Like the other housing projects in San Francisco, Holly Park had at one time been a nice place to live. The two-story units were light and airy. The paint and trim had been fresh. Residents who did not keep their yards up to neighborhood standards could, in theory, be fined, although such infractions were rare due to the pride people took in their homes.

In 1951 seedlings had been planted to shade and gentrify the place-eucalyptus, cypress, magnolia. Within the square block that bounded Holly Park there were three communal gardens and a children’s playground with swing sets and monkey bars and slides. Curtains hung behind shining windows. In the four grassy spaces between buildings, now each a barren no-man’s-land called a cut and ‘owned’ by a crack dealer, people had hung laundry and fixed bicycles.

One hundred eighty-six people over eighteen claimed residence in Holly Park. There were one hundred seventeen children and juveniles. Every known resident was black. One hundred fifty-nine of the adults had police records. Of the juveniles between twelve and eighteen, sixty-eight percent had acquired rap sheets, most for vandalism, shoplifting, possession of dope, several for mugging, burglary and rape, and three for murder.

There were four nuclear families-a man, his legal wife and their children-in Holly Park. The rest was a fluid mass of women with children.

Because Holly Park was provided by the city and county for indigent relief, by definition every resident was on welfare, but twenty-two women and thirty men held ‘regular’ jobs. The official reported per capita income of all the adults in Holly Park was $2,953.13, far below the poverty level.