City Government

Popular Deep-Cleaning Operation Set to Expand with Focus on S.F Neighborhood Corridors

This week’s operation will put 15 Public Works street cleaners on Fillmore Street on Thursday, between McAllister and Pine streets. CleanCorridorsSF crews will be on the ground once a week, rotating through neighborhoods across the City, including the Castro, the South of Market, West Portal, Ingleside, North Beach and the Haight.

Published

4 years ago

August 7, 2021

Isabelle Price

A woman cleaning, Photo courtesy Anton via Unsplash

San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed welcomed the kickoff on August 4 of an expanded CleanCorridorsSF operation that deploys a large, coordinated team of Public Works street cleaners to different neighborhood commercial corridors to power wash and sweep the sidewalks, flush down the roads, dig out weeds and wipe out graffiti.

The program was tested over the last year as a pilot with crews providing intensive cleaning in a different neighborhood commercial corridor every week, focusing on five blocks over four hours. Starting August 4, the operation will expand to eight hours a week and allow crews to deep clean at least 10 blocks – double the coverage as before.

The City’s new budget included $2.1 million for the expanded CleanCorridorsSF program. A companion workforce development operation, the Power Wash Mobile Team, received $140,000 for a 6-month pilot that employs immigrants with barriers to employment to provide monthly steam cleaning services in Chinatown, the Bayview, Visitacion Valley, Richmond, Sunset, Excelsior, Mission andFillmore. The stepped-up street cleaning efforts fall under Shine On SF, a new public-private recovery initiative that aims to rekindle civic pride and improve the condition of San Francisco’s streets and public spaces.

“These investments will go a long way in making sure that San Francisco shines,” said Breed. “Keeping our neighborhoods clean creates a more inviting environment for our residents, visitors and businesses, and is especially important now as we’re reopening and welcoming more people back. But we know that the City and our nonprofit partners cannot do the job alone.

“It requires all of us to do our part. If you are able, volunteer at a neighborhood cleanup, contact 311 to report illegal dumping so we can clean it up quickly and, perhaps most importantly, help us get to a place where people won’t feel it’s OK to mess up our beautiful city in the first place,” she said.

San Francisco Public Works has street cleaning crews on the job around the clock. CleanCorridorsSF provides the department another tool to perform more intensive, proactive cleanups. In addition to the cleaning crews, Public Works will deploy outreach staff to let property owners, residents and merchants know how they can help keep their neighborhood clean.

“We saw firsthand through the pilot that CleanCorridorsSF gets welcome results,” said Acting Public Works Director Alaric Degrafinried. “Now that we have additional resources to expand the operation, thanks to support from Mayor Breed, the Board of Supervisors and our community partners, we expect greater success in addressing the challenges of keeping San Francisco looking good.”

The San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Communications provided this report.

Isabelle Price

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Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

Published

4 days ago

May 25, 2025

Oakland Post

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IN MEMORIAM: Nate Holden, State Senator and Longtime Los Angeles Councilmember, Dies at 95

Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn described Holden as “a lion” in the State Senate and a force to be reckoned with on the Los Angeles City Council.” Hahn added that she learned a lot working with Holden when she was a new councilmember.

Published

1 week ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

Former Los Angeles Councilmember and California State Sen. Nate Holden. File photo.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

Former Los Angeles City Councilmember Nathaniel “Nate” Holden, a prominent figure in the city’s politics, passed away at the age of 95, his family confirmed on May 7.

Holden, who represented South Los Angeles for 16 years on the City Council and served one term in the California State Senate, was widely regarded as a forceful advocate for his community.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn described Holden as “a lion” in the State Senate and a force to be reckoned with on the Los Angeles City Council.”

Hahn added that she learned a lot working with Holden when she was a new councilmember.

Holden’s journey to political prominence began in the segregated South, where he was born in Macon, Georgia, in 1929. He often recalled the childhood moment when he first heard the governor of Georgia vowing to continue suppressing Black people.

“Doing the best you can for the people. Law and order. Make sure that people’s communities are safe. I did it all,” said Holden, reflecting on his legacy.

Holden is survived by his sons, including former California Assemblymember Chris Holden, who represented a district in Southern California that includes Pasadena and Altadena in Los Angeles County and cities in San Bernardino County.

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Oakland Hosts Town Hall Addressing Lead Hazards in City Housing

According to the city, there are 22,000 households in need of services for lead issues, most in predominantly low-income or Black and Latino neighborhoods, but only 550 to 600 homes are addressed every year. The city is hoping to use part of the multimillion-dollar settlement to increase the number of households served each year.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Magaly Muñoz

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department hosted a town hall in the Fruitvale to discuss the efforts being undertaken to remove lead primarily found in housing in East and West Oakland.

In 2021, the city was awarded $14 million out of a $24 million legal settlement from a lawsuit against paint distributors for selling lead-based paint that has affected hundreds of families in Oakland and Alameda County. The funding is intended to be used for lead poisoning reduction and prevention services in paint only, not water or other sources as has been found recently in schools across the city.

The settlement can be used for developing or enhancing programs that abate lead-based paint, providing services to individuals, particularly exposed children, educating the public about hazards caused by lead paint, and covering attorney’s fees incurred in pursuing litigation.

Most of the homes affected were built prior to 1978, and 12,000 of these homes are considered to be at high risk for lead poisoning.

City councilmember Noel Gallo, who represents a few of the lead-affected Census tracts, said the majority of the poisoned kids and families are coming directly from neighborhoods like the Fruitvale.

“When you look at the [kids being admitted] at the children’s hospital, they’re coming from this community,” Gallo said at the town hall.

In order to eventually rid the highest impacted homes of lead poisoning, the city intends to create programs and activities such as lead-based paint inspections and assessments, full abatement designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint, or partial abatement for repairs, painting, and specialized cleaning meant for temporary reduction of hazards.

In feedback for what the city could implement in their programming, residents in attendance of the event said they want more accessibility to resources, like blood testing, and information from officials about lead poisoning symptoms, hotlines for assistance, and updates on the reduction of lead in their communities.

Attendees also asked how they’d know where they are on the prioritization list and what would be done to address lead in the water found at several school sites in Oakland last year.

City staff said there will be a follow-up event to gather more community input for programming in August, with finalizations happening in the fall and a pilot launch in early 2026.