February/March 2017 President’s Column

A new start to the new year! Now is the time to take action in your local community. HVNA just emerged from a membership and community retreat, and the organization has created new resolve to do more good work for Hayes Valley. In our meeting, there was concern about affordability and gentrification. Inclusion, a key word in HVNA’s mission statement, seems at risk, as the neighborhood changes.

We agreed to find ways to involve more of our community by starting or expanding our committees.  Here is a partial list of our goals for the next 2 years:

1. Reach out to others in our community:  new developments with large groups of new residents. Make sure everyone gets the Voice, one way our we speak with each other.
2. Support community artists and their art and expressing Hayes Valley’s history through the arts.
3. Help with homelessness and civil rights
4. Tap into our neighborhood’s network. Reach to neighbors to know what is going on, especially to our young residents just moved here and those who feel isolated.
5. Support our wonderful merchants.
6. Tell our neighborhood’s and neighbors’ stories

And we are moving forward in important ways. If you’d like to be a part of our actions, get involved in our committees:

* Transportation and Planning Committee: reviews new developments, transportation improvements, planning issues, Octavia Boulevard, and affordable housing issues.

* Families and Children: We’ve got new activities planned beginning in February at the Hayes Valley Playground, corner of Hayes and Buchanan.

* Public Safety:  We’ve formed a task force to tackle the complex issue of homelessness. If you’d like to be a part of this task force, contact me.

* Art and Culture:  Finding ways to support our artists

* Events (new):  Planning fun things to do in our neighborhood