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Bay Area
Mission Community Groups Crafting 5-Year Plan to Combat Violence
Organizers representing dozens of community groups in San Francisco's Mission District are crafting a five-year plan to address violence in their neighborhood.
Mission native Roberto Hernandez and the Mission Peace Collaborative called the meeting - held the last week of January.
Hernandez said last winter, after another round of four deadly shootings, he decided he couldn't “live this way” and he contacted everyone he knew.
“I’m not raising money for coffins, cemetery plots. I’ve done that before,” Hernandez says. “We should be raising money for scholarships to send kids to college, not to bury kids.”
The meeting drew more than 200 residents, community organizers and city officials.
San Francisco Supervisor David Campos, whose district includes the Mission, complimented the methods of the group in addressing what they believe are root causes of violent crime. Discussions were held in ‘breakout’ groups at the meeting.
“Everything here is interconnected; we're talking about public safety, and not only talking about law enforcement but actually talking about education, about public health, about economic development, about housing,” Campos says.
Organizers say they'll go door-to-door inviting people to the next community meeting, scheduled for February 28.
