To most people walking near the Civic Center station, this little health center sitting between an alley way and sandwich shop wouldn’t attract a second glance; but to people like Gregory Sherren, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1996, this place is a lifesaver.
“They’re trained professionals here,” said Sherren. “If it weren’t for them, I don’t think I would be here—but now I know I won’t die of AIDS.”
Created in July 2006 from a merger of the Continuum HIV Day Services and the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center, Tenderloin Health’s mission has always been to improve the health of the Tenderloin’s underserved homeless, poor and most vulnerable residents by offering AIDS/HIV services that would be difficult to obtain elsewhere.
San Francisco’s Tenderloin, also known as the “TL,” covers only 60 blocks, yet is home to nearly 11% of the city’s population, including a quarter of the city’s homeless. It has the highest concentration of residents in poverty, nearly 70% as of 2009.
According to Tenderloin Health, the TL is at the epicenter of new AIDS cases in San Francisco, particularly among injection drug users, men who have sex with other men, and male-to-female transgendered residents. A 2009 report from the city’s Department of Public Health says that nearly 10% of HIV/AIDS patients were homeless at the time they were diagnosed.
“This center is really an asset to people,” says Sherren, who was referred to Tenderloin Health several years ago. “It’s a resource. There was no education of HIV when I got it. Everyone just thought it was a ‘gay disease.’”
“The people I was around were thieves, dope dealers and robbers,” says Sherren, who is six years sober from a four decade long heroin addiction. “We’d all get high together and soon have intimate relationships. We never wore rubbers. It just seemed suspicious. Like an insult.”
Diagnosed in Prison
Sherren was diagnosed with HIV while in custody of San Quentin State Prison. “The way they told me was by saying ‘Roll up, they’re moving you and you’ll find out when you get there,” he said. “When we got to the hospital and I asked again, they said ‘You got tested for AIDS, right?’ That was when I got the hint.”
After being released from prison, Sherren sought the help of Tenderloin Health where he was set up with various medications that he needed for his illness. He’s also being supplied with housing through affiliates of the center and is hoping to move into a more permanent residence soon.
Tenderloin Health also offers programs in health promotion and prevention, dental care, in-house nursing, substance abuse counseling, syringe exchange and other services.
“I would say in this area we provide much needed services,” says David Fernandez, who joined Tenderloin Health as executive director in late 2009. “We’re pretty much the only breath of service in the area—probably the city.”
The non-profit organization collaborates with other agencies, referrals and sheriff departments regular in order to find more people in need.
“Here, we practice what is called the ‘harm reduction philosophy,’” explains Fernandez. “We meet the client wherever they are in life. This means that someone with a substance abuse problem is not required to stop doing drugs to work with us. We want to help the client where they are right at the moment of seeking help.”
'One-Stop Shop' Service
Tenderloin Health also serves patients’ emotional and behavior needs and employs social workers with various types of cultural and social backgrounds.
“We’re a one-stop shop,” says Fernandez.
“We used to have a community center where people can come but it was cut in 2009,” says Fernandez. “But still, we create a community of residents. It’s been around a long time. Everyone knows about Tenderloin Health.”
Both men feel that Tenderloin Health has greatly enriched the community in the neighborhood by spreading education and health to the district.
“This place is really an asset,” repeats Sherren, “People got to the point where they couldn’t get out of bed. Now, they started winning things back instead of losing everything.”
With the U.S. Geological Survey warning that San Francisco is destined to suffer another deadly earthquake, several local task forces and advisory committees are looking for ways to minimize the impact of such a disaster.
According to the USGS,there is a 67% likelihood of a magnitude 6.7 or above earthquake striking the Bay Area before 2032.
Particularly at risk are low-income neighborhoods such as the South of Market area (SOMA), where losses would be particularly high due to the already vulnerable population.
David Bonowitz, a structural engineer who has worked with several city groups on the issue of earthquake retrofitting and how to minimize damage, notes that “SOMA is a vulnerable population because of the matrix of bad buildings and important social services in the area.”
Earthquake retrofitting includes several different techniques to reinforce a building and make it more stable in the event of an earthquake. These techniques aim to minimize damage to property, to reduce injuries or deaths to residents and workers, and to reduce the time that it will take to repair damage.
SOMA, which includes a mix of gentrified properties and social service organizations serving the traditionally low-income area, presents several unique challenges to retrofitting.
Danger of Liquefaction
While upgrades to buildings will lower the possible damage done due to movement in an earthquake, the SOMA neighborhood is also in a zone that USGS maps as particularly prone to liquefaction, a condition in which the soil underneath the area basically turns to quicksand.
Because SOMA is built almost entirely on landfill, it makes the ground less sturdy than other areas of the city built on more solid bedrock.
