A home is a foundation. But for people to truly thrive, they need more than a place to live. They need connection, opportunity, support—and a voice in the communities they call home.
That’s where TNDC’s Community Organizing Team comes in.
We recently sat down with Desira Brown, a member of TNDC’s Community Organizing Team, to learn more about the Leadership Academy she leads for TNDC residents. The 12-week program has brought together two cohorts of Tenderloin residents, followed by a new cohort in SOMA.
For Desira, the Leadership Academy is about much more than teaching organizing skills. It’s about helping residents recognize the power they already have—and giving them the tools to use it.
Watch Desira explain how the Leadership Academy brings neighbors together and gives residents the tools to advocate for themselves and their communities.
The Academy teaches practical skills like tabling, phone banking and canvassing. Participants also learn about budget advocacy and have opportunities to bring their voices directly to City Hall through legislative office visits.
But the goal isn't for TNDC’s Community Organizing Team to become the voice of the community. Quite the opposite.
“Nobody knows what community needs better than community,” Desira says.
The role of a community organizer, she explains, is to create the conditions for residents to identify what matters to them and then build the skills and confidence to act on it. And one of the most powerful tools they bring to that work is something every resident already possesses: their own lived experience.
In the next video, Desira talks about why lived experience can be one of the most powerful tools for creating leadership and change.
There is a difference between doing something for a community and helping people build the power to do it themselves.
That distinction is at the heart of TNDC’s approach to community organizing. Residents aren't simply recipients of services. They are neighbors, advocates, leaders and experts in their own lives.
And when residents have the opportunity to connect with one another, something else becomes visible—something that can easily get lost in the way San Francisco neighborhoods are sometimes portrayed from the outside.
The Tenderloin, for example, is often described through the problems it faces: a drug market, a food desert, a neighborhood in crisis. Those challenges are real. But they are not the whole story.
When organizers tap into the community itself, Desira says, another picture emerges.
Watch Desira talk about what happens when we look at the Tenderloin through the eyes of the people who live there.
What Desira sees is a community where people show up for one another.
It happens in ways that don't always make headlines: neighbors checking on neighbors, residents staying in communication, and people in SRO buildings looking out for one another. It happens through peer organizing and the relationships that develop when residents realize they don't have to face challenges alone.
Community organizing helps make those connections visible—and helps turn them into a source of leadership and power.
It also reminds us of something important: a neighborhood is more than the problems it faces. It is the people who live there.
At TNDC, we believe affordable housing is only the beginning. Our work extends beyond providing a home because thriving communities require more than housing alone. They need after-school programs that give young people opportunities to succeed. They need social workers who can help residents navigate challenges and connect with resources. And they need community organizing that helps residents build relationships, advocate for themselves and shape the future of their neighborhoods.
TNDC is more than affordable housing. You can support the work of the TNDC Community Organizing Team by donating to TNDC or by attending the TNDC Pool Toss, a zany fundraiser dedicated to supporting all the TNDC programs that help residents turn housing into a home.
Visit our Pool Toss event page for tickets and information.
