We met Neecia while canvassing District 5 as part of our ongoing coverage of November’s supervisorial race.
Though she was born and raised in San Francisco, most of Neecia’s family has picked up and left the city for one reason or another. “I’m like the last of the Mohicans,” says Neecia one late morning in July.
But she loves this place and her place in it, and won’t be leaving anytime soon. Neecia doesn’t own a car, but she likes that from her home between Lower Haight and Alamo Square, she has easy access to bus lines — or can just get up and walk. The baptist church she attends is nearby, and she likes going around the corner to the Emporium arcade bar. And it’s not far from the city’s Human Services Department, where she is employed as a social worker.
“It’s just fun to be around.” And, she adds looking around, “You get beautiful days like this, most times.”
She ambles down tree-lined Scott Street in a jean skirt and a hoodie, munching on a mini-packet of Ritz Crackers.
“That was my breakfast of the morning,” says Neecia, who is off to an appointment, “because, as usual, I’m lollygagging on doing what I need to do.”
She turns onto Haight Street, and points out her go-to nail salon — “I’m local!” she emphasizes, and laughs out loud. Unhurried, she winds her way through the Lower Haight and Duboce Triangle toward Market Street.
For Neecia, life is good. She’s single and has no children, she says cheerfully, and mainly just has to take care of herself, and her pesky grays that poke through her brick-red braids and try to reveal her 40-something years.
“I find the positive, even if it’s not totally always positive. It’s how you look at things,” Neecia says. “I personally don’t really have problems that other people may actually have: I’ve been able to find a job, stay where I’m at … the things I need to do, I want to do, I’ve been able to do.”
Perhaps because of this, she’s spent more than 15 years giving back: Working with the city’s youth, a job she describes as simply hanging out with teenagers and young adults from 16 to 21 years old, many of whom find themselves involved in the justice system.
Neecia’s job is a more fun role than her coworkers’, she says, which involves more somber duties. To the kids, “I’m like aunty.” And recently, she took in her elderly mother, who she’s adjusting to caring for.
Despite her overall optimism, when the prospect of being in the paper and having her photo taken comes up, Neecia’s voice tone shifts, just for a moment.
“You’ve got to be careful; there’s so many evil people out there that want to hurt you,” she warns. “I try not to think like that, I really do, but sometimes you have to be, you know, cautious.”
Then, the moment passes, and she’s already applying lip gloss and smiling for the picture.
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