S.F.’s popular fix-it program set to expand around town
Sandra Zuniga is San Francisco’s Ms. Fix-It. The 41-year-old is a one-woman operation working with neighborhood residents to navigate the city’s convoluted and complex bureaucracy and help solve qualify-of-life issues.
Some residents want more trash cans, while others want fewer. Others want help with blighted billboards and broken glass. More commonly, they want fixes for crime and filth — problems that have grown despite the tech boom and a swelling municipal budget.
Mayor Ed Lee launched the fix-it pilot last year after rising complaints about San Francisco’s grimy streets and sidewalks, broken streetlights and potholes tearing up cars. Lee plans to quadruple the operation this year, expanding it to 20 neighborhoods and adding three people to Zuniga’s now-nonexistent staff in June.
She currently corrals manpower across seven agencies: the Public Utilities Commission, the Municipal Transportation Agency, Public Works, the Police Department, the Recreation and Park Department, the Department of Public Health, and the Homeless Outreach Team. But none of the 40 city employees across the six agencies works directly for her department.
“I’ve walked these neighborhoods and I’ve talked to the residents and small-business owners,” said Lee, who announced the plan in his State of the City address. “They want simple quality-of-life issues fixed and fixed quickly, and I’ve heard firsthand how positive the Fix-It team has been for their communities. Fix-It isn’t just beautifying our communities. It’s strengthening them, connecting residents to city services, and introducing neighbors to each other to empower lasting change.”
The fix-it director — yes, that’s Zuniga’s actual title — uses information from the 311 customer service portal and crime data to map the most distressed city blocks. They are then grouped together into a 15-block radius. The Bayview, Tenderloin, Mission and Excelsior were ranked among the worst neighborhoods for quality-of-life issues, a city survey showed, and many of the hotspots were clustered in those areas.
The brewing discontent stands out in stark contrast to a city that has grown more prosperous in the last decade, with a budget that has grown to more than $9 billion. Zuniga, who spent the last decade at Public Works, said she knows the initiative won’t fix everything, but it’s a start.
“There’s not enough time in the day to fix everything,” she said. “We still have our challenges, and not everything will be fixed in a sense. But working together helps. There have been so many more eyes on the streets. Merging relationships and departments helps build the community as we go. I’m excited to have more help.”
Last year Zuniga worked with five communities spread over 100 city blocks in Chinatown, the Market/Castro area, Mission/Geneva, the U.N. Plaza/Civic Center area and the Inner Sunset. She helped fix 108 streetlights, paint 495 crosswalks and curbs, prune 51 trees and replace 150 street signs.
In recent months, Zuniga worked with community ambassadors to tear down a billboard at Judah Street and Ninth Avenue. They’ve removed green city trash cans along Grant Avenue in Chinatown and collected needles from Victoria Manalo Draves Park in SoMa. The group, clad in neon yellow vests, has swept broken windshield glass, scrubbed graffiti and striped pavement.
Stephanie Cajina, who has lived in the Excelsior for 10 years and is the executive director of the Excelsior Action Group, said having someone help with city issues makes a difference. Residents had the blighted news racks in the area consolidated, and streetlights actually got fixed. Besides, Cajina added, working with a real person is better than being redirected into a computer portal.
“This is a good start,” Cajina said. “Obviously there needs to be more. But the beauty of this program is you are talking with someone who can actually engage decision makers. It’s not just getting funneled into 311 or a place the city logs a complaint. Sandra followed through with absolutely everything from the smallest complaint to the largest. That’s what’s refreshing about this.”
This month Zuniga is tackling a chunk of land from Fillmore to Gough streets and Golden Gate Avenue to Bush Street in the Western Addition. A possible list of other areas for the year includes portions of District 10, which includes Bayview-Hunters Point, Potrero Hill, Dogpatch and Visitacion Valley; and District 11 — the Ingleside, Excelsior and nearby neighborhoods.
“In a city this big, there’s always something to be done,” Zuniga said. “I love going into communities. I love the people, and I love working with different agencies. Twenty neighborhoods is a lot, but working together will help. All of that will make a difference.”