North Beach Citizens as we know it today was born in January 2001 staffed only with volunteers. It began as an idea in the spring of 2000, when Francis Ford Coppola and a group of residents and merchants joined together to discuss the rise of homelessness in their neighborhood. Rather than merely feeding them and sending them on their way, these neighborhood visionaries decided to create real change; a resource center that unhoused and extremely low-income residents could use as a base and a starting point to rebuild their lives and reconnect with their community.