After more than 40 years of working with the Latino community in San Francisco, Santiago Ruiz retired from the organization that became one of the most prolific in Northern California: Mission Neighborhood Centers (MNC, Centros Comunitarios de La Misión).
One of the best-known activists in the Barrio de La Misión, Ruiz’s work dates back to the decade of 1970 when he began to work as a volunteer in the organizations Real Alternative Program (RAP, Real Alternative Program) and Mission Coalition Organization (MCO, Organization of the Coalition of the Mission). There were “civic, community, social justice activities. There were street protests, boycotts to get jobs for the youth, for adults, to get housing … It was there, 45 years ago, that that desire to be an organizer, ”said Ruiz, recalling his beginnings in MNC.
Soon after, Ruiz took over the reins of MNC as its executive director. Today the organization has 230 workers, 60 volunteers and has 13 centers located in predominantly Latin American neighborhoods such as La Misión, Excélsior, Bahía de La Misión (Mission Bay) and Bayview Hunters Point. In the latter, MNC and other organizations have opened a center for attention against covid – 19, offering diagnostic tests for the virus, food, counseling for housing and unemployment and a learning center.
MNC continues with the same mission since its founding: to provide preschool care programs, an outstanding program for the elderly and projects for at-risk youth. “The idea is that young people mature, that they have an experience of development, leadership… If they are going through a crisis, with their family, at school or in the neighborhood, our counselors who help them develop the necessary tactics so that know how to deal with these situations, ”said Ruiz.
One of the young women who received support from the MNC programs years ago was Gladys Escobar. Now, for 16 years, Escobar has worked in the youth support program as a case manager. “I was a teenager at risk … We help boys who are in trouble, those who need support in anything, work, against drugs and helping them to see their children … We help the family who shot one of your children, we help with trauma. Santiago Ruiz met me when I was young. He helped me a lot. I have a lot of respect and love for Sam ”, said Escobar.
The housing crisis generated big protests in 2018 – 19, when residents of La Misión and other popular neighborhoods decided to take their problems to the municipality itself. Ruiz recalls that several of the organizations created over the years 70 (Mission Neighthood Health Center, Mission Housing Development Corporation, Mission Economic Development Agency) today grow and develop proposing creative solutions to this crisis that still lasts. “These organizations have had a significant impact” because the lack of housing represents “the greatest crisis that our working community has suffered, a low-income community,” said Ruiz.
Perhaps one of the contributions Ruiz’s most important asset to the Sanfranciscan community, his legacy, has been the use of the process called ‘Land Bank’, which is obtaining land and properties for community use. Together with the municipality and private foundations, properties and abandoned land are acquired to stabilize neighborhoods and build affordable housing. To some extent, this system demolishes the capitalist “mantra” that house prices are exclusively controlled by the market.
And this is already beginning to bear fruit, says Ruiz proudly. In the 3001 of the street 24, next to Mercy Housing, will be built 45 Housing units for the elderly who have previously been evicted from their homes.
Another project already completed is the Casa de La Misión: with five floors, this project is offering 45 affordable apartments for seniors.
The examples are many and varied. In the 1240 of Calle Valencia “we bought that property with the same dream.” There was the police station of La Misión and now it will be a preschool for 80 children and in the future they will build 61 housing units. “Imagine the message that one is sending: converting a property that served to oppress the people and now frees the mind of the creatures. That beauty!” Ruiz exclaimed.
The intricate Land Banking and the formation of alliances and cooperatives are not easy processes and Ruiz has handled them wisely. And that has been his great legacy at Mission Neighborhood Centers: a champion of community development, an agent of change to improve “the well-being of our people.” “I have been a person of community principles. I have fought for change, not to maintain the status quo. If there is no change, there is no improvement. ”
“ Mr. Ruiz can be in five places at the same time, ”said the new executive director of the MNC, Richard Ybarra, a Latino leader for whom the social struggle has been a family inheritance. His grandfather was an assistant to Pancho Villa and fought in the Mexican Revolution. “He was injured and that’s how he met my grandmother in Nogales, Sonora. In San Diego, at the time of the 30, he worked as a peasant and organized strikes, ”recalled Ybarra, who also worked and traveled for four years with César Chávez as his personal assistant.
“All the tasks of the organization are my priority. We are the hardest working people in this country and without our workforce the economy of this country does not exist ”. Ybarra and MNC are part of the Latino Task Force, a consortium of organizations that has begun to meet frequently in San Francisco. “We are working together to advance an agenda for all the people. That is the priority. Keep looking for a way to unite even more. There is power, ”Ybarra concluded.
Santiago Ruiz said that he will take a long and well-deserved vacation in his native country, El Salvador. “If I’m going to miss something, it will be that closeness that I had with our clients. The experience that I had was one that instilled in me to respect the right to claim the government because we are the government itself. If you don’t claim, you don’t receive. Final point”.