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This is an image of a 157 Unit housing project with 20% affordable and low-income units with below market-rate artisian studios on ground floor that should have been completed in 2017. It was never built because Supervisor Hillary Ronen killed the project: The image Below is what it looks like today because Hillary Ronen blocked the above 157 Unit housing complex with 20% affordable/low income units and below market-rate artisinal studios on the ground floor. The project would have been completed in 2017. Instead, it became an enormous 20 tent encampment surrounding the property (1/2 a city block) for over ten months in 2016. It then became a blighted empty lot with illegal dumping and criminal activity, a Navigation Center for over a year, and now it's a graffiti covered Safe Sleeping Area with 40 tents and 60 homeless individuals since the start of the pandemic. VIEW FROM MY WINDOW October 11, 2021 Dear Hillary Ronen, Today I am seeing a cardboard structure used as a shelter being enforced by metal city gating with a No-Camping sign attached to it that abuts the Safe Sleeping Area. The fencing around the Safe Sleeping Area is still covered with graffiti. In 2017 when the property was used as a Navigation Center, there was at least some pretense to cover up the injustice of cycling hundreds of the city's most severe mentally ill and drug and alcohol addicted people through our neighborhood. Now, the city could care less what the people who live here have to experience day in and day out. We now have huge encampments that languished for years-- particularly the one on Capp and 25th. Also, one that is next to the Safe Sleeping Area on South Van Ness has been there for at least a year if not longer. An encampment next to a bus shelter half a block from the safe sleeping area has been completely taken over by a huge encampment People are regularly kicked out from the safe sleeping area and have set up a encampment across the street from Safe Sleeping Area. These people, who do not follow the rules in the Safe Sleeping Area, are now in front of our houses. The 25th and Capp Street encampmentss have been here since 2019 and, last I looked, there were more tents across the street in front of the telephone building.These are only a fraction of the encampments that are on my block or within a couple blocks from me. Right now, there is a huge encampment on Shotwell and 23rd in front of the Polish Community Center. It's been a relentless onslaught of out-of-control encampments since 2016 and is only made worse by people like you who are beholden to special interest groups that discourage reasonable housing being built and a city policy that encourages and actively enables people to take over our public sidewalks for their own private use. Naturally, the people hurt worst from your policies are those that live in neighborhoods like mine, not Bernal Heights where you live. There is an unequal distribution of pain from your policies and me and my neighbors are on the receiving end of that pain. Sincerely, Francesca Pastine

Here are pictures from around the 1515 South Van Ness Site that at this juncture should have been a 157 Unit Housing Project with 20% affordable and low-income housing with below-market-rate artist studios on the ground floor. Hillary Ronen killed this project. Instead, here is a letter from 2017 and images that show what I had to live with for over a ten month period. From here, things just got worse!!!

A MISSION NEIGHBORHOOD IN CRISIS AND A POLITICAL CLASS THAT COULD GIVE A DAMN Nov 27, 2020, 1:46 PM Dear Supervisor Hillary Ronen, et. al. These pictures are of my walk on Thanksgiving day to Bernal Heights; they were taken between Shotwell and Folsom Street with a shallow dip into Horace Ally. Once I crossed Cezar Chavez into the Precita area, I walked along the South Side of Precita Park to Harrison Street then up to Bernal Park. It was a stark picture of how you and the Mayor consider neighborhoods in terms of class and race. The south side of Cesar Chavez is pristine. No encampments, no outdoor sinks or porta potties that attract people living in streets and campers, and no trash. (Below the photos taken on Thanksgiving day, are photos that I took this morning, the day after Thanksgiving). I have been complaining for years that this neighborhood has been deteriorating. There is more trashnd now since January, more people squatting on our sidewalks. Your policies are the main reason for this crisis. I have begged you for years to do something about the overwhelming trash in this area. I have been complaining for years about groups of men drinking by the empty warehouse and lot on 26th and then passing out and leaving beer boxes and bottles on the sidewalks (which, by the way, the 1515 South Van Ness property has been a blighted block since 2016 because of your misguided anti-housing ideology). Then, in January, Jeff Kositsky stopped the HSH from responding to 311 calls