CRM - Empowering Leaders

Comunidad San Dimas (CSD) is a community of Catholics and Protestants who reach out and embrace young Latinos caught up in the world of gangs and drugs.   It is an alternative family to the gang, where the love of Christ can be tangibly experienced, and hope re-kindled.  Started in 1992 as a response to the tragic killing of two young Latinos near St. Peter’s Parish in the Mission District, today volunteers from many churches are trained and mobilized to serve in juvenile institutions, in the courts, on the streets, and in transitional homes.  InnerChange also operates our own transitional home, “Casa San Dimas”.

Comunidad San Dimas was co-founded by San Francisco InnerChange Directors Nate and Jenny Bacon.   In 2000, José Peñate-Aceves became CSD Director, and now oversees the CSD team together with his wife Celida.   On Sabbatical until September 2006, CSD is currently under the direction of veteran volunteer Julio Escobar.

Former gang members now form part of the leadership of CSD ministries, offering much needed role models.  Their lives, faith, families, jobs, and even homes they have purchased, offer struggling youth tangible hope for a bright future.

As an outgrowth of our focus on providing a family and community alternative to the gangs,  InnerChange missionaries, and later volunteers, began opening our homes to youth who did not fit the proper profile for existing placement and who had special needs we were able to meet.

Over time this organically grew into a transitional home we call “Casa San Dimas”.   Casa San Dimas can receive up to four young people, and receives no government funding.   We seek to provide a relational network and support system, which can enable young people to achieve their goals, and gain hope for a future.  We focus on relational skills, responsibility, spiritual sustenance, gaining and keeping employment, as well as ESL and education.  We seek to walk long enough with young people who are falling through the cracks, and for whom the ‘system’ has failed, for them to gain the self-confidence and ability to live productive and meaningful lives.

Our guests come to us through our relational networks at Juvenile Hall and on the streets, and generally stay from 6 months to two years.