When a San Francisco business owner calls the city about a homeless person in a tent blocking the sidewalk in front of a door, the call doesn’t go to the police first.

Instead, a dispatcher may send a new team of community service workers to speak with the person and attempt to resolve the situation, including liaison with city programs and, in limited cases, promotion to services.

The new Homeless Engagement Assistance Response Team (HEART) is responding to half a dozen types of non-medical, non-emergency 911 and 311 calls for people experiencing homelessness and experiencing crime, violence, threats, or mental crises play no role. The goal is to get people the help they need and keep armed police away from these operations so they have more time to respond to serious crimes.

The four teams, each consisting of four employees and a supervisor, are on duty seven days a week, on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on weekends from 7 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. In the two days since teams took to the streets, they have responded to more than 70 rerouted calls, including directing someone to the Motor Vehicle Authority for identification and directing people who needed a higher level of care , to another street team that responded to people in mental health crises.

They aim to answer 100 calls weekly, which the city says is just a fraction of eligible calls. If teams are unable to respond, a dispatcher will send the most appropriate alternative, in certain cases it could still be the police, city officials said.

“Tackling homelessness isn’t just about creating new shelter or housing – it’s also about meeting people where they are to connect them to those resources,” Mayor London Breed said in a statement.

The $3 million-a-year pilot program is being run by the nonprofit Urban Alchemy, which employs mostly people getting out of prison. The organization has been running a similar program in Los Angeles for two years, which has responded to thousands of calls. Critics of other nonprofits have expressed concerns that Urban Alchemy is not the right choice to run the program.

The San Francisco program will be led by two existing Urban Alchemy leaders, including the LA program leader and recently hired Ross Mirkarimi

The former supervisor and San Francisco sheriff was suspended by then-Mayor Ed Lee in 2012 after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor in which he grabbed and injured his wife’s arm during a heated argument, but the board voted to reinstate him. He lost re-election in 2015.

He and his wife, Eliana Lopez, told The Chronicle that it was an isolated case. Urban Alchemy said Mirkarimi helped the organization as a consultant on their LA program.

San Francisco’s pilot program brings together half a dozen teams responding to the city’s social problems — people living on the streets, experiencing mental health crises, or simply overdosing — that were previously treated by the police. Breed has poured millions of dollars into police alternatives while fighting to staff the police force and improve the image that the city is unclean and unsafe. Their existing teams have had some positive results but haven’t changed the roads.

Teams can’t force people on the street to move unless they offer shelter — a key point in a lawsuit filed against the city by attorneys and the homeless.

City and Urban Alchemy officials did not directly address what HEART would do if someone did not use services and whether the person would be asked to relocate. City officials say there must be enough sidewalk space for someone with a disability to pass.

“Urban Alchemy has helped connect thousands of people to services, shelter and housing, and we work tirelessly to provide and work to get people the help and support they need,” said Kirkpatrick Tyler , head of community and government affairs, in a statement.

Breed’s pilot program starts against a controversial background: some community organizations are protesting against it and Urban Alchemy is the provider.

Many local residents, business owners and officials have welcomed and praised Urban Alchemy, particularly Breed, but homeless people have complained about the organization. Urban Alchemy operates homeless shelters and its community ambassadors reverse drug overdoses, pick up trash and tell people not to use drugs on the streets, or block sidewalks with tents.

In LA, the group runs the CIRCLE program — for Crisis and Incident Response through Community-Led Engagement — which responds to emergency calls related to homelessness. In March, the team responded to more than 1,300 police calls and around 2,570 self-initiated incidents. The team distributed dozens of groceries and clothing items, conducted two dozen mental health interventions and referred a dozen for treatment, shelter or shelter.

San Francisco critics include the nonprofit Dolores Street Community Services, which has run for leadership of HEART along with two other groups. An independent panel reviewed the bids, gave Urban Alchemy a better rating and awarded the contract.

Dolores Street Community Services officials filed a protest letter arguing, “While Urban Alchemy has a strong track record of keeping streets clean, it has failed to create safe public spaces and homeless people in a humane and dignified manner.” wise to treat.” They pointed to concerns, including a media report that a worker allegedly sexually abused a woman at a hotel used as a pandemic shelter.

Urban Alchemy officials previously told The Chronicle that they fire anyone who engages in violence, discrimination and disrespect for women. CEO, Lena Miller, has argued that “our agenda is humane treatment of people.”

The city dismissed the protest as unfounded.

Del Seymour, founder of the nonprofit Code Tenderloin, which initially wanted to help run the program, now supports Urban Alchemy but said the city needs to allocate adequate resources to offer something to the people.

