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San Franciscan Friar John Hardin in the vanguard coming up Jones Street in the Tenderloin.
Yesterday's March for an End to Violence involved hundreds of Tenderloin residents. Religious leaders like Rev. Norman Fong spoke to the well-organized and peaceful marchers. The crowd went to the site of three recent murders before ending up at City Hall just before the start of a Board of Supervisors meeting. Their basic point, besides getting more police attention to crime in their neighborhood, is that the Tenderloin is now a community in a different way than it was before. So, the organizers and marchers feel that any policy of containing crime in one neighborhood isn't fair. Community organizer Dina Hilliard said that it's time for The New Tenderloin where residents don't have to deal with increasing violence. We'll see.
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What's interesting about the march is that the Tenderloin Housing Clinic was one of the organizers; and opinion is mixed over whether the THC reduces crime by fostering community involvement, or increases it by attracting criminals.
One of the underlying questions that keeps coming up in the TL is, "is it possible for a place to be both pleasant to live in, and also inexpensive?" I'm not optimistic about the answer.
"...their basic point, besides getting more police attention to crime in their neighborhood, is that the Tenderloin is now a community in a different way than it was before."
Translation: A lot more white people live here now.
hmm...I'm not sure about the color thing. I have videos of white people smoking crack in the alley here in the TL
and Tenderloin Housing Clinic is good at public relations like this. But I bet it's possible to get a stat sheet on how many times the police, fire, medical gets called to their own buildings. Something to work on in the future
Actually, I think it translates to: a lot more Vietnamese families with young children live here now. I'm on the fence about this -- it's sort of like those people who buy a cheap house near the airport and then complain about the noise. But then again, poverty should not mean you have to live in a place that is unsafe when the police can and should be doing more.
It doesn't help matters that our District Attorney is a waste of oxygen. Kamala Harris is one of the most incompetent public prosecutors I have ever seen. She absolutely refuses to bring anything to trial unless its 100% guaranteed conviction.
Why should the cops bother when the perp will be on the street in 24 hours.
And then there are the so-called progressives who think its a mortal sin to think that public inebriates should be taken off the street - forcibly if necessary. I live right by the Chinatown entrance to the Stockton Tunnel. Its a 50/50 chance that on any given night one of the tunnel stairwells will have a giant pile of human turd sitting in them. There are two or three drunks/dope fiends who encamp in the stairwells regularly who are responsible for said turding. Three whole guys. Yet, the City does nothing.
I VOTE.And so should YOU.
I think it's important to keep in mind that policing and increased criminalization is costly and has NEVER worked. Many people's knee-jerk reaction to fighting crime is to increase the police budget. But money to put people in jail should never outweigh the need to house, feed, and provide necessary services to our peeps. And that's all increasing the police budget does. Cops are important, we need police to respond to violent crimes and interfere in some civil matters... but they are not the solution to ending crime in the neighborhood and anyone that thinks that hasn't been here very long.