnel and community ambassadors are visible and active in the area. It will be composed of two main efforts:

Community-Based Safety Ambassadors on Every Block

This initiative will support the Mid-Market/Tenderloin Community-Based Safety Program, a collaboration between the Mid-Market Business Association, Tenderloin, Mid-Market and Civic Center Community Benefit Districts (CBDs), Urban Alchemy, BART, SFMTA, San Francisco Public Works, and San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) to coordinate daily management of cleaning and safety services in the targeted Mid-Market area.

Every day, community ambassadors will be stationed on each block of the area for 10-12 hours per day, to engage with residents and visitors, support people in need and connect them with services, address safety issues, and support the cleanliness of the area.

These ambassadors, provided by Urban Alchemy, will work in coordination with other City initiatives, including the Healthy Streets Operation Center, the new Street Response Teams, and others to ensure the appropriate response for different situations that may arise. With existing funding, the program will launch June 15, 2021.

Increased Public Safety Presence

Beginning immediately, the SFPD will also increase deployments in the area, including foot patrols, motorcycle and bicycle deployments, and officers on horseback. They will focus on providing a visible presence in the Mid-Market, UN Plaza, and Tenderloin areas.

The strategy will embody multiple objectives outlined in the SFPD Community Policing Strategic Plan — a key element to emerge from the department’s Collaborative Reform Initiative to be a model of 21st century policing — enabling SFPD officers to collaboratively identify and develop responses to issues that affect local residents, businesses and visitors; to connect individuals in need to appropriate resources when services fall outside the scope of police work; and to increase the visible presence of officers though positive, trust-building engagements with the residents, businesses and visitors they’re sworn to safeguard.

In alignment with Mayor Breed’s focus on reimagining public safety, community policing will be the basis of the increased public safety investment in this area, emphasizing community partnerships and proactive problem-solving with mutual respect between the police and the people of San Francisco that they serve.

SFPD will operate this coordinated initiative from a UN Plaza location, where sister agencies and community-based partners will meet daily for updates and information sharing.

“San Francisco residents and businesses made enormous sacrifices over the past year to make our City’s COVID-19 response a nationally recognized success, and nowhere were those sacrifices greater than in our Tenderloin and Mid-Market neighborhoods,” said Chief of Police Bill Scott. “Mayor Breed’s Mid-Market Vibrancy and Safety Plan is another bold step that makes good on our shared civic commitment to come back even stronger than before. For all of us in the San Francisco Police Department, we’re grateful for this opportunity to showcase what community policing and 21st century police reform looklike.”

The police presence and the initial launch of the Community Ambassadors effort will be funded with existing City resources. To sustain the Community Ambassadors efforts for the longer-term, the mayor is proposing to provide $5 million in funding in her upcoming budget, while UC Hastings has dedicated $3 million in state funding. Working together in partnership with the mayor’s administration, UC Hastings has sought and received the support of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has included in his May Revision budget proposal an allocation of $3 million over three years to fund Urban Alchemy’s services contiguous to its campus. This financial investment over a three-year period is a significant complement to this initiative.

The police deployment will begin Wednesday, May 19 and the Community Ambassadors will begin June 15 and ramp up to full coverage over the summer.

The community response has been positive, so far.

“Since mid-2020, the group Urban Alchemy has been patrolling the first block of Sixth Street and Market Street around that area,” said Dan Jordan, a Sixth Street resident. “I have found that it is safer to walk through the area because there are far less drug dealers and users out on the sidewalks and that these people stop those people from hassling other people.”

Max Young, owner of Mr. Smith’s

“Knowing that the area around my business will become safer for my customers will motivate me to start working on reopening” said Max Young, owner of Mr. Smith’s. “This makes a huge difference.”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s Office of Communications created this report.

Mia Lane

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Bay Area

Homelessness Committee and Advocates Urge City to Stop Confiscating Unhoused People’s Belongings

Encampment sweeps are not a new method of action to evict people from living and sleeping on the streets in San Francisco. However, recent reports indicate that city staff are not following proper policy, exacerbating the problems for unhoused people. Homeless advocates and allies held a press conference on Thursday at City Hall, condemning staff workers for destroying people’s property during encampment evictions and asking officials to ensure that important documents and medication are not being stripped from these individuals.

Published

6 days ago

October 2, 2024

Oakland Post

"By destroying the very items that could help people regain stability, the city is not just punishing people for being poor, but actively making it harder for them to escape homelessness," Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said.

By Magaly Muñoz

Homeless advocates and allies held a press conference on Thursday at City Hall, condemning staff workers for destroying people’s property during encampment evictions and asking officials to ensure that important documents and medication are not being stripped from these individuals.

“By destroying the very items that could help people regain stability, the city is not just punishing people for being poor, but actively making it harder for them to escape homelessness,” Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said.

Friedenbach criticized the city for not fixing their housing problem or finding new ways to shelter people, instead they are further adding to the harm of the “humanitarian crisis that San Francisco is facing.”

The press conference was held before the monthly Homelessness Oversight Commission (HOC) meeting, where commissioners discussed a draft resolution to submit to city staff highlighting the importance of not separating people from their items as this might cause further distress.

The resolution lists ssential items that workers should be cautious of not destroying or throwing away including medical documents and medication, work permits, identification, and survival gear, such as blankets or tents.

City policy instructs workers to “bag and tag” items left behind after an encampment sweep. These items are labeled by Public Works and kept at their operations yard for 90 days before being discarded.

But according to several reports and videos of the sweeps, the city has not always followed this policy and has on numerous occasions thrown away people’s medications or tents, leaving individuals without their essentials.

During the meeting, commissioners suggested adding school records and family related support items, such as diapers, to the resolution because of the increasing number of families living on the streets.

