San Francisco, CA
With a vest and a voice, helpers escort kids through San Francisco’s broken Tenderloin streets
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Wearing a bright safety vest with the words “Safe Passage” on the back, Tatiana Alabsi strides through San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood to its only public elementary school, navigating broken bottles and stained sleeping bags along tired streets that occasionally reek of urine.
Along the way in one of America’s most notorious neighborhoods, she calls out to politely alert people huddled on sidewalks, some holding strips of tin foil topped with illicit drugs.
“Good afternoon, happy Monday!” Alabsi says to two men, one slumped forward in a wheelchair and wearing soft hospital socks and one slipper. Her voice is cheerful, a soothing contrast to the misery on display in the 50-block neighborhood that’s well-known for its crime, squalor and reckless abandon. “School time. Kids will be coming soon.”
Further along, Alabsi passes a man dancing in the middle of the street with his arms in the air as a squealing firetruck races by. She stops to gently touch the shoulder of a man curled up in the fetal position on the sidewalk, his head inches from the tires of a parked car.
“Are you OK?” she asks, before suggesting he move to a spot out of the sun. “Kids will be coming soon.”
Minutes later, Alabsi arrives at the Tenderloin Community Elementary School, where she is among several adults who escort dozens of children to after-school programs. The students hitch up backpacks emblazoned with Spider Man and the sisters of “Frozen,” then form two rambunctious lines that follow Alabsi like ducklings through broken streets.
The smallest ones hold hands with trusted volunteers.
Long known for its brazen open-air drug markets, chronic addiction, mental illness and homelessness, the Tenderloin neighborhood is also home to the highest concentration of kids in San Francisco, an estimated 3,000 children largely from immigrant families.
The neighborhood is rich with social services and low-income housing but the San Francisco Police Department also has seized nearly 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of narcotics in the area since last May. Of a record 806 overdose fatalities last year, about 20% were in the Tenderloin.
But amid the chaos is a vibrant community stitched together by differing languages that has found ways to protect its most vulnerable and deliver hope, something many say the city has failed to do. Officials have sent in toilets, declared a mayoral emergency and vowed to crack down on drugs, but change is glacial.
A group of mothers fed up with drug dealers started the efforts in 2008 after a child temporarily went missing. The Safe Passage program is now part of the Tenderloin Community Benefit District, a nonprofit funded in part by Tenderloin property owners who also cleans sidewalks, staffs parks and hosts community events.
Alabsi started as a volunteer after the Russian native moved to the United States from Yemen with her husband and sought asylum a decade ago. They joined her husband’s mother and his siblings, who had settled in the Tenderloin.
Life was not easy in their new homeland. Alabsi, 54, and her husband Jalal, both medical doctors, had to start over years into their careers. The mother of two despaired when her younger son began to count poop piles he spotted from his stroller on their walks home from daycare.
Then she learned of Safe Passage. At her husband’s urging, she signed up to volunteer to help spare the children the worst sights on their walk after school.
Many people, Alabsi says, respond politely or tuck away their drugs or scoot their belongings out of the way when she reminds them that school time is over. But others ignore the request. Some even get angry.
“It’s better to give nice smile and say good afternoon or good morning, to show people I am friendly,” said a laughing Alabsi, who is fluent in Arabic and Russian and speaks English with an accent. “I am not monster.”
The program’s safety stewards guide the students along the cleanest and calmest routes, redirecting them to avoid people acting erratically or overdosing. Sometimes stewards use their bodies to block the children from seeing things they shouldn’t, like a woman crouched between two cars, no longer able to control her bowels.
On a recent afternoon, two girls with ponytails sashayed across an intersection, talking about becoming TikTok stars one day, seemingly oblivious to a couple hunched over at a bus stop across the street, struggling to light up. As they walked, Alabsi blocked their view of smeared feces.
The girls, one in first grade and the other in second, were headed to the Cross Cultural Family Center, one of some half-dozen nonprofits that provide after-school programs for the K-5 kids.