“Liquifaction may not occur,” said Bonowitz, however. “So the question then becomes, well, do we mandate people to retrofit their buildings, knowing that it might and that the inconvenience and cost might not entirely protect them? Or do we take steps to protect them somewhat? It’s like having air bags. Some cars may not have side airbags, but you know the front ones are at least some protection.”
Newer buildings, most of which were built during the redevelopment boom in SOMA, should be able to withstand an earthquake relatively well whether there is liquefaction or not, according to Bonowitz.
“These were retrofitted or built after we understood more about the science of liquefaction.”
While earthquake safety measures have been a concern of many residents, especially following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, any great movement towards retrofitting the city has been plagued by political in-fighting and a slow bureaucratic process that relies on committees and studies that take time and money, the lack of the latter often meaning more of the former.
Still, city agencies and local groups are persisting in trying to make effective change before the next major earthquake.
Earthquake Bond Act
In June, SF voters passed Proposition B, the San Francisco Earthquake Safety Bond,
which aims to retrofit and protect city services such as water, fire stations and police stations in order to minimize disruption to emergency services following a large quake.
The Department of Building Inspections is also leading the Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS), an advisory board that is preparing several reports that will guide the DBI in creating a plan to minimize damage through preparation and suggested retrofitting and developing a a set of recommendations on how to minimize damage.
Laura Samant, a CAPSS project co-manager who works for Applied Technology Council of Redwood City, said they are developing several reports, including: a report that estimates the consequences of major earthquakes on all types of privately owned buildings in the city; a report that recommends a broad range of actions the city can take to reduce its risk; and a report that recommends improved post-earthquake repair policies.
According to a draft report of “San Francisco’s Earthquake Risk,” released for comments to the committee in October, “85,000 housing units would not be suitable for occupancy and would take months to years to be repaired or replaced. Rental and low-income housing would be the slowest to come back.”
In a November article for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), John Paxton, a real estate adviser and a member of the CAPSS advisory board, weighed in on the potential losses.
“Following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the typical victim in the Marina was young, single, affluent and mobile. In contrast, the ongoing housing crisis in South of Market, Oakland, Watsonville, and Santa Cruz following the Loma Prieta quake resulted in a true, lasting hardship,” he wrote.
More than 20 years later, those demographic assertions remain primarily true.
The problem however, could be greatly assuaged by proper city planning for a wide-spread retrofit project, according to Bonowitz. “If there were to be a citywide mandate for retrofitting, that would be up to the more political people to organize, but it could be done in an organized fashion where the disruption would be minimal.”
He continued, saying that since only the first floor of a building would need to be vacated in order to complete a retrofit. “Of course there would be noise and dust and all the things that go along with construction work, but it would certainly be less intrusive than to be displaced by an earthquake.”
Others Not Alarmed
Not all neighborhood residents are alarmed by the reports and dire predictions of an impending disaster.
Robert Merrill, 31, who lives in the Paramount Building on Mission Street in SOMA, said “I can’t live my life worried about earthquakes. I mean, I moved to San Francisco and I was aware that it was a possibility, but I don’t think about it on a daily basis.”
Merrill said that when he moved into the area, the leasing agents for his building did provide literature on earthquake retrofitting that had been done to his building, but “it wasn’t really a factor in deciding where to live. Mother Nature is going to have her fury, no matter where you live in the country.”
He continued “The retrofitting wasn’t really a selling point for me. I was more concerned about location and a washer and dryer.”
If it isn’t a pressing selling point for prospective residents, what then, is the incentive for building owners to voluntarily upgrade their building’s safety standard?
In his SPUR article, “Earthquakes: San Francisco at Risk”, even advocate Paxton noted that “How safe is safe enough? The higher costs associated with higher protection will meet with fierce objections from building owners (particularly owners of investment properties), who may, in some situations, choose to abandon their properties rather than make mandated improvements.”
While experts seem to agree that something must be done in order to prevent a major human displacement in the future following an earthquake, the difficulty in legislating such measures was summed up by Merrill.
“I think for many people, it comes down to a money issue. Who’s going to fork over the millions of dollars to pay for that?”
The black and white blur of skeleton-painted faces and the crashing sea of gyrating bodies dancing with the ancestors have come and gone. Gone, too, is the smell of copal incense and the sweet aroma of pan dulce that seduced thousands of visitors to the Mission. In the days following the raucus celebration of Día de los Muertos (the “Day of the Dead”), life is returning to normal in the Mission .
For some of the locals with Mexican roots, it is a time to question whether modern day commercialization has corrupted a centuries old tradition meant to honor ancestors and lost loved ones through art, music and rituals.
Ten years ago, when Norma Olvera first experienced the Mission District’s Día de los Muertos event, she thought to herself, “This isn’t what Day of the Dead is.”
