Introducing The Ambassador Wishlist

A new refrigerator to accommodate our growing team's snacks; a coffee machine that will fire espressos all day long; an air purifier to prevent health issues; and more! The Ambassador Wishlist is a new giving program that allows you to donate from a list of items and equipment that will improve our Services Team's working conditions! Donations in the partial or full amount of the item are welcome!

Check out our Donation Page to review the wishlist items and their prices.

We Accept Company Stocks!

If your employer offers a matching stock donation program or if you prefer to donate equity, The East Cut Community Benefit District accepts company stocks as donations! Contact pierre@theeastcut.org for more information.

Small businesses in the neighborhood have outdone themselves by staying open and continuing to serve you safely throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Check out what is going on near your home, this month and during the holiday season! Support the neighborhood's businesses. 

On Monday, November 30, 2020, the Mayor’s Office announced that the new Street Crisis Response Team or, SCRT, would launch as part of phase one of San Francisco's Mental Health SF program. The SCRT program is a collaboration between the Department of Public Health and the San Francisco Fire Department, with support from the Department of Emergency Management and SFPD. The program was designed to provide an alternative to responses by law enforcement to mental health crises. Each response team will include a paramedic, a behavioral health clinician, and a behavioral health peer specialist (who has the unique feature of being someone who has experienced, and overcome, either homelessness or drug or alcohol addiction in order to help related to the client). You can read the official press release on the program here.

As mentioned, the program’s launch is part of the first phase of implementing the Mental Health SF program, which was approved unanimously by the Board of Supervisors in winter of 2019. With the homeless crisis affecting all areas of the City, including The East Cut, we're hopeful that this initiative, along with others in the pipeline, will help get homeless individuals the services they need for a healthier life in a sheltered living environment.

The East Cut CBD is looking to launch a fundraising campaign to raise $3M in the next 4 years to advance the development of Under Ramp Park. With strategic planning towards this effort at top of mind, a recent article published in the Project for Public Spaces jumped out to the CBD staff.

PPS has undergone some structural changes over the last year and recently shifted their mission to develop Corporate Social Responsibility partnerships. PPS makes the case that pubic spaces are chronically underfunded, and as a result, lack the ability to evolve and best serve their local community (particularly, equitably). Furthermore, agencies like Departments of Transportation which fund the largest portion of our public spaces do not have placemaking as part of their core mandate. As a result of these frequent funding and mission-oriented gaps, local CBDs, Business Districts, nonprofit organizations and community groups must often meet the funding need to ensure public spaces and their programming are equitable, serving the whole community. However, with similarly restricted budgets, this poses a challenge. Because placemaking requires constant attention to meet the needs of the local community as it evolves over time, continual investment is needed. What better a mission to support for a Foundation or Corporate Philanthropic Partner than to support placemaking and inclusive community building?

If you had the option to move to a neighborhood where everything, literally everything you needed, was within a 15-minute walk of your front door, would you be tempted to move? The concept of “vibrant vicinity” - mixing urban social functions to create mini-cities - is gaining traction. Originally developed to reduce carbon emissions, the concept of the 15-minute city is already being explored in cities like Paris, Milan, Melbourne, and Portland, with parking eliminated to make way for garden space and bike lanes, all while reinvigorating mix-use community components. Planners hope that cities will become places for people to live in and enjoy rather than simply commute-to for work. Click the CityLab link to learn more about the concept’s origins and evolution over the last 60 years, in addition to a profile of the major implementations of the concept in Paris, France.

As San Francisco’s first high-density mixed-use district, the concept of the 15-minute city resonates with The East Cut CBD. At top of mind is infusing vibrancy to our streets through pop-up activations to encourage small business growth and greater access to culture and the arts.

 
The pandemic is forcing cities to rethink uses of certain downtown property as those parts of the urban landscape have been hit hardest since March. There is no better city to look at when considering how dramatic a shift there has been in the vitality of a downtown than in Manhattan's Midtown. This pandemic “ghost town” filled with office buildings and large hotels sat vacant for months, but as of September 18th, hotel occupancy rates and office occupancy rates are still only at or below 10%. Midtown is not alone in this. So what to do with the empty spaces that will likely remain that way for the foreseeable future?

Across the U.S., downtown business districts are void of daily commuters, and in New York, some are suggesting re-zoning so that office space might be converted to housing, in particular, affordable housing. This concept is not anything new. After 9/11 much housing was constructed in the area near the Twin Towers. However, skeptics argue that zoning rules are strict and these plans are better suited for smaller cities better able to maneuver structural changes. Another challenge facing this current moment in time is financing. Dropping rent prices in downtown neighborhoods does not bode well for an office to condo conversion, not to mention city budgets are facing major shortfalls. Still, one has to wonder when might be a "better" time to make these dramatic changes to fulfill a much-overdue need.