District 5 Newsletter - August 2, 2024
Friends and neighbors,
I would like to take a second to thank everyone that worked with our office to ensure we were able to preserve critical programs and funding in this year's budget. Huge thank you to the many advocates, community leaders, CBOs, neighborhood and merchant groups, and my colleagues on the Budget and Appropriations Committee for all of their advocacy on budget.
We have many wins to celebrate this year! From the Tenant Right to Counsel program, MOUs with various unions, and many other essential services that are crucial programs and resources for poor and working class San Franciscans. I am deeply appreciative of the many items we were able to secure for my district through the budget process, including public housing organizers, Code Enforcement and Outreach Program funding, OCEIA Community Ambassadors, workforce development funding, Emