City Government

Mayor London Breed Signs Balanced Budget to Support Economic Recovery, Meet City’s Top Challenges

Two-year budget funds City priorities in supporting a sustained and equitable economic recovery and addressing critical issues that include homelessness, public safety, behavioral health, and youth and family support

Published

3 years ago

August 6, 2021

Isabelle Price

A closeup of a US hundred dollar bill (Benjamin Franklin side). photo courtesy Adam Nir via Unsplash

San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed signed into law the City and County of San Francisco’s balanced budget for Fiscal Years (FY) 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. The budget advances new investments to support San Francisco’s economic recovery; continue the COVID-19 response; ensure public safety; provide behavioral health care; prevent homelessness and transition people into services and housing; create more housing; promote nonprofit sustainability and equity initiatives; and support children, youth and their families.

Announced on July 29, the annual $13.1 billion for FY 2021-22 and $12.8 billion for FY 2022-23 budget will respond to the City’s most urgent needs as it moves forward on the road to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, while preserving long-term financial sustainability.

The final adopted budget follows months of collaborative work with elected officials, City departments, non-profit organizations, neighborhood groups, merchants, residents, and other stakeholders.

Breed and her staff conducted a comprehensive public outreach process, consisting of a public meeting to obtain input on budget priorities, two town halls, and online feedback to hear from residents on their priorities and reflect them in the budget.

“I’m excited to be signing this two-year budget today after months of hard work from everyone involved. It is something that we should all be proud of,” said Breed. “With these investments, we are addressing our most pressing issues by prioritizing the residents and businesses that have been hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. This budget will lay the groundwork for our City’s economy and set San Francisco on a path to emerge from this pandemic stronger than ever.”

“This is a recovery budget that will provide critical support for our residents and small businesses who are still struggling due to the impacts of this pandemic. It will launch new innovative approaches and provide historic investments to confront the health, mental health, economic, housing, and safety challenges facing our city,” said Supervisors Matt Haney, who serves as the Board of Supervisors Budget Chair. “We are all committed to moving forward to deliver on the commitments and investments made in this budget to improve the quality of life and opportunities for everyone in our city.”

Driving a Sustained and Equitable Economic Recovery and Continuing City’s COVID-19 Response

The final adopted budget invests nearly $525 million over the two years for various initiatives to drive and accelerate the City’s economic recovery, while also supporting the City’s COVID-19 response.

Major recovery initiatives include Community Ambassadors and events and activities to enliven San Francisco’s downtown, backfilling the loss of hotel tax revenue for the arts, addressing student learning loss, the Women and Families First Initiative, incentivizing the return of conventions at the Moscone Center, a new Trans Basic Income pilot program, a Free Muni for Youth pilot program, and continuing the JobsNow workforce program and Working Families Credit.

The budget also includes $12 million to support the First Year Free program, which will waive various fees associated with starting a new business in San Francisco, and a $32 million investment to augment the over $90 million in rental relief funds received from the state and federal.

Additionally, the budget includes a $6.4 million annual investment to support the maintenance and expansion of the City’s pitstop program.

Of this total, about $378 million will be spent to continue the City’s COVID-19 shelter response, food security programs, vaccination efforts, testing operations, and the COVID-19 Command Center. Funding will also support community-based COVID-19 recovery programming, specifically targeting resources to populations disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

This funding includes targeted small business support, economic relief, workforce development funds, and various arts, cultural, and recreational programming.

Making Historic Investments in Homelessness and Housing

The final adopted budget includes significant investments to address homelessness in San Francisco and expand the work started through the Homelessness Recovery Plan to create 6,000 placements for people experiencing homelessness.

In total, the budget leverages over $1 billion over the next two years in local, state, and federal resources to add up to 4,000 new housing placements, prevent homelessness and eviction for over 7,000 households, support additional safe parking sites, and fund the continuation of a new 40-bed emergency shelter for families.

All of these investments are in addition to prior commitments. This funding will enable the City to cap all Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) rents in the City’s PSH portfolio at 30% of a tenant’s income.

Supporting Long-Term Economic Justice Strategies

The final adopted budget maintains the City’s $60 million annual investment in the Dream Keeper Initiative, which Breed launched last summer to reinvest City funds in services and programs that support San Francisco’s Black and African American community. The proposed budget also includes funding to waive additional fees and fines paid to the City by San Francisco residents.

