For a printed copy of the 2005 Community Needs Assessment call 415 554-8990.
Setting a precedent for children's services in San Francisco
The Mayor’s Office of Children Youth and Their Families (MOCYF), was created in 1987 by Mayor Art Agnos to promote city policies and to coordinate and improve services to San Francisco’s children and youth. In 1991, in a precedent-setting action, San Francisco voters amended the city charter to create the Children’s Fund (section 16.108). MOCYF was designated by the newly-elected mayor, Frank Jordan, to administer the Fund. In 2000, after Mayor Willie Brown recommended that MOCYF become a city department, the Board of Supervisors passed the necessary legislation to create the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families, better known as DCYF. Assessing the needs of the community. In 2000, voters again supported children by renewing the Children’s Fund. This time the legislation stipulated DCYF as the agency to both administer the Fund and spearhead the city’s overall planning for children’s services through three-year planning cycles. Now in 2005, in the second round of planning, DCYF is required to create a Community Needs Assessment – a three-year framework for the goals and objectives for children and youth services citywide. In 2002, DCYF, the Mayor, and the Board of Supervisors adopted goals for San Francisco’s children and youth:
Children and youth are healthy.
Children and youth are ready to learn and are succeeding in school.
Children and youth live in safe, supported families and safe, supported, viable communities.
Children and youth contribute to the growth, development, and vitality of San Francisco.
This 2005 Community Needs Assessment (CNA) builds on these 2002 goals. In addition, the assessment examines existing data and recommendations on effective services for children, youth, and their families from more than 40 reports completed by city agencies over the past three years. Recommendations for new directions are based on that information, as well as a six-month planning process that included parent and youth surveys, input from public and private service providers, community meetings, and comments from city commissions and the general public. Most of the recommendations in the CNA are directed to the primary public agencies serving children, youth, and their families: DCYF, Department of Public Health, Human Services Agency, Recreation and Park Department, Juvenile Probation Department, San Francisco Unified School District, First 5 San Francisco, Public Library, and the Mayor’s Offices of Community Development and Criminal Justice. The recommendations also relate to more than 300 community-based agencies and child care centers, as well as the broader community of funders, businesses, and civic and other community organizations. Planning is a dynamic process, so the recommendations presented here will inevitably evolve and change. The staff of DCYF presents this assessment with a commitment to an ongoing dialogue about how to best meet the needs of the city’s children, youth, and their families.
San Francisco’s Children: Endangered?
Many San Franciscans can truthfully say, “Our children are doing OK,” because there are children and youth – in all neighborhoods and in all ethnic and socioeconomic groups – who have loving families, are healthy, attend good schools, live in safe homes, and are engaged in creative and supportive out-ofschool activities. These children are enjoying the wonders of San Francisco, hailed by many as the most beautiful city in the world. These children will grow up to have deep roots in the city, to be the leaders, activists, long term residents, parents, and workers of tomorrow’s San Francisco.
But for too many other San Francisco children and their families there is another reality. They are being pushed out of the city. The trend is, and some observers have predicted, that San Francisco will become a city without families raising children.
A city without children has no future. The child population of San Francisco has already declined dramatically, leaving it with the smallest proportion of children living in any city in the country. An astonishing 44 percent of San Francisco parents with children under age six say they are “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to leave within the next three years. These families either can’t afford housing, find their neighborhoods unfriendly to children, fear violence, are disappointed in the educational opportunities available, or feel isolated and unwanted. They just can’t make life work the way they want.
There are also children – perhaps up to 20 percent of the child population – whom the city has simply failed. Their families are in frequent upheaval, suffering chronic financial stress. These children do not have the opportunities and supports that are needed for healthy development. They are likely to have health and behavioral problems, perform poorly in school, and/or enter the juvenile justice or child welfare systems. They are growing up watching friends and family suffer the tragedies of violence, and they live without the joys and discoveries of childhood itself. Ultimately, the solution to the problems confronting these children and youth is less about behavior modification, than it is about expanding and enriching opportunities for all members of the family.
This is a report about San Francisco’s service delivery system for children, youth, and their families. It asks the question: What can we, as a city, do to better address the unmet needs of our children, and make San Francisco a more family-friendly city?
This report addresses changes and improvements needed in the service delivery systems. It does not address many equally significant issues families face regarding employment, public safety, housing, and economics.
The report’s recommendations are aimed at strengthening the city’s human capital – so that children, youth, and their families are able to access and take advantage of the opportunities that Mayor Newsom and the city’s civic leadership are developing to address the quality of life for all San Franciscans.
THE GOOD NEWS. There is much to celebrate about the health and well-being of children living in San Francisco. Maternal and child health indicators have improved.
The infant mortality rate is low at 3.8 percent, well below the statewide average; and immunization rates exceed 80 percent.
Test scores in the public schools are improving. Academic achievement is up for all groups of students including all ethnic groups, English Language Learners, special education, and gifted students. Indeed, San Francisco’s academic performance on statemandated assessments has been among the highest of urban education jurisdictions in the nation.
