The violence prompted Daniel Webster Elementary School students – a large number of whom live in Potrero Annex and Terrace – to launch a peace march.  “The students started asking why there are guns and shootings on the street,” said Terra Gauthier, Webster’s learning support professional who initiated Peacekeepers, a program in which kids learned how to use words instead of fists. “The peace march stemmed from a discussion about why people in their community weren’t using their words.”

Between 2005 and 2007, the homicide rate within a quarter mile of Annex-Terrace was double the citywide rate, according to a Bridge Housing Corporation report. This year, the number of murders committed in San Francisco is significantly down from 2008.  To date, no murders have occurred on Potrero Hill.  But the students continue to march.

“What side are you on, peacemakers, what side are you on? We’re on the freedom side!” shouted hundreds of students from Webster, Starr King Elementary School, Live Oak School, International Studies Academy and Downtown High School, along with their teachers, parents, and community members at the third annual peace march, held last month.  This year’s march echoed a peace vigil, held a week prior, which brought Asian- and African-American residents of Bayview-Hunters Point together on Third and Palou to speak out against a series of attacks by young boys along the T-Third rail.  At the top of people’s minds at that gathering was the murder of 83 year old Huan Chen, who was severely beaten by five boys in January, and died from the injuries in March.

While homicide and crime rates are down in Potrero Hill – possibly because the most likely culprits are dead, incarcerated, or driven away, residents say – many Annex-Terrace residents believe that crime will never be extinguished until their community breaks its isolation from the rest of the City.  “No pizza place will deliver up here,” said one woman who didn’t want to be named as she waited for the 10 Townsend bus.  “If you’re sick and can’t go buy food, your kids will go hungry.”  “Not every one of us is violent, but that’s all you see in the newspapers. There are really good people here,” said Uzuri Pease-Greene, adding that she’s reached a year of sobriety not through substance abuse services but through the support of her community.  

According to Joe Tasby, Potrero Hill Family Resource Center’s (PHFRC) director, of all the public housing projects and low-income neighborhoods he’s worked in as a service provider – including Bayview, Visitacion Valley, Mission, and Western Addition – Potrero Hill is by the far the most isolated, both geographically and in terms of access to support services.  To receive comprehensive, one-stop services, Annex-Terrace residents need to travel to Bayview or the Mission District, and few do.  “It’s a fishbowl; a lot of people don’t even know where the beach is,” Tasby said.

Since a crucial bus line that served public housing’s residents – the 53 – was cut last year, Annex-Terrace residents find it hard to get to the resource center or St. Gregory’s food pantry on De Haro Street.  Seniors and disabled have been hardest hit; about a third of the residents have a long-term disability. “They’ve cut us off from the outside world,” said Sarah, an Annex-Terrace resident, recalling how an elderly man flipped over in his wheelchair on his way down a hill where he used to catch the bus.  According to Laticia Erving, Starr King’s parent liaison, the bus route change has left many public housing residents stranded in their own neighborhood. Erving, who taught a black parenting class at PHFRC, said parents stopped attending the class after bus service was reduced.  She now offers it at Starr King.

According to Tasby, public programs average the 1,200 Annex-Terrace residents’ typical family income of roughly $15,000 with neighboring wealthier households, disqualifying complex residents from receiving many needed services.  The result, in Tasby’s words, is that Potrero has become the “ugly stepchild of District 10.”  One potential public benefit for hard-pressed families, the low-income housing tax credit, is based on average income levels within a census tract.  “You get a bonus for being in one of these qualified census tracts,” said Craig Adelman, the Mayor’s Office of Housing’s deputy director, adding that Potrero Hill doesn’t qualify because census tracts don’t take into account income differences from one street to the next.

While Potrero Hill has steadily gentrified, demand for local food pantries remains high.  “The food pantry lines are getting longer and longer and people can’t find work,” said Tasby.  PHFRC receives roughly 2,000 emergency food requests a year.  Just five percent of Annex-Terrace residents were employed full-time in 2008, a rate that hasn’t likely improved. “Your stomach’s growling and you go around the corner and people are throwing food away,” said Tasby. Larry Ellis, a thirty year Terrace resident, believes that some of the car thefts and robberies that occur around the Annex-Terrace are crimes of need.