Media

“Who are the Children of the Tenderloin?  The 3,500 children who live in the Tenderloin have come from across the United States and around the world.  The one thing that these diverse children have in common is that their families are low-income…  From its quiet beginnings, to its honky tonk period in the late 1800’s, and now to its family era, the Tenderloin has a rich history…”  This is the introduction to BAWCC’s first award-winning book, Children of the Tenderloin, written by Vibha Lal Vasi and photographs by Nita Winter.

Very soon after BAWCC opened, we realized that we needed to expand the focus of our work.  One focus area of our work was, and always will be, low-income women, but we quickly expanded our programs and advocacy to also focus on children and families.  Since the early 1980s, families with young children have moved into the mostly single rooms in the Tenderloin community. In those early years, unless you lived or worked in the Tenderloin, you may not have been aware that there were thousands of families moving in and calling the Tenderloin “home”.

BAWCC’s second award-winning book, Home of the Brave: Profiles in Words and Pictures of Bay Area Homeless Families, written by Stephanie Salter and photographs by Tom Levy and Nancy Palmieri, also raises the issues of children and their families.  In this case, we focused the book on homeless families in San Francisco.

BAWCC’s publications raise awareness of these children and the issues they and their families face.  For copies of these, or other BAWCC publications, please contact the Center.