The Tenderloin CBD
About one year ago, a group of business owners, property owners, residents and representatives of the Coalition on Homelessness began meeting to discuss a proposed Community Benefit District (CBD) in the Tenderloin.
What It Is
A Community Benefit District is a San Francisco version of a legislative process (sort of) that, in other parts of the United States are often called Business Improvement Districts (BIDS). BIDS impose an assessment, (a tax), on business owners to create (“improve”) business strips. The idea of BIDS has come around this town previously, but got nowhere fast, especially in gentrification phobic neighborhoods like the Tenderloin.
Enter the CBD
Elaine Zamora, a workers’ compensation attorney, who moved her office to the Tenderloin in 2001, and who has a long history of community organizing in Los Angeles and elsewhere, saw a different application for a BID. She saw one that made things better for residents and property owners, especially here in the Tenderloin, where overpopulated and under served streets get everybody down. Her vision was one that would benefit the entire community and the name Community Benefit District emerged.
More Than Just a Name
Ms. Zamora, who is also the vice-president North of Market Neighborhood Improvement Corporation (NOMNIC) which runs the Tenderloin Sidewalk Improvement Program (those big sidewalk washing machines), began to gather folks from all over the community including residents, non-profit housing advocates, small property owners and representatives from the Coalition on Homelessness, as well as big business properties like the Hilton and Hastings and something rather amazing happened…..they began to talk and agree on what would benefit everyone equally and that was cleaner and safer streets.
What It Isn’t
It is probably easier to say what it isn’t and what we readily agreed it WOULD NOT be (with great help and input from our friends at COH).That it was not a plan to blame one group of people, or move anyone out, or pressure some perceived culprit (like some many previous “improvement plans” that have come our way).
We are really talking about cleaning the crap off the streets and making the Tenderloin like any other neighborhood, which should not be someplace where you have to gag to go to the store. In that there are twenty nine or so blocks with over 29,000 people within those blocks, in the Tenderloin, and only one “public” bathroom, it is no wonder its enough to make one gag.
It’s about basic good health and sanitation without blame or displacement.
Looking at the Numbers
Surprisingly, everyone that attended these meeting and crafted the base plan agreed! A few very loud-mouthed detractors did point the finger and say “the Tenderloin will never change, until every last poor person, homeless person, down and out person, person of color (you chose any reactionary adjective) is out of here”, but it seemed like the smart and compassionate people (as well as the more socially informed) had finally come together.
On August 9, 2005, after a 65.34% vote from the weighted property owners who voted (to a 35.65% no vote), the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to establish the North of Market/Tenderloin Community Benefit District. It provides the community an annual budget of $932,000.00, for cleaning and maintenance of our sidewalks, alleys, green spaces, and buildings.
A lot of the budget will be dedicated to steam cleaning which is labor intensive, but also takes the smells and grime away better than anything else. Schedules of the steam cleaning will be posted through out the neighborhood.
Jobs
The organizers of the CBD effort have committed that jobs will be living wage, include benefits, and go first to folks who have been homeless, are marginally housed, have come out of programs and or have grown up in the Tenderloin. The Tenderloin Sidewalk Improvement Program, which is the starting model for the CBD, has had great success hiring folks out of local drug programs and has had supportive management that will continue.
Bottom Line for Homeless People
So what will the CBD mean for the homeless folks in the Tenderloin?
A cleaner, safer place to be, to put it most simply. For the time anyone has to be on the street, let it be clean and not infected.
Our jobs will help a few people and the CBD may well grow if it does some fund raising in addition to the property assessments.
We are also kicking around some ideas for maintaining public bathroom facilities. The City or other entities can provide the actual bathrooms and we plan to have our “cleaner” doing the maintenance. We also are looking at training those folks with skills and information to be a resource for folks on the street, with such things as updated medical alerts, resource lists (maps of service centers, shelters, etc.), OD kits and the skills and certification to use them, sharps disposal containers, and a kind word or two.
They may ask you to move so they really can clean, but they won’t soak or steal your stuff. It’s not about the poor picking on the poorer. It’s about taking care of our OUR neighborhood from the streets up.
Meetings and service planning is continuing and we hope to see the continued participation of the Coalition on Homeless. Services will start in early 2006 and the CBD with provide updates to the Street Sheet as the details become clearer. Stay tuned.
Lea