Olvera is a gallery assistant at the Mission Cultural Center, located on 25th and Mission streets, which sponsors the annual event, which this year was held on Nov. 2. She has felt for years now that Día de los Muertosis turning into a Mexican holiday like Cinco de Mayo, when people who aren’t familiar with the significance of the event turn it into a party and an excuse to get drunk.
Long History
Día del los Muertos celebrations in Mexico can be traced back to indigenous cultures as a result of contact between Mesoamerica and Europe in the 16th Century. Rituals celebrating the deaths of ancestors have been observed by these civilizations perhaps for as long as 2,500 to 3,000 years.
According to the Mission Cultural Center, Día de los Muertos is a hybrid, owing its origins to both pre-Hispanic Aztec philosophy and religious, medieval European ritual practice. The Aztecs would bring offerings of food to altars in honor of the dead and they would also place small clay images that were supposed to represent the deceased on these same altars.
Although this event was originally celebrated for an entire month in August, it is now celebrated during only the first two days of November. In most regions of Mexico, November 1 honors deceased children and infants, while November 2 honors deceased adults.
“It’s a happy holiday,” Olvera said, although she did not celebrate Día del los Muertos as a child. She feels that with Halloween being so close, the two holidays are naturally linked together.
Some others are irked by this link.
Chocolate Bunnies
“A lot of people out there still, strange as it may be, equate Día de los Muertos with the Western celebrations of Halloween and All Saints Day,” Jessi Vowels wrote on AntiCraft, an online zine. “They are clearly related holidays, but have about as much in common as, I don't know, chocolate bunnies do with Jesus rising from the dead.”
In recent years, there has been an increase in celebration and attendance of Día de los Muertos related activities, and even the virtual reality game, World of Warcraft, has been reported to have users celebrating the event within the game. Some, however, worry about the increasing popularity of the celebration and the practice of the tradition.
David Sanchez, a community organizer in H.O.M.E.Y. (Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth) stood near the 24th and Mission Street BART station and sold his own printed T-shirts emblazoned with cultural and political images and quotes. Running his fingers through his long peppered gray hair held loosely in a ponytail, he said, “The way I see commercialization is that you go and buy a product related to Día de los Muertos. To me, around the corner (where the Día de los Muertos parade starts every year) has nothing to do with tradition.”
“Culturally, it’s losing its vibrance and becoming more diluted,” Olvera added. “It loses its significance when you can buy pan dulce, Mexican sweet bread, at Whole Foods.”
Candy Skulls
A proper symbol, associated with Día de los Muertos has been the skull. It is common for those celebrating the holiday to make and decorate candy skulls to remember their lost loved ones. However, walking through the Mission on the night of the celebration, everybody can find skulls in storefronts ready to be purchased. Also, after the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, skulls have been decorated in orange and black, the team’s colors, with the SF logo.
Angela Angel, an artist and photographer who created and contributed an altar for the Mission Cultural Center, said that altars on Día de los Muertos truly mean something. She has created an altar for her deceased father, Alfonso Angel, for years now. She smirked when explaining what she and others in the center called the tradition being adapted in the Mission District. With wide eyes and a grin, barely containing her laughter, she exclaimed, “Día de los Gringos!” which translates into Day of the White People.
“Because we live in a capitalist country, people here consume everything; It’s like a cultural necessity to consume,” Sanchez said, adding that the commercialization of this tradition is old news. This necessity to consume has led foreigners from Europe and the U.S. to travel to Mexico, specifically Oaxaca, where the indigenous traditions are still strong and widely practiced. Sanchez was born in Michoacan, Mexico, a place like Oaxaca. He grew up practicing the traditional rituals of honoring the dead and feels that the tourists who show up in face paint and get drunk are a disruption to the small indigenous communities who celebrate and hold ceremonies for Día de los Muertos.
“Remember them every day. You can remember them in simple ways. I was painting last night and drinking a beer, and I had my own ceremony for my dad,” Sanchez said. He remembered seeing a bicycle and remembering his father, who taught him how to ride when he was younger. This bicycle made him remember all the good things about his father, who he said was a good man.
Spiritual Day
“What people don’t know is that the day is a spiritual day,” Sanchez said, explaining the deep spiritual significance of Día de los Muertos, but added that native traditions are changing, little by little. “Traditions are to be respected and enforced. If a person really knows the purpose of the altars, it’s their responsibility to explain the altar to other people. [The altar] is like a tree of life in a way.”
While Olvera agreed that traditions are changing, she feels that traditional values cannot be enforced because each person has his or her own interpretation of tradition--the definition of tradition is fluid and always changing.
“Most major cities are hubs of cultural mixing. People are becoming hybrids, or mixed ethnicity, mixed race. So what is tradition? There is a marrying of the cultures. Our children’s interpretation of the world is and will be totally different from ours,” Olvera said.
