By Natalia Gurevich | Examiner staff writer |
Dec 1, 2024 Updated Dec 2, 2024
Del Seymour, founder of Code Tenderloin, often sits by the office window to observe who might need help as they walk by at 55 Taylor Street in San Francisco on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024.
Del Seymour says San Francisco remains “the craziest place” he has been in his life, but he strikes a much different tone about the Tenderloin.
A Chicago native who said he prefers Southern California, Seymour spent 18 years living on the neighborhood’s streets and dealing drugs. He first came to the Tenderloin in 1986.
“I call this the breakout neighborhood,” he said, meaning that if he was smoking his last cigarette and someone came and asked him for one, he’d break it in half and give it to them. “We help each other, we love on each other.”
Seymour said he thinks no other neighborhood in the world displays this level of compassion among its residents, because most everyone who lives there “has been there before” — homeless, on drugs, or just down on their luck.
“So when we see a neighbor in need, we know where he or she is at,” he said.
It’s this dedication to the Tenderloin that led him to found the Tenderloin Walking Tours 17 years ago, which morphed into Code Tenderloin in 2015. The neighborhood nonprofit provides job training and opportunities for homeless residents, among other services and resources.
Seymour, who is also the co-chair of San Francisco’s Local Homeless Coordinating Board, has become a well-known advocate for his adopted neighborhood and its inhabitants. He has long argued the Tenderloin’s residents are the most underserved in The City, and he attempts to bridge that gap by linking education, job opportunities, housing, and other resources to those living in the neighborhood struggling with homelessness, substance-use issues, mental health and other challenges, earning himself the nickname, “Mayor of the Tenderloin.”
Neighborhood has Code Tenderloin founder’s heart — even if SF doesn’t
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