Services
Listed below are some of the key ongoing services we provide to our shared community. In addition, we also sponsor the popular SF First Thursday Art Walk, the Polk Street Wine Walk, the regular Fern Alley Sidewalk Cinema event, and the Tender Bender Block Party. To learn more about these events and activations, please visit our Projects / Events page.
If you need services, please call our Duty Supervisor at 415.775.1194 or email them at duty@lowerpolkcbd.org.
Outreach
The Lower Polk Community Benefit District outreach team works closely with our Ambassadors and other staff members to identify and reach out to people who are experiencing homelessness. We have formed relationships with numerous community based organizations and believe that homelessness requires an interdisciplinary approach.
Ambassadors
The LPCBD’s Cleaning, Maintenance, and Safety program includes regular sidewalk sweeping, alley cleaning, refuse removal, regularly scheduled steam cleanings, pressure washing, tree pruning and watering, tree well weeding with crushed granite replenishment, and a variety of safety efforts.
Pit Stop
The combined implementation of the staffed JCDecaux Pit Stop and the mobile relief center have caused a large drop in human waste and improperly disposed of needles in the neighborhood.
In their first year of operation, 311 calls were down by 34%. Likewise 311 needle reports in the Lower Polk CBD were down a whopping 58%.
Cigarette Recycling
The Lower Polk Community Benefit District is working with Terracycle to recycle cigarettes. Five cigarette recycling posts were set up along Polk St. Every year, billions of cigarette butts end up in dumpsters and landfills, or get tossed as litter on shorelines, parks, and sidewalks across the US. The waste collected through this program is recycled into a variety of industrial products, such as plastic pallets, and any remaining tobacco is recycled as compost.
Graffiti Removal
Working directly with the City, and using special VOC-safe chemicals and paint, we employ a special graffiti removal team. We re-mediate literally hundreds of instances of graffiti per year.
Dog Waste Stations
The Lower Polk CBD has implemented multiple dog waste stations. Each waste station contains dog poop bags and a special dog waste receptacle. Funded entirely by the Lower Polk Community Benefit district and maintained by its community ambassadors, they have proven so successful that they are being implemented City-wide.