that resulted in huge encampments that linger for months. You and Mayor Breed then set up porta-potties and outdoor sinks to encourage people to colonize our sidewalks. On top of all these endemic social problems, you then decide to exacerbate the existing squalor by adding as many as 60 people living in 40 tents at the 1515 South Van Ness Parking lot. These photos expose layer upon layer of bad policy decisions around the 1515 South Van Ness property. One bad policy decision is followed by another and on top of general neglect this area has become an unlivable nightmare. Worse, it has been unrelenting since 2016. The disastrous policy to put a safe sleeping site at 1515 South Van Ness is particularly unconscionable. My neighbors and I have clearly pointed out systemic problems in this community over the years but you chose to ignore us and the results are the photos below. These photos typify what our community of low-income, POC, and immigrant families have to navigate every day. There are a whole generation of children growing up in the Mission that think this is normal. Why are there no porta potties and sinks at Precita Park? Why are they not set up at Holly Park? Why have they not been set up by Alta and Lafayette parks? Clearly, your so-called progressive politics are a sham. You have over the years specifically exploited the Mission. Do you think just because we are a low-income community that we are ok with squalor? Like it's ok for us but not Bernal Heights? Like somehow, we don't deserve better than this? If the deplorable conditions reflected in these photos (that you are responsible for creating) are okay with you, then you really need to check your conscience. But, moreover, you do not have the moral character or leader skills to be a Supervisor. You either need to step up to your responsibility to our community or step down from your office. Sincerely, Francesca Pastine

Dear Mayor Breed, Today I woke up with tightness in my chest that scared me. I then realized it was from anger. I have been carrying around this anger since you, London Breed, have been intentionally reverting my neighborhood into a slum. I am angry and it’s a horrible place to be, especially when I need to be my healthiest. I say that because, at 65 years old, I am in a high-risk category for dying from COVID 19. Studies have proven that emotional health is essential to a healthy immune system and that that one’s health is related to their zip code. You, with the help of Jeff Kositsky and his years of failed policies, have turned the block across the street from me into a slum in just two months. Let me define what a slum is: SLUM: Urban slums are settlements, neighborhoods, or city regions that cannot provide the basic living conditions necessary for its inhabitants, or slum dwellers, to live in a safe and healthy environment. You did not respond to my last email wherein I asked a series of questions so I am resending them. I want real answers and not excuses including that Covit 19 is responsible for the complete degradation of the sidewalks in the Mission. In four years since the beginning of this crises, the city could have enacted real conservatorhip law. The city, like Rhode Island, could have had real drug rehabilitation programs with the necessary teeth to make it effective. 1. How is it ok that there is, again, a surge of encampments in the Mission as pernicious and prolific as there were four years ago? This is not rhetorical.  I want answers. 2. Why is Jeff Kositsky is now head of HSOC when, obviously, he has not been able to maintain clean and healthy sidewalks in the Mission for the last four years ago? This is not rhetorical.  I want answers. 3.  The Mission is so filthy and depressing that I actually drive either to Potrero Hill, or Noe Valley, or Diamond Heights, or Glen Park, or upper Market, or the Haight, to take walks.  Leaving the boundaries of the Mission is like passing into a different country.  In the Mission you have massive slums, in other neighborhoods you have a semblance of normalcy. There is not a tent in sight, no garbage clogged sidewalks, no urban blight. The failure of your homeless policies do not exist in these ‘wealthier” neighborhoods. I have to ask, why do you think it is ok to concentrate your policy failures in the Mission? This is not a rhetorical question.  I want answers. 4.  How do you call yourself progressive when you allow marginalized neighborhoods, like the Mission, to become choked with homelessness on its sidewalks when the Mission is already suffering from overcrowding, the highest rate of COVID 19, a high percentage of people of color and immigrants, and is already one of the densest neighborhoods in San Francisco?  How is this progressive? This is not a rhetorical question.  I want answers. 5. Why is the city sanctioning the development of third-world slum conditions in the Mission? This is, in fact, San Francisco generated and sanctioned blight. Your sanitizing stations are a pathetic Band-Aid for your failure to house the homeless. This is not a rhetorical question. I want answers. 6. London Breed, why are you turning my neighborhood, willingly and with intention, into a slum? I am asking you, personally and as my elected representative. The homeless people on both Shotwell and 26th are using my front retainer wall as a urinal and it stinks like piss. I caught one of the homeless guys a week ago in my side yard taking water from my garden faucet and, today, I caught him trespassing in my neighbor’s yard. I have not been in the ally behind my house but my neighbors who use it complain that it has become a latrine (which is what happened in 2016 when there was a massive homeless encampment in the same location. During that time, periodically, my deck would be covered – literally – with black flies that were breeding on human feces in this ally). Your handling of the homeless is not progressive. If I were to be kind, I would categorize it as negligent mismanagement, but the truth of the matter is it is a willful abrogation of your office to maintain safe and clean sidewalks in marginalized neighborhoods. And, Jeff Kositsky, I am including you in this letter because you switched the policy to not respond to 311 calls vis-à-vis tents on public sidewalks. Then in March you resigned before having had to take the blow back for your policy to not remove tents that, as early as January, create encampments and slum conditions in the Mission. Mr. Kositsky, this was not only a cowardly act but also a complete dereliction of your responsibility to the residents of the Mission. To top this off, ironically, you are now appointed by London Breed to be Manager of the Healthy Streets Operations Center (HSOC). This after you had four years and generous taxpayer money to help the homeless off the streets and failed spectacularly. Today, when I look out my window or take a walk in the Mission, it is as bad as it ever was in 2016. You taking over the HSOC is the height of hypocrisy! The people in the Mission deserve better. The homeless deserve better. You have money and means but you have no imagination. You think small and take the easiest route. If this is what you call good governance, you should all take a good look at what you are burdening your constituents with and, if that is ok with you, there is something profoundly not ok with your ability to govern. Sincerely, Francesca Pastine

Dear Dennis Herrera, City Attorney We are writing to ask for your help, guidance and action. Supervisor Hillary Ronen plans to put a 40-tent ‘Safe Sleeping Area’ for the homeless in the parking lot of 1515 South Van Ness Avenue. I am asking you to stop the planned ‘Safe Sleeping Area’ until there is an independent study on the impact of such a site to our neighborhood and requires studies in such circumstances. For years, Hillary Ronen and the city of San Francisco have neglected this block and surrounding residential and business areas, and when it serves their purpose, uses it to warehouse the causalities of their failed homeless policies. The 1515 South Van Ness property has been a site of contention since December 2015 when the Lennar development agency planned a 157-unit apartment building there. Supervisors Campos and then, Supervisor Ronen, at the persistence of special interest groups, made so many unreasonable demands that the developers walked away from the project. Ground floor retail space would have promoted local businesses and street activity. The project’s affordable/ low-income units would have been over the legal requirement. Had the project been approved, the development would have taken roughly two years to build, with a completion date in 2017. The site is a few blocks from the 24th Street BART Station and major bus lines and the project would not have displaced any residents. In fact, it would have provided much-needed residential space. Instead of a thriving residential and business development, for ten months in 2016, the abandoned property became an enormous homeless encampment that wrapped around a half city block. Hillary Ronen did nothing to cleanup this encampment despite the neighbors’ protests. In 2017, Ronen negotiated with Lennar to put in a Navigation Center (sometimes hereafter referred to as “NC”) on the property that opened in June and was slated for 9 months, but ran three months beyond the closing date. The 120-bed NC cycled homeless through premises every 30 days meaning countless people with severe issues were brought into our community. In addition to the NC, Ronen negotiated a $1 million payment to a “cultural stabilization fund” run by Erick Arguello of the Calle24 Council putting more financial stress on the developer. Meanwhile, construction costs kept rising and the developer finally sold the property in 2019 to the City of San Francisco (who proceeded to further neglected the property). For years, the City and Hillary Ronen disproportionally made worse the very population they purport to care about. Instead of contributing stability and vibrancy to this area, they contributed to its decline. At the beginning of this year, homeless people moved back on the block sending us right back to where we were with the 2016 homeless encampment problem. Our neighborhood has two solid blocks of low-income housing, Bernal Dwellings, between Folsom Street and Harrison Street, and 26th Street and Cesar Chavez.  