Forming a Neighborhood Watch with Your Neighbors
San Francisco is seeing a significant increase in residents organizing neighborhood watch groups. Forming a neighborhood watch is a great way to deter crime in your community and connect with your neighbors. Additionally, since these groups are organized on a block-by-block basis and managed entirely by neighbors, each group can set forth their own values and principles to determine how best to make their neighborhood safer.
Read below for details on how you can form a neighborhood watch group on your own block.
Burglaries
As we previously shared, San Francisco generally and Park District specifically have seen a significant increase in residential burglaries in 2020 and 2021 (Park District includes, among other neighborhoods, Haight-Ashbury, Cole Valley and Ashbury Heights). According to a recent poll, residents have become increasingly worried and frustrated: (i) 8 in 10 residents think crime has gotten worse over the years; and (ii) by a 3:1 margin, residents want more police and expanded community policing. Further exasperating this issue is the fact that the San Francisco Police Department is severely understaffed, potentially short 533 officers by next year and severely diminished new recruit classes.
In response to this climate, some neighborhoods have hired their own security patrols or created entire websites dedicated to burglary prevention. Neighbors have also implemented simpler solutions, such as fortifying their homes, installing security systems and forming neighborhood watch groups.
Over the course of the year, Hansen and his neighbors acknowledged that property crime is inevitable in San Francisco. They began fortifying their homes with surveillance cameras, fake TVs and timed lights, while also trimming back trees and removing retractable cords from garages.
“Police gave us some ideas about how to improve not just our house, but the whole block,” Hansen said. “The basic message that they have is, ‘If your block is anti-theft, they will go to another block.” — San Francisco Chronicle, November 5, 2021
A 2008 U.S. Justice Department meta-analysis, “Does Neighborhood Watch Reduce Crime?”, found that neighborhood watch groups were associated with a “significant reduction in crime.” On average, there was a 16% decrease in crime in neighborhood watch communities when compared with control areas.
As a result of connecting with neighbors, these groups frequently find themselves better organized to pursue other projects outside the scope of crime prevention, such as organizing tree plantings and sidewalk gardens, block parties, garage sales and neighborhood emergency preparedness plans, as well as organizing events to clean up local parks, streets or graffiti. It’s incredible how much can be accomplished when neighbors come together!
Forming a Neighborhood Watch Group
SF SAFE, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation, oversees San Francisco’s Neighborhood Watch Program. Below is an overview of how you can form a neighborhood watch and this guide provides more detailed information.
- Submit a Service Request Form to SF SAFE requesting to form a neighborhood watch group. There is no fee associated with creating a neighborhood watch. To complete the form, you will need to know your SFPD district (Park) and your San Francisco district (District 5).
- While awaiting a response from SF SAFE, talk to the neighbors on your block to see who’s interested in joining. You do not need every neighbor’s participation to form a group — you only need half of the households on your block or approximately 10 households to join.
- Your block’s neighbors must attend four (4) meetings with SF SAFE (typically in a garage or backyard), where they will discuss your goals and how best to achieve them, such as:
-security system recommendations;
-best practices for home fortification; and
-resources for neighbors. - After four (4) meetings, the city will formally register your group and install neighborhood watch signs on your block.
Additionally, here are a few tips for navigating the formation process:
- Starting a group isn’t difficult, but it does take a little bit of work and some mild organizational skill.
- Unfortunately, it’s currently taking some neighbors several months to complete all four (4) meetings as SF SAFE is a small team with significant demand from the city. Don’t be deterred or give up! Once your block completes SF SAFE’s formation meeting requirements, your block will receive a neighborhood watch sign that alerts everyone to the fact that your block is organized against crime.
- The key to success is identifying a block leader (or two) who is willing to organize and be the central point of contact for the group, preferably someone with basic online organizational skills.
- You can begin alerting neighbors of your plans to start a neighborhood watch group via emails, flyers, social media and in-person word-of-mouth.
- It’s possible that not all neighbors will participate, and that’s okay. If neighbors decline, just move on. Start small and grow.
- Want to get in touch with SF SAFE more quickly? Contact the organization at info@sfsafe.org or 415–553–1984.
- For more tips and ideas, watch the below video featuring experienced neighbors who have successfully started neighborhood safety/watch groups in the Richmond District.
Neighborhood watch groups are a powerful way to proactively keep you, your family and your neighbors safer from criminals. Form your neighborhood watch TODAY.
November 7, 2021 Update (Shootings in Haight-Ashbury)
This post was conceived and written before the recent spate of shootings along the Haight Street corridor: Haight & Central (October 22), Haight & Buchanan (October 23) and Haight & Masonic (November 4). Neighborhood residents are understandably rattled and fearful for their safety.
Although the primary intent of this post was to encourage neighbors to form neighborhood watch programs to prevent burglaries, it felt tone deaf not to acknowledge the seriousness of these shootings. It is indeed a sad time for our community when we now need to consider whether neighborhood watch programs help deter gun violence (or help deter criminal activity that can later lead to gun violence).
There has been a great deal of media coverage on the recent shooting, and each seems to contain multiple statements from residents commenting that Haight Street is in a period of decline on multiple fronts (shopping activity, drug use/dealing, auto- and home-burglaries, homelessness, quality of life crimes, etc.).
Although Supervisor Dean Preston is the elected representative to whom residents would typically make pleas for increased police presence, we are cognizant that such requests might not be well received given the supervisor’s statements on crime (“Defunding police. Prison abolition…They should not be controversial, but they are. Incrementalism won’t get us there.” and creating a non-police crime unit “to patrol the streets unarmed…[ where the] patrols would ask the thieves to stop.”). As the Chronicle reported, “Supervisor Dean Preston was the sole dissenting vote against the budget, saying it failed to reduce police funding.” Supervisor Preston’s party, the Democratic Socialists of America SF, also recently said “Police do not make us safer…Dean understands this.”
Nevertheless, we still encourage everyone to contact your government officials (including Supervisor Preston) and share your concerns:
