David Garcia pulls a pink wagon behind him as he walks along Sixth Avenue in South Tucson Monday night. Inside the wagon is an open case of bottled water, a cooler with some waters chilling in ice, hygiene kits and a speaker blasting cumbia music.
Garcia owns Barrio Restoration, a business that offers neighborhood and yard-cleaning services, and workshops that teach people how to turn old tires into planters. He also often volunteers on his own, or leading community groups, to clean south side neighborhoods. On Monday, he and about 14 others use trash grabbers to pick up litter along the side of the road, in parking lots and on the sidewalk.
Most of them wear hats to shade their face and provide some respite from the 105-degree heat.
Along the way, Garcia and Roxanna Valenzuela, mayor of the city of South Tucson, stop to check on people living unhoused. They ask if they need any resources or help. Garcia offers cold water, hygiene kits and explains their mission: they’re working to clean up and care for the barrio.
Monday’s event marked the launch of the “Defend Nuestro Barrio Campaign” — a community-led effort to support people struggling with homelessness, fentanyl addiction, systemic neglect, and to alert residents when and where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are active in the city.
Volunteers will gather to walk South Tucson every Monday and Thursday night. They want people addicted to fentanyl or other drugs to know they’re not alone — that neighbors, from the barrio to the city council, are there to support. They also want South Tucson’s primarily Latino community members to know they’re not alone in monitoring ICE presence in the area.
The city has limited resources, Valenzuela says, so she and other community leaders have started getting creative in looking for solutions.
As Southern Arizona faces rising homelessness and an opioid crisis, these problems are especially visible in the 1.2-square-mile city of South Tucson, which in 2022 had the highest poverty rate in Southern Arizona.
With more than 75% of its estimated 4,600 residents being Hispanic or Latino, South Tucson also is especially vulnerable to ICE raids that have spiked across the country.
On Monday, Garcia walks up to a man with salt-and-pepper hair, hunched under the scorching setting sun, and hands him an ice-cold bottle of water.
“Como anda? Poquito bien o poquito mal?” he asks. “How are you doing? A little good or a little bad?”
The man replies in almost a whisper as he takes the water bottle.
“Aquí limpiando el barrio,” Garcia says. “Si necesita algo nos avisa.”
“We’re here cleaning the barrio. If you need something let us know.”
“The goal is to see people do better“
Casa Maria Soup Kitchen, South Tucson government leaders and Barrio Restoration announced the campaign outside South Tucson City Hall last week. More than 70 people attended the event, where civic leaders from the city, Tohono O’odham Nation and Pascua Yaqui Tribe talked about improving public safety and improving the health of their communities by working together. O’odham and Pascua Yaqui nations have a long history of standing up for the rights of their citizens who include many Indigenous families with roots in Mexico. Many of those citizens also live in South Tucson and Tucson’s south side.
When Valenzuela was first appointed mayor, she reached out to Pascua Yaqui’s Chairman Julian Hernandez because she realized a lot of South Tucson residents were members of the nearby tribal nations, she says. Since then, she’s been working with tribal leaders to come up with solutions to the challenges South Tucson residents are facing.
At the campaign launch event, Pascua Yaqui council member Gloria Alvarez Gomez presented the city of South Tucson with a check for $1 million to support the city’s public safety efforts. The funds are unrestricted, Valenzuela says, adding that she plans to hold community meetings and get input from residents about what the money should be used for.
Alvarez Gomez says the tribe will continue partnering with South Tucson to “provide resources and support” that residents need. Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon M. Jose also shares his tribe’s support for the city. Jose says it’s important for their communities to remove barriers and work together to solve community issues.
“We will defeat the addiction together. We will defeat the homelessness together. We will defeat ICE and anyone else that tries to tear our families apart,” Jose says at the event.
After the news conference in a plaza surrounded by the local library and city hall, Casa Maria volunteers pass out burritos. Families talk, eat and dance. People say they’re relieved to see the city not just addressing open drug use and homelessness but doing so with compassion, as they have friends and family members who are unhoused or are addicted to drugs.
Victor de la Cruz Sr. visits and volunteers at Casa Maria in part to catch up with friends and family members who rely on the organization’s services. He hopes the campaign will bring back a sense of community that could lead to safer neighborhoods, he says.
As he talks about how people used to know their neighbors and look out for each other in the small city back in the day, he pauses and looks over at his granddaughter. A smile spreads across his face.
“Look at her,” he says, laughing as the 2-year-old shimmies by herself off to the side, picking up rocks and wiggling to the beat.
At a moment when Latino and immigrant communities across the nation are on alert for ICE raids that have separated families and violated the rights of migrant people and citizens alike, the gathering is a way for South Tucson and tribal leaders to unite and show their community they have a safety network standing with and watching out for them.
While volunteers are out on the streets, they’ll be looking out for ICE activity, Garcia says. He’s not sure how they will be able to defend people if they see someone being detained, but the group can at least observe officers to help ensure they don’t abuse their power and report when ICE agents are in the community, he says.
“ICE is causing a lot of trauma to families,” Garcia says. “Whether it’s in the city of South Tucson or not, it’s unfortunate that we’re here again.”
When volunteers walk through neighborhoods to monitor for ICE presence or clean up public spaces, they also will check on people using drugs out in the open to make sure they’re safe, that they’re managing the extreme summer heat and offer them information on local addiction treatment services. They also want to remind people to “have some respect for the hood” and stop doing drugs in community spaces, Garcia says.
“The goal is to see people do better. And I think we’re just tired of it getting worse,” Garcia says after the news conference July 31. “Something’s got to be done, and it’s not that we’re telling people to leave. We’re just trying to tell people that we need respect, and I think we have to be consistent in that.”
Garcia has spent a lot of time out in the streets of South Tucson and Tucson’s south side cleaning public spaces and talking to people. He says he understands that some people might not accept help right away, but showing up consistently is key to gaining trust and building relationships, especially with historically underserved communities.
“We’re already feeding people, clothing people, empowering people, trying to,” Garcia says, referring to the work he’s done with Casa Maria to serve people in South Tucson. “We built those relationships already.”
“A moment of humanity”
Two women and a man talk next to a building along a residential side street off Sixth Avenue as Mayor Valenzuela approaches them. The women, at first crouched down, stand to listen to Valenzuela. She hands out her business card and offers to help them access resources.
The man asks if she can help with housing. She says she can. “I just want to see you guys on your feet,” she says.
“I was there when you fed us that one day,” one woman says, Her eyes soften as she talks with the mayor, and she looks like she could burst into tears any second.
Local human rights leader Glenda Avalos walks up behind Valenzuela to show support. She approaches the woman and asks if she can give her a hug. As the two women hold each other tight, Avalos reminds the woman that she’s worth more than her circumstances.
“In the embrace is just a moment of humanity,” Avalos says. “To remind someone that it’s never too late to start new beginnings.”
That was the message she shared with the woman, she tells Arizona Luminaria in an interview later, that there are people in the community who love her and want to see her succeed.
“I think she needed to hear it,” Avalos says. “Words are very powerful, and they have the potential to ignite something new in someone, especially if you’re letting them know that they’re loved and that they’re worth more than gold. I think that there’s a beautiful power behind that that can motivate someone to take a different step in the right direction.”
Avalos has served the South Tucson community for about 20 years, first at the Salvation Army and now with Casa Maria Soup Kitchen. She says the Defend Our Barrio initiative is a way for community members to protect each other and embrace unhoused people instead of turning a blind eye.
“I feel that it’s a hope for us to come to connect with the community and take on responsibility and hold each other accountable,” Avalos says. “And also bringing in a sense of family, and family addresses issues head on. And I think that the health of our community needs to be addressed head on.”
“We’re moving with our corazón”
Valenzuela, who was appointed mayor by her fellow South Tucson council members in November, says most people who reach out to her office — or who she speaks with personally — are concerned about the criminal activity on the city’s streets. “We want our community to get healthier, stronger and safer,” she says. “So we’re going to try to hold all of us accountable and to a higher standard.”
“We hope that the culture shifts and people start taking ownership and seeking help, and we want to offer them help.” she adds. “We also just need to be out here. We need to be out here talking to people, and not be stuck in our office waiting for the problem to solve itself.”
Valenzuela says it’s important to not generalize or stereotype the problem. Every person has individual circumstances they need support in, she says. In order to address South Tucson’s challenges, she adds, they have to address every person’s needs individually and meet people where they’re at.
“The compassion, for us, is always going to be there,” Valenzuela says. “We can’t stop seeing them as a person that just needs extra love and support.”
Garcia says the campaign is an attempt to be part of the solution.
“I don’t know where we’re going with this,” he says. “I just know we’re moving with our corazón.”
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