Alabsi and her immediate family moved out of the Tenderloin but are still an integral part of it. Their son is in the elementary school’s fourth grade and Alabsi now manages the Safe Passage program.
She loves the mix of Latin, Asian, Arab and American cultures in the Tenderloin. The big hearts of residents who are striving for a better life is what “makes it special,” she said.
One recent Saturday, Alabsi worked at an Eid celebration at the neighborhood’s recreation center. She helped monitor the block that was closed to traffic for the day while greeting her sisters-in-laws, who had joined the festivities with their children.
When the celebration ended at 4 p.m., she left with her soccer-loving son, Sami, to drop off her vest and radio at the office. They chatted in Russian as they passed tents, sleeping bags and blankets, an abandoned microwave and lawn chair and a human-shaped lump under a blanket, shoes peeking out.
From loud speakers, the doo-wop of The Moonglows singing “Sincerely” soared prettily over gritty streets. On a pole was a flyer with photos of a missing daughter: “Mimi please call home,” read the April notice. “You are so loved.”
“We can change world in better way by our presence, by our examples, by our positive attitude,” Alabsi said. “Every year it’s little bit better and better and better.”
___
Associated Press journalist Terry Chea contributed to this report.
San Francisco, CA
SF scientists build robotic storm samplers to track pollutants before they reach the Bay
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Environmental Scientist Kayli Paterson from the San Francisco Estuary Institute is hitting the road with colleague David Peterson and a trunk full of water sampling robots.
“Yeah, I think the max we’ve ever done was five. But the sites are very close together. Oh, there it is. Hopefully it samples well,” says Paterson as she turns the mobile sampling lab onto a private oak-lined road.
They’re closing in on a watershed creek flowing through the hillsides near the San Andreas Lake reservoir, west of Highway 280 in Millbrae, part of the larger watershed that eventually drains into San Francisco Bay.
“So, we’ve got our sampler. Look at the battery. Hook that up, red and black. This is a 12-volt lithium battery, and it powers our sampler for probably about six to seven days,” she explains, showing off a self-contained unit miniaturized into a portable case.
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The black cases are their latest innovation in stormwater science. Robotic samplers anchor in key sections of the watershed to monitor not only flow, but also the chemicals and pollutants washing downstream toward the Bay.
“And this is a front-line pollution sampler. It’s getting the stormwater before it enters the Bay. And so, we want to know what’s coming into the Bay and getting these samplers out there in more locations will give us a better idea of where we might have issues, where a hotspot is, or maybe a previously unknown contaminant,” says Paterson.
“It’s important to get out that fast,” her colleague David Peterson adds. “You know, in these storms as they’re happening, because the water is picking up pollutants in real time, and we need to be there to capture them.”
When we first met Peterson several years ago, he and another Estuary Institute team were sampling water along the Bay shoreline by hand, a technique that’s still valuable. But to cover more ground, Kayli and a group of collaborators began developing the robotic samplers over recent storm seasons.
Kayli and David start by chaining the unit itself to a tree near the creek bank. The system employs remote-controlled pumps that draw samples from the creek and store them in onboard containers. The software controlling the volume and frequency can be operated from a phone app.
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One of the key targets in this study is a group of so-called “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, synthetic compounds that persist in the environment and have been detected in widespread areas of the Bay.
“And we capture samples and send them off to analytics labs across the country. Typically, universities or private labs will process these for us,” Peterson explains.
For these two stormwater detectives, it’s a mission that requires a combination of speed and patience**, chasing flowing water** through creeks and storm drains, sampling as they go.
“So, we’re looking for areas – the point of this is to do source control. Ultimately, we want to be able to trace this back to a possible source,” says Kayli Paterson.
And potentially prevent a source of toxic pollution from reaching San Francisco Bay and our Bay Area ecosystem.
More than a dozen of the robots were given names in a special contest, including the Big Sipper and the Tubeinator.
