Wearing a bright safety vest with the words “Safe Passage” on the back, Tatiana Alabsi strides through San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood to its only public elementary school, navigating broken bottles and stained sleeping bags along tired streets that occasionally reek of urine.
Tatiana Alabsi, left, hugs her nephew Adam Khalid as she roams the Tenderloin neighborhood Wednesday, March 20, 2024, in San Francisco. SAN FRANCISCO —
“Are you OK?” she asks, before suggesting he move to a spot out of the sun. “Kids will be coming soon.” A group of mothers fed up with drug dealers started the efforts in 2008 after a child temporarily went missing. The Safe Passage program is now part of the Tenderloin Community Benefit District, a nonprofit funded in part by Tenderloin property owners who also cleans sidewalks, staffs parks and hosts community events.
Many people, Alabsi says, respond politely or tuck away their drugs or scoot their belongings out of the way when she reminds them that school time is over. But others ignore the request. Some even get angry. The girls, one in first grade and the other in second, were headed to the Cross Cultural Family Center, one of some half-dozen nonprofits that provide after-school programs for the K-5 kids.
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