Before November 2 every year, the Mission Cultural Center holds activities for the upcoming event. “We open up the center. There are workshops during September and October and we do papel picado workshops (the paper traditionally hung), altar making workshops, and face painting workshops,” she said.
According to Olvera, face painting has become another way for people to make the event something other than its original intention, or a hybrid part of the tradition. She referred to the term hybrid in the sense of being mixed culturally; the Mexican and American cultures colliding. She said she is all for other people of different backgrounds embracing this significant cultural tradition, but does not feel that people should disrespect it and turn it into a party and an excuse to get drunk, although year after year, it is inevitable.
“To me, the Mission has always been associated with the Mexican community, but the Mission itself doesn’t belong to anyone anymore,” Olvera said.
Trash overflows out of the public receptacle on the street. Containers full of cooking oil sit next to it. Cigarette butts line the curb. Discarded litter lines empty alleys and dark business fronts.
This is the scene nearly every morning on many streets in San Francisco, including, noticeably, the Mission.
Evelyn Marquez, 23, has lived in the Mission her entire life. “Ever since I was little, I remember there being trash on the sidewalks. I guess I just got used to it,” she says.
Trash has long been an issue in this compact city, but recent measures and citywide campaigns are seeking to clean up the mess.
Crackdown Launched
The Department of Public Works has launched its “Spruce Up By Sun Up” project, putting DPW employees and inspectors out on the streets between 4:00 and 6:00 a.m. every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to warn and cite businesses and homeowners who violate trash codes that requirine business owners to maintain the sidewalk in front of their buildings, provide trash cans and ashtrays, and clean graffiti within 30 days.
“The Mission gets more than its share of taggers,” says Phil Lesser of the Mission Merchants Association. “Anything DPW is doing to help out with cleaning up the area is welcome.”
Lesser continues, “We’ve been supportive of a number of things. We formed the business improvement district in the 2500 block of Mission, between 21st and 22nd Streets, to help business owners clean up graffiti, power wash the sidewalks.”
The codes now being targeted for intensified enforcement include Public Works Code 173C, which requires businesses to maintain an ashtray outside their doors for employees and patrons; 173B, which requires that all businesses that sell food or beverages to maintain a trash can outside their front doors during business hours; and timely graffiti removal from buildings, awnings and other areas.
Businesses were notified by mail of the program in a letter dated August 13.
Effectiveness Questioned
Some residents, however, think that the time of day for citations is not effective. “I leave for work around five and sometimes don't get home until after one, and if a shop is closing in the evening there's no way to be sure the storefront stays clean in the middle of the night. That seems nearly impossible,” says Eric Shiller, 28.
Despite the complaints, trash is a problem, according to other Mission residents, such as Monica Herrera, 42, who says, “In the 10 years I've been here there's always been trash."
She continues, "Newsom tried to stop businesses dumping in public cans by removing cans, but for people on the street and residents, the ones left are still usually overflowing. I don't know whose fault it is or who is supposed to be cleaning it up."
Herrera is referring to a 2007 program, backed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, that removed many of the city’s public trash receptacles with the goal of decreasing public waste and forcing more property owners to pay for trash. According to DPW, it still maintains about 3,500 trash cans throughout the city.
Graffiti Targeted
Graffiti is also a major focus of the DPW inspections. According to the city’s graffiti ordinance, property owners have 30 days from notification by DPW or other enforcement agency to remove the graffiti from their building. Lesser champions the business improvement district for encouraging participating business owners to act.
Lesser, while noting that “it’s unfortunate that we’re putting the onus on the victim rather that the tagger, it needs to be done. In the corridor where we have the business improvement district we have surveillance cameras and that has deterred taggers from tagging there.”
“Business owners should be spending time on their business. The improvement district assesses $50 per linear square foot a year, so the normal business would pay about $1500 a year,” he says.
“People are much more prone to shop in an area that’s clean,” he notes.
The Spruce Up By Sun Up campaign is scheduled to continue through February, and the inspection schedule can be found on DPW’s website, www.sfdpw.org.
The differences between 16th and Mission streets versus 16th and Valencia streets are so dramatic it seems like they could be miles apart.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, things started changing for the Valencia Street Corridor on 16th Street. Several businesses started making their mark throughout the neighborhood and the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed the area “the New Bohemia” in 1995.
During the “dot-com” boom in the late 1990s and early 2000s, young professionals moved into the area to live the hipster lifestyle, initiating the gentrification of Valencia Street.
Sudden Change
Today, San Franciscans and tourists experience a sudden change when they walkdown 16th Street. Hitting Valencia is like walking through the simple Urban San Francisco, where Mission, turns into a little Mexico.
Business owners have moved in to take places of those who cannot afford housing and have been forced out of the neighborhood.
The 16th and Mission area is abundant with fruit stands, dollar stores, immigration offices, and stores advertising inexpensive phone cards to call Mexico, South, and Central America.
