Reinvesting Funds from Law Enforcement into Communities like Ours
Dream Keeper Initiative
City of Dreams is proud to be selected as a funded organization under the Dream Keeper Initiative: Reinvesting in San Francisco’s Black and African American Community.
Under Mayor London Breed and prompted by the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, DKI was created to redirect funds and resources from San Francisco law enforcement into Black communities. The plan’s direction is towards structural equality, reinvestment into quality of life, and the reformation of public safety.
The name comes from the late Black poet and activist Langston Hughes’s, “What happens to a dream deferred?” a question that reverberates across the walls of our site, inside the walls of the classrooms, and within the homes of these public housing sites. Bayview is one of those neighborhoods rich with a history of deferment: from mass unemployment to chronic violence and seclusion to even unaddressed radioactive fallout. Our kids are growing within an orbit of dejection. Thus it is through initiatives like DKI that are created with this dejection in mind that we are capable of keeping our promise to these kids.
Dream Keepers Initiative was designed to invest $120 million into programs that support Black youth and families, and City of Dreams was selected for funding as a prioritized neighborhood for reformation. We have created the Black Justice Initiative, an action plan made possible by DKI to elevate the voices of young, Black individuals. BJI is a series of events from January 2022 to September 2022 meant to create intentional Black presence and narrative shifts among media, creative spaces, technology, economy, trade, businesses, and higher education. Our young adult program, Ground Zero, and individuals within this age in Bayview are the targeted audience.
The Black Justice Initiative, under the Dream Keepers Initiative has made the following possible:
Financial Literacy Workshop through Visa
Pottery and Clay Making Class through SMArt Gallery and Studio
Mock Job Interviews through Footlocker
Ground Zero Girls Picnic ad Roller Skating at Church of 8 Wheels
Ground Zero Red Door Escape Room
Ground Zero Retreat at Diamond Arrow Christian Center in Nevada City through U3Fit
Reallocating $120 million into organizations and communities like ours from the system that was created through prejudice is a sizable introduction to the potentialities of new Black generations. We have been selected as an organization with the ingenuity and courage to reinvent Black progress starting from childhood, and we intend to take all of Bayview with us.
