Tenderloin Community Action Plan

In 2022, Mayor Breed’s approved $4 million for community-driven projects in the Tenderloin, an unprecedented dedication of resources resulting from years of community organizing. San Francisco Planning led a first-of-its-kind participatory budgeting process to program these funds with 1,400 residents and workers voting on community-sponsored proposals. The selected Community Action Projects aim to enhance public spaces, promote cultural events, support youth, and enhance wellness and access to essential needs in the Tenderloin. As of October 2023, Community Action Projects have either started services or will start popping up in the neighborhood this Fall 2023.  

The implementation of these projects are made possible by interagency and cross-sector collaboration that includes San Francisco Planning, Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, Office of Economic Workforce Development, Department of Public Health, Human Services Agency, United Way Bay Area, as well as community leaders and entrepreneurs in the Tenderloin.

A detailed timeline of project implementation and services can be found the Timeline tab. A full detailed description of the participatory budgeting process including various steps of outreach and engagement is documented here. The results of the process were first announced in February 2023. A comprehensive brochure of the selected projects is also available here. 

As a community-driven effort, the TCAP has relied on a variety of outreach and engagement tools and approaches, ranging from most intensive engagement tools to empower community leadership and self-determination, targeted community collaboration on strategic priorities, community consultations and listening sessions; to less intensive outreach tools to inform the community on resources and initiatives. Below are some of the major themes of outreach and engagement as part of our work. 

Community voice landscape – Our team participates in many community-led meetings and events to continuously maintain the pulse of needs and issues in the neighborhood. These conversations helped shape the four strategic priorities and will continue to help identify areas where the community needs further interventions.  

Participatory engagement – The TCAP implemented a community-driven participatory budgeting process in Fall 2022 to inform programing the $4 million of Tenderloin funds. This first of its kind process relied on community sponsored and designed projects, and community votes to select projects to be implemented in the neighborhood. A full detailed description of the participatory budgeting process including various steps of outreach and engagement is documented here. 

Focus Groups – Our team formed and hosted focus groups conversations for two strategic priorities of small business support and youth services. The unique expertise or lived experience needed to shape the recommendations under these two priorities required bringing together a diverse set of stakeholders and community members under each of these topics. For a more detailed description of these focus groups please see the Strategic Priorities Tab.  

Working Groups – Starting Fall 2023, our team will facilitate shaping two working groups for two strategic priorities: housing and open space activation. An application process will help recruit a diversity of voices with lived experience and expertise on these issues.  

Open House – The Fall 2023 Update community event is the inaugural lunch of our broader report back to the community. The open house forum will provide a detailed update of our work, along with interactive information boards where community members can provide input on our progress. We expect to host our next open house in Spring 2024.  

In addition, through a partnership with Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, our team aims to augment our outreach and engagement with an intensive neighborhood level engagement.  TNDC will dedicate one staff to support our outreach and engagement and will also facilitate community leadership.

With support from expert consultants, as well community partners, and robust public engagement a final framework of this community leadership group will be developed. 

This effort is pursuing San Francisco Planning’s community stakeholder group discussions in the Fall of 2022. After the first few meetings of a Community Stakeholder Group (see Get Involved! tab), key stakeholders requested a re-thinking of its purpose and goals. The goals and structure of the Community Stakeholder Group (CSG) were grounded in an initial framework developed in Fall 2022. As a result of feedback on the CSG through several community discussions, San Francisco Planning developed a new, draft framework for a reconstitution of the CSG early in 2023. Meeting notes from the review of this draft framework by key stakeholders can be found here.

Years of engagement and outreach within the Tenderloin toward the development of the Tenderloin Community Action Plan enabled clear communication about community priorities for actions and investments in the neighborhood. These priorities have been distilled into four main strategic priorities: small business support, youth investments, public space and pedestrian improvements, and housing.

Small business

This priority reflects the community’s voting results during the Tenderloin participatory budgeting process, as part of the Tenderloin Community Action Plan, to build upon the diversity of the community and increase resources for small businesses.

