Success Stories
Curran House residents are growing their community
Each week, about twelve residents from TNDC’s Curran House volunteer their time working in the rooftop garden. This group works together, sharing the responsibilities of watering, pruning, and harvesting a wide variety of vegetables and herbs. While Curran House has always had planter boxes for resident families to grow herbs, flowers and plants, in May of 2012, TNDC’s Garden Expansion Project launched a renovation of the rooftop garden and installed twelve more planter boxes, and an irrigation system. We also invested in new edible...
read moreResident Spotlight: Brent Paradise
Brent Paradise: living life to the fullest, thanks to TNDC. Photo by Kevin Meynell Mr. Paradise is a resident at the Civic Center Residence, and even though he has only lived there for a little over a year, he credits TNDC and the staff at CCR with greatly improving his quality of life. Brent Paradise moved to San Francisco in 1974. He came to visit for a two-week vacation from South Dakota and never returned. In a matter of days, he found an apartment on Washington Street and a job as a concierge at the Fairmont Hotel. Brent has worked in the...
read moreSumiyati Monoarfa
Sumiyati Monoarfa: paying it forward at the Dalt Hotel. On the last Sunday of every month, at around 4pm, you will find Sumiyati Monoarfa, or Sumi, as the Dalt Hotel tenants call her—serving her homemade soups, beans, and other specialty dishes from the Dalt community kitchen to any tenant who needs a home cooked meal. Sumi, a Dalt Hotel resident since December 2004, noticed a common thread among her fellow tenants that needed addressing: people were hungry, and many didn’t know how to cook, have the implements to do so, or have adequate...
read moreLorenzo Listana
A passionate advocate for change. Lorenzo has been a resident at TNDC’s Curran House since 2005 when he and his children moved from the Philippines to join his wife who was already living in a small apartment South of Market and working in San Francisco. Lorenzo found work at a factory and as a part-time administrative assistant for a local home for children with disabilities. Since then, Lorenzo has become an employee at TNDC and a community leader and advocate for his neighbors in the Tenderloin. Lorenzo started as a part-time employee...
read moreAlicia Roberson and Terri West
A very San Francisco story Alicia Roberson and Terri West manage TNDC buildings and live together as domestic partners in TNDC’s Cameo Apartments at 481 Eddy Street with Terri’s 14-year-old son Shon Hall. Their Tenderloin story began eight years ago when Alicia moved to San Francisco with her son Maurice. “I needed work so I went to the employment program at St. Anthony’s,” she says. “They told me of a TNDC job at the Aarti Hotel (381 Leavenworth) as a desk clerk. I took it and a month later they made me manager. “Later I became...
read moreVeronica Ann Hutch
There’s something special about Veronica Ann Hutch, a 29-year old resident of two years at TNDC’s Cameo Apartments. Maybe it’s her soft-spoken nature or seemingly vulnerable quality. Whatever it is, her drive to grow as a person certainly prevails. Becoming Self-Reliant For Veronica, learning to be independent has been an exercise in conquering tragic circumstances. When she was little, her mother died from a drug overdose. She was later adopted and raised by a grandmother. But at age eighteen, she moved in with her father, a retired...
read moreTanya Chanthavong
Tanya can’t stay away from the Tenderloin She has lived and worked in other places, but for Tanya Chanthavong, 21, the Tenderloin is home. And she loves it. Her parents came from Laos to the US in 1980, the year Tanya was born. The family lived in the Tenderloin where her father ran a video store and her mother worked as a cook. They experienced the language and cultural problems that immigrants usually face, but for Tanya it was a great experience. “It was exciting to grow up here,” she says. “My friends and I played in the street,...
read moreLuisa Escobar
She’s the pride of TNDC You don’t have to be around TNDC very long to hear about Luisa Escobar. Little wonder, since her real life story puts Horatio Alger’s fiction to shame. A few years ago, Luisa lived in a one room TNDC apartment with her El Salvadoran mother and two brothers. Today, at age 20, she is an outstanding history major at UCLA. How did she do it? “It was hard,” she says with passion. “It was really hard on my mother. She makes very little money at Taco Bell. She was always under stress over bills and other things....
read morePerla Orozco
Many children are broken down by the harsh realities of the Tenderloin. Sometimes it’s easy to overlook the ones who excel in spite of the temptations to do otherwise. But Perla Orozco is a child whose achievements demand she be noticed. For the past two years, Perla and her older sister have lived with their mother in TNDC’s Ramona Apartments. But her connection to TNDC began five years ago with her involvement in the Tenderloin After-School Program (TASP). Nuts about Sports A chatty nine-year-old with numerous interests, one thing...
read moreTraci Cox
As he waits on the lobby sofa, Traci Cox is as unassuming in his black and khaki windbreaker as he is charming. Wise beyond his 17 years, his clean-cut looks, boyish grin, and hazel-green eyes reveal an innocence that’s almost deceiving. Appearances mislead as Traci’s story is one that is both heartbreaking and cathartic. There are many stories here in the Tenderloin but not all of them result in such perseverance and triumph. While leaning comfortably back into the cushions, he chats with the desk clerk. No one can suspect he was once...
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