SAN FRANCISCO — Wearing a shiny safety vest with the words “Safe Passage” on the back, Tatiana Alabsi walks through San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood to her only public elementary school, navigating broken bottles and stained sleeping bags along tired streets that occasionally smell of urine.
Along the way, in one of the most famous neighborhoods in the United States, she shouts to politely warn people crowded on the sidewalks, some holding strips of aluminum foil covered in illicit drugs.
“Good afternoon, happy Monday!” Alabsi tells two men, one of them slumped forward in a wheelchair and wearing soft hospital socks and a slipper. His voice is cheerful, a gentle contrast to the squalor displayed in the 50-block neighborhood that is known for its crime, squalor and reckless abandon. “School time. The kids will be here soon.
Further along, Alabsi passes a man dancing in the middle of the street with his arms up as a noisy fire truck rushes past. She stops to gently touch the shoulder of a man curled up in the fetal position on the sidewalk, his head inches from the tires of a parked car.
“Are you well?” she asks, before suggesting he move somewhere out of the sun. “The children will be here soon.”
Minutes later, Alabsi arrives at Tenderloin Community Elementary School, where she is among several adults chaperoning dozens of children to after-school programs. The students grab backpacks printed with Spider-Man and the sisters from “Frozen” and form two undisciplined lines that follow Alabsi like ducklings through uneven streets.
The minors walk hand in hand with trusted volunteers.
Long known for its brazen open-air drug markets, chronic addiction, mental illness and homelessness, the Tenderloin neighborhood is also home to the largest concentration of children in San Francisco, around 3,000 children, largely from immigrant families.
The neighborhood is rich in social services and low-income housing, but the San Francisco Police Department has also seized nearly 200 pounds of narcotics in the area since last May. Of a record 806 overdose deaths last year, about 20% occurred in the loin.
But in the midst of the chaos there is a vibrant community united across languages that has found ways to protect the most vulnerable and bring hope, something many say the city has failed to do. Authorities have deployed toilets, declared a local emergency and promised to crack down on drugs, but the change is glacial.
A group of mothers fed up with drug traffickers began the effort 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 that also cleans sidewalks, maintains parks and hosts community events.
Alabsi began volunteering after the Russian woman moved to the United States from Yemen with her husband and sought asylum a decade ago. They joined her husband’s mother and his brothers, who settled in the Tenderloin.
Life was not easy in his new homeland. Alabsi, 54, and her husband Jalal, both doctors, had to restart their careers for years. The mother-of-two despaired when her youngest son started counting the piles of poo she spotted in his stroller on the way home from daycare.
Then she learned about Safe Passage. At her husband’s insistence, she signed up as a volunteer to help spare the children the worst scenes on their walk after school.
Many people, Alabsi says, respond politely or put away their drugs or move their belongings out of the way when she reminds them that school is over. But others ignore the request. Some even get angry.
“It’s better to put on a nice smile and say good afternoon or good morning, to show people I’m friendly,” said a laughing Alabsi, who is fluent in Arabic and Russian and speaks English with an accent. “I’m not a monster.”
The program’s safety administrators guide students along the cleanest, calmest routes, redirecting them to prevent people from acting erratically or overdosing. Sometimes administrators use their bodies to keep children from seeing things they shouldn’t, like a woman crouched between two cars, unable to control her bowels.
On a recent afternoon, two girls with ponytails walked through an intersection, talking about becoming TikTok stars one day, seemingly oblivious to a couple hunched over at a bus stop across the street, struggling to light a cigarette. As they walked, Alabsi blocked the view of the stained feces.
The girls, one in first grade and one in second, went to the Cross Cultural Family Center, one of half a dozen nonprofit organizations that offer after-school programs for elementary and middle school children.
Alabsi and his immediate family have left the Tenderloin, but are still an integral part of it. Their son is in fourth grade and Alabsi now runs the Safe Passage program.
She loves the mix of Latin, Asian, Arabic and American cultures in the sirloin. The big hearts of residents fighting for a better life is what “makes it special,” she said.
On a recent Saturday, Alabsi worked an Eid celebration at the neighborhood recreation center. She helped monitor the block that was closed to traffic for the day while greeting her sisters-in-law, who had attended the party with their children.
When the celebration ended at 4pm, she left with her football-loving son Sami to leave the vest and radio at the office. They chatted in Russian as they passed tents, sleeping bags and blankets, an abandoned microwave and lawn chair, and a human-shaped lump under a blanket, shoes showing.
Over the speakers, the doo-wop of the Moonglows singing “Sincerely” drifted beautifully over the sandy streets. On a post was a flyer with photos of a missing daughter: “Mimi, please call home,” the April notice said. loved.”
“We can change the world in a better way through our presence, our examples, our positive attitude,” said Alabsi. “Every year it’s a little better and better and better.”
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Associated Press journalist Terry Chea contributed to this report.