“We cannot go out and intervene with people if there are no alternatives,” he said.

The new program stemmed from a proposal, originally called the Compassionate Alternative Response Team, that community organizations launched two years ago and were pressured by leaders for funding. Breed didn’t support that suggestion because she didn’t want out-of-town staff responding to emergency calls, saying it would replicate the efforts of her existing street response teams.

Sara Shortt, political director of the nonprofit HomeRise, feared the same city agency being sued over homeless evictions would oversee the program. She said it’s very likely that the people the program is designed to serve don’t have a lot of trust in it and would therefore get poorer results.

HEART is led by Urban Alchemy Education Director Louie Hammonds. project manager Katherine Napoleon, who helped launch the similar program in LA; and Mirkarimi.

Shortt said she was “confused about this hiring decision as there is no indication that he has any experience working with homeless issues.” However, she said Mirkarimi has demonstrated a track record as a listener and community collaborator, championing justice and services have.

Urban Alchemy said that as a supervisor, Mirkarimi helped raise money for a street outreach team and fought against the criminalization of poverty. Tyler said, “Our leadership team, which runs HEART, has helped thousands of homeless people get the support they need through a similar program in Los Angeles.”

Reach Mallory Moench: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com

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— William Boucher

“I grew up in South County, in Morgan Hill to be precise. I attended high school in San Jose and spent my first career there. After a while, it just got too much—too much traffic, too fast a pace, too many plastic people, too much division between haves and haves, the old ethnic neighborhoods were shrinking… When my wife had the opportunity to move to Sonoma County, we jumped at it the opportunity. Sonoma County reminded me a lot of Santa Clara County growing up. More than thirty years later we’ve built a network of friends and really feel a sense of community rather than a speed-dating group of superficial acquaintances. I’m really glad you found the kind of environment where you can thrive. From my very biased point of view, the city is great to visit, but I don’t want to live there. Thank you for sharing so much about yourself in the article, it took strength and courage, and I commend you for it.”

– Lee Cretin

“While I’m proud to live in Santa Rosa and proud to have the SRJC and the Schultz Museum, Ms. Torres is right. As a non-foodie and non-wine drinker, there isn’t much to do here. I remember watching the Crushers baseball team in high school. And I miss the convenience of the robust public transport in big cities. What I like to see in Sonoma County is an improvement in the public education system. Not only from a safety point of view (in view of the recent violence in schools), but also in terms of content. I would like to see more hands-on courses and skills development courses. Maybe there could be a project with the SRJC. A semester/year course that gives a general overview of the different types of jobs and explains the basic skills in each individual job. Maybe speakers from local industry with demonstrations. Also Growing Up 101: how banking and homeownership work, what it takes for a car to work, how city, state, and local government works, how to sew on a button. Real World, Practical Preparation; Not everyone goes to college. Given the cost of living, I probably won’t be moving to San Francisco or any other major city, so I’m finding things to do. And Santa Rosa, like most cities, has a lot to deal with in terms of homelessness, public roads/construction, and crime/recidivism. I think that working on improving education – after several years – can help with that.”

– Anne Lee

“I absolutely agree. Apparently more than half of my high school seniors had moved to LA. I answered before reading the whole question, so I plan on leaving. It’s very difficult to start a new life here to create new events and things to do. It was beautiful to look at but too quiet.”

– Ben Lash

“Wow, are you driving around with your eyes closed? Take a look at the Union Square and VanNess Ave areas. City hall. Tourism has declined in SF for good reason. If SR is too boring, maybe you should try Petaluma, it’s closer to your beloved San Francisco.”

– Gary Doolittle

“Born and raised in Santa Rosa and will never leave Sonoma County. And yes, San Francisco has become a gross place. I couldn’t imagine starting a family there. In fact, our family stopped going to San Francisco altogether because of how bad things got there. I never thought an entire city could smell like urine. Sonoma County strong!”

– Joy Roybal

“Santa Rosa and Sonoma County are communities of community. Each of them has a special connection to the residents. No reason to go unless you are looking for a different community. For fanboys like me, no city ever “needs” Batman. The whole parable of the cloaked crusader says that the city has lost its way. Furthermore, the extreme state of hopelessness produces a necessary agent of change outside of failed systems. SF has hope. Sonoma County has hope. Because people have hope. That’s why I live here.”

