Aaron Williams
Newswire21.org
More people feel unsafe during daylight hours in Southeast San Francisco than in any other neighborhood, according to a citywide study.
About a fourth of residents feel unsafe during the day, according to the health department survey. The percentage jumps to 49 percent at night.
The report follows a recent rise in robberies and burglaries in the Ingleside police district, according to Capt. Louis Cassanego. "Although we’ve made numerous robbery arrests and a major burglary arrest with multiple suspects, the numbers have climbed up,” he said.
The report links low community trust and high levels of violence in the
neighborhood, and comes at a time when both the police and residents are making efforts to make the area safer.
The Ingleside station set a goal to reduce street, property and MUNI crime by 20 percent this year, according to Cassanego. He also said that the station worked to have more face-to-face community involvement,
such as working with community groups and putting officers on foot patrol.
“On the surface this may not seem to be an important link to the community, but it is the initial step to bonding with the neighborhood,” he said in an email.
Taking Action
To be sure, not everyone in the community is waiting for the police to notice their issues. Jackie Tash, member of the Excelsior District Improvement Association, said her group began a project called "Light Up The Night" that encouraged Persia Avenue residents to keep their porch lights on to deter crime.
The project boundaries stretched from Mission Street to McLaren Park.
To get the news out, they partnered with the Excelsior Action Group to print flyers in several languages. “People in the Excelsior don’t just speak English or Spanish,” Tash said. “We are not a homogenized neighborhood. We printed flyers in Russian, Tagolog and other languages.”
Persia Avenue had a prevalence of cars and trees that block the street light, she said. As a result, the association wanted the city to prune trees and install brighter lights. Residents were thankful that someone noticed the lighting issue on Persia Avenue, Tash said. “We’re the sleeping giants out here."
Tash and EDIA are not alone in their efforts. Excelsior native Adriana Iglesias said teens used to loiter on her block, and neighbors reported vandalism last year. As a result, Iglesias started a neighborhood watch group through the nonprofit SF SAFE.
“People didn’t talk because they were scared and afraid of retaliation [from vandals]. We created a relationship with the school and we constantly talk to the police. We want to keep communication open,”
said Iglesias, who noted there'd been no trouble since the watch group began.
Iglesias hopes to create a block festival with the schools so that kids could have more ownership of their school’s neighborhood.
“We have more sense of a community,” she said. “It makes people feel concerned about their community and help support it.”
