SF Street-Level Drug Dealing Task Force

Meeting Notice #10 Minutes Tuesday, February 9, 2021 5-6:30pm PT

Curtis Bradford X Judith Martin X

Porsha Dixson - Rachel Marshall X Teresa Friend X Louie Hammonds X Kenneth Kim X Lindsay LaSalle X

Hadi Razzaq - Captain Carl Fabbri* - Pedro Vidal -

Thomas Wolf X Max Young X

Courtney Armstrong X Sarah Hunter X Beau Kilmer X Sasha Werblin X

*Commander Raj Vaswani filled in for Capt. Fabbri

AGENDA

1. Administrative announcements
• Two meetings will be held in March on March 2nd and March 23rd.

2. Sasha facilitated this meeting and shared feedback from the community outreach

   • Sasha, Porsha, and Tom spent 2-3 hours walking around the TL neighborhood

     speaking with individuals on the street, outreaching to businesses and SROs in the community about this TF and the work we’re doing. There is constant trauma inflicted on the community because of the street level drug dealing. With more community engagement and visibility of this TF, we can work together to come up with solutions.

   • We need to figure out what the best way is to engage these individuals in the work this TF is doing. There is room for opportunity and growth and we’re committed to doing that.

3. Sam Dennsion from the TL Community Council presented: Thinking about race, ethnicity, and equity as we consider recommendations

   • Chronic under investment and over enforcement have created on going chaotic conditions in the TL. Any initiative to address open air drug market will be more effective if accompanied by public race conscious process.

   • We should just adopt this. Have you noticed the demographic of buyers change recently? There seem to be more young people.

• The difference has been that the drive-up traffic is younger and more wealthy.

• Did you include people from the market who are selling drugs in your coalition? We have heard that they do not live in the community.

• Those who are sellers normally did not attend the TL community council even though they were invited to the council. There are different cadres of drug dealers. There are certainly commuter drug dealers and some others have engaged them. There are African American dealers on the streets that Dennison has spoken with them and their perspectives to a limited degree are included. There were people living on the streets, but few of them came into the meetings, so their thoughts are represented in small margins. We need to pay attention to community activists who have family in the markets and talk to them about how to engage them. There are those that are committed to living on the streets. It’s a long-term issue and it will take a lot to do well. This requires a lot trust and that is something we don’t have now.

What about income disparities and the impact of COVID?
• It has a great impact on the TL. The people buying up property in the TL

don’t engage and become part of the community. In 2011, the “twitter tax break” led to increased gentrification. We have lots of disparity as there are still low-income areas in the TL and it is still a “containment zone”. The surrounding areas have put greater pressure on the TL, pushed more poverty to the TL.

• How can we get an equal response from law enforcement and the community? • We need to rethink law enforcement. The war on drugs focused on the idea that if we disrupt markets, drugs will become more expensive and

less people will use it. We have seen that is not true. If law enforcement wants to be a partner, then we have to make it about stabilizing and security. We need to focus on preventing and addressing violence where it is, then we should see stabilization. Need security around the encampments. I wish we didn’t need law enforcement, but we need it. When they withdrew, it created instability, chaos, and lawlessness. There’s a place for law enforcement but it needs to be balanced with community and there needs to accountability for both law enforcement and the community.

• I hope we can try to embrace these recommendations. We need structure and framework like provided by Sam. Sam did a great job articulating it.

• For Sasha/Tom: What feedback did you get from the streets?

• Tom: From businesses, well we walked into donut shop and they are in

survival mode. They have also experienced trauma, just like the rest of the TL. People come into their business in various states. It is hard to engage someone who is nodding off on fentanyl. The commuter dealers from Honduras are hard to talk to. You are interfering with their business by talking with them. Everyone is struggling in their own unique way.

• I want to thank Sam, presentation was wonderful and made sense. There should be better coordination of services between the police and community. When we’re creating areas of calm there should be an opportunity for intervention and engagement. This is a great recommendation. When we are told we are over- enforcing, I see it is in emergency situation. When we talk about engagement, when we take people out of the environment and into a controlled environment,

we may create opportunity for them to engage and succeed. The community is not supportive, drug dealers are predators, and by taking them out of the environment, we may give them a chance to succeed.

4. Public comment

   • Speaker #1: What are the solutions we can do now? We have the compassionate

     response team, we have street medicine, there are other things we can do as well. We can provide a modernized guardian angel type effort. They should involve positive engagement such as roaming, stationary (putting an ambassador behind a card table with resources (health care, water, e.g.), and dispatch (by 911, 311, or dispatch street medicine). Hope you will consider these 3 types of solutions.

   • Speaker #2: The meeting was inaccessible and the slides could not be viewed by the public. The website does not say who is hosting this meeting. It feels as if the public doesn’t want to be heard. It has been a catastrophic failure of this city to address COVID. Police and tech workers also have issues (illegal behaviors) that are being ignored here.

   • Speaker #3: Whether we have individuals doing ambassador work or outreach, we don’t have the resources to sustain it. The TL is ridden with cartels and it cannot be fixed by putting a band aid on it. Talking to people on the street is the start to finding out who they are. We need more residential places. We need to have a stationary place for people on the streets to come back for help and assistance. We need resources to make sure there are enough people to constantly help people. Healthright 360 is under investigation, what are we doing?

   • Speaker #4: From the perspective of the public, I wish the TF was focused on solutions earlier. The harms from the drug trade now are more intense, and we hope that the recommendations that Speaker #1 suggested are taken into consideration. The schools are starting to re-open, we need to make sure there is better coordination of effort and calm, especially for children and families.

   • Speaker #5: The violence in the TL has grown. We are unwilling to build housing. We need a hospital for a lot of people on the streets so they have access to medical care. Even when we have SROs, it is lacking in fundamental safety and cleanliness (e.g., roaches), and people would rather be on the streets. The TL cannot even get streets cleaned and people need help right now, even those that have been placed in SRO housing, as they seem to be forgotten

   • Speaker #6: The framework from Sam is an important step forward. All the ideas from the TF are very impressive, but using the framework from Sam helps us put it into action. Would advocate that the work being done right now is being moved to solutions. It’s time to start implementing.

5. Public comments sent via email or text •

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See supplemental slides for more details

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