by Lupe Velez
Mayor Daniel Lurie unveiled a proposal for San Francisco’s city budget for the next two fiscal years in a May 30 video statement.
While funding for the San Francisco Police, Sheriff and Fire departments and the District Attorney’s office is preserved—or even increased—nonprofits with City contracts face $200 million in cuts in the next two years. These include several groups that deliver services like homelessness prevention, legal aid, youth programs and behavioral health support. Lurie’s plan also calls for eliminating about 1,400 City jobs.
In the week following Lurie’s announcement, City workers, unions and organizations citywide have been scrambling to decipher what the budget proposal means for organizations that support, aid and advocate for San Francisco’s most vulnerable and working class citizens. So far, the lack of transparency from the mayor’s office has created confusion as groups and organizations attempt to understand how much funding will be cut—and exactly how severe its impact.
As more information rolls out, City workers and organizations are denouncing the proposal that eviscerates funding for essential public services before it heads to the Board of Supervisors for approval at the end of June.
The Coalition on Homelessness, which publishes Street Sheet, has learned that Lurie plans to reallocate a shocking $89 million allocated—but unspent—Proposition C funds that are legally earmarked for housing, behavioral health, shelter and homelessness prevention. Prop. C, which San Francisco voters passed in November 2018, was crafted to correct mistakes in the City’s homelessness system, such as overinvesting in shelter and undeserving specific subpopulations, such as families and youth. Lurie’s budget proposal calls for major cuts to essential homelessness funds that have been specified for providing families with subsidies and permanent housing through Prop. C.
These cuts couldn’t have come at a worse time when family homelessness has doubled and as children face adverse health effects of homelessness at an alarming rate. According to the City Controller’s audit in March 2025, across all shelter clients in the reporting period, only 13% exited to permanent housing. Low exit rates are due to the limited availability of permanent housing options both within and outside of the homelessness response system.
When homelessness and housing instability in early childhood is linked to delays in language, literacy and social-emotional development, the risk to children’s health is one the City can’t afford, said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness.
“As the city faces a humanitarian crisis, marked by child homelessness, it is imperative that we act to preserve funds allocated to homeless families through Prop. C. At this moment homelessness is plaguing the mental and physical health of hundreds of children, surmounting the barriers they face into adulthood and often leading to adult homelessness,” she said.
On June 4, a People’s Budget Coalition rally at city hall united union workers, nonprofit organizations and other community-based groups into decrying the mayor’s proposal. Service Employees International Union Local 1021, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 21, the Housing Rights Committee, the Dignity Fund Coalition, Code Enforcement Outreach Program, Central City SRO Collaborative and the Chinese Progressive Association represented several organizations that face budget cuts, and chanted “What do we want? A fair budget!” and held signs that read, “Protect public services, not private greed!” Presenters spoke on how defunding essential public services will wreak havoc on the communities and families who struggle to make ends meet while living in one of the world’s wealthiest cities.
After the rally ended, budget coalition members entered City Hall to voice their concerns with members of the Board of Supervisors, who will consider—and inevitably amend—the proposed budget.
Meanwhile, the public is holding its collective breath while the people’s budget coalition tries to restore essential service funding as if their lives depend on it. That’s because they do, literally.
Photos courtesy of Faith in Action Bay Area
