Edit: The map I was using prior to the update was the 2012 version that did not include Portola in District 9. The current District 9 map is below.
The city of San Francisco is segmented into 11 districts, and our lovely neighborhood makes up the middle third of district 9 (with the top third being the majority of the Inner Mission and the bottom third being Portola). Each district in the city has an elected supervisor, and we are lucky to have fellow Bernalite Hillary Ronen as our supervisor.
Recently I’ve been working with Hillary and her team to use this platform as a place to update the neighborhood on what’s going on in the district at large and how we fit into the politics and planning of the city at large.
Below is Hillary Ronen’s first note to the hood. If you have additional thoughts about what you’d like to see addressed here, please email me at bernalhype@gmail.com or reach out to her team at RonenStaff@sfgov.org. I also encourage you all to subscribe to her monthly newsletter here.
LETTER TO THE COMMUNITY FROM DISTRICT 9 SUPERVISOR HILLARY RONEN
Congratulations to BernalHype for launching a brand new newsletter for the neighborhood!! I’m so excited to have a new channel to keep in touch!
It’s an especially busy time for our office. The city’s annual budget process kicks off in March, and as a member of the Board’s Budget and Finance Committee, I’ll be digging deep into current departmental spending and looking for savings wherever possible, so we can stretch your dollars to cover our most urgent needs. My priorities this year are housing and homelessness.
The crisis of street homelessness is overwhelming our city and our state in unspeakable ways. Portions of our district have seen an explosion of encampments, with conditions that are unacceptable and unhealthy. I’ve been working every single day to get our city departments to respond, to prioritize the high concentration areas in District 9. Until we see the attention, focus, and accountability that yields results, I will keep fighting.
Without question, in order to make real progress toward addressing this crisis, we have to end the cycle of moving people from street to emergency services, to treatment and back to the streets.
We desperately need to overhaul our mental and behavioral health system, which is why I worked so hard to pass Mental Health SF at the end of last year. Ensuring that funding is in place to implement it is now at the top of my priority list, both through this year’s annual budget process and future revenue planning.
Additionally, I am committed to meeting the pledge I made when I ran for office to create 5,000 affordable units in District 9 in 10 years. Three years in, we are on track, with 1,349 apartments purchased, in construction, or soon to break ground. In order to make the goal, we are constantly looking for sites, looking for partners, and looking for revenue sources so we can keep a robust pipeline going. Stay tuned!
Last but not at all least, I’ve been so excited to see Bernal activism kicking up to focus on pedestrian safety and community planning for Cortland Avenue and am happy to have my office team participating in those discussions and bringing in city departments to work with the community.
More soon!
— Hillary
