Neighborhood Watch Group Forming Near Douglass and 19th Streets

Lance Fulford points at a house where other residents who support his idea of forming a neighborhood watch group live.

By Christine Lias

Longtime Castro resident Lance Fulford said enough was enough when he heard how a couple of hoodlums kicked in a neighbor’s door in broad daylight and made off with a pretty good load.

He decided that after living in the neighborhood since 1991 – having taken part in a tree-planting back then – that it was similarly time to take root once more and start a neighborhood watch group for his block, in the area of Douglass and 19th streets. He called up the nonprofit Safety Awareness For Everyone (SAFE) and got started.

“I have a daughter now, and my mom lives in the apartment downstairs. There’s a lot more kids in the neighborhood now,” Fulford said. “When my neighbor two doors down got broken into, I thought, ‘This shouldn’t be happening in my neighborhood.’ I want a more preventative measure to dissuade the craziness,” which he attributes to a rise in illegal drug use.

Fulford and one other neighbor have formed a “seed group” which will hopefully get the word out to their neighbors on the block and meet this month to discuss goals, record license plate numbers and simply meet each other. If all goes as planned, a police representative should then come out for
a final follow-up session at the third neighborhood watch group meeting.

San Francisco’s SAFE was created more than 30 years ago and jointly works with the SF Police Department to educate and empower neighborhoods on safety issues. The group receives
approximately $590,000 annually as a contract grant from the SFPD for its services.

Executive Director Cindy Brandon said SAFE helps create roughly 50 new neighborhood watch groups a year, but those numbers vary depending on which groups stay together over time.
She pointed out one neighborhood watch group in the Marina District formed a decade ago; the
neighborhood block captain recently called and invited Brandon to an annual block potluck.

“We get calls for neighborhood watch groups from all over the City,” Brandon said. Service requests
range from watch groups to business watch groups to personal safety or residential surveys.

To form a neighborhood watch group, there has to be a basic interest in forming one at the grass-roots level. These neighbors – Fulford and another neighbor formed their seed group – then meet to discuss their goals at a second meeting. SAFE connects them with a police officer at a third meeting. Brandon said it can take four meetings before a bona fide watch group is in place and information is on file.

“Criminals are less likely to do things when they know they can get caught,” Brandon said.
The watch groups, if anything, help the neighbors “form better relations with the police. They keep the neighborhood stronger.”

Fulford said he is concerned in particular for his safety because of him and his partner’s three-year-old daughter.

His neighbor’s house was burglarized, he said, while they were in the middle of renovating it. Fulford heard of another neighbor across the street whose house was similarly hit by thieves who broke in and brought the loot out in garbage bags. (The neighbor in the former theft would not contact the Courier.)

According to the SFPD’s online Crimemaps system, there have been eight cases of vandalism, four vehicle thefts, two assaults, three burglaries, 12 larceny/thefts and one drug offense within 1,000 feet of the Fulford house in the past three months.

For more information on SAFE, visit sfsafe.org.

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