Code Tenderloin

Code Tenderloin is committed to solving the growing problem of homelessness in our city. Our idea of a solution to homelessness is centered on employment.

“A lot of people want to stick it on mental illness, which is a part of it,” Seymour said in an interview. “They stick it on social issues, and that’s a part of it. They stick it on criminal background, and that’s a part of it. But the real deal is employment. ... You cannot go and rent a decent home without employment. You have to pay for that house.”

The COVID-19 crisis and subsequent economic fallout is a global catastrophe. Code Tenderloin has created a social impact model that lifts individuals up one person and one job at a time.

In 2019 The San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing counted 9,784 homeless in San Francisco; an increase of more than 30% over the 2017 count. But that number has grown exponentially in just the last 3 months during the COVID-19 lockdown. Our founder, Del Seymour is quick to point out that the factors contributing to this problem are all connected.

On May 8th 2020, Code Tenderloin Founder sat down and for an interview with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey:

“We have also tripled our population of unhoused folks in the last month… 

We have over a thousand tents in the Tenderloin right now… It looks like Yosemite…

The thing to remember is this is only one epidemic that our neighborhood has experienced...

Our first epidemic is homelessness

Our second is drug abuse…

Number 3 is mental illness…

This (COVID-19) is just another virus that affected our community and our world!”

Code Tenderloin provides empowerment, dignity, and opportunity by removing barriers that keep marginalized and underrepresented people from securing long-term employment. Code Tenderloin provides intense job readiness and workforce development programs serving those who need it most. 

Since 2015, Code Tenderloin has helped hundreds of folks move up to the next level of living — gain a community, become housed, stay out of prison, and realize they can get a job or career. 

Our Job Readiness Program provides employment skills training.  This is one of our most crucial offerings. Our Code Ramp and Code Ramp + Programs offer basic and advanced coding skills to the city's homeless, formerly incarcerated, and disenfranchised populations. Our participants have landed jobs with a select few gaining employment in the tech industry. 

We’ve recently expanded our programming to include a free course to become a Community Health Worker leading to an entry level position with Downtown Streets. In response to the Covid-19 crisis, we have just started the Calming Corners Program, where our staff and volunteers host “pop-ups” at street corners to provide hygiene kits and referrals for available shelter beds and medical care.

Before COVID-19, the scale of homelessness in San Francisco was crisis level. Now, it has become exponentially worse. Experts have predicted that the economic upheaval resulting from COVID-19 and the related shutdowns may increase U.S. unemployment to up to 25%.  The people in our city that will be the hardest hit are and will be people of color and other marginalized communities. 

The COVID-19 crisis has shed light on issues of our failing health care system, disparity of wealth and systemic racism that have always existed in our country. Code Tenderloin is on the front lines to solve these problems. 

The proven impact of our programming can be seen in the participants and their lives after they graduate; they’re getting jobs and beginning careers. Code TL’s recognizes the power of employment to solve larger problems in our community. The ability to find work and stay employed not only changes a participant's life, but the lives of their kids.

 “Code Tenderloin is a medical term,” Code Tenderloin Founder Del Seymour said. “Our African American population is facing a 68 percent unemployment rate. That’s code… We’re dying.”

Code Tenderloin’s programs help remove barriers, such as: a lack of soft or technical job skills, education, childcare, transportation, access to resources, and other obstacles that have hindered people from attaining long‐term self-sufficiency. All of our free programs remove additional financial barriers as well.

The 2011 so-called Twitter tax break brought thousands of well-paid tech jobs to the mid-Market area and cemented San Francisco’s reputation as the vertiginous epicenter of income inequality.

Where protesters saw greed and gentrification, Del Seymour saw opportunity. The compelling need to bring jobs to the Tenderloin, a 31-block area of dense poverty and unsheltered drug use, was brought home when he encountered a woman he used to sell drugs with on the street corner. “‘What are you telling these white folks about us?’” she asked. “‘I tell them we’re no different than them. We have to buy Pampers to put on our babies’ butts just like they do.’”

Since 2015 Code Tenderloin has worked to create a bridge between our most at-risk residents and the tech industry. Staff from Salesforce,Twitter, AirB&B and Dolby come to our Job Readiness and Code Ramp classes to talk with our students about how to get work in the tech field. Our students do regular “tech tours” at companies in our neighborhood. Executives from Dolby and Salesforce are on our Board of Directors. We have an 87% job placement rate, with a select few of our students getting high paying jobs in the tech industry.

Del Seymour explained during a recent TedTalk that “the only difference between the girl on the street corner selling dope, and the person working at Twitter, is that one of them knows how to code… When you give one person in our community the skills to get off the corner and find gainful employment - find a career - you not only change that person’s life - you change the lives of their kids.”

Code Tenderloin’s Job Readiness Program (JRP) provides employment skills training. By improving self-perception and demystifying the modern workplace, we’re changing lives for the better. We prepare, nurture, and give each program participant the confidence to enter the workforce for long-term employment. Code T’s Code Ramp program teaches Java Script, Python and HTLM, and provides opportunities for Coding Bootcamps like Code The Dream. The workforce has changed and so has job seeking. It continues to evolve during this tumultuous period of the COVID-19 crisis, with more business and work being done online. Code TL is already ahead of the curve to help African American and other underserved communities to get training and  become a part of this changing work landscape. 

Our greatest impact is also our greatest pride - our graduates. 

David Brooks, 32, lived in his car for 6 years. Mr. Brooks hurtled through classes at Code Tenderloin, held at the campuses of Uber and LinkedIn. Code Tenderloin helped him navigate a state grant for an additional $17,980 boot camp. He now is a paid intern at AirBnB.

Lionel Vital, 30, a former Twitter engineer working on a start-up, teaches advanced coding classes and mentors students like Daaimah Tibrey, 27, a single mother. Ms. Tibrey lived in her car and then in a shelter with her newborn and 5-year-old, holding down two jobs.

Ms. Tibrey is now a software engineer for SurveyMonkey, a company she was drawn to for its family-friendly policies, she said.

The experience has been equally powerful for Mr. Vital, a Stanford management science and engineering graduate and the son of Filipino immigrants. “Sitting in front of a computer screen for a decade can get you a little bit jaded and out of the loop,” he said. “Seeing how hard people like Daaimah worked has inspired me to work harder and not take anything for granted.

The overarching goal of all these programs is removing barriers and access. We strive to make these resources easily accessible to the residents in our neighborhood. The indirect impact of these programs is to uplift our participants and, in turn, their families and communities. The services described help remove barriers, such as: a lack of soft or technical job skills, academic skills, childcare, transportation, access to resources, and other obstacles that have hindered people from attaining long‐term self-sufficiency. Many of our participants are homeless or under-housed youth, have incarcerated parents, underperform or are disconnected from school, are exposed to violence, abuse or trauma, or have mild to severe mental and behavioral health challenges. All of our programs are free of cost, which helps prevent participants from self-selecting out of services due to a lack of financial resources. 

This wrap-around approach enables us to provide alternative pathways to hope and self-esteem, independence, and long-term employment. We help our participants to create pathways to job opportunities that lead to a fulfilling career and living wages. We do this by adopting a social impact model that guides our students towards middle and high‐skilled employment, but also prepares them for transitional employment as a way to build professional experiences.

Between our Job Readiness Program, Code Ramp and Advanced Programming classes and other services, we currently serve between 300 to 350 participants a year.We will likely be serving approximately 400-450 people in the next year. We are in the midst of expanding our services and staff. Our conservative estimates are that we will be serving between 2,000 to 2,500 people in the next 5 years.

For 2020 we are projected to be running at an operating budget of $1,000,000. Our goal is to ensure that we have a successor for our founder, Del Seymour. Donna Hilliard, who is currently acting as Co-Executive Director, has been working closely with Del to transition into the Executive Director position. This will give Del Seymour more time to work on fundraising and building more partnerships.

For 2020 we have hired 3 new employees who will support our increased need to manage a growing number of program participants. This includes a Job Placement Developer who works directly with Hiring Agencies and Human Resource staff at numerous companies. We have also hired a Case Manager to allow for more one-on-one work with our participants. This will enable our organization to operate more efficiently and allow our staff to be more effective in their duties. We will also be expanding our Salesforce CRM platform in order to manage our grants and client data more effectively. 

We have also expanded our programming to include a Community Health Worker Program and Neighborhood Ambassador Program where participants table “pop-ups” on street corners to provide referral services to our community members. 

We have a goal to double our annual budget by 2023.

Our biggest challenge is the economic fallout from the COVID-19 crisis. COVID-19 has revealed the  long-standing problems of homelessness, income inequality, health care disparities and systemic racism that have existed in our country for a long time, and made the problems on our street corners exponentially worse. Although there is currently a Moratorium on Evictions in San Francisco, while so many people are being laid off from entry level jobs, no provision has been made when that Moratorium has been lifted and landlords start asking renters for 3 and 4 months back rent. We are looking at an unprecedented level of unemployment and homelessness in our city and our country in the next 6 months. We need more staff and more funding to address both the immediate and long-term crisis that has been happening in our city.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, our doors have remained open. We immediately set up a Calming Corners Program to set up tables on our street corners. Our “Care Ambassadors” (hired from our neighborhood) have been handing out hygiene kits, food and referrals to housing, medical care and jobs placements. In May, we reopened our classes online and have enabled computer access to our participants to apply for housing and jobs. Our Calming Corners Program has now become part of our regular programming. We have also modified our job readiness curriculum to help people find immediate employment and housing services.

Code Tenderloin is currently being fiscally sponsored by Independent Arts and Media. We are in the process of getting our own non-profit (501c3) status.

