CCDC
"Luck befell the family in 1993. They burst into cheers when they were offered a three-bedroom unit at Chinatown CDC’s Tenderloin Family Apartments. “We were so happy. The building is beautiful and the room is good. My granddaughters have their own room," said Felicidad Afenir, Tenant at Tenderloin Family Apartments. (Read more)

Chinatown Alleyway Tours (CATS)

Chinatown Alleyway Tours Program (CATS), created in 2001, is a youth-led and youth-developed program providing tours through Chinatown’s many alleyways. The tours include a history of Chinatown and seek to dispel the one-dimensional image that people often have of Chinatown and the APA community. In developing the tours, youth leaders conducted oral history and academic research, wrote a 90-minute script and training manual, and designed the tour route. The youth lead tours to other youth programs, schools, individuals and families, and non-profit organizations. For more information, please check out: http://www.chinatownalleywaytours.org

Our program addresses the lack of support programs, leadership development and after-school activities for students that help keep our youth in school and encourage post-secondary education. Our youth are predominantly from immigrant, bilingual and low-income family backgrounds.

Our program appears as “Best Kids in the Alley” in the Best of the Bay Guardian: http://www.sfbg.com/bob/2008/city.php


BEST KIDS IN THE ALLEY

Owing to an unfortunate blip in city zoning laws, alleyways less than 32 feet wide don't count as — or get spruced up as — streets, and for years Chinatown's alleys were dark, dirty, and dangerous. Enter Adopt-an-Alleyway, whose youthful volunteers, all from local high schools and colleges, beautify and monitor the neighborhood's walkways, issuing regular 'alleyway report cards' to the local press. AAA also runs the Chinatown Alleyway Walking Tour, which squires you along the back streets under the guidance of locals aged 16 through 23. You'll get a dose of sightseeing and some interesting nuggets of history — such as the fact that Waverly Place was once known as Fifteen-Cent Lane because of its multiplicity of cheap, queue-braiding barbers, and that Spofford Alley was home to Sun Yat-sen's secret revolutionary headquarters. You'll also get honest opinions about an aging neighborhood from young people interested in civil rights and housing issues, and who provide an emotional connection and a real sense of place to tourists, of all people. You may, however, also get a good-natured lecture on litter (meddling kids).