San Francisco commits $21M to expand street ambassador program

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — San Francisco is allocating $21 million to deploy more street ambassadors throughout the city.

“We are expanding to include a couple key new locations, into SoMa – South of Market, more expansive than we are right now, we are also expanding across commercial corridors anywhere in the city. The third location is in parks citywide. Right now, our ambassadors are at the parks within the Tenderloin but with the new grants we are going to be able to deploy them to any parks,” said Adrienne Bechelli, Deputy Director for Department Emergency Management.

The main goal is still to boost the presence of community ambassadors on city streets but now, they will deploy them deep into neighborhoods that need more help instead of keeping them in one area.

“Some of the things that we have learned over the last six months is that we are now in a place where it’s more impactful for the community to have more flexible and deployable ambassador rather than people in a fixed post on a single street corner,” said Bechelli.

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The funding will be allocated for the fiscal year 2026 to 2027 and distributed within five city nonprofits that deploy the ambassadors deep into problematic areas. One of the groups is Urban Alchemy.

“The model has been working and now there is just more of a citywide approach. There are roaming positions to make sure we are covering more of the areas,” said Jess Montejano with Urban Alchemy.

The city says the ambassadors are crucial as the police department continues to recruit while being short 500 police officers. In September, an ambassador was killed on the job. Still, these jobs are in demand.

“They are not armed. They put their lives on the line every single day and they are armed with training,” said Montejano.

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Glide believes the new approach will be more effective.

“We get to know people; we walk our 30 blocks. This is the 30-block area that we steward, and we walk around we create community we check in with businesses and see if there are challenges on the block and see if folks who are in the community on the sidewalks on streets or the parks need any services. We offer help,” said Donna LaSala, Chief Innovation Officer for Glide.

LaSala points to the change they have seen on their street.

“(In) 2024 just on this block alone, there were about 20-25 tents. You look around and see no tents so the needs on the streets have somewhat changed. The folks on the street now really need extensive case management they have really complex problems that need coordinated care across many life domains,” said LaSala.

Right now, the funding for San Francisco Street ambassadors is set for 18 months. The city said there is option to extend this to five years as way to mitigate the need for more police officers on the streets. Ambassadors provide that presence in case of need.