Laurie Black’s civic involvement in San Diego has spanned 35 years serving with the Port District, Water Quality Control Board, city libraries, UCSD and other institutions.
However, she is most known for founding the Clean & Safe program that has helped maintain downtown San Diego during the past 25 years.
Born in 1958, she was the oldest of three children. Her youngest brother, Brian, ultimately inspired Clean & Safe.
“Brian was a very sweet, nice kid,” she said. “But he had problems.”
While Black was earning a bachelor’s degree in political science at San Diego State, Brian was homeless in Orange County and his life was spiraling. He was hospitalized with depression at 18. The night before Black’s wedding with her late husband, Bob Lawrence, Brian attempted suicide.
In 1988 Brian, again, tried taking his life by jumping off the Coronado bridge. He survived but suffered major injuries.
“He was hospitalized for nine months and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia with auditory hallucinations,” Black recalled. “I visited him every day, and he opened up to me about the voices he heard.”
After spending years in and out of care facilities, Brian’s life changed in 1993 after he was prosecuted for brandishing a knife. The judge sent him to a locked mental health facility. By 1998, Brian was on medication and much improved. He got married, was employed as a counselor and free of incidences for 10 years before a car accident took his life.
Inspired in part by Brian’s turnaround, Black in 1998 decided to do something about homelessness and neglect in downtown San Diego.
The Downtown Partnership, a nonprofit organization representing downtown property owners, was not accomplishing much, she said. “They did the taste of downtown, had golf tournaments and complained they were not at the table when big decisions affecting downtown were made.
“When I interviewed for the job of president, I said, ‘If you select me, you will not only be at the table, you’ll be the table.’ I got the job.
“At my second meeting as president, somebody stood up and said, ‘It’s your job Laurie Black to get rid of urine-stained bums in downtown.’ I was thinking this person doesn’t understand.”
“From my experience with Brian’s mental illness, I learned different things work for different people. Every person should be viewed individually rather than broad concepts that apply to everyone.”
That requires personal outreach and there was not much of that by the city at the time.
To help improve downtown, Black proposed Clean & Safe as a self-help program to be funded by a fee on downtown properties and managed by the Downtown Partnership.
“We needed their approval of the fee,” she said. “So, I spent a year and half campaigning in downtown, one property owner at a time. The pitch was we would do what the city wasn’t doing. We would clean, remove human feces, water trees and parks, have outreach ambassadors and coordinate with homeless providers.
“Brian was involved and one of my best salespersons as an example of what can be done to turn people’s lives around.
“After property owners voted approval in 2000, we worked with Alpha Project to quickly put 50 people on the streets as ambassadors. Many were formerly homeless. The city had a total of two.
“Of the gazillion things I’ve done in this town, the one I am most proud of is Clean & Safe,” said Black, a Bankers’ Hill resident.
Today, in its 25th year, Clean & Safe serves 285 blocks with over 13,000 properties, where ambassadors clean sidewalks, empty trash bins, fill dog bag stations, conduct business visits and welfare checks and provide outreach to homeless.
Clean & Safe reported that in 2023-2024, alone, it cleaned 20,000 sidewalks, removed 27,000 graffiti markings and 2 million pounds of trash, conducted 138,000 patrols and 9,400 business visits.
Although it has not solved homelessness, Clean & Safe has been a positive ray of sunshine on downtown San Diego helping to avoid some harsh conditions experienced by other big cities.
About this series
Goldsmith is a Union-Tribune contributing columnist.
We welcome reader suggestions of people who have done something extraordinary or otherwise educational, inspiring or interesting and who have not received much previous media. Please send suggestions to Jan Goldsmith at jgsandiego@yahoo.com
Originally Published: September 11, 2025 at 5:33 PM PDT