Our Call for Community Convener Funding
SAN FRANCISCO - May 17, 2022
TO: Mayor London N. Breed & Department of Children, Youth & Their Families (DCYF)
San Francisco Neighborhood Centers Together (SFNCT) is a collaborative of eight neighborhood centers throughout the city that collectively serve more than 9,000 residents every year. Our largest single client population is youth. Our centers, from Chinatown to the Richmond, from the Fillmore to the Mission, have been on the front lines serving youth and families throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Given this, we have great interest in the “Mayor’s Children & Family Recovery Plan,” which charts a much needed 3-5 year citywide strategy to help children and families recover from the impacts of COVID-19. We ask that you prioritize the recommendations of this plan in the upcoming budget. In particular, we believe that our neighborhood centers can be a key partner in achieving the following goals:
Access/Navigation & Systems Change: Strategy 1b calls for the co-location of services by utilizing “trusted places,” and further calls to shift the paradigm from “come to us” to “be where the families are.” San Francisco’s Neighborhood Centers are this place. Our centers have built a deep history of trust through decades of service tailored to the specific needs of our respective communities.
Safety & Healing: Strategy 2a emphasizes the need to create neighborhood cohesion and belonging. It calls for spaces for neighbors to come together, for community volunteering, and culturally relevant neighborhood events. These programs all have a common need: space. Our neighborhood centers offer an incredible resource that, with the right resources, can be activated to offer badly needed space for community events to be held.
To help DCYF achieve these strategies that are instrumental to children & family recovery, we are requesting $150,000 in funding from DCYF to restore the Community Convener program for our neighborhood centers. With this funding, our eight neighborhood centers could fund hours for a staff person to host community groups at our centers and cover additional insurance for these events. This would enable community meetings, safety workshops, and town halls to be held at our neighborhood centers and bring communities together to build resilience and unity. This was last funded by DCYF in 2008, leaving a decade-plus gap in which our neighborhood centers have not been able to serve their communities to the fullest extent possible.
We look forward to continued engagement with DCYF to ensure that our neighborhood centers are partners in the critical work of recovery for our city’s children and families.
In Community,
Danny Sauter
Executive Director
San Francisco Neighborhood Centers Together
Nestor L. Fernandez
Executive Director
TEL HI Neighborhood Center
Gina Dacus
Executive Director
Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center
Shakirah Simley
Executive Director
Booker T. Washington Community Services Center
Felisia Thibodeaux
Executive Director
I.T. Bookman Community Center
Michael Lee
Executive Director
Cameron House
Michelle Cusano
Executive Director
Richmond Neighborhood Center