– Jim Leddy

Sevastopol

“Having not grown up in San Francisco 50 years ago, she has no real understanding of how the city has changed. As for her assessment of Santa Rosa, playing up the trauma we’ve all experienced from the fires while implying that it’s boring is lazy. Chappelle made a couple of brief visits to Santa Rosa and Sonoma County, but since she probably wasn’t at the show and it wasn’t making the news, she may have mistakenly assumed he hadn’t said anything negative or critical about the area. It’s nice to be here, it’s a slower pace but if I want some action I can go to the city. If I want to see a Broadway show, musical, comedy or concert, it’s an hour away.”

– Matt Schweifler

“I agree with her – San Francisco is magical! I like Santa Rosa – for all the fun happenings and curiosities, the amazing views, the great food and the wineries, breweries etc and it’s quieter – which I appreciate now but maybe didn’t when I was young. I couldn’t bear to live in a full throttle place like SF right now, but that’s not SF’s fault. It’s just a stage of life thing – maybe I would feel different if I was loaded down and could live anywhere in the city I wanted. Unfortunately, SF isn’t all that affordable for young people – or for people of any age without quadrupling, but I appreciate their defense of SF to all its naysayers. It’s not perfect – but it’s magical – no question about it!”

– Lori

“I definitely agree. i love the city The energy was amazing in my twenties, but after getting married and having kids, Sonoma is my home. We go into town and yes there are homeless people and it’s very sad but it doesn’t stop me. I wish there was an answer. We took the train and the ferry and spent a few days walking around, and when you walk out of a Giants game and hear Tony Bennett singing, my heart is gone and tears come to my eyes.”

– Candice Mick

san francisco

“Born in San Francisco in 1957, moved to Santa Rosa when he was three months old. I grew up in Santa Rosa, but my parents worked and played in the city. I did my residency at Community Hospital in Chanate and worked there part-time for 18 years before becoming Sutter and then Sutter Mark West Springs. Moved back to San Francisco after Tubbs fire, retired from Sutter Santa Rosa three years ago. I miss Santa Rosa every day, but the city is also my home. I will defend both; They are two sides of a beautiful coin.”

– Peace the crown

“What do you say about the approximately 240 deaths from fentanyl OD? It is sad that some progressives either overlook the crisis entirely or simply refuse to acknowledge it and continue to point to crime statistics to distract from the problems we face. PS-SFPD data shows that the number of homicides has increased by 26% this year. The money Breed invests goes to corrupt non-profit organizations that benefit from the status quo (if they fix the problem, their source of money disappears). So please, if you really love SF (as you do), it’s tough love time. We must acknowledge and accept the situation and work together to resolve it. Getting on the defensive, getting involved in politics, and blaming Republicans (I’m a left-leaning independent) and that’s bad for our city.”

– Smile

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Illegal sideshows took to the streets of San Francisco and Oakland overnight.

In San Francisco, around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, cars and crowds gathered near the corner of Dolores Street and 16th Street.

The San Francisco Police Department responded shortly thereafter to break up the incident.

A few hours later, on Sunday, there was a sideshow in Oakland near 6th Street and Market Street.

It would eventually move to 45th Street and Market. At one point, people lit a ring of fire in the middle of the intersection.

Oakland Police Department told NBC Bay Area Sunday that they towed several vehicles and cited several drivers when they broke up the sideshow.

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(Ab0ve): Unidentified participants at Asian American Pacific Islander Youth Rising Rally marching from Aquatic Park to the pedestrian 80 freeway over pass. (Shutterstock/Siliconeer)

Since March 2020, the web portal Stop AAPI Hate has logged 10,370 reports of hate incidents, 16 of which have been physical violent attacks. Elderly Asian-American women have been especially vulnerable. Just in the last month two middle-aged women, one young woman and one more middle-aged women, both were killed in New York.

At an Ethnic Media Services briefing, held Feb. 25, panelists—Sung Yeon Choimorrow, Executive Director, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum; Marita Etcubanez, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives, Asian Americans Advancing Justice; Michelle Kang, General Secretary of the Atlanta Korean Committee against Asian Hate; and Sasanna Yee, inspirational speaker and yoga teacher – discussed how communities have responded. A Siliconeer report.

(Above, left): Marita Etcubanez, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives, Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC); Michelle Kang, Secretary-General, Atlanta Korean American Committee Against Asian Hate; Sung Yeon Choimorrow, Executive Director, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum; and Sasanna Yee, San Francisco-based mindful movement instructor and community wellness activist. (EMS)

Song Yeon Choimorrow provided a historic perspective as to how we got here and why women are such frequent targets of anti-Asian hate. “The rise in coverage of the murders and the violence against our community, particularly Asian American women, we must note that while the pandemic and the rhetoric of the former president blaming China and Chinese people for starting the virus and the pandemic may have dramatically increase the incidences of hate against AAPIs, it’s certainly not something new. As Asian American women, many of us felt living in the United States, long before COVID, and my personal experience – I came to the United States as an international student and there are a number of times I’ve been approached by men in social gathering spaces who sexually harassed me because of my race.”

