The link doesn't work. This one does: www.northwestbernalalliance.org

For those unfamiliar with the history of the animosity the Northwest Bernal Alliance has toward the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, it stems back to a feud that happened back in the 1980s when they were both the same group.

They have since split and gone their separate ways, the NWBA acting as a neighborhood association of property owners, merchants, and residents, and the BHNC repositioning themselves as a bureaucracy getting grant money to "help the poor'. There is much feeling (I think most of it justified) that the BHNC is a group interested only in empire building and creating cushy jobs for their friends. The BHNC is a self-perpeturating agency. And, try as they might, they do NOT represent the opinions of people in Bernal Heights, much as they like to portray this to the press, because a lot of people simply will not go to their meetings or be associated in any way with them.

That said, the NWBA did align themselves with the BHNC in the late 1990s in order to fend off a proposd mega shopping center slated for the southeast corner of Chavez and Mission, which would have turned the area into a traffic congested mess. The BHNC built low-income housing there. They've actually had some good success with running low-income housing. Another project of theirs is the building where Big Lots is located. The store is in the bottom and the housing is above it.

So, again, I say that if you're interested in crime in Bernal, consider going to a meeting of the NWBA and getting involved. They have been through it all before, and they can tell you stories about what has worked and what hasn't.