At 16th and Valencia, the streets look similar to Noe Valley. Expensive coffee shops, clothing boutiques and high-end exotic restaurants line the streets. Many buildings have been remodeled and have condos above the retail street level.
Borderlands Café and Café Petra are just two coffee shops that show an example of cool and hip businesses moving into the area.
Mixed Crowds
Jim Lively, 58, a worker at Borderlands feels that gentrification is a subjective term but he has noticed that a lot of people are being pushed out of the area and businesses are going in to take place of those homes.
“Very mixed crowds come in. Also a lot of Europeans come into Borderlands because the café doesn’t look as American. A lot of people who work and live in the neighborhood always come in here,” said Lively.
Lively claims that he doesn’t exactly know how it’s changed but he knows that a lot of businesses have become more active in the area.
Café Petra is a coffee shop located on Guerrero and 16th Street close to the Valencia area is a place where more hip and young people go. You can get a meal there for under $10. The café is a lot more relaxed in a quiet environment.
In talking to most owners of businesses, the topic of gentrification was ignored.
What was previously a Hispanic dominated neighborhood where immigrants brought their culture, including shops, restaurants, and housing has been shifting into an expensive, developed, upper middle class white dominated neighborhood.
Demian Becerra, a Mexican-American student living in San Francisco for the third year moved to the mission in hopes that it would remind him of where he grew up in Los Angeles. He finds both pros and cons in both aspects of "culture" in his new neighborhood.
"I live next to two different neighborhoods that I like," said Becerra. "But I don't even consider from 16-24th and Valencia the mission because it's entirely white," he said.
Tatyahna Cameron, a 19-year-old student from suburban Pacifica has lived in the mission for two years. She said she moved there well into transition from "authentic to alt-hip." "There's definitely more and more people monthly in the mission because it's "cool" or whatever, but there will never be a complete demise of latin culture here and there will always be a paleta guy around the corner," said Cameron.
Along Valencia there are vintage and thrift stores targeted at those who choose to stop there for style rather then to save money on used clothing. Other higher end businesses include the Belgian Café Fritz, Urbun Burger, Casanova Lounge, and a popular hipster bar, the Elbo Room.
Improved Safety
"The shops are not where me and my family go, but they have cleaned up the neighborhood and the streets are said to be safer," said Mariana Herrador as she walked down the street with her son in his stroller.
Supermarket, meat, and produce market "Casa Thai Market" on 16th and Mission is operated by both Thai and Hispanic employees. A female cashier said most of the customers are Hispanic because the Hispanic community loves fresh produce. When asked how the gentrification of businesses in the mission has affected the market, she said the customer base seemed consistent.
Some parts of the mission are just in the beginning phases of possible gentrification. The Knockout is a popular hipster bar on Cesar Chavez and Mission. It caters to a mid 20s hipster crowd and hosts themed music nights such as '80s new wave, '90s rock, and indie dance party. The bar is set amidst Hispanic bars, billiards clubs, salsa clubs, and taquerias, there are few people aside from patrons of the Knockout heard speaking English.
"I'm surprised they come all the way out here, I don't think this is where they live," said Nestor Cortes outside of a neighboring bar playing Spanish music.
Joseph Davis has seen many things change in his 40 years in San Francisco, but one thing stays the same— his neighborhood, the Tenderloin.
“It has always been low income,” said Davis. “People are the same, they still drink and do dope…but it’s not as bad as Oakland,” Davis said, noting that, to date, there have been 18 reported homicides in San Francisco and 32 cases in Oakland.
Davis, said the neighborhood has been good to him, despite the problems.
“I’ve been here a long time,” said Davis, a 24-year resident of the Elm Hotel. “Nobody has messed with me. Even when I had a girlfriend ,and I’d come home late, nobody bothered.”
Joseph Davis was born in 1931 in Louisiana. He moved in 1955 to Los Angeles, where he worked as a waiter at the Commodore Hotel, and then he came to San Francisco in 1970 and found work as a cook at the Continental Hotel. Davis retired in 1981 and lived all over the Bay Area before deciding in 1986 to make the Elm Hotel in San Francisco his last stop.
“It was pretty rough before the city took over in 2001,” Davis said, gazing over the common area shared by residents of The Elm. “If you wanted to go to the bathroom, you had to step over people sleeping in the hallways.” Garbage cans were also kept in hallways, which could make for a health hazard.
In 2001, San Francisco passed legislature requiring fire sprinklers to be installed in every room and laws banning landlords from charging “visitor fees,” which helped cut down on illegal activities taking place in SRO buildings.
Davis said he has seen other improvements at The Elm, including a wheelchair lift, mailboxes, and a watchful desk clerk that I.D.’s visitors. “Back then there were no restrictions (on visitors),” said Davis.
