{"id":28182,"date":"2023-08-29T12:20:39","date_gmt":"2023-08-29T19:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=28182"},"modified":"2023-08-29T12:20:41","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T19:20:41","slug":"tenderloin-tour-upends-doom-loop-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/08\/29\/tenderloin-tour-upends-doom-loop-narrative\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenderloin tour upends \u2018doom loop\u2019 narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There’s a lot more to the neighborhood than the national media wants to report.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By CHRISTOPHER D. COOK<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AUGUST 27, 2023 (48hills.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Share on Facebook<\/a> Share on Twitter<\/a> Share on LinkedIn<\/a> Share on Reddit<\/a>Share on Email<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much like the media-hyped \u201cdoom loop\u201d itself, a \u201cdowntown doom loop tour\u201d billed on EventBrite by an alleged \u201cCity Hall insider,\u201d<\/a> slated for Aug. 26, never took place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, on a sun-splashed Saturday, nearly 100 San Francisco residents and visitors took Del Seymour\u2019s Tenderloin Walking Tour and got a quite different view of this storied central city neighborhood, its strife and strivings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tenderloin tour disrupted the \u201cdoom loop\u201d literally and metaphorically, offering a \u201cpositive\u201d lens into the virally-maligned neighborhood, organizers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Del Seymour speaks to the crowd at Civic Center plaza. Photos by Christopher D. Cook.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purported \u201cdoom loop tour,\u201d Seymour told us, \u201cwas such a mean-spirited effort, I just can\u2019t respond to meanness. The stupidity of it, I just can\u2019t respond to it, so to give people an alternative I designed this tour today.\u201d  Purveyors of the \u201cdoom loop\u201d narrative, Seymour added, \u201care using these people, using this community as fodder for their political campaign.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, Seymour has been leading the tours for 17 years, after living in the Tenderloin for 38 years. \u201cI\u2019m here every day, seven days a week,\u201d he said as we departed gold-gilded City Hall for one of the city\u2019s lowest-income and most diverse neighborhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if the Tenderloin is worse now than in years past, Seymour said that other than the recent fentanyl trend, \u201cwe\u2019re the same.\u201d In the mid-1980s, he noted, \u201cwe had crack cocaine that was devastating people. This is nothing compared to crack cocaine, and I was part of that.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the tour\u2019s first stop, at the northeastern edge of the Civic Center Plaza that spreads like a rectangular fan out from City Hall, Seymour observed, \u201cWe are standing on top of our old convention center, before the Moscone Convention Center was built.\u201d He added pointedly, \u201cI don\u2019t know why we\u2019re not using it to facilitate some of our services for unhoused folks, because it\u2019s a 50,000 square foot hall that\u2019s just got some old furniture sitting in it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snaking through the Tenderloin and on to Mid-Market, Seymour\u2019s\u00a0tour<\/a>\u00a0not only offers a rebuttal to the \u201cdoom loop\u201d narrative prevailing in mainstream local and national media, but also provides a rare optimistic glimpse of \u201cthe beating heart of a city peopled by immigrants and iconoclasts, artists and activists, sinners and saints,\u201d its website describes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

New York Post photographer focuses on \u2018doom loop\u2019 images<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few blocks from City Hall, across from the federal court and law enforcement building on Hyde Street, Seymour noted, \u201cwe are surrounded by US marshals, they drive through the Tenderloin like nothing\u2019s up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a stop in Glide Memorial Church\u2019s nonprofit services center on Ellis Street, which ladles out 1,500 meals a day to homeless people, Seymour shared a morsel of that lurid, colorful history. A century ago, in ways different and similar to today, \u201cThe Tenderloin was a pretty raunchy place,\u201d Seymour related\u2014though, he quickly added, \u201cOther people said it was a pretty fun place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When James \u201cSunny\u201d Rolf became mayor in 1912, \u201cAll the vice was in North Beach,\u201d but then Rolf \u201cstarted buying property in North Beach, so he ran all the vice to the Tenderloin so he could clean up his neighborhood, which is now Telegraph Hill. That\u2019s how the Tenderloin got the vices that it has.