For the past year, SOMCAN’s Youth Organizing for Home and Neighborhood Action (YOHANA) has been leading a campaign around pedestrian and night safety, in response to young people and families feeling unsafe while walking around in their own neighborhood.

The Excelsior district is one of the last remaining neighborhoods in San Francisco that has a large concentration of working-class Filipino and Latino families. Despite the current challenges of gentrification and displacement, there are ways to mitigate these ongoing threats and stabilize vulnerable populations.

The Gran Oriente Filipino Hotel, first established as a fraternal lodge allowing early Filipino immigrants in the 1920s to exercise their agency, is now a permanent affordable housing site in San Francisco.

As SOMCAN's Workers Organizer, Kiko's role will be to counsel workers, educate and inform them on their rights, and connect them with the appropriate resources and supportive services.