Union Square is sensitive to tough issue

As the steward of San Francisco’s most iconic area, Union Square Business Improvement District members know what it’s like to work to address San Francisco’s No. 1 and seemingly most intractable issue — homelessness. Union Square is the economic heart of San Francisco and our city’s gateway for more than 50 million visitors per year.

We share in the frustration that the complex issues associated with homelessness and public safety for everyone persist throughout our city. Yet having people living on our streets is unacceptable. We are desperate enough to expose how this issue is costing our businesses and our city’s reputation. As a community of stakeholders — businesses, residents, property owners — we are committed to working collaboratively with city agencies. But we all need to do more.

Since 1999, our district has worked to keep Union Square clean and safe for visitors and provide tens of thousands of local retail and hospitality jobs while reaching out with compassion to homeless individuals.

Our cleaning ambassadors removed 450,000 pounds of trash from sidewalks in 2017. Our safety ambassadors and the San Francisco Police keep our district safe, having handled 18,000 quality-of-life incidents in the past five months alone. We installed a robust network of 350 security cameras — the first in San Francisco to do so — to help make cases against bad actors. And we weigh in on important public policy matters such as mental health and homelessness.

In 2015, we launched the Union Square Cares initiative to educate visitors and employees about homelessness and highlight nonprofits they can support. We raised money to maintain a rapid response center that fields a team of homeless individuals who are being put back to work with dignity by maintaining clean and safe streets.

If your business or property is located within one of the existing 15 districts in San Francisco or one of the ones being formed, then learn more about the services they provide and support their work. And strengthening and expanding the Union Square Business Improvement and Community Benefit District by a few blocks to meet the boundaries of the Tenderloin Community Benefit District would allow our communities to work collaboratively to tackle the city’s most pressing challenge.