\u201d The parallels with today are inescapable, as the Tenderloin remains a containment zone for much of the city\u2019s most intense poverty and at least some of its vices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Junior Ward, a videographer and social media coordinator for Glide, chimed in, noting, \u201cwe not only pass out meals to people, we help people find housing, get education\u2026 We specialize in creating a space where everyone feels welcome, appreciated, and loved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the crowd wound its way down Turk, Hyde, and Ellis Streets and on to Jones and then Market Street, there was no shortage of suffering in view\u2014people living in tents, garbage piled high, people hobbled by illness, addiction, poverty, and the visible scars of a rough life on the streets. Yet amid these realities, which are the sole focus of mainstream media coverage and the \u201cdoom loop\u201d narrative, the Tenderloin also is home to families, people in recovery, and a panoply of nonprofits providing direct services to people in need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lauren Swiger and her dog walk with tour. Swiger lives in a Tenderloin hotel and says she and many others are \u201cthriving\u201d in the Tenderloin. She wants to stay in the neighborhood.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as Seymour pointed out, the Tenderloin community is far more than the most easily visible misery on some of its sidewalks. At stops along the way, he showed the crowd various affordable and workforce development housing projects, some still partly vacant. He also mentioned the 2000 University of California Law School (formerly known as \u201cHastings\u201d) students from around the world living in the Tenderloin. \u201cThere\u2019s a bunch of groups of people living here that you all don\u2019t even know about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I briefly interviewed a photographer for The New York Post\u2014which has run no shortage of its own \u201cdoom loop\u201d stories about San Francisco. Asked what drew him to cover the \u201cdoom loop tour\u201d that was his original assignment, he replied, \u201cit\u2019s kind of interesting that someone wants to exploit the poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Post\u2019s reporter on the scene, Marjorie Hernandez, would not speak with us, but issued an article<\/a> that, predictably, hyped the area\u2019s blight\u2014featuring the phrase \u201cdrug-infested San Francisco\u201d in its opening sentence\u2014while downplaying the tour\u2019s more positive portrayals of the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seymour said he sees the community and its struggles quite differently<\/strong>. When asked what the media are getting wrong about the Tenderloin, Seymour said, \u201cThat people want to be out here [in the streets]. That people are refusing services, which they\u2019re not\u2026. The narrative is that we people in the Tenderloin have gotten trenched in, and we like this and we\u2019re comfortable with it, and that\u2019s damn sure not the case. We are not comfortable with this at all. We\u2019re uncomfortable with how they\u2019re treating us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to the viral \u201cdoom loop\u201d narratives of crime and death, Seymour added, \u201cPeople here are friendly, it\u2019s really a mild calm neighborhood, you don\u2019t need a bullet-proof vest to come through here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tenderloin resident Tyree Leslie, who works with Code Tenderloin<\/a> and is training to help lead the walking tours, told me, \u201cWe\u2019re all from the neighborhood, we\u2019ve all been through stuff here. We know the people in the neighborhood, we know the people in the streets, we can talk to them\u2026 we\u2019re a community like anywhere else. We accept everyone, we don\u2019t try to push anybody out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leslie was unhoused during the pandemic, then got into a temporary shelter-in-place hotel, and now lives in an apartment on Ellis. \u201cThere is a lot of great support, a lot of good people doing good things here. I\u2019m tired of the negative news, I\u2019m tired of people coming zipping through here and not talking to anyone who lives here.\u201d Of the \u201cdoom loop tour,\u201d Leslie said, \u201cWhoever that was, for EventBrite to let them do that anonymously, that\u2019s cowardice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lauren Swiger, another Tenderloin resident on the tour, described how she ended up in the neighborhood. \u201cAt the end of last year, I lost my home under some really challenging and cruel circumstances, that\u2019s how I find myself here,\u201d where she says she is \u201cthriving\u201d while living in a hotel on Leavenworth and Eddy that serves women who are victims of domestic violence and assault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She had strong words for the \u201cdoom loop tour\u201d and its broader narrative. \u201cTo capitalize on people\u2019s suffering is just atrocious, evil and greedy,\u201d Swiger said. \u201cWe already have an issue of misrepresentation here in the Tenderloin, overlooking all of the help, all of the programs, all the coalitions, all of the community that is here, which is one of the reasons I don\u2019t want to leave here now. Overlooking all of that and just focusing on the suffering and addiction and poverty is just so awful. That\u2019s why many of us are here today, to highlight the positives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What positives, I asked Swiger? \u201cThe positive things I see are all of the help, all of the substance abuse treatment programs, all of the supportive housing\u2026. A lot of people are here because they are turning their lives around, getting back on their feet.