Additionally, the budget supports the City’s efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion and ensure citywide coordination of equity work. The budget also makes a significant investment in the sustainability of the City’s nonprofit partners with $76.4 million for an ongoing cost of doing business increase.

Expanding Mental Health and Substance Use Support

Continuing on a commitment to help people with behavioral health and substance use issues, the final adopted budget contains approximately $300 million in new investments for behavioral health services. Included in the budget is funding to prevent overdoses through medication assisted treatment, a drug sobering site, and expanded naloxone distribution. The budget also includes funding to support new and existing Street Response Teams, including the Street Crisis Response Team, Street Wellness Response Team, and Street Overdose Response Team.

This investment will fund the City’s plan to add over 340 new treatment beds, provide case management and care coordination for people receiving services, and expand services at the City’s Behavioral Health Access Center. This investment will also provide targeted services for transgender and Transitional Age Youth clients and increase services for clients in shelters and Permanent Supportive Housing.

Investing in Public Safety, Victims’ Services, and Justice Innovations

The final adopted budget makes investments to prevent violence, support victims, and continues the City’s investments in alternative responses to non-criminal activity. The budget includes over $11 million to expand violence prevention programming and funding for victims’ rights, including targeted investments to support community-based violence prevention and intervention work, and to San Francisco’s Asian and Pacific Islander community.

The final budget includes funding to support police staffing levels, funding two 40-person police academies in FY 2021-22 and one 50-person academy in FY 2022-23. The final budget also includes $3.8 million over the two years to support the addition of 10 paramedics to the Fire Department’s ambulance unit.

To strengthen the City’s non-law enforcement response to non-criminal activity, the final budget includes new funding for a Street Wellness Response Team and resources to support call diversion, including a $3 million investment to support other alternative response models.

Supporting Children, Youth, and Their Families

The final budget includes over $134 million over the two years to lay the groundwork for early learning and universal preschool in San Francisco. This includes funding for childcare subsidies, workforce compensation for childcare providers, and child health and wellbeing. The budget also maintains the City’s existing investments in children and youth, invests significant new funding to address learning loss, funds mental health for SFUSD students, and supports the Mayor’s Opportunities for All initiative.

Investing in Capital Projects and Affordable Housing

The final adopted budget includes significant investments in capital and one-time projects, which will create jobs and spur economic recovery. The budget provides $50.6 million to support affordable housing developments in San Francisco. The budget also includes $208 million for projects from the City’s Capital Plan, including street and parks infrastructure improvements, an expansion of fiber to affordable housing, and community facility improvements. The budget also includes funding to replace aging equipment in the Fire and Police departments, as well as funding to purchase a site for an LGBT Cultural Museum.

Ensuring Financial Resilience

The budget makes the above significant investments in a way that is financially responsible. By utilizing funding from the American Rescue Plan and other one-time sources, the City is able to maintain its reserves. This budget preserves the City’s Rainy Day Reserve for future uncertainty and risk. To hedge against future risk and uncertainty, the budget re-allocates unappropriated funds to create two new reserves that will help to manage unforeseen costs due to potential FEMA reimbursement disallowances and to manage future budget shortfalls.

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Homelessness Committee and Advocates Urge City to Stop Confiscating Unhoused People’s Belongings

Encampment sweeps are not a new method of action to evict people from living and sleeping on the streets in San Francisco. However, recent reports indicate that city staff are not following proper policy, exacerbating the problems for unhoused people. Homeless advocates and allies held a press conference on Thursday at City Hall, condemning staff workers for destroying people’s property during encampment evictions and asking officials to ensure that important documents and medication are not being stripped from these individuals.

Published

3 days ago

October 2, 2024

Oakland Post

"By destroying the very items that could help people regain stability, the city is not just punishing people for being poor, but actively making it harder for them to escape homelessness," Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said.

By Magaly Muñoz

Homeless advocates and allies held a press conference on Thursday at City Hall, condemning staff workers for destroying people’s property during encampment evictions and asking officials to ensure that important documents and medication are not being stripped from these individuals.

“By destroying the very items that could help people regain stability, the city is not just punishing people for being poor, but actively making it harder for them to escape homelessness,” Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said.

