San Francisco Launches Tenderloin Pilot to Prevent Youth Violence, Expand Safe Spaces

A new program targeting youth violence prevention is coming to the Tenderloin, San Francisco city officials announced on Wednesday.

The Tenderloin Youth Violence Prevention Pilot Program, developed in partnership with local organization United Playaz and Tenderloin Community Benefit District, will launch early next year, according to the district’s Supervisor Bilal Mahmood.

The program will employ community staff members with ties to the Tenderloin to provide mentorship, violence intervention and programming for up to 20 young people ages 12 to 24. It follows a string of Tenderloin initiatives focused on protecting children and teens from drug trade and violent crime in the district.

Mahmood told KQED that he felt compelled to pursue the program after attending several funerals for born-and-raised Tenderloin locals. He said one of those young people died due to an overdose, and another from gun violence.

“It was a difficult time,” Mahmood recalled. He said that “kids who look like me — that could have had a better opportunity — were failed.”

Despite the Tenderloin having the highest concentration of children in San Francisco, according to a 2024 report by the city’s planning department, Mahmood said the district did not have a city-funded violence prevention program until now.

The city report states that in 2023, 18% of San Francisco’s more than 800 accidental overdose deaths occurred in the Tenderloin. It also noted that nearly half of the city’s drug-offense incident reports that year were filed in the district.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, who joined Mahmood to announce the launch, acknowledged this gap during a Wednesday press conference.

“While the city supports several organizations that focus on violence prevention, there has never been a dedicated community-based program centered right here in the Tenderloin,” Lurie said. “That changes today.”

Tenderloin Community Benefit District Executive Director Kate Robinson said children are exposed daily to an “open 24/7 drug market on the streets.”

“We have failed to protect all of the children in this neighborhood from seeing the opportunity there, because we haven’t provided them with other opportunities in its place,” Robinson said.

Since August 2023, at least 57 teens have been arrested in San Francisco for drug dealing — many from the Tenderloin — Mahmood said at the press conference. He added that two men were charged earlier this year with using a minor to distribute narcotics in the neighborhood.

“That tells us young people are being targeted, young people being recruited into the drug trade,” he said.

Private donations totaling $200,000 will fund the pilot for up to a year, according to Mahmood, who hopes it becomes a “permanent component of the city budget.”

In a neighborhood without places like an ice cream shop, the pilot program also aims to create more spaces for young people to hang out safely.

“We have to fundamentally change the environment,” Mahmood said. “But we also have to fundamentally provide the opportunities for these kids to see that there is a path to better lives.”

The Tenderloin Community Benefit District and United Playaz, which Mahmood described as “natural” partners in the pilot, will support the initiative by conducting youth outreach and helping with the violence prevention programming.

United Playaz’s Executive Director, Rudy Corpuz, said there are Tenderloin residents who have worked toward this effort for years, calling them “our frontline soldiers that’s willing to put their life on the line for the kids and the people here.”

They are the most equipped to help their neighborhood, Corpuz said.

“The Tenderloin people — who’s been going through all this, walking through this madness — they are the fix to the violence that’s going on here,” he added.