High-risk behaviors are decreasing. Contrary to popular belief, crimes committed by youth in the city have declined. The number of juvenile felony arrests declined by half over ten years, from 2,477 in 1994 to 1,198 in 2003. Fewer youth engage in highrisk behaviors such as sexual intercourse or carrying weapons to school. In just two years the percentage of youth reporting heavy drinking declined from 13 percent in 2001 to 10 percent in 2003. And, teen parenting rates and repeat births have declined 45 percent and 42 percent, respectively, since 1990.
THE BAD NEWS. Unfortunately, much of this good news is not shared by all segments of the child and youth population.
African American children are the most likely to be institutionalized. The overrepresentation of African American children in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems has been a focus of policy for over twenty years. The Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice estimates that approximately one third of African American males between the ages of 15 and 17 are arrested and placed in the Juvenile Hall each year.10 Sadly, 136 of every 1,000 African American children are in foster care, compared to the statewide average of 39 per 1,000.
Success in school varies significantly by race. Only 17 percent of African American students and 23 percent of Latino students successfully complete the course requirements for admission to the UC and CSU systems, compared to 50 percent of White and 56 percent of Asian students. High school graduation rates show a similar pattern, with 57 percent of African American students and 62 percent of Latino students graduating, compared to 82 percent and 89 percent of Whites and Asians respectively.
While it would appear from the aggregate data and rates of risk factors that Asian/Pacific Islander (API) children fare better than children in other ethnic groups, this is an over-simplification of their status. The Services and Advocacy for Asian Youth Consortium refutes what it calls the “model minority” myth – identifying the challenges that face API youth, particularly those who have experienced hardships in their native countries. API youth have the highest depression rates of any population of youth, and one-third of API youth report being victims of physical violence. The lack of disaggregated data hides the problems of specific ethnicities. For instance, Samoan youth have the second highest arrest rate of any ethnic group in San Francisco.
According to the National Economic Development and Law Center, the annual income required for economic self-sufficiency for a San Francisco family of three (one adult, an infant, and a pre-schooler) was $69,241 in 2003.14 One-third of San Francisco’s families were not able to meet basic needs without public or private assistance.
THE DEMOGRAPHICS. The three most striking demographic features of San Francisco's 112,802 children are their diversity, their small numbers relative to the adult population, and their concentration in low-income neighborhoods. San Francisco has one of the most racially and ethnically diverse populations of children in the country. Thirty-five percent of the city’s births are to immigrant women. Nearly 30 percent of the students in the public schools are English Language Learners (speaking 51 different languages) with more than half of the students in each grade level speaking a language at home other than English.15 Over the past 20 years, the ethnic mix of the city's children has changed as the number of African American and White children declined and the number of Latino and Asian children, many of them immigrants, increased. In the 1990s the city lost over 20 percent of its African American children. Today, 16 percent of the children in Visitacion Valley and just half of those in Bayview-Hunters Point are African American.16 Significantly, the demographics of San Francisco’s children are different from the overall population of the city. San Francisco households without children are predominantly White and have a higher average income than households with children. The neighborhoods of the city most densely populated with families raising children are primarily in the southeast sector – Bayview-Hunters Point, the Mission, Visitacion Valley, Ingleside, and the Excelsior. Thirty percent of the population in Bayview-Hunters Point and nearly one-quarter of the population in Visitacion Valley are under 18 years of age. The percentage of San Francisco children living in poverty is 14 percent compared to just 11 percent of adults. African American and Latino children experience the highest rates of poverty, 36 percent and 18 percent, respectively.17 Yet because of their large population in the city, Asians make up the greatest number of children (approximately 5,000) living in poverty in San Francisco.18 Citywide, one in seven children live with relatives other than a parent.19 The children who call San Francisco home are among the most racially and ethnically diverse populations in the nation. They are also a declining percent of the city’s total population. The proportion of children in San Francisco is smaller than the proportion of children in the state or the nation. Children comprise only 14.5 percent of San Francisco’s population compared to 26 percent of the U.S. population and 27 percent of California’s population. It would appear there is a continuing trend towards fewer children in the city – as both private and public school enrollment as well as the number of births decrease each year. The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) experienced a 5 percent decline in enrollment between the 1999–2000 and 2003–2004 school years. Private schools experienced an 8 percent decline during this same period. In the elementary grades the drop in enrollment ranged from 7 percent to 15 percent in SFUSD and 13 percent to 18 percent in private schools.20 Over the same period of time, San Francisco’s birthrate for women age 15 to 44 declined from 55.3 to 45.7 births per 1,000 women.
The demographic realities of San Francisco’s children boil down to four challenges for the city:
- Addressing changing language and cultural needs
- Shifting locations of services to where children reside
- Keeping children’s issues a high public priority despite their small numbers in the population
- Keeping families in the city