While many SROs have seen improvements, the conditions residents live in could still be considered humble. There are no on-site laundry facilities, so Davis frequents the
laundromat across the street. The rooms are small and can accommodate a bed, a dresser, and maybe a small bookshelf. Davis does have a television in his room and enjoys watching Law & Order and C.S.I.
Between his daily walks around the neighborhood and listening to the radio, Davis seems content with his situation. He even made it to a recent classic car show and wheelchair basketball game at the Moscone Center. However, Davis’ culinary skills can no longer be exercised as rooms are not furnished with kitchens and are limited to a microwave oven. Davis often goes out for breakfast and utilizes a Salvation Army sponsored meal program.
Regardless of the fact he has been away from a kitchen for quite some time, Davis gets his practice where he can. “I still make the coffee here five days a week,” Davis said.
Every other Saturday night, the Guardian Angels of San Francisco patrol the streets of the Mission District in hopes of ridding the neighborhood of drug use and crime. The Guardian Angels group was first established in 1979 in New York City as a response to the rise in gang-related crime. Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, quickly expanded the idea and by 1981 there was a chapter in Los Angeles making them a coast-to-coast establishment. By 1984 San Francisco had established a chapter of its own. Currently, California cities host 14 of the 114 GA chapters nationwide.
The Guardian Angels mission statement states,“Every day, we receive calls and letters from individuals pleading for help to overcome violence in their worlds. These calls only confirm the increases in violence, harassment, and intimidation reported daily in newspapers and research surveys. Bullies, predators, and gangs, in increasing numbers, are creating fear and danger in our communities. The perpetrators lurk in schools, neighborhoods, streets, subways and the internet.”
The Guardian Angels begin their patrol preparations at their Mission headquarters. After the team suits up and veteran GAs are paired with new members for on-the-spot training, they head out towards the 16th St. BART station. There are 30 members in the group. If there are enough volunteers on a given Saturday, the group splits into two teams and head in different directions. You can spot the patrol teams standing on the corner by their signature look, a white logo shirt over all black attire including black glove, topped with a red beret.
“When we see a drug corner we post up against the wall, not against glass, and we have our hands in front of us and that way we are not letting them get close,” said Jerry Longoria, who patrols under the name JD. “Once the drug dealers see us, they know what we are about and if they have crack, heroin, crystal meth, that’s a felony and we will handcuff them and call the police to come and pick them up.”
Longoria or one of the other senior members always calls the police department of the neighborhood in which they are heading toward to let them know that they are coming into that area in order to avoid interference with police operations.
“We attend the police department meetings and we attend community meetings,” Longoria says as he explains the changes the angels have made over the years.
Over the past 25 years, the San Francisco Guardian Angels chapter has not always had a working relationship with the police department.
“At the time, the Guardian Angels in my opinion appeared to be organized, yet uncontrolled,” said Lieutenant Ed Santos, who has been with the San Francisco Police Department for 29 years. “Knowing very little about them concerned me because I did not know what they were capable of doing and what they would do in a violent confrontation.”
Santos explains that today he doesn’t have a problem with the Angels’ presence in the Mission District as long as they are not interfering with law enforcement activities. When he sees them on his beat he says that they stick to themselves and don’t have much interaction with the public.
Although the Angels say that they receive community appreciation for their hard work, there is no type of funding coming from the local community or government. The non-profit organization relies strictly on donations and all of the members are unpaid volunteers. Over their time in San Francisco the Angels have had trouble earning respect from city officials. They recall walking a fine line with the police department and community members.
“There were so many of us, including martial artists and street fighters, and they wanted to prove that they could fight, and little by little it became a problem—and the police began to see us as a problem,” said Freddie Batres, known to the Angels as Greencard. The group started cutting down on members and only kept the ones that were trained on how to diffuse situations peacefully and not create them. They now have rules on conduct and anyone in the group showing signs of becoming a problem are immediately out.
Batres, who has been part of the Guardian Angels for 25 years, describes the San Francisco chapter as a family that works together to improve where they live and create an alternate group for young people. Currently the chapter has eight teen-aged members and will accept teens as young as 16. Families in the community reach out to Batres asking him for help with their children.
The goal of the senior Angels is to lead by example and show the younger generation what the group represents.
“We tried to get funding from the city and show them what we are doing for the youth but they are cutting funding everywhere right now,” Batres said. “We survive off of what people donate.”
To the left of the entrance is a display of shoes on the wall and just beyond that a small fitting room; to the right a wood counter covered with jewelry, watches, a display of sunglasses, a sign displaying the Visa and MasterCard symbols and another that reads, “Please no food or drink.” Clothes racks are dispersed throughout, filled with t-shirts, hats, jackets and the like and a customer stands at the counter to purchase a purse. It seems like the average hole-in-the-wall clothing store … or is it?