We currently have 3 full-time and 3 part-time staff and 2 contract workers. We also have a large network of volunteers that is managed by our Board of Directors.

Code TL leadership include: Del Seymour, the Founder of Code TL, an African American Vietnam veteran who was chronically homeless and incarcerated for 18 years. He founded Code TL in 2015 and is co-chair of San Francisco’s Local Homeless Coordinating Board. Donna Hilliard, Executive Director of Code TL, has over 20 years experience working in Sales for companies like Gap Inc, Liz Claiborne, and Sears Roebuck, and more recently with Yelp and Samsung. In her youth, Donna experienced group homes and juvenile detention and was eventually incarcerated. She survived and her passion has led her to give back to her communities. Justin DeMarta - Lead Instructor for Code TL’s JRP. Justin has taught 5 Job Readiness Classes and is currently in the process of expanding the JRP to an online format to make JRP accessible to more participants and more applicable in our post COVID job market. 

Many of our staff are themselves recipients of our programs. Our staff have experienced poverty, incarceration, unemployment and homelessness. We bring our lived experience to the work we do. Our staff also have a diverse background in community organizing, creative activism, education, health, juvenile justice and working with and for youth in a manner that is culturally relevant and competent. This “cultural competency” informs the totality of our work and our passion and this gives us credibility with participants we serve, as well as with the larger government and tech industries.

Our dozens of community partnerships include: 

• The Office of Workforce Employment and Development

• Downtown Streets Team

• Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development

• Glide Memorial Church

• St. Anthony’s Foundation

• Booker T. Washington Community Service Center

• Swords to Plowshares

• Better Market Street Project

• Tenderloin Museum

Many of our community partners provide vital services such as food, medical referrals and housing for our participants. 

Our partnerships with Tech companies include: 

• Uber

• Salesforce

• Microsoft

• LinkedIn

• Twitter

• Dolby

• ZenDesk

• Goodwill

• Argonaut

Many of our “Tech partners” host “tech visits” where our students visit the facility and speak with programmers. Our “tech partners” also have volunteers come to our classes to assist with resume building, mock interviews and one-on-one consultations. Goodwill, Uber and Twitter also host several of our classes and graduations at their buildings.

Code Tenderloin (Code TL) is a workforce development organization providing free programming for the homeless, formerly incarcerated, and people living below the poverty level in San Francisco. We provide job skills training, computer programming, networking opportunities and resources for our participants.

Some of the activities that happen in our JRP are: writing a resume, using Google Docs and Google Drive, dealing with gaps in employment and criminal background challenges, financial literacy, credit management, background checks, the “30 second Elevator Pitch”, and mock job interviews. Participants also attend “tech visits” to companies like Salesforce and Twitter to network with professionals in the tech industry.

Our programs build a bridge between low-income residents and the tech industry in the Bay Area. Since 2015, Code TL has developed lasting relationships with numerous companies including Salesforce, Dolby, Uber, Twitter, Airbnb and many others

“When you give one person in our community the skills to get off the corner and find gainful employment - find a career - you not only change that person’s life - you change the lives of their kids.” - Del Seymour, Code TL Founder

A third of our funding currently comes from our city government. The rest of our funding comes overwhelmingly from support from our corporate tech partners. We also receive substantial in-kind donations of laptops and computers from local companies. Our Board of Directors organizes an annual fundraiser, where we have been actively building our individual donor base. Much of our fundraising efforts right now have been focused on getting funds for our Critical Response efforts around the COVID-19 crisis and our strategies to remove barriers to housing and employment.

We are actively reaching out to a wider range of funders and partners outside of our area to gain insight and support for our programming. We are eager to bring our thoughts to a larger conversation and want to hear the ideas of others.

On March 22nd, we were featured in the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...

We believe the success of our programming shows that our social impact model can be used to address systemic problems around homelessness, income inequality and racism in other cities outside of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Beginning in 2019, we’ve begun holding 2 major fundraisers per year to support current programs. These fundraisers will provide unrestricted funds for our general operations budget. We will continue our work reaching out to corporations and tech companies in San Francisco, who have provided  funding, in-kind donations, work space and valuable networking opportunities. The relationships with these companies have become an integral part of our Job Readiness and Code Ramp programs.

Code Tenderloin‘s Board of Directors has expanded to include diverse members working in corporate, tech and social justice areas. Our Fundraising Team, which consists of Board members, volunteers and the Marketing firm Argonaut, will focus on smaller board hosted fundraising events.

As we begin expanding our programming and staff, we are looking for new ways to build and transition into the next phase of our organization.

We are actively looking to partner with new tech companies located outside the Bay Area and to become involved in the conversations with MIT faculty and Solve Members.

We will use these funds to expand our Job Readiness Program to areas outside of the San Francisco city limits. Over the last 10 years, a large segment of low-income residents (including many African Americans and other people of color) have left the city because of skyrocketing rents. Many of these individuals commute to work in the city. We are interested in reaching and helping individuals in the larger Bay Area.