Category: Neighborhoods
Posted inCity Hall, Government & Politics, Health, Law & Justice, Neighborhoods

Advocates Fire Back at ‘Ineffective’ Drug Dealer Injunctions

by Nuala Bishari

Nearly four dozen groups announced Wednesday their opposition to San Francisco’s efforts to combat rampant drug dealing in the Tenderloin by using injunctions to increase penalties for dealers.

On Wednesday morning, a coalition of 45 organizations, including the public defender’s office, homeless advocates, immigration rights groups, drug policy organizations and youth-based nonprofits, held a press conference to express their opposition to the strategy. In a Dec. 3 letter to City Attorney Dennis Herrera, they said the injunctions are “draconian and wasteful,” and do little to address concerns around drug dealing and overdoses.

Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Data Privacy, Neighborhoods, Public Safety

Neighborhood Anti-Crime Surveillance Effort Prompts Privacy, Equity Concerns

by Laura Wenus

On several streets in the Mission, you can spot sticky notes in the windows of some homes. They’re blank, but they’re sending a message: The residents would like to signal their interest in participating in a neighborhood effort to address crime, trash and visible homelessness in the neighborhood. Nuala Bishari reported on the initiative for the San Francisco Public Press. She talked with “Civic” about what she found and how she learned it.

Posted inCommunity, Law & Justice, Neighborhoods, Technology

Police Pushing Amazon Surveillance Cameras for Mission District Residents

by Nuala Bishari

A new collaboration between residents and the San Francisco Police Department to address crime and homelessness may result in an increase in surveillance cameras — specifically, Amazon’s controversial Ring products.

The collaborations have emerged after residents reached out to Mission Station for assistance in managing tents, drug use and trash on their streets.

Posted inCommunity, Environment, Housing, Neighborhoods, Parks & Open Space

Is This the Bayview’s Big Park Moment?

by Kristi Coale

The Bayview has the city’s attention – for better or for worse, depending on whom you ask. If voters approve a $487 million open-space bond measure in November, it will help fund a park at 900 Innes Ave., the first waterfront land the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks has ever owned. Yet, despite efforts to include the local community in the planning and the benefits, many are skeptical.

Posted inCommunity, Coronavirus, Health, Homelessness, Housing, Neighborhoods

What Crowding Looks Like During a Pandemic: Dismal Days in the Tenderloin

by Christopher D. Cook

In a pandemic that mandates physical distancing, survival in the poverty-suffused Tenderloin is endangered by relentlessly overcrowded conditions, a dearth of open public spaces and limited mobility. Neighborhood residents suffer the city’s second-highest rate of COVID-19 infections — eclipsed only by the Bayview — and five times that of neighboring Nob Hill.

Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Community, Coronavirus, Neighborhoods

Treasure Island Organizer Fights to Make Residents Heard

by Laura Wenus

When the shelter-in-place order went into effect in San Francisco to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Treasure Island was going into a different kind of isolation than the rest of San Francisco. The island has extremely limited public transit service, just one grocery store, no public school and experiences frequent blackouts.

Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Community, Coronavirus, Health, Housing, Neighborhoods, Social Justice

Testing in Mission Shows Virus Hits Workers, Latinos at High Levels

by Laura Wenus

A Mission District coronavirus testing initiative has shown stark disparities in who has been getting sick — 95% of those who tested positive in this initiative identified as Hispanic or Latinx. Most earned less than $50,000 a year. But evidence of this disparity had been mounting even prior to the testing, when doctors in San Francisco hospitals saw that the majority of the coronavirus patients who needed to be hospitalized were also Latino.

Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Community, Coronavirus, Health, Neighborhoods, Social Justice

Mission Coronavirus Tests Reveal Longstanding Inequities

by Laura Wenus

In late April, a coalition of medical, community and government organizations called Unidos en Salud tested nearly 3,000 people in one Mission District census tract for the new coronavirus. Sixty-two of them tested positive, slightly more than 2% of those tested. Among those testing positive, 95% identified as Hispanic or Latinx, though they made up only 44% of those tested.

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