In collaboration with Office of Economic And workforce Development, in the short term, this work aims to program $380,000 voted by Tenderloin community during the participatory budgeting process. Since summer 2023, Planning and OEWD staff have been collaborating with various community partners*. Through a series of constructive conversations and workshops, staff sought valuable guidance on shaping the City's resources towards making a positive impact in the Tenderloin community. Staff also engaged with business owners directly by participating in an event organized by Tenderloin Business Coalition, and by interviewing Vietnamese and Cantonese-speaking business owners with the support of SEACC, to ensure that our work addresses the concerns of business owners from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Currently TCAP is rolling out its first of three grants which will provide immigrant owned businesses with limited English proficiency in the Tenderloin an opportunity to attend a business training and receive a $15,000 grant to support their business. Register to learn about the Tenderloin Business Training Grant funded by TCAP and OEWD at NCLF's Online Info Session for small businesses on March 27, 2024.

Two more grant opportunities will also be released in the next two months to enhance existing storefronts and address filling vacant storefronts along Larkin Street. Stay tuned for more details on these programs.

In the medium term, Planning aims to deepen engagement with small business owners whose first primary language is not English and to shape the annual investment portfolio of OEWD in the Tenderloin over the next couple of years. In the longer term, collaborating with agency and community partners, SF Planning hopes to leverage the small business organizing to activate the commercial corridors as a strategy to improve safety and quality of life for the Tenderloin neighborhood.

Small Business Support Stakeholders that SF Planning has been collaborating include Tenderloin Community Benefit District, Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, South-east Asian Community Center, New Community Leadership Foundation, Tenderloin Merchant Association, Arab Grocers Association.

More detailed information of our work in this area can be found here.

Youth investments

The Tenderloin has one of the highest concentrations of children and youth in San Francisco, especially from immigrant families. The open-air drug market and use on the streets of the Tenderloin leave youth more vulnerable and exposed to the drug scene at the margins. In conversations with youth providers and experts, we have learned that investing in youth, and especially disconnected youth, in the Tenderloin may require elevating certain priorities.

The Department of Children, Youth, and their families (DCYF) launched a request for proposals for the 2024-2029 five-year funding cycle for children, youth, transitional age youth (TAY) and their families in August of 2023, which identified an opportunity for TCAP to elevate certain youth needs.

In a partnership with DCYF, our team is conducting a neighborhood-specific analysis of gaps and priorities for youth investments. The results will inform the to support DCYF in decision-making for program grants awarded to serve Tenderloin children, youth, TAY, and their families. Ahead of DCYF’s decisions, this analysis elevates the voices of Tenderloin youths and their families, especially those from immigrant households, and ensure their direct input help shape investment decisions that affect their lives and well-being.

These efforts helped identify the following 6 key challenges for Tenderloin Youth. Each of these challenges informed a recommendation for DCYF.

The TCAP team will continue to work with youth service providers and the community to elevate youth needs and identify collaborative approaches to addressing any gaps in services.

The Tenderloin Youth Services Analysis can be found here.

Public Space Improvements and Activation

This effort will focus on “Placemaking” in the Tenderloin through public space improvements and activations. A placemaking approach could be a powerful complement to enforcement and health services interventions by creating positive experiences deterring drug dealing and use on the sidewalks, and improving public safety, and quality of life. We aim to coordinate placemaking interventions with increased public safety enforcement from various agencies, as a neighborhood recovery strategy. In this way, we could replace drug related activities with positive neighborhood serving events and improvements. 

TCAP is currently launching and accepting applications for the Tenderloin Public Space Initiative Working Group! These efforts will focus on a placemaking approach which could be a powerful complement to enforcement and health services interventions by creating positive experiences, deterring drug dealing, and use on the sidewalks, and improving public safety, and quality of life. We aim to coordinate placemaking interventions with increased public safety enforcement from various agencies, as a neighborhood recovery strategy. In this way, we could replace drug related activities with positive neighborhood serving events and improvements. 

This initiative is seeking to form a Community Working Group of up to 15 participants to advance the following strategies:

• A revitalization of the neighborhood alleys: Transform alleys into open space and recreational opportunities.
• The design of neighborhood gateways: Mark and celebrate the identity and strengths of the Tenderloin.
• Placemaking on commercial corridors and public safety hot spots- to support Tenderloin residents and local businesses.
• Activation of underutilized lots for recreation – to increase open space and recreational access.

