In 2019, five organizations founded the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice (CCSJ) — Chinese for Affirmative Action, Chinatown Community Development Center, Chinese Progressive Association, Community Youth Center, and New Breath Foundation. CCSJ focuses on long-standing safety issues within the Asian American and Pacific Islander (API) community and works to address and prevent violence, racism, and xenophobia. It identifies and develops community-centered programmatic solutions to mitigate violence and hate across all communities of color. CCSJ recognizes that carceral solutions are not the most effective way to resolve violence. Community building and cross-racial dialogue are necessary to prevent violence at the root source and yield sustainable short- and long-term solutions.
For the last four years, CCSJ has been leading a city-wide holistic model to reimagine personal and community safety. We do three things: 1) respond: support victim wrap-around services and community engagement to victims and survivors of violence, 2) restore: programming that builds toward cross-racial community healing and solidarity, and 3) reform: strengthen critical public safety systems to stabilize health and safety of all SF communities.