Friedenbach criticized the city for not fixing their housing problem or finding new ways to shelter people, instead they are further adding to the harm of the “humanitarian crisis that San Francisco is facing.”

The press conference was held before the monthly Homelessness Oversight Commission (HOC) meeting, where commissioners discussed a draft resolution to submit to city staff highlighting the importance of not separating people from their items as this might cause further distress.

The resolution lists ssential items that workers should be cautious of not destroying or throwing away including medical documents and medication, work permits, identification, and survival gear, such as blankets or tents.

City policy instructs workers to “bag and tag” items left behind after an encampment sweep. These items are labeled by Public Works and kept at their operations yard for 90 days before being discarded.

But according to several reports and videos of the sweeps, the city has not always followed this policy and has on numerous occasions thrown away people’s medications or tents, leaving individuals without their essentials.

During the meeting, commissioners suggested adding school records and family related support items, such as diapers, to the resolution because of the increasing number of families living on the streets.

Virginia Taylor, senior policy advisor for Safe & Sound, said 531 families are waiting for housing in San Francisco. Many of these families are living out of their cars or in RVs, yet the city has limited safe parking spots where people can situate themselves.

Along with not throwing out people’s belongings, advocates are also continuing to ask the city to stop the encampment sweeps because all they are accomplishing is moving unhoused folks block to block without solving the root problem of lack of consistent housing.

“We need urgent action, more family shelter beds, a stop to vehicle sweeps, expanded safe parking programs and housing solutions that keep our multi-generational families together. Our children’s futures depend on it. Let’s build a San Francisco where no family falls through the crack and every child has the opportunity to thrive,” Taylor said.

Speakers referenced the RV sweep conducted in early August on Zoo Road, where dozens of people, many of them non-English speaking immigrants, were asked to leave the parking lot or else their vehicles would be towed and they would be cited.

While people were offered shelter beds or housing vouchers, some worried about where they would stay while the city processed their applications. This drew criticism of San Francisco’s method of not always having immediate options for people yet continuing to sweep unhoused folks with nowhere to go.

Commissioners of HOC agreed that the city is not trying to exacerbate the issue and the resolution is one of many steps to ensure that there are no setbacks in the progress to ending homelessness in San Francisco.

The HOC will approve the resolution at a later meeting once amendments and changes are made.

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Bay Area

Mayor Sheng Thao Issues Executive Order to Shut Down Homeless Encampments

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao issued an executive order on Monday directing all city departments to enforce the 2020 encampment management policy and begin a much more diligent approach to homeless encampment sweeping. “Being homeless is not a crime in Oakland, but it doesn’t give the right to break other laws,” Thao said in a video statement.
The order comes months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass v Johnson decision to allow local municipalities the right to close encampments even if no shelter is available.

Published

3 days ago

October 2, 2024

Oakland Post

The encampment policy prohibits camps in “high sensitivity areas” such as schools, businesses, walkways, recreational centers, and parks.

By Magaly Muñoz

“Being homeless is not a crime in Oakland, but it doesn’t give the right to break other laws,” Thao said in a video statement.

The order comes months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass v Johnson decision to allow local municipalities the right to close encampments even if no shelter is available.

The encampment policy prohibits camps in “high sensitivity areas” such as schools, businesses, walkways, recreational centers, and parks.

Thao said that prioritizing which camps will close down immediately will come down to where they are located, such as the high sensitivity areas, and the public safety concerns the camps attract, such as fires, violent crimes, and illegal dumping.

Oakland joins other California cities, including their Bay Area neighbors San Francisco and Berkeley, in a calculated approach to cracking down on the homelessness crisis.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has been vocal in her decision to increase sweeping and get people off of the streets, which many have criticized as a political ploy as she seeks reelection this fall.

Thao followed up her executive order with another video Tuesday afternoon, where she and Assistant City Administrator Harold Duffey walked through the Martin Luther King Way encampment, stating the city recently cleared out 40 tons of debris from the littered area.

The city began clearing out the encampment early last week with some reports saying that staff threw away people’s personal belongings, including a wheelchair.

The mayor’s office did not respond for comment at the time of publication.