Last year, the city built a nine-story 95-unit tower (four stories above the legal height limit) for senior low-income housing directly next door to the blighted property at 1515 South Van Ness. These are low-income seniors who will be put at risk by the exposure to a large homeless population. After the COVIT-19 lockdown, Mayor Breed and Hillary Ronen actively encouraged the homeless to squat on our public sidewalk by drawing rectangles abutting our public parks and instructing people to set up their tents in them. We have written countless letters of protest to Supervisor Ronen over the years regarding continuing abuses to no avail. This area of the Mission, with a high percentage of people of color and immigrants, is suffering from one of the highest rates of COVID-19 in San Francisco.  The few blocks between South Van Ness, 23rd St., Harrison Street, and Cesar Chavez were the focus of a UC San Francisco infectious disease research project that tested nearly 3,000 people who live or work in this specific census tract for active COVID-19 infections. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that researchers chose to focus their study on the Mission because of its high population density, overcrowding, and large Latino population. The racial disparities seen in coronavirus cases across San Francisco were amplified in the Mission. Of those who tested positive in the study, 95% were Latino — despite Latinos making up just 44% of total participants. The Cities homeless policies take advantage of this vulnerable population by having encouraged tent encampments and using this property as a Navigation Center. Supervisor Ronen continues to threaten the health and stability of this community with a ‘Safe Sleeping Area.’ The Mission is not homogeneous and the 26th corridor between Valencia and Harrison is underdeveloped and could have benefited from the reinvigoration the Lennar project would have brought. This site deserves better than the years of either neglect or having homeless people brought on to it. My neighbors and I want the ‘Safe Sleeping Area’ blocked until there is an independent assessment of the impact of adding 40 homeless tents and as many as 60 homeless people into an already over-crowded and suffering community. Surely, in a city with such substantial economic resources as San Francisco, there are ways to accommodate the homeless and to benefit our immigrant and minority neighbors, without contributing to the decline of a potentially vibrant business and residential community which has been our home for decades. We all deserve better. Sincerely, Francesca Pastine The sidewalk at 26th and Shotwell Street close to an encampment.

Horrible Condition on 25th Street

MORE BAD GOVERNANCE Wed, Sep 22, 5:26 PM Dear Hillary Ronen, et. al., I see people sweep handfuls of merchandise off the shelves at Walgreens and walk out the door. I then see that same merchandise being sold at the corner of Mission and 24th. Good governance would not allow just anyone to lay down a blanket and sell merchandise on our public sidewalks. There would be a permit process to make sure the sellers are legitimate and not selling stolen goods. Permits would also regulate how many people could sell things at a single corner to make sure sidewalks are not clogged and impassable. Unfortunately, good governance is not a requirement to be a supervisor. The corner of 24th and Mission is another casualty of Hillary Ronen's bad policies. Every day, my neighborhood deteriorates because we have a supervisor that works for special interests groups and not her constituents. Theft is encouraged, blight is encouraged, squatting is encouraged, while housing that would support stable families that have an interest in bettering the community is discouraged. I have been writing for years about the worsening condition in my neighborhood to no avail. I believe the critical mass of years of bad governance and bad policies have finally completely overwhelmed this community. As a resident in the Mission since 1994, I have witnessed, in the last six years, a complete deterioration of civil life in the Mission. There are broken windows everywhere, trash, huge and persistent encampments, crime, and feces everywhere. Now the 24th Street BART station is clogged with criminals fencing stolen goods. When I think things cannot get any worse, they get worse. Unfortunately, I fear that if Hillary Ronen continues to govern we will see this continuing down-hill spiral in the Mission. Sincerely, Francesca Pastine Pictures of Bart Stations and surrounding bus shelters at 24th and Mission: