About 300 people lined up at San Francisco City Hall on Monday to plead with the Board of Supervisors’ budget committee to reverse Mayor Daniel Lurie’s $4.2 million funding cuts to nonprofits.
“We live in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, and people are going hungry,” said Jose Juis Pavon of HOMEY, a decades-old nonprofit that provides social services to youth and families. “That’s a disgrace. Immigrants and working-class San Franciscans are the pillar of this city’s economy. We’re not asking for handouts. We deserve a fair share. We deserve a democratic budget.”
Pavon opened a rally in the rotunda by the People’s Budget Coalition, a consortium of over 150 nonprofit organizations that receive some or all funding from the city. They dropped banners from the third-floor balconies that read “Stop Cuts” and “Immigrants’ Rights,” and chanted “Whose City? Our City!”
On May 30, Lurie proposed a $15.9 billion two-year budget that addresses an $800 million deficit. In addition to the nonprofit cuts, it eliminates 1,400 mostly vacant positions and approximately 100 jobs that are occupied or filled by people nearing retirement. The Board of Supervisors must approve the budget by July 31. The mayor’s office estimates that the changes will reduce the structural deficit by nearly $300 million.
Organizations like Bay Area Legal Aid, Legal Assistance to the Elderly and the Asian Law Caucus provide free or low-cost legal services to help low-income residents with tenant protections and help people connect to other services like housing and food assistance.
Cuts included $2.2 million to Open Door Legal, which offers legal services to low-income residents. The proposed cuts prompted its executive director, Adrian Tirtanadi, to begin a hunger strike on June 11. He won’t eat until the funding is restored.
Savings and sacrifices
“Mayor Lurie saved critical funding for legal services to support our city’s immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities who are under threat right now,” said Lurie spokesperson Charles Lutvak in an email.
“We think that he was exclusively talking about our Rapid Response hotline, and those legal services are very crucially important,” said Anya Worley-Ziegmann with the People’s Budget Coalition. “But the same providers who do that work also provide food security, workforce development and other legal services for immigrants. And their entire system is going to be impacted by this. So, what we’re doing here is allowing immigrants to be legally safe in our city but providing them with no food and no jobs and no access to safe working conditions.”
Worley-Ziegman said that notices have gone out to roughly 100 organizations informing them to expect funding cuts starting July 1. She said the cuts will include about $80 million in the first year with some more in year two, totaling about $150 million in cuts to nonprofits. Some organizations are partially dependent on the city budget, and some are fully dependent. Project Homeless Connect gets 93% of their funding from the city, she said.
“They rent out the Bill Graham Auditorium once a month and they pack it full of services and people,” said Worley-Ziegman, adding that Project Homeless Connect provides clinical services, food services and supportive housing for homeless people. The mayor’s office said they are bringing many nonprofit service provider grants and contracts back to pre-pandemic funding levels.
“… (W)hat we’re doing here is allowing immigrants to be legally safe in our city but providing them with no food and no jobs and no access to safe working conditions.” Anya Worley-Ziegmann, People’s Budget Coalition
“That’s still a cut if you think about inflation,” said Worley-Ziegman. “The cost to pay employees, the cost to buy pencils for the office, the cost to provide food for people at the grocery store, these things are all increasing very dramatically with inflation.”
Monday’s public comment continued throughout the day.
“They’ve got people lined up in the hallways,” Worley-Ziegman said. “They’re going to be in public comment all day. It’ll probably go till 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., until it’s done.”