Dear Friends:

Whew! The last three months of the year are always the busiest for TNDC, and the end of 2006 once again saw a whirlwind of activity throughout the organization.

Holiday festivities are an integral part of the TNDC After-School Program (TASP). Close to 100 kids and teens celebrated Halloween this year by creating a haunted house at the Center, and the young ones dressed up for trick-or-treating in TNDC buildings and at Hastings College of Law and Barclays Global Investors. For the holiday season, TASP kids and families enjoyed a catered holiday dinner sponsored by BGI. On a separate day, TNDC held a gift event (highlighted by a visit with Santa), at which over 125 kids received gifts including clothing, toys and games, and sports equipment.

Our Social Work Unit, along with Property Management staff, planned and undertook extensive holiday events, including the annual Food Bag Day and individual community events, at most of our 23 buildings with decorating parties, Halloween parties, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and gift giveaways.  In addition to daily support services, social workers also provided a critical link to organizing activities designed to encourage TNDC tenants to vote and to inform them about California Proposition 1C, the Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act of 2006, which successfully passed in the November election.

Our Housing Development pipeline is full to bursting, with ten developments underway representing nearly a thousand new or preserved homes for seniors, families the working poor, people with disabilities, homeless individuals and families, and others – a reflection of the diversity of the Tenderloin itself. We are especially excited to announce that TNDC is on a path to acquire a 22,000 square foot site at the corner of Eddy and Taylor streets. This strategic location, now a parking lot across the street from our offices, creates an opportunity to construct more than 100 new units of family housing. Also, we just acquired the Turk and Eddy Preservation Properties, two buildings at 249 Eddy and 165 Turk Streets comprising 82 studios for low income seniors. And in March we will acquire 1036 Mission Street, a parking lot on which we will build 78 new construction family units, including 16 for homeless families. 

Construction of our senior housing project, in partnership with Citizens Housing Corporation, is now underway at Polk and Geary – the next time you are driving by, please take a moment to notice the building activity that you help TNDC make possible.

In November, TNDC was thrilled to be the recipient of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce’s “Ebbie” Excellence in Business Award in the Community Builder category. In the words of Chamber President & CEO Steve Falk, “Our Ebbies winners and finalists are companies built by people who are passionate about what they do, who value San Francisco’s diversity, and who have the vision and are willing to take risks.” TNDC is truly honored to be among this year’s awardees.

By all accounts, the 14th annual Celebrity Pool Toss was a marvelous success, netting more that $125,000 for Tenderloin children and families and garnering significant media exposure. And on Monday, December 5, the first annual Home Cookin’ benefit brought together restaurants throughout the Center City of San Francisco for the benefit of the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, contributing 25% of their net proceeds – a delicious way to donate!

We continue to see positive growth of our Board of Directors, recently welcoming new members David Terrazas, a TNDC tenant, and Hala Hijazi, the City’s Project Director overseeing the rehabilitation of the Old Mint Building. In all, nine new Board members have joined our ranks since January 2006.  We also bid fond and grateful farewells to Cort Gross and Miye Goishi, who recently completed their second terms of service.

TNDC has begun the next cycle of strategic planning for 2008-2012. The first steps will be to assess our 2003-2007 plan, clarify TNDC’s organizational values and identify the critical issues to address during the planning process.

Finally, I am proud to announce that TNDC has hired our first full-time Community Organizer. Tomiquia Moss, TNDC’s Social Worker at the West Hotel, will help generate resident involvement in Tenderloin community development efforts.

As TNDC rounds out our celebratory 25th anniversary year, there is much we are grateful for: a remarkably dedicated, skilled staff, an exceptional Board of Directors, and a community that is both horrified at the conditions many Tenderloin residents endure and hopeful for the possibility of change. These past few months, our donors once again opened their hearts to the Tenderloin with surpassingly generous gifts to TNDC’s programs.  It is friends and collaborators like you who inspire us to do and be more for our neighborhood and our city, and we thank you sincerely.

Warmest regards for a happy and prosperous New Year.

Sincerely,

Donald S. Falk
Executive Director