Spotlight: women's health in BVHP

A stream of women and their families coursed through Mendel Plaza and the Bayview Opera House last Saturday at the an all-day event. Health care professionals provided screening and taught workshops, and vendors distributed information.

The event was supported by Komen and the Community Health Network of SF (DPH), along with many other contributors.

Environmental justice grants reviewed

Several Bayview Hunters Point organizations receive grant money from the San Francisco Department of the Environment, including the Quesada Gardens Initiative. A recent article in the Potrero View by Herman Wong provides some insight into that grants program and projects that serve our neighborhood.

In addition to the Quesada Gardens Initiative, other Bayview Footprints Network member groups are mentioned: Hunters Point Family and Literacy for Environmental Justice. Tony Tarket (pictured), a Quesada Avenue resident and key volunteer is quoted in the opening of the article:

A year ago the dirt patch at the corner where Bridgeview Drive slopes down to Newhall Street in the Bsyview District stood empty. Today it’s a vibrant community garden, with 12 volunteer gardeners. Green beans grow on three terraced levels, like giant steps; a concrete path connects a row of sunflowers to a new fence along a dirt path. The garden has beautified the hillside and provided food for its growers. It’s also created its own community. “I get to know my neighbors and that’s our biggest push, to get people out of their homes and learn to grow with us,” said Anthony Tarket, one of Bridgeview Garden’s green thumbs.

See the full article here.

Bayview Arbor Day event

The Garden Program at Willie Brown Jr. Academy will hold its first planting and building of “Freedom Way” on Saturday March 7th from 9am to 3pm.

The workday is focused on building a drainage system, and planting trees to produce more food for the local Farmer's Market and our community. Also featured are a light breakfast and a talent show for children of all ages.

The garden is located behind Willie Brown Jr. Academy (WBJA) and Thurgood Marshall High School (TMHS) at 2055 Silver. Please bring work gloves, shovels, and "joy."

RSVP by February 28th to Joti by phone or email: 510-847-6543 or jotishephi@yahoo.com.

Mayor's office on the economy and Black History Month events

Mike Farrah, Director of the Mayor's Office of Community Services, briefed the Southeast Community Facility Commission last night, focusing on the response to the economic downturn.

February 20th and March 1st are the scheduled dates for layoffs and position eliminations. Over 400 city workers will be layed-off, and another 300 unfilled positions will be eliminated.

Farrah also raised the issue of mortgage foreclosures. There have been 1,300 to 1,400 foreclosures in San Francisco, about half that of other counties in the region.

"Since I've been in government," Farrah said, "I've never seen a time when people were so filled with hope and fear at the same time."

Commission President Willie Kennedy said that her concern was with the workers, and suggested that workers might rather have the chance to take unpaid leave "which is better than losing a job altogether."

Commissioner Churchill commented on the revenue enhancement part of the response to the crisis, saying that "raising taxes is just adding to the fire."

"Absolutely," Farrah responded. He pointed out that increasing the cost of doing business in San Francisco is especially worrisome, citing the potential loss in convention business as an example.

The city's assumptions about the economic downturn, which are driving many of the recommendations and decisions, include two scenarios. The "best case" forecast is that we will see a gradual economic recovery beginning in the summer of this year. The "worst case" is that such a recovery will begin mid-year 2010 or early 2011.

Farrah and the Commmissioners also discussed the location of the recent Black History Month celebration. Two views emerged. The Mayor supports moving cultural celebrations to the neighborhoods, including the Black History Month event which he hoped would happen in Bayview Hunters Point. Event organizers preferred a Civic Center celebration so that all neighborhoods would feel included. Comments from the Commission reflected both viewpoints.

Bayview impact of public access cable crisis

Public access cable, known in these parts as ACCESSF, is in danger...something that will affect communities like Bayview Hunters Point where life and perspective are often outside the mainstream.

Zane Blaney, ACCESSF Executive Director, spoke at the Southeast Community Facility Commission meeting last night. He requested a letter of support from the Commission to the SF Mayor and Board of Supervisors. He also encouraged attendance at a meeting, when ACCESSF's future will next be debated, on Monday February 23rd at 10am at City Hall (2nd Floor, Room 203).

James Ross, a co-founder of the Quesada Gardens Initiative, has a show called "Life on the Block" which airs every other Friday evening on public access cable. The show is about positive things happening in a changing neighborhood.

James is a rare example of a Bayview Hunters Point resident who can connect his unique perspective about a generally misunderstood neighborhood to an audience, with no filter in between. Understandably, he wants ACCESSF to survive. He spoke at the Commission meeting to offer examples of residents and Bayview leaders who have gotten exposure on his show.

ACCESSF is a nonprofit organization that operates under contracts with broadband suppliers to supply public benefit programming. The agreements that have made the organization's work possible are expiring. The group trains community-based organization staffers and other local residents in the tools required to create content for broadcast and the internet.

The SECF Commission voted to create and send the requested letter of support for ACCESSF.

We're losing independent media at an alarming rate, even while new opportunities on the internet emerge, it seems, every day. See more about the impact of this trend on Bayview Hunters Point.

Mayor's Office and ACCESSF reach out to Bayview

Mike Farrah, Director of the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services, will give a "General Update on Goals & Activities" at the next Southeast Community Facility Commission meeting this Thursday, February 12th.

The meeting, which begins at 6pm, will also feature Zane Blaney who will speak on "Public Access Channels and Outreach to BVHP." Blaney is the Executive Director of ACCESSF Community Media.

