SAN FRANCISCO – For decades, San Francisco’s Tenderloin District has been at the center of the city’s challenges, and that’s only become more apparent in recent years.
Since 2021, San Francisco has been mobilizing emergency response to save the neighborhood and bring relief to the many people who call it home. The drug crisis and the human desperation it brought drew the world’s attention, ultimately prompting this response from the city’s mayor.
“It’s coming to an end,” Mayor London Breed said 16 months ago, “if we take steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement that has destroyed our city.”
It was December 2021 when Breed announced the emergency response. There would be a linking center to connect people to services. There would be increased law enforcement and an uncompromising push to clean up streets of trash and unsanitary conditions. The announcement alone has brought new focus to the neighborhood and has everyone wondering what it actually takes to bring about significant change.
So what’s different? What works and what doesn’t? KPIX will be publishing a series of reports on the tenderloin and efforts to transform the neighborhood.
“It’s almost every day,” says Jorge Alvarado, who sweeps his sidewalk in the morning. “Every single day they have a mess here.”
For the people who live and work in the Tenderloin, every day is an attempt to address the immense challenges this neighborhood faces. And for some, more than a year after Breed declared a state of emergency, it will continue to be a struggle for survival. Measuring what has changed since then is not easy. There was initially a very aggressive push for sidewalk cleaning.
“It’s a blessing to have a clear path to be able to see a few blocks down,” Alex Alvarado said at the start of the effort.
One year later:
“If we hadn’t cleaned up here,” Alvarado said of the garbage problems. “This place would be a complete disaster.”
But clearing all the trash on the sidewalk was just a challenge.
“Well, what are you going to do with all the people that are here? I’m not sure,” a neighbor said in 2022.
A year later you pick the right corner and little has changed.
“How many months do you keep calling?” Alvarado asked. “See that place over there, almost no place for humans to survive, right?
The Tenderloin Center, controversial when it opened, was closed in December amid controversy. Efforts to provide aid are now proceeding block by block.
“He’s being brought home by deployment,” said Mark Mazza of the city’s emergency department, helping someone on the street. “He’s in a warm place, now the streets are clean and people can pass. Nobody walks through the street.”
But as the city’s approach changes, so do the conditions on the road.
“There are more people out here now,” resident JJ Smith said. “More people deal in drugs and take the drugs.”
Overdoses continue at a slightly increased rate for the first two months of this year. And as for drug law enforcement:
“We need to be more aggressive with law enforcement,” Breed said of announcing the emergency.
That promise has materialized in recent months as police have stepped up arrests with a new undercover unit.
“Hyde’s 300 block has been one of our biggest challenges,” Deputy Police Commissioner David Lazar said. “Right now, things haven’t looked this good in a long time.”
“All of our alternatives to the police have a significant impact, getting people into treatment, getting them to the clinic, our street medicine team, our homeless team, our crisis response team,” Breed told KPIX. “They are on the ground every day to help people in crisis, but at the end of the day our officers have to arrest those who are breaking the law.”
“We’re not going to have any more luck clawing our way out of this crisis by arresting street dealers than any previous administration of this or that country has had,” countered Supervisor Dean Preston, whose District 5 now covers part of the fillet.
The expanded policing and increased cost of policing is causing some backlash. And there’s always been frustration that efforts to curb drug trafficking, law enforcement, or otherwise, will only postpone the problem.
“So they’re moving them from block to block,” observed local resident Tony Kushmaul. “Or move them around the block.”
So the tenderloin moves and changes, as does the effort to fix the problems here, while the residents wait and hope for progress.
“So I think we need to resolve this matter in the tenderloin,” Alvarado said. “That’s all I can say.”
Wilson Walker