Copyright © 2026 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — ABC7 Eyewitness News got a sneak peak as crews put the finishing touches on the floats you’ll see at Saturday’s San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival and Parade.
Since it’s the year of the fire horse, you’ll see a lot of horses and fire symbolism on the floats, housed at Pier 19.
“So Year of the Horse, it’s energy, it’s passion, it’s momentum so a lot of things that we’re really hoping to embody in the new year,” said Stephanie Mufson, owner of San Francisco-based The Parade Guys, which designs and constructs the floats.
She said they’ve been building them for about three months, with the designs starting in November.
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“We’re in the home stretch,” she said. “We’ve got a couple of days left and we’ve got a nice little team that’s cranking out all the finishing work that needs to go into it.”
Derrick Shavers was sanding some wood that will be painted and become cherry blossom trees on a float.
“It’s exciting,” Shavers said. “I look forward to coming every year and just creating and making things shine and sparkle.”
Bon was painting mountains for a float, making sure everything is perfect in time for the parade.
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“It’s one of the few parades that actually happens at night still,” Bon said. “So we got to make sure all the lighting is in check, and people are safe on the float. It’s all in the details, just for it to walk by you for 10 seconds.”
Ten seconds that bring so much joy to those watching the parade.
Here’s how you can watch the parade on ABC7 Eyewitness News on Saturday, March 7.
Coverage starts at 5 p.m. wherever you stream ABC7.
SF Chinese New Year Parade 2026: How to watch ABC7 Eyewitness News live coverage
If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live
Copyright © 2026 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.
San Francisco, CA
Celebrated San Francisco historic landmark, the Huntington Hotel officially reopens
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — First opened as apartments in 1922 and converted into a hotel two years later, the Huntington was once a playground for socialites and Hollywood stars.
It shut its doors in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and remained shuttered until this week, following new owners and a million-dollar, top-to-bottom renovation.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for The Huntington Hotel in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood Monday.
The hotel officially reopened on Sunday.
Mayor Daniel Lurie attended the celebration for the hotel on California Street.
“This is another sign that San Francisco is on the rise, when you have major institutions and major hotels reopening,” Lurie said. “We’re seeing it in Union Square. We’re seeing it now up here on Nob Hill. This is an exciting moment for San Francisco.”
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The hotel, known for its iconic sign, will be restoring the landmark sign to its former glory.
Many say it’s a symbol of what’s going on in San Francisco.
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“It came to symbolize San Francisco’s decline during COVID when it shut and it now, I think, symbolizes San Francisco’s rebirth,” said Greg Flynn, Flynn Group Founder, Chairman, and CEO. “It’s sort of the perfect symbol of it because it’s coming back better than it ever was.”
Alex Bastian, President and CEO of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, said hotel occupancy rates are up in 2024.
“Our data team crunched the numbers, and the four-week rolling hotel occupancy rate for San Francisco Bay Area hotels is 55.1 percent as of January 17 of this year. Compare that to January 17 of 2021, during the pandemi,c when it was 13.1 percent.”
Of course, the Super Bowl helped.
Here’s what Super Bowl LX visitors are saying about San Francisco
“There’s no marketing campaign better than what we achieved as San Franciscans,” Bastian said. “The mayor and his team really elevated the game. They did an incredible job. We are so fortunate, as a city, because so many came here and they left their hearts here in San Francisco.”
Eyewitness News wasn’t allowed to gather video of the hotel’s features, but the hotel provided renderings of a sample room.
Matthew de Quillien, The Huntington Hotel General Manager, said the hotel has 143 rooms, many of them suites. Also, the Nob Hill Spa, Arabella’s Cocktail Salo,n and a reopening of The Big Four Restaurant, featuring its famous chicken pot pie.
“Our owner was able to find the original recipe from the 70’s and we remastered it and we’re … serving it to our guests,” de Quillien said.
He said rates range from $600 a night to $7,000 a night for its Presidential suite.
The restaurant opens to the public on March 17.
If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live
Copyright © 2026 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.
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