For more information, please call 415.821.1534.

Jobs in healthcare industry

Health practitioners work in one of the top five most profitable industries according to the research firm Sageworks Inc. Sageworks examined thousands of privately run industries, and found that healthcare ranked 4th, behind the number one profitable industry: dental offices.

It's good news that some sectors of our economy offer a more hopeful window of opportunity for job seekers.

If you know young people from the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood looking at the healthcare industry as a possible career, San Francisco General Hospital would like to give them a special tour of the hospital. Contact: info@quesadagardens.org

Study shows potential of existing food systems

"Beyond Food Deserts: Measuring and Mapping Racial Disparities in Neighborhood Food Environments" by Samina Raja, Changxing Ma, & Pavan Yadav, provides more evidence that building community and the capacity of local systems is a key strategy in addressing even the most challenging issues.

The study found that, "contrary to reports in the popular press and studies from elsewhere in the country (Mari Gallaghar Research and Consulting Group 2006)...an extensive network of small grocery stores available within a five-minute travel time of minority neighborhoods offers a tremendous opportunity for creating healthful food environments within neighborhoods of color.

The study substantiates what we already knew, that there is an absence of certain healthful food sources, namely supermarkets, in neighborhoods like Bayview Hunters Point when compared to predominantly white neighborhoods.

The new findings offer insight into effective strategies to bring good food to communities like Bayview. Instead of trying to get supermarkets to open up stores here, the study suggests that "creative planning and policy support for networks of existing small grocery stores may be a more efficient strategy for ensuring access to healthful foods within minority neighborhoods."

Literacy for Environmental Justice's Good Neighbor program is an example of efforts to strengthen existing food retailing systems. Community-based food production like that which Hunters Point Family and the Quesada Gardens Initiative is engaged in, is another important capacity-building strategy.

See more about this issue and efforts in Bayview to support local food at resident Rhonda Winters' blog, at the Southeast Food Access Working Groups' online space, and in 2007's food preferences survey for the southeast sector.

Healthier foods coming to Bayview

It's no surprise to Serena Ortega, who works for the business that includes Upper Crust Deli on Third Street in Bayview, that she doesn't have much competition when it comes to new products she is introducing. She's done her research.

"There was a line out the door at 6am this morning," she said, "and it's just the first day for us to offer breakfast."

The deal of the day was the breakfast burritto, a relatively healthy food alternative compared to other offerings on the commercial corridor, and very competitively priced (starting at just $3).

Next on Serena's list is a line of salads which is a nearly subversive act in a neighborhood known as a food desert by those who measure the distance between front door and produce retailer.

Many community-based groups such as Hunters Point Family, Literacy for Environmental Justice, and the Quesada Gardens Initiative have been long been concerned about the lack of healthy food options in the neighborhood, and have taken steps that include community food gardens.

These groups also belong to a collaboration called the Southeast Food Access Working Group (SEFA) where they sit alongside representatives from the SF Department of Public Health, Southeast Health Clinic, and the SF Wholesale Food Market to advocate for more and better food options.

A survey of Bayview residents' food preferences, accomplished through SEFA, and released in late 2007, is a high water mark in the overall effort to attract new and better food options to the neighborhood.

Valentine's Day means a visit to Yvonne's

We've said it before, we'll say it again...If you have a sweetheart or just a sweet tooth, you need to make your way over to Pralines by Yvonne.

The little store with the big heart carries Yvonne Hines' own line of pralines, butter cookies, lemon pound cake, and more.

For Valentine's Day, get a gift box wrapped with passionate red ribbon and packed with goodies to make your special someone say "yum."

Pralines by Yvonne is located at 5128 Third Street. Say hello to Jacqueline Smith (pictured) who keeps the place warm and friendly when Ms. Hines is away.

Yvonne was recognized as Business Owner of the Year in 2007 by Senator Carole Migden's office.

Bayview parks are city's most neglected

Just across the street from one of the lowest rated parks in San Francisco is a gardening and open space improvement project that neighbors who live on the block have started.

The newer project is on public land, but limited to a narrow strip of dirt outside the larger fenced-in area because approval to use the empty lot has been tough for the neighbors to secure even though the site has been a trash dump for years.

These folks, known as the Palou Garden group, and similar groups associated with the Quesada Gardens Initiative and Bayview Footprints Network spend little, do a lot, and just might get a higher grade than City's Parks and Recreation department.

A report from the San Francisco Controllers Office reports that, while our city's parks are improved overall, Bayview's parks occupy half of the bottom ten list.

The report, covered in the SF Chronicle and the SF Examiner, was a reminder that resident-led efforts to define and maintain the open spaces near them is a cost-effective alternative to traditional government strategies that often fail to connect with the people who are most affected by the potential and problems associated with these public assets.


District with lowest-rated parks:

Bayview-Hunters Point/Visitacion Valley, 10

District with highest-rated parks:

Mission/Bernal Heights/Portola, 9

Lowest-rated parks:

Cayuga/Lamartine Mini Park, District 11
Sgt. John Macauley Park, District 6
John McLaren Park, District 10
Park Presidio Boulevard, District 1
Palou/Phelps Park, District 10

Top-rated parks:

Collis P. Huntington Park, District 3
Richmond Recreation Center, District 1
Fay Park, District 3
Midtown Terrace Playground, District 7
Hyde/Vallejo Mini Park, District 3

Most improved:

29th/Diamond Open Space, District 8
Saturn Street Steps, District 5
Page/Laguna Mini Park, District 8

Source: City Controller’s Office