“We want to return the vibrancy, the beauty, the healthy feeling of the streets of the Mission, but we want to do that without criminalizing poverty… and we believe the community ambassador program is the way to do that.”
That’s a quote from San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen, announcing a new $2 million unarmed security ambassador program in San Francisco’s Mission District. As Mallory Moench reported for the SF Chronicle, the expectation is that a “local community nonprofit” will employ the ambassadors, all of whom will be “trained in mental health, with a direct line to city services to help people in need on the streets,” and given a mandate to “discourage unacceptable behavior, such as blocking sidewalks with tents, to ensure that families and seniors can walk by.”
ICYMI: After West Hollywood expanded its unarmed security ambassadors program— “a highly visible uniformed presence at the street level”— Safer Cities conducted a survey to better understand public opinion nationally on the concept of unarmed, uniformed security ambassadors. The results: 76% of voters, including robust majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, support the creation of an unarmed security ambassador unit where they live.