More detailed information of our work in this area can be found here.

Housing

Building on the Housing Element process and Home by the Bay Plan, the Tenderloin team identified community priorities from past outreach events, the Tenderloin Community Survey, and through conversations with community organizations and housing providers. These priorities are:

1. Improve and maintain conditions of existing deeply affordable housing assets. Existing stock of deeply affordable units are at varying degrees of quality. Poor unit quality is one reason unhoused individuals reject housing offers or eventually exit their housing units back to homelessness.
2. Protect vulnerable residents at most risk of homelessness. There is a high concentration of vulnerable residents, such as seniors, youth, individuals living with disabilities, and families with children, living in the Tenderloin. Tenderloin residents are the lowest wage earners in comparison to other San Francisco residents, therefore have a higher likelihood of facing eviction and require more protections and subsidies to stabilize them.
3. Preserve affordability of existing assets through acquisition. Tenderloin’s housing stock consists of SROs and multifamily buildings that have lower price points compared to the rest of the city. The City’s acquisition strategy, including State investments such as Project Homekey, has intended to distribute these assets throughout the City and avoid concentrating these resources further in the Tenderloin. Tenderloin also is home to many SRO units in master leased properties in state of disrepair due to the ownership and operations structure.
4. Expand on-site case management services, especially behavioral health and substance use. A large portion of PSH and SRO residents struggle with mental health issues and increasingly substance use disorders. Formerly unhoused individuals also require intensive care to be able to live indoors. The ratios of service providers to residents are currently low at many of these units which results in many incidents, damages, and challenges in the PSH buildings.
5. Improve access to affordable housing suitable for families with children and Transitional Aged Youth. The Tenderloin's diverse population is uniquely comprised of special populations, which include families with children and Transitional Aged Youth, populations that are generally ignored when building housing.
6. Reduce vacancies in existing permanent supportive housing disorder addressing vacancy in supportive housing. High vacancy rates in PSH has been a highly discussed multi-faceted issue. Poor unit conditions is one of the main reasons for high vacancy as discussed under Priority 1. Other factors include long processing delays from the Coordinated Entry System as well as high staff turnover. Street conditions also play a major role in high vacancies.

More detailed information of our work in this area can be found here. In partnership with agency partners, and through shaping a working group, our team will delve deeper into these priorities and investment solutions to activate solutions.

Street Conditions

The Joint Field Operations (JFO) is a multi-departmental effort to improve street conditions in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. The JFO began in January of 2022 in response to the Tenderloin Emergency Initiative. At the time, the JFO was intended to be a short-term approach to supporting individuals experiencing homelessness or struggling with substance use disorders to access resources and treatment and the Tenderloin Center (TLC). Upon the closure of the TLC, the JFO became an ongoing approach to service-linkage with a continuing component of street cleaning. The JFO functions seven days per week from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. and is staffed by many city departments including the San Francisco Fire Department, SF Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, Department of Public Health, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, San Francisco Public Works, San Francisco Police Department, and the Department of Emergency Management.

You can learn more about the geography of JFO activity and view the monthly calendar listed below.

In March 2023, the Department of Public Health launched a reconfigured neighborhood-based street response team called Bridge Engagement Services Team (BEST) Neighborhoods. The team provides trauma-informed behavioral health assessment, engagement, and community-based therapeutic interventions 7 days a week, with a focus on clients who are unhoused, diagnosed with serious mental illness and/or substance use disorder, and who are disconnected from the health care system. BEST Neighborhoods currently has two teams working primarily in the Tenderloin, SoMa, Mission, Castro, and Haight Ashbury areas.

San Francisco Planning’s Tenderloin team is committed to serving as a stronger conduit to elevate community priorities in addressing the street conditions in the neighborhood.

Community planning has the best outcomes when people with a broad range of perspectives and experiences contribute to the conversation. 

The Tenderloin team will be working with community partners to host community conversations to engage Tenderloin residents and neighborhood groups in ongoing initiatives.  

To receive the Tenderloin Team newsletter, please sign up for email delivery. Past Newsletters can be found below:

• June 2023 Newsletter