TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Community leaders in the City of South Tucson say they're continuing with their Defend Nuestro Barrio campaign.
The citizen patrol initiative invites the South Tucson community to walk their neighborhoods picking up trash and asking anyone using drugs in their streets to either get treatment, help out with the cleanup or leave the city.
At the beginning of August, Mayor Roxanna Valenzuela announced the pilot program, partnering with nonprofits Barrio Restoration and Casa Maria.
After the first four weeks, KGUN 9 met with Valenzuela and Barrio Restoration Founder David Garcia to reflect on the pilot and discuss what it would look like going forward.
Garcia and Valenzuela said they'd gotten positive feedback from the community after months of their neighbors asking for something to be done to "clean up the streets."
“There’s a lot of individuals on the street that need to be reminded that we need to work together keep our neighborhood clean,” said Garcia.
About 20 people joined the biweekly patrols, walking the one-square-mile city with trash bags and grabber tools. When the group came across someone they assumed was unhoused, they'd offer hygiene kits, direct them to Casa Maria or ask them to join the clean up.
“We come at this because we genuinely want to help people," Valenzuela said. "We care about our community and all of our neighbors, but sometimes the support we’re trying to give is not really accepted.”
While they were able to hand out 50 hygiene kits in their eight patrols, they say no one accepted drug treatment in the moment.
Valenzuela added that she had people approach her after the patrol, however, and ask to take her up on the offer. She says they were even able to find housing for one man.
Valenzuela and Garcia agreed that the campaign and these patrols will continue, but they'll look a little different. Instead of bi-weekly patrols, they're aiming for a few smaller ones throughout the week, with one large, city-wide cleanup every month.
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Alex Dowd is a multimedia journalist at KGUN 9, where her work combines her two favorite hobbies: talking to new people and learning about the community around her. Her goal is to eventually meet every single person in Tucson. Share your story ideas with Alex via email, alex.dowd@kgun9.com, or connecting on Instagram or X.