Virginia Taylor, senior policy advisor for Safe & Sound, said 531 families are waiting for housing in San Francisco. Many of these families are living out of their cars or in RVs, yet the city has limited safe parking spots where people can situate themselves.

Along with not throwing out people’s belongings, advocates are also continuing to ask the city to stop the encampment sweeps because all they are accomplishing is moving unhoused folks block to block without solving the root problem of lack of consistent housing.

“We need urgent action, more family shelter beds, a stop to vehicle sweeps, expanded safe parking programs and housing solutions that keep our multi-generational families together. Our children’s futures depend on it. Let’s build a San Francisco where no family falls through the crack and every child has the opportunity to thrive,” Taylor said.

Speakers referenced the RV sweep conducted in early August on Zoo Road, where dozens of people, many of them non-English speaking immigrants, were asked to leave the parking lot or else their vehicles would be towed and they would be cited.

While people were offered shelter beds or housing vouchers, some worried about where they would stay while the city processed their applications. This drew criticism of San Francisco’s method of not always having immediate options for people yet continuing to sweep unhoused folks with nowhere to go.

Commissioners of HOC agreed that the city is not trying to exacerbate the issue and the resolution is one of many steps to ensure that there are no setbacks in the progress to ending homelessness in San Francisco.

The HOC will approve the resolution at a later meeting once amendments and changes are made.

Oakland Post

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Bay Area

Former Mayor Willie L. Brown Endorses Dana Lang for BART Board District 7

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown has announced his endorsement support for Dana Lang for BART Board District 7 Seat, which includes voters from both sides of the Bay, and in San Francisco includes Bay View Hunters Point and Treasure Island. Brown acknowledged that Lang has been a behind-the-scenes force in transportation funding for many years and can help BART manage its financial challenges.

Published

6 days ago

October 2, 2024

Oakland Post

Photo courtesy of Dana Lang.

By Oakland Post Staff

Brown acknowledged that Lang has been a behind-the-scenes force in transportation funding for many years and can help BART manage its financial challenges.

“When I met with Dana Lang I asked many questions, then I asked others about her contributions. Getting to know her I realized that she truly understood transportation. At a time when BART is facing a “fiscal cliff” and an upcoming deficit of nearly $360 million per year, Dana is more than ready for this job, she is ready to meet the moment!”

Over the past 24 years Lang has been a funding and grants specialist with several municipal transportation agencies, including the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, San Francisco Muni, San Francisco Police Department and San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

Lang says, “I’ve faced a number of fiscal crises in my career — such as securing $52 million in new transit security funding for SFMTA (Muni) during the 2008 Great Recession, when others thought it was not possible. I have always managed to identify new funding and ways to make transit more secure. Facing a crisis is the best time to act, through advocacy and policy setting. We’ve got to keep BART running and make it safer and more vibrant in order to meet the needs of our riders, our work force, and our community.”

Lang grew up in the low-income minority community of East Palo Alto, CA, and knew that locating grants and resources could positively impact an entire city and its surrounding region — helping to create and retain agency jobs, getting transit riders to their workplaces, and encouraging small business development near transit hubs.

With that in mind, she pursued a bachelor’s degree in economics from Wellesley College, then an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. She started her municipal career as a policy advisor to Mayor Elihu Harris and helped secure grants for the City of Oakland before moving to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to serve as a transportation grants specialist.

During her 24-year career she has helped secure hundreds of millions of dollars for Bay Area transit agencies and municipalities. In addition to BART’s financial health, Lang’s priorities for BART also include safety, cleanliness, station vitality — and bringing riders back to BART. She has served on the BART Police Civilian Review Board since 2022.

Lang is also endorsed by BART Board Director Robert Raburn, former BART Board Director Carole Ward Allen, the Rev. Amos Brown, pastor of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church, Alameda County supervisors Keith Carson and Nate Miley, former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, District 4 Oakland City Councilmember Janani Ramachandran, Oakland Chinatown leader Carl Chan, and many others.

Lang is seeking the BART Board District 7 Seat, which includes San Francisco’s Bay View Hunters Point and Treasure Island, a large portion of Oakland, the cities of Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, and a small portion of Berkeley.

Oakland Post

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Art

Phenomenal Woman’ Maya Angelou Monument Unveiled at San Francisco Main Library

In a joyful community celebration attended by over 200 people, including Mayor London Breed, the highly anticipated ‘Portrait of a Phenomenal Woman’ monument to Dr. Maya Angelou was unveiled at the San Francisco Main Library on Sept. 19. Oakland-based artist Lava Thomas created the 9-foot bronze and stone monument in the form of a book featuring a portrait and quotes from the celebrated author, poet, civil rights activist and former San Francisco resident.

Published

6 days ago

October 2, 2024

Oakland Post

Attending the unveiling of the monument to the late Dr. Maya Angelou were, from left, Dr. Gina M. Fromer, CEO Glide Foundation; San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Rosa Johnson, (Angelou’s niece); Ralph Remington, San Francisco director of Cultural Affairs; Lava Thomas, artist and creator; Denise Bradley-Tydus, former interim director of Cultural Affairs; San Francisco Poet Laureate Genny Lim, and San Francisco City Librarian Michael Lambert. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

By Linda Parker Pennington

Oakland-based artist Lava Thomas created the 9-foot bronze and stone monument in the form of a book featuring a portrait and quotes from the celebrated author, poet, civil rights activist and former San Francisco resident.

The work was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission in response to legislation passed in 2018 by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, requiring at least 30% female representation in the public realm.

Attending the unveiling were Angelou’s grandson, Elliott Jones, social advocate, philanthropist, and board member of the Dr. Maya Angelou Foundation; and Rosa Johnson, Angelou’s niece and family archivist, who spoke about the historic unveiling of this first public monument portraying a Black woman in San Francisco’s history.