About 40 people were living in the camp, according to the City. Sixteen people received shelter, nine enrolled in a county medical respite program, and 12 individuals declined offers of shelter and self-relocated. An individual with two broken legs was also taken to the hospital.

In the video, Duffey explained that two weeks prior to an encampment closure, outreach teams are asked to visit the site and pair people with services and offer temporary housing.

Although there are offers of shelter being made at sweeps, Thao’s executive order states that in no way will “emergency or urgent closures be delayed for shelter unavailability,” meaning sites can be closed down and people will have to disperse even if they have nowhere else to go.

Duffey clarified that although workers cleared out a massive amount of debris from the MLK site, the city is aware that the illegal dumping is often coming from individuals targeting encampments to litter the area because it’s easier to place blame on the people already living there.

Thao shared her experience of homelessness in both video statements, saying she lived in her car with her son after she escaped an abusive relationship. She added that she never once thought about “pitching a tent on the streets.”

Advocates are upset at the recent order, arguing it will exacerbate the harm to unhoused Oaklanders.

Talya Husbands-Hankin, founder of Love and Justice in the Streets, said the order will force these vulnerable residents into unsafe conditions because of the failure to provide permanent housing. She added that this action is aligning itself with values of a Trump-appointed Supreme Court and is “contrary to the values of justice and equity that Oaklanders want to uphold.”

“We know that sweeps are not the answer, and we urge Mayor Thao to redirect all resources into immediately opening public land for community-led solutions and funding permanent housing to uplift human rights for all Oakland residents,” Husbands-Hankin said.

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Bay Area

Alameda County Supervisors Keith Carson and Nate Miley Endorse Dana Lang for BART Board District 7

Alameda County Supervisors Nate Miley and Keith Carson have announced their support for Dana Lang for the BART Board District 7 Seat. These supervisors say that Lang has been a behind-the-scenes force in transportation funding for many years and can help BART manage its financial challenges.

Published

4 days ago

October 1, 2024

Oakland Post

Courtesy of Dana Lang.

By Oakland Post Staff

Alameda County Supervisors Nate Miley and Keith Carson have announced their support for Dana Lang for the BART Board District 7 Seat.

These supervisors say that Lang has been a behind-the-scenes force in transportation funding for many years and can help BART manage its financial challenges.

Supervisor Nate Miley acknowledges that, “At a time when BART is facing a “fiscal cliff” and an upcoming deficit of nearly $360 million per year, Dana is the person for the job. As a transportation leader, Dana Lang is exactly ready to meet this moment.”

Over the past 24 years, Lang has been a funding and grants specialist with several municipal transportation agencies, including the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, San Francisco Muni, San Francisco Police Department and San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

Dana Lang says, “I’ve faced a number of fiscal crises in my career — such as securing $52 million in new transit security funding for SFMTA (Muni) during the 2008 Great Recession, when others thought it was not possible. I have always managed to identify new funding and ways to make transit more secure. Facing a crisis is the best time to act, through advocacy and policy setting. We’ve got to keep BART running and make it safer and more vibrant in order to meet the needs of our riders, our work force, and our community.”

Lang grew up in the low-income minority community of East Palo Alto and knew that locating grants and resources could positively impact an entire city and its surrounding region — helping to create and retain agency jobs, getting riders to their workplaces, and encouraging small business development near transit hubs. With that in mind, she pursued a bachelor’s degree in economics from Wellesley College, then an MBA from Cal Berkeley Haas School of Business.

She started her municipal career as a policy advisor to Mayor Elihu Harris and helped secure grants for the City of Oakland before moving to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. During her 24-year career she has helped secure hundreds of millions of dollars for Bay Area transit agencies and municipalities. In addition to BART’s financial health, Lang’s priorities for BART also include safety, cleanliness, station vitality and bringing riders back to BART.

She has served on the BART Police Civilian Review Board since 2022.

Lang is also endorsed by BART Board Director Robert Raburn, former BART Board Director Carole Ward Allen, Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker, former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, former San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown, Oakland Councilperson Janani Ramachandran, Alameda Councilperson Tracy Jensen, Oakland Chinatown leader Carl Chan, and many others.

Lang is seeking the BART Board District 7 Seat, which covers most of the East Bay, including Oakland, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, and a small portion of Berkeley. The district also includes Bay View Hunters Point and Treasure Island in San Francisco.