“Objectification of Asian American women is nothing new and the pandemic has just exasperated this for many of us. Asian American women, in particular, experience increased harassment because we are targeted both for our race and our gender, as Stop AAPI Hate has reported,” said Choimorrow.

“In America, we see the rise of the demonization of Asian women as ‘dragon lady,’ as seen in a movie and on the other hand Asian women are also depicted as submissive and referred to as ‘geisha girl,’ ‘China doll’ and ‘lotus blossom.’ These are not favorable terms but rather a way to hyper-sexualize Asian women that makes American general public think that we’re easy targets for sexual and other forms of harassment.”

“In 1966, sociologist William Peterson coined the term ‘model minority’ to describe Japanese Americans for their success after World War II. Peterson in essence says Japanese Americans are successful because their cultural values ​​and good ethics. This idea of ​​Japanese Americans then applied to different Asian and Asian American ethnicities. The stereotype that Asian Americans are smart, hardworking, and will be submissive and quiet, also leads to vulnerability and bullying which many Asian American students and workers faced even before the pandemic.”

Choimorrow also talked about the deadly Atlanta Spa shooting victims, the references made on US television shows like ‘Gilmore Girls’ and ‘Lane Kim,’ amongst some of her examples.

Marita Etcubanez of Asian Americans Advancing Justice spoke next discussing strategies the community has developed to protect itself as well as Federal legislation addressing hate crimes. “While hate crimes and hate incidents are still underreported, we have seen more people reporting both hate crimes and hate incidents, some to law enforcement, but also to community organizations like Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and our Stand Against Hatred website as well as Stop AAPI Hate.

“We have seen more people joining in demanding community-oriented solutions to public safety. It has become clear to us that people are very eager to learn about what they can do as individuals to help stop Anti-Asian hate and harassment. Since launching, our joint bystander intervention trainings in the Spring of 2020, Asian Americans Advancing Justice affiliates in Illinois, California and DC have reached and trained about 150,000 people.

“We are building a community of people who are trained, and ready to take action, and intervene, when they see or experience anti-Asian hate or harassment. We marked a victory with passage of the Covid 19 Hate Crimes Act, a Federal bill that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

“It requires the Justice department to formulate guidance for law enforcement agencies and others on creating online reporting systems for hate crimes and hate incidents, including making those systems accessible for people with limited proficiency in English.

“We were furious and frustrated over the attacks and killings of eight innocent people and six were Asian women in Georgia,” said Michelle Kang of the Atlanta Korean Committee against Asian Hate.

“Why we need to include Asian American history in K-12 curriculum? – In May 2021, to dispel the misunderstanding and lack of knowledge that Asian Americans are foreigners, there is a long history of Asian immigration into the US starting from the mid 1800s, we fight to ensure our voices as Asian, Black, Brown, Hispanic , Pacific Islanders and Native Americans are not forgotten within American history, and demand that each student have the right to see themselves in their school curriculum,” said Kang.

Sasanna Yee, inspirational speaker and yoga teacher, took to yoga to help victims who have experienced trauma, overcome their tragedy. Her grandmother was fatally attacked in a San Francisco park in 2019.

There are countless incidents, some reported but most go by unnoticed. It’s time to be American in the true spirit and embrace all communities as equal and treat them with equal dignity.

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The pandemic has put San Francisco into slow disaster for more than a year. And it gives the city an unexpected chance to prepare for another type of disaster: the big one.

Exactly 115 years after one of the most devastating events in California history, the great 1906 earthquake and fire, city guides have learned lessons from their emergency response to COVID-19 that they can apply to the next major tremor.

One of them is to focus on equity and inclusion right away. Now that city officials have geared much of San Francisco’s approach to COVID-19 testing and vaccination to the neighborhoods hardest hit by the virus, they believe the strategy shouldn’t be limited to pandemics.

“What it looks like in an earthquake is you are not creating shelters for people on mission in another place as far away as Golden Gate Park,” said Mary Ellen Carroll, executive director of the San Francisco contingency management division.

Once the pandemic subsides, Carroll wants the city to hold regular meetings with organizations that serve Latino residents and other community groups to discuss earthquake preparedness and connections established over the past year of the pandemic response.

“We have never done that before,” she said. “It’s not that we never prepared for communities, but never as we understand it now.”

The 7.9 magnitude earthquake that struck San Francisco on April 18, 1906, remains the worst disaster the city has ever experienced. An estimated 3,000 people died and more than 80% of the city’s buildings were destroyed in earthquakes and fires.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s supply of earthquake-proof pipes.

Nick Otto / Special on The Chronicle

But the pandemic, which killed more than 500 Franciscans and infected another 35,000, has tested the city’s civil protection apparatus in unprecedented ways, placing it in a constant state of emergency management. Some city workers have been diverted from their usual jobs to pandemic-related duties for more than a year.

San Francisco also needed to ensure that critical infrastructures such as water and electricity worked smoothly despite physical distancing and distant work situations. Community organizations that are not normally responsible for emergency response have campaigned for pandemic aid, including through the Resource Hub of the Latino Task Force in the mission. The city turned the Moscone Center into a mass vaccination center and before that into a homeless shelter – a possible use after an earthquake.

“It really helped us to stress test some of our systems,” said Brian Strong, the city’s chief resilience officer, of the pandemic.

At the state level, emergency managers received a crash course last year in order to react to not one but several disasters that overlap at the same time. As the virus spread wide and quickly, forest fires also raged out of control, burning a record 4.2 million acres.

The same thing could happen if a catastrophic earthquake occurred while massive wildfire was already burning. In such a situation, officials in the affected area would rely heavily on aid agreements from other cities, counties and states. Other countries could also come to help respond, as they have done with fires before.

“We’re making our stuff here in California on the assumption that we could have more than one major event at a time,” said Christina Curry, assistant director of the governor’s Office of Emergency Services. “We designed things with this possibility.”

Curry said she also learned many lessons from the pandemic that could occur during an earthquake – especially when it comes to rapidly changing work systems.

“An earthquake could turn a business center in a big city into something we won’t have access to for a while,” said Curry. “How can you restore government and industry and keep the state running if you cannot access your facilities as usual? For another reason, many places had to switch to a different way of working during the pandemic. “

Experts cannot predict the next earthquake in San Francisco. Peggy Hellweg, operations manager in the seismology laboratory at UC Berkeley, compared the underground situation to a stretchy rubber band – after all, the band will break and cause a severe earthquake like the one devastated in San Francisco 115 years ago.

“We really don’t know how much we need to stretch it before the next big one happens,” Hellweg said. “It could happen tomorrow. It could be 50 or 100 years. “

Compared to San Andreas, which runs through San Francisco, the Hayward Fault in the East Bay “has expanded for a long time,” Hellweg said. The last major earthquake in this fault occurred in 1868, and millions more people now live along the fault zone.

But population growth alone does not mean the fate of everyone who lives on the Hayward Fault.

“Houses of all kinds that have been built in the last 20 or 30 years are much safer in an earthquake than houses that were built before 1970, simply because of all the things we have learned from (past) earthquakes,” said Hellweg .

Just because a building remains standing does not mean that it will not be irreparably structurally impaired.

“The question of whether this housing can be used after an earthquake has a completely different answer,” said Hellweg.

San Francisco has tried to solve this problem by requiring upgrades to some of its most vulnerable homes. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged many of the Marina neighborhood’s soft buildings, characterized by wooden frames and wide street-level openings that often house garages or commercial space. City officials have ordered seismic retrofits for about 5,000 such buildings, and the program, due to be completed this year, is more than 80% complete.

After quiet stories, San Francisco’s next priority is targeting concrete buildings, said Strong, the city’s chief resilience officer. Within the next year, city officials plan to have a better understanding of which concrete buildings are vulnerable and which are not as they ponder new local rules.

“Unlike soft stories where you can drive by and tell, these concrete buildings are a lot more difficult,” said Strong. “You really have to go in and take a closer look at them.”

Parts for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission earthquake-proof pipe supply.

Nick Otto / Special on The Chronicle

The city also protects critical parts of its water system from a major earthquake failure. This summer, workers at College Hill Reservoir in Bernal Heights, which supplies water to San Francisco General Hospital, will be installing new pipes with flexible connections. The pipes, made by Japanese company Kubota, can move horizontally and vertically like a ball, said Katie Miller, director of water capital programs at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

“When the earth moves from the stresses of an earthquake, the entire pipe network can react and move with it instead of the joints pulling out,” Miller said. “You can hold back these forces and stay there even if the ground completely collapses around them. This is really great.”

The work, slated to begin in June, aims to replace approximately 4,000 feet of aging pipe. It’s part of a multi-year project that should cost about $ 50 million in total.

JD Morris is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris

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