Walking space is at a minimum. People holding mimosas and cupcakes make their way back and forth through the crowd as the loud pulsating music emanating from the back of the shop wafts out onto a windy Mission Street. Most focus their attention on Freddie Genre. He looks like a refugee from the 80’s band Flock of Seagulls with a dark sports coat, tie and a carefully sculpted hairdo, and his 80’s style song only proves to strengthen the possibility. The tiny wooden stage unable to hold him, Genre uses the space in front of it. He bounces to the beat of the music with each step as he moves back and forth in front of the crowd. He doesn’t overuse his voice but lets his natural singing talent speak for itself.
Genre was just one performer at Per[Mission] to Speak, a first event at Artillery Apparel Gallery to be hosted by All Mighty Family, a group that specializes in throwing events for social awareness.
“This is the beginning of a series of events we’re trying to get together,” said gallery owner Ivan Lopez of his new partnership with All Mighty Family.
The Artillery Apparel Gallery was opened last year. After graduating from the Pratt Institute—a design school in Brooklyn, NY—Lopez struggled to find work. He decided to use his experience helping with his family’s business and become an entrepreneur himself. The gallery currently displays the work of 30 fashion designers including Lopez’s own work. He specializes in hand painted t-shirts. Works of local photographers, painters and other artists are also displayed regularly.
The first event saw a small group of open mic and handpicked performers grace the stage with their original poetry and song styling.
Genre, a friend of Lopez, sings one line and then aims the microphone at the audience to encourage participation. Too engulfed in Genre’s performance, they don’t take the hint. Genre sings another line as his backup singers dance around in the background.
Freddie Genre, 23, picked up a microphone for the first time at his preschool graduation and hasn’t put it down since. He took up the keyboard at 13, and now he also plays bass and the drums.
“I’m completely self taught and play by ear,” Genre said. Living with his family in Hunter’s Point, Genre focuses all his energy on his love of music. He’s performed at local venues like Skip’s Tavern and The Rockit Room as well as college venues like San Francisco City College and San Francisco State University.
Getting the event off the ground was not an easy task, according to Lopez. “We had performers cancel on us after we were forced to make a change in the event’s date,” Lopez said.
Twenty-year-old Justin Rodriguez croons a slow ballad. His nappy, shoulder-length locks are streaked with green highlights and brush against the shoulder of his black print sleeveless shirt. Long black sleeves protrude from beneath his t-shirt and cover his arms as he strums his acoustic guitar.
Rodriguez is a music major from San Francisco State University who moved from Inglewood, CA for school. He, like Genre, performs locally.
“I used to be a regular at Brainwash Cafe,” Rodriguez said. He comes from a musical family. His grandfather, also a musician, put Rodriguez’s first guitar in his hands. Rodriguez also cultivates an interest in poetry which originated in middle school. As with this evening’s performance, Rodriguez incorporates his poetry in his act.
As the evening winds to a close, employees of Take the Cake, a Marina neighborhood bakery work the crowd in a last effort to get rid of the last cupcakes while the audience is still engrossed in the performance of the last of the evening’s poets.
“We help other people get feedback,” Lopez said. What Lopez found most exciting was being able to run a business in his old neighborhood.
“It’s a really great environment, a very free environment so you can express yourself,” said 19-year-old Poem Brasga, an attendee at the evening’s event.
For more information on the Artillery Apparel Gallery and its upcoming events visit its website at www.artillery-ag.com. The gallery is at 2751 Mission Street in San Francisco.
]]> class=2008sHilltop High School's successful program to help young women to cope with the responsibilities of motherhood is threatened by the state's fiscal crisis. Cindy Ha offers a multimedia report on this unique program.
]]> class=2008sThousands of demonstrators turned out in the Mission District to demonstrate on behalf of the rights of workers and immigrants. Krystal Peak and Frances Tobin offer video highlights of the parade and interviews with supporters.
]]> class=2008sGary Cueras and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Shant, sat on the sidewalk outside of the Cambridge hotel with several possessions strewn across the sidewalk in front of them as advertisement in hopes of making a few extra dollars.
"I've lived at the Cambridge about three years. I like it, it's alright for the time being. Just a place for right now until we can get situated, till we can move out," said Cueras.
SROs, or Single Room Occupancy hotels, are common in San Francisco and often offer people facing financial hardship an alternative to homelessness or shelter living.
"The security isn't that great. That's one thing that could be improved," said Cueras. "We don't have our own keys to the front door so that's kind of a bad thing. So we have to rely on the desk attendant, and if the desk attendant isn't there then we have to wait outside. And there could be drama happening outside, and then we're stuck outside. A guy got shot right here where these kids are and a dude got stabbed right next door. It's dangerous out here … "
Cueras was born and raised in San Francisco and has been shot twice, once in the right shoulder when he was 18 years old and again, four years ago, in the chest.
