Expanding Safety in SOMA West: Community-Based Patrols in the Alleys

When SOMA West Community Benefit District launched its Safety Ambassador Program in November 2024, the vision was always a layered one — combining licensed security professionals with people who know this neighborhood. This spring, we're proud to share that the community-based side of that program has grown significantly with Safety Ambassadors now patrolling a broader stretch of SOMA West's most vulnerable corridors.

SOMA West’s Safety Ambassadors through United Playaz are not security guards. They are community members who use relationship-based intervention, de-escalation, and street outreach – a fundamentally different role than the 24/7 licensed coverage ASPIS provides across the District. Where ASPIS responds, Safety Ambassadors build. 

What's New: Expanded Routes into the Alleyways

The Safety Ambassadors began their SOMA West deployment with a narrow focus on the alleyways immediately surrounding the United Playaz Russ Street headquarters. The results on those blocks spoke for themselves. With new funding support, SWCBD has expanded their patrol zone significantly. Ambassadors now cover Minna and Natoma off 6th Street on our eastern border, and Harriet, Howard, and Russ down to Folsom.

These streets, part of San Francisco's SoMa Youth and Family Special Use District, are residential corridors where children play, longtime tenants live, and conditions had deteriorated in ways that felt both urgent and overlooked. The expansion of patrols into these alleys directly reflects that designation: safety programming that matches the character and needs of the people who live there.

How the Patrols Work

Safety Ambassadors operate across two daily shifts—8 AM to 4:30 PM and 3:30 PM to 11 PM—with deployment concentrated during the hours that research and on-the-ground experience show have the highest impact. Ambassadors follow designated patrol routes and stay in the field late into the evening. SWCBD directly manages the program to ensure a concerted effort between the Safety Ambassador team, ASPIS, and the Clean Team. 

On their routes, ambassadors actively connect unhoused individuals with services and document conditions for follow-up. In February alone, Safety Ambassadors removed 75 instances of human waste from the alleyways — an unglamorous but telling measure of ground-level work.