The nearly 50 square block area of San Francisco known as the Tenderloin is a historically significant neighborhood. The name ‘Tenderloin’ has been applied to at least part of the area since 1895, and the hotels, bars, and clubs there hosted many notable Jazz musicians in the 30s and 40s. Modern views of the area vary wildly but to the homeless and otherwise impoverished people living there, it’s a community, a lifeline. The Tenderloin is home.
Love Me Tenderloin follows four such Tenderloin residents: Joseph “Indian Joe” Phmondon, Deforest “Woody” Woods, Bridchette Johnson, and Arnold Reed. Each has had experience with addiction and homelessness, but they all have different experiences and drives. This intimate documentary follows these four people through their day-to-day experiences in the Tenderloin as they seek work, community, food, and shelter.
Love Me Tenderloin is an incredibly strong documentary. Its focus on Tenderloin residents gives the viewer a wonderful insight into the community. All too often, the Tenderloin is reduced to its most scandalous elements: heroin addicts, sex workers, and drifters have given the neighborhood a bad reputation over the last century.
What Love Me Tenderloin shows us is a strong community of helpful people, many of whom have done the hard work of facing addiction, who are just trying to make it in one of the most expensive places to live in the US. All too often, gentrifiers bring up the seedy reputation of the neighborhood as an excuse to displace and dehome thousands. Their economic arguments forget the lived realities of those living here: The cheap real estate isn’t simply an investment opportunity, it’s the only home many of these people can afford within San Francisco.
Despite all four subjects being poor—and in one instance, homeless—they can be found volunteering all across the Tenderloin. They work at soup kitchens, distribute clean needles to help fight AIDS, and otherwise build community in the surprisingly tight-knit neighborhood. Anyone studying addiction, recovery, homelessness, or San Francisco will want to see this outstanding documentary. Highly Recommended. Editor’s Choice.
What college professors could use this title?
Love Me Tenderloin would be an excellent resource for public administration, California history, and criminal justice courses.
Where does this title belong on public library shelves?
Love Me Tenderloin belongs among similar titles discussing poverty and gentrification.