\u201d She added: \u201cThe doom loop is focusing on the people that are down and out but that is negating the many, many more people who are here building their lives up to need that extra help. All that positivity is being ignored by the doom loop. There are many,<\/ins> many more of us here who are turning our lives around and giving back to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swiger said the \u201cdoom loop\u201d media fixation is misrepresenting the Tenderloin and obscuring the community\u2019s rich culture and care. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of creative performance, art, and music happening here,\u201d said Swiger, who is part of Skywatchers<\/a>, a multi-disciplinary arts and performance group that works and performs in the community. \u201cOne of the things that art does is help you heal, and there\u2019s a lot of that going on, but it doesn\u2019t get any press. Fentanyl gets all the press.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anne Bluethenthal, a founder and director of Skywatchers, said she wants people to see \u201cthe love of humanity here. \u2026 Anything that cuts through the othering that the national media is doing in the Tenderloin.\u201d The media, she said, \u201chas a hunger for poverty porn, objectification, or spectacularization of people\u2019s misery. Instead of focusing on the centuries that made this situation inevitable and the responsibility that we all have to take care of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along our way down Jones Street, Seymour pointed out a small business,<\/strong> a Middle Eastern woman running a restaurant. \u201cThere were hundreds of people hanging out on the block,\u201d Seymour described. \u201cShe would come out there every day and ask people, I\u2019m trying to open a business, could you just move down a little bit? She just did it day by day, took her one year, but she completely cleaned up that corner all by herself. Nobody went to jail. It\u2019s the way you talk to people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toward the end of the tour, as we made our way down Market Street after a visit to the International Art Museum of America, I spoke with Jason and Marie, a married couple living in the Outer Sunset, who have made San Francisco their home for ten years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked what she gleaned from the tour, Marie responded, \u201cthe history and all the activism here are really inspiring. All of the nonprofits that are working really hard to transform people\u2019s lives.\u201d The doom loop narrative, she said, \u201cis not helping anyone. It\u2019s not helping our city recover, it\u2019s not helping our small business merchants, it\u2019s not helping our neighborhoods. Something like this countering that, showing pride and love for the city, a willingness to make things better, that\u2019s a positive thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we neared the end of the walk along Market Street, Marie\u2019s husband Jason added some choice and pointed reflections: \u201cIt seems like there is a political faction that needs San Francisco to fail to prove some point about the failures of the left. To me the irony is, San Francisco is the site of people making a ton of money off of capitalism and at the same time having such inequality.\u201d Still, Jason said, \u201cWe love it here, we want to stay here, and we want to see this city turned around and be an example for how to have everybody live well and not just those that make a bunch of money off of tech.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christopher D. Cook is an award-winning journalist and former city editor of The San Francisco Bay Guardian. He also writes for Harper\u2019s, Mother Jones, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, and others. Contact him through <\/em>www.christopherdcook.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a lot more to the neighborhood than the national media wants to report. By CHRISTOPHER D. COOK AUGUST 27, 2023 (48hills.org)  Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn Share on RedditShare on Email Much like the media-hyped \u201cdoom loop\u201d itself, a \u201cdowntown doom loop tour\u201d billed on EventBrite by an alleged… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[713],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28186,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28182\/revisions\/28186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}