Despite important wins, People’s Budget Coalition stands in strong opposition to finalized budget that sacrifices key services and values in order to criminalize poverty
Early on Thursday, June 26, at 2 a.m., the Board of Supervisors Budget and Appropriation committee voted to approve a budget that balances an $800 million deficit on the backs of San Francisco’s poorest and most vulnerable residents while expanding funding for jail expansion, high-end police equipment purchases and Mayor’s Office staffing.
The People’s Budget Coalition stood up and fought back, bringing together hundreds of organizations representing thousands of workers in a historic demonstration of unity and solidarity. We won critical restorations—including $3 million for civil legal services, $3 million for SRO collaboratives, $240 thousand for LGBTQ support, and full reversal of threatened City layoffs. But these victories and long term organizing power came in the context of sweeping structural harm.
When Mayor Daniel Lurie introduced his budget, he held the Police, Sheriff and Fire departments, and the District Attorney’s office harmless by not asking them to do any cuts. This set up a dynamic where cuts were to come disproportionately from health, housing and human services. In addition, he increased many of these budgets by adding a jail and $60 million in police overtime, even after the documented overtime abuse came to light.
Despite claims that housing, public safety and economic recovery are top priorities, the budget will slash funding for workforce development, homelessness prevention and violence prevention/victim services programs—all while doubling down on failed strategies that criminalize poverty.
Major cuts include:
- $11 million in slashed funding for workforce development programs
- $1 million cut from immigrant worker rights programs
- $1.5 million cut from programs that help get homeless populations off the street and connected with services
“This budget proposal weakens services and protections for everyday San Franciscans, immigrant workers and working families at a time when these communities are facing unprecedented attacks, to benefit corporations downtown, in a false scarcity mindset at one of the richest cities in this country.” said Claire Lau of the Chinese Progressive Association. “Services that allow immigrant workers access to legal aid and programs that help them recoup stolen wages are being reduced. We ask that the City works with stakeholders to develop strategies to fund and strengthen services for all immigrant families and workers in the long term.”
The People’s Budget is concerned that while it saved some vital programs, this budget isn’t a win. City leaders chose a new jail over jobs, violence prevention and long-term housing affordability. That’s not a compromise—that’s a betrayal. We applaud the supervisors who fought alongside us to restore funding for critical community services, but we demand structural changes that allow future budgets to better represent the will of all San Franciscans, not just the wealthy and well-connected donors and corporations whose interests are clearly and obviously centered in this budget.
They are also deeply concerned by the Mayor’s decision to undermine San Francisco’s democracy by demanding—at 1 a.m., under the cover of darkness—that the people’s branch of government surrender its authority over Our City, Our Home (also known as Prop. C) funds. A committee vote of 4–1 took place to remove the voter mandate of a supermajority in the legislative branch to change spending allocations. While this authorization was limited in nature to new revenue under $19 million, it was startling and unprecedented.
Many voter initiatives have this provision as a protection against executive abuse of power, ensuring that the legislative branch has guardrails in place to protect the will of the voters, except in exceptional circumstances. This is why a supermajority vote is required to change spending mandates in Prop. C. For the first time, the Mayor asked the Supervisors to vote to remove that supermajority threshold.
“San Francisco is not a kingdom, and it is not a corporation, it is a democracy,” Jennifer Friedenbach, director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said. “Prop. C, Our City, Our Home was carefully constructed to ensure that data driven, voter approved mandates existed to build a responsive and efficient homeless system that was protected from wrongheaded political winds. We anticipated that there might be a need to change the spending categories over time, but that those changes should be made with great care and oversight by the people’s legislative branch. The supermajority vote that this current board removed is the very mechanism to protect that spending.”
The Mayor originally proposed cutting $88.5 million from primarily youth and family housing funds and moving them to primarily single adult shelter. However, only some of those shelter expenditures had a plan or an identified building. The original proposal was shrunk down, as the Mayor did not have the a supermajority of votes for his initial plan, especially given the blow that would have delivered to efforts to address the doubling of family homelessness in San Francisco. The investment plan as laid out by Our City, Our Home oversight body had allocated $30 million to family housing subsidies, $10 million to transitional aged youth housing and $1 million to Bayview housing, all of which was wiped out in the Mayor’s budget. The final proposal restored $20 million of the family housing, $9.5 million of the youth housing and none of the Bayview housing. However proponents of Prop. C were especially concerned about the change in the supermajority requirement.
“We need a balanced approach to addressing homelessness,” Homelessness Oversight Committee member Christin Evans, who’s also a Prop. C proponent, said. “Placing all our eggs into the shelter basket does not end homelessness, and it does not target root causes. Beyond shelter, we must make investments in housing and prevention, especially for demographics which include families with young children and transitional age youth. That’s the only way we tackle the long-term trend of growing numbers of homeless exacerbated by our City’s severe lack of affordable housing.”
The Coalition on Homelessness led the efforts to craft Prop. C, Our City, Our Home in 2017 and place it on the ballot in 2018 with input from unhoused people, front line service providers, policy makers, business and neighborhood groups and everyday San Franciscans. The measure received a groundswell of support, passing with 63% voter approval, attracting over 600 volunteers and collecting a record number of signatures. In addition, over 300 unhoused people worked on the initiative, calling voters and knocking on doors. The measure, the funds of which were released in 2020, has led to over 5,700 San Franciscans being housed including 1,700 children, along with thousands receiving prevention, shelter and behavioral health services.
ACTION STEP: SEND A LETTER BEFORE THE VOTE ON JULY 8TH
Thanks so much for considering sending this letter. We are especially focused on Supervisors Mahmood, Melgar and Chen.
We really need your help to honor the will of the voters and preserve the integrity of Prop C. Taking away the supermajority requirement for two years is a very dangerous precedent to set. If the Mayor has a solid helpful proposal it will get the support!
Here is a sample language for the letter. Please email to: Chyanne.Chen@sfgov.org, myrna.melgar@sfgov.org, Bilal.Mahmood@sfgov.org, Board.of.supervisors@sfgov.org
Dear Supervisor ___________:
I am writing to strongly urge you to reject Section 4 from the trailing legislation (File No. 250609) associated with Proposition C, Our City Our Home (2018):
Section 4. Under the authority in Business and Tax Regulations Code Section 2811, the Board of Supervisors authorizes the City to expend future revenues that will be deposited in the OCOH Fund through fiscal year 2026-27, after addressing the specified costs required under subsections 2810(b)(1) and (2), among any or all of the eligible programs to address or prevent homelessness as described in subsections 2810(b)(3)\A}-(D), notwithstanding the specific percentage allocations that would otherwise apply, subject to approval by the Board of Supervisors by appropriation.
This is a major departure from the provisions of Prop C. Voters specifically required a supermajority of the Board of Supervisors to approve any changes to Prop C allocations. Section 4 of this legislation weakens the voters’ deliberate safeguard by enabling reallocation with only a simple majority vote.
The removal of the supermajority requirement is a major departure from previous versions of Prop C trailing legislation. This change undermines the will of the voters and puts the integrity of citizen initiatives at risk. The Board and Mayor must honor the intent of the voters as well as the citizen initiative process protected in the San Francisco Charter.
We call on you to respect the will of the voters and proponents of Prop C such as the Coalition on Homelessness and reject this section of the trailing legislation.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
<<your name>>
