Daniel Lurie has new strategy to restore order in two of S.F.'s most chaotic neighborhoods
The Lurie administration is dispatching community ambassadors to troubled areas in the Mission and South of Market neighborhoods. Here, members of Ahsing Solutions conduct a walk-around cleaning in an alley near Mission Street on July 11. (Manuel Orbegozo/For the S.F. Chronicle)
San Francisco has entered a new phase in Mayor Daniel Lurie's efforts to reduce disorder along two commercial corridors in the South of Market and Mission districts.
The Lurie administration this month began dispatching community ambassadors to a section of Sixth Street as well as the area around 16th and Mission streets - both locations where the mayor has been trying to curb unpermitted vending, open-air drug use and homelessness.
The ambassadors function as unarmed security guards for San Francisco's most chaotic streets, cleaning trash and asking people camping or using drugs to stay away from areas where residents and businesses have objected to their presence. Ambassadors also reverse overdoses when needed.
In SoMa, ambassadors from the nonprofit Urban Alchemy are making daily patrols of Sixth Street and staffing a parking lot that the city is converting into a park-like "oasis" where community members can congregate instead of loitering on the sidewalk. In the Mission, a team from a limited-liability company, Ahsing Solutions, is roving the streets and alleys around the 16th and Mission BART plaza where people selling stolen goods and using drugs have drawn complaints from neighbors and merchants throughout Lurie's tenure - and long before.
Ahsing Solutions workers rove the streets and alleys around the 16th and Mission BART plaza, where people selling stolen goods and using drugs have drawn complaints from neighbors and merchants. (Manuel Orbegozo/For the S.F. Chronicle)
The ambassadors are supplementing the police crackdowns Lurie has pursued in SoMa and the Mission as he looks to deliver on his promises to restore order and improve public safety in San Francisco. Lurie is betting that the combination of traditional law enforcement and police alternatives, deployed to targeted hot spots, will deliver sustained improvements to some of the city's troubled public spaces.
Whether the approach can succeed remains an open question. Lurie's initial escalation of police enforcement on Sixth Street was blamed for pushing more drug users and people selling stolen goods into the Mission. And even after the mayor boosted police presence in the Mission, too, some residents and businesses say progress there has been inconsistent.
Officials from the city's emergency management department are overseeing the ambassadors and coordinating with street outreach teams from various city departments who respond to problems such as drug overdoses, mental health crises or unhoused people in need of urgent medical attention. The mayor said in a statement that the street teams, which he reorganized in March, "bring critical services directly to the people who need them" while the new ambassadors "meet people where they are and keep public spaces safe."
"We can have clean and safe streets in every neighborhood in our city - and we are making progress each day to get there," Lurie said.
José Ruiz of Ahsing Solutions, a community patrol group, cleans an alley near Mission Street in San Francisco on July 11. "We can have clean and safe streets in every neighborhood in our city," Mayor Lurie says. (Manuel Orbegozo/For the S.F. Chronicle)
Lurie included funding for the SoMa and Mission ambassadors as part of the city budget he proposed in late May. Even though the Board of Supervisors must still grant final approval to the budget, the city moved forward with the ambassadors after the board's appropriations committee advanced a budget deal with Lurie last month.
Urban Alchemy isn't increasing its headcount as a result of its expanded footprint on Sixth Street. The work is part of a broader $9.8 million contract that provides for 100 daily community ambassadors in the Tenderloin, Mid-Market and SoMa over the next six months. Urban Alchemy is staffing its Sixth Street operations with some ambassadors who used to work at BART stations after the transit agency chose a different contractor for elevator attendant services. Ahsing Solutions has a $500,000 half-year agreement for a much smaller team of ambassadors in the Mission.
City officials plan to evaluate how both community ambassador programs work in tandem with the city's street outreach teams over the next six months to shape their approach next year, said Adrienne Bechelli, a deputy director in the emergency management department.
"Our hypothesis is that, through closer coordination, we'll be able to work a lot better together and improve street conditions faster," Bechelli said.
A man enters Urban Alchemy's safe outdoors space at a former parking lot on Sixth Street on July 11. The lot is set to become a makeshift urban square, modeled on a similar site in the Tenderloin. (Manuel Orbegozo/For the S.F. Chronicle)
On Sixth Street, Urban Alchemy ambassadors are roving a one-block stretch between Market and Mission streets to deter people from using drugs or camping out on the sidewalk. They are also set up in the parking lot at Sixth and Jessie streets that was formerly an outdoor triage center Lurie temporarily established as a hub to connect homeless people and drug users with shelter or health resources.
Lurie closed the triage center in June, about four months after it opened, after his aides concluded that the street outreach teams were better positioned to get treatment and other resources to those in need. Now, the Sixth Street lot is being converted to a makeshift urban square that is modeled after a similar site staffed by Urban Alchemy at Turk and Hyde streets in the Tenderloin.
Currently, the SoMa lot is a bare-bones arrangement of canopy tents, tables with chairs and portable toilets. It will eventually include additional decor to make it look more like a park, according to city officials. The plan is to provide an off-street space for community members to gather so they don't have to crowd the sidewalks - a model that has worked successfully at Turk and Hyde, officials say.
Urban Alchemy's safe outdoor space on a parking lot at Sixth and Jessie features port-a-potties, a shaded seating area, drinking water, and other amenities for passing visitors. (Manuel Orbegozo/For the S.F. Chronicle)
"Our hope is to bring the same peace and safety and cleanliness that we delivered in (the Tenderloin) to this corner," Urban Alchemy spokesperson Jess Montejano said of the organization's plans for the Sixth Street lot. "When people feel a sense of belonging and community, they get better faster and they're more likely to accept services and help and choose decisions that are more positive for themselves and the broader community."
At 16th and Mission, Ahsing Solutions has been sending several white-vested ambassadors - all of whom are formerly incarcerated people - to monitor the sidewalks every day. Terraine Miller, an Ahsing lead, said the first few days were "kind of rough" but conditions have improved since then.
Standing on a largely empty Mission Street midday Friday, Miller said the situation was far different over the weekend, when droves of people came to the same spot to sell potentially stolen merchandise or deal or use drugs.
Terraine Miller from Ahsing Solutions asks a man smoking a pipe on Mission Street to move along. "I just basically tell them, ‘Hey, you know, the residents, the citizens, the business owners, they don't want you here,'" Miller says. (Manuel Orbegozo/For the S.F. Chronicle)
"The crowd was just humongous," he said. "Both sidewalks were full, from 16th all the way to 14th."
Miller said he and the other ambassadors have found success largely by simply asking people to move along if they're obstructing the sidewalk or using drugs in public. The ambassadors who carry Narcan to reverse overdoses if needed, have encountered some resistance - sometimes they "get cussed out for 30 minutes," Miller said.
But he's found that many people typically leave when asked to do so, delighting residents of the neighborhood who are able to more comfortably walk down the street with their children.
"I just basically tell them, ‘Hey, you know, the residents, the citizens, the business owners, they don't want you here,'" Miller said. "They say, ‘Well, why can't we be here? ' or ‘Where can I use my drugs at? ' I say, ‘Well, you have to find somewhere else, because they don't want it here anymore.'"
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