"This is the Hilton of all the SROs we were told and it's okay. I'd rather stay in my room most of the time because it's not my scene out here on the street. We don't get into the drug thing," said Shant.
This is Shant's first experience staying in an SRO and the inner city.
"There's all kinds of people living here," said Cueras. "We got famous people, there's actually an Olympian living in the building, won a gold medal for karate a couple of times. There's all types of people, doctors, addicts, normal people, regular people, weird people…"
Cueras and Shant moved to the Cambridge after coming from Oregon to take care of Cuera's family. Instead of couch surfing or staying with family, they opted to pay their own way.
"I've already lived the whole life, raise the kids, have a business, blah blah blah," said Shant. "Now it's time to live for me and have fun and we're starting it here and it's just going to get bett
"I told myself, if I live in the city, I'm not going to live in an SRO. No way," said Leo DiMagnampo, current resident of the Hamlin Hotel in the Tenderloin.
DiMagnampo has been staying at the Hamlin, one of the downtown’s many single room occupancy hotels, for 30 days.
"It sucks," said DiMagnampo. "It's something that you just don't want to catch yourself living in because the majority of the people that live in SROs are on SSI (Supplemental Security Income) and their care is through the government or the County of San Francisco. It's not something that's nice to be putting up with on a daily basis, it may be nice if you're going to stay one night or maybe a couple of nights, but staying here for awhile could make you go insane."
DiMagnampo ended up at the Hamlin after his parents were in an accident that caused the death of his father. Prior to that he had been living in Vegas, making $23 dollars an hour building casinos.
"I got into drugs. You play with fire, you get burned," said DiMagnampo. "You become irresponsible because you're looking for your high and then you're on your lows. Then you gotta turn yourself around and continue picking up the pieces and if you still have a mind you can continue moving ahead and learn from your mistakes."
SROs are independently run and have varying rules and safety precautions. SROs can range from a small room with a sink and a shared bathroom down the hall, to a room with a bathroom, shower and kitchenette.
"I try to think of it as temporary, like ... this is not my home," said DiMagnampo.
The Hamlin offers small rooms with bathrooms and has a 9 p.m. curfew. Those who don't make curfew face a night on the street. DiMagnampo plans to move out at the first opportunity
"Some places have bedbugs and whoever is in charge of the SROs needs to step up their act," said DiMagnampo. "They need to renovate a lot of these places. The government needs to put the money into the right sources, I mean, this is supposed to help people."
Patricia Hogan has spent the last 15 years being homeless or living in different Single Room Occupancy (SRO) residential hotels, but the William Penn is the first that comes closest to “home.”
“I like having a place to live, it’s like a family and I don’t have any family so it’s like these people are my family here,” said Hogan, dressed in a bright orange sweatshirt and jeans with lime-green frog slippers on her feet.
Hogan, 55, was working as an embalmer in San Jose, but after a head-on car accident a voice from God told her to move to San Francisco. She packed up and moved in to the Coronado Hotel in the Tenderloin.
After cycling through 11 SRO’s in the Tenderloin, Hogan moved into the William Penn, a 91-room SRO located blocks from Union Square, where she has lived for almost two years. She said it’s been the best experience she has had in any SRO because of the community environment.
“The William Penn feels more like home and I feel like it’s more stabilized housing than I’ve ever had before,” said Hogan, who has a buzz haircut and a big smile.
The William Penn is unique to the Tenderloin because it is one of the only SROs to offer a one-year lease, which means that residents stay longer.
“It’s nice to have some place secure that I know I won’t be kicked out of,” Hogan said. “There’s more community because residents stay longer.”
Cockroaches and bed bugs are the main problems that Hogan has endured while living in SROs, and residents must individually request that the bugs be removed. When she first moved into the William Penn there was a problem with bed bugs, but the Central City SRO Collaborative, an organization that helps tenants in Tenderloin SROs, worked with Hogan to get rid of the bugs in three weeks.
Hogan works as a tenant organizer for the William Penn through the Central City Collaborative where she earns a $175 stipend per month. The main complaint she has received is from residents who don’t want to pay for light bulbs in their rooms and residents who want screens installed on the windows.
“We hold monthly meetings and take complaints to the manager so everyone is happy,” Hogan said. “It’s difficult going through the manager but we’re working on it.”
Hogan was initially drawn to SROs because of the low rent and the ability to have private and stable housing.
“SROs are nice places to live and they’re comfortable accommodation for reasonable amount of money and it’s nice having a roof over my head,” Hogan said.
Hogan lives alone and pays $533 for her room and private bathroom, which she uses every morning to take a bubble bath. Each floor has a communal kitchen.
“I’m going to be here for a long time,” Hogan said.