San Francisco Launches Tenderloin Pilot to Prevent Youth Violence, Expand Safe Spaces | KQED

Tenderloin Community Benefit District Executive Director Kate Robinson said children are exposed daily to an “open 24/7 drug market on the streets.”

“We have failed to protect all of the children in this neighborhood from seeing the opportunity there, because we haven’t provided them with other opportunities in its place,” Robinson said.

Since August 2023, at least 57 teens have been arrested in San Francisco for drug dealing — many from the Tenderloin — Mahmood said at the press conference. He added that two men were charged earlier this year with using a minor to distribute narcotics in the neighborhood.

“That tells us young people are being targeted, young people being recruited into the drug trade,” he said.

Private donations totaling $200,000 will fund the pilot for up to a year, according to Mahmood, who hopes it becomes a “permanent component of the city budget.”

In a neighborhood without places like an ice cream shop, the pilot program also aims to create more spaces for young people to hang out safely.

“We have to fundamentally change the environment,” Mahmood said. “But we also have to fundamentally provide the opportunities for these kids to see that there is a path to better lives.”

The Tenderloin Community Benefit District and United Playaz, which Mahmood described as “natural” partners in the pilot, will support the initiative by conducting youth outreach and helping with the violence prevention programming.

United Playaz’s Executive Director, Rudy Corpuz, said there are Tenderloin residents who have worked toward this effort for years, calling them “our frontline soldiers that’s willing to put their life on the line for the kids and the people here.”

They are the most equipped to help their neighborhood, Corpuz said.

“The Tenderloin people — who’s been going through all this, walking through this madness — they are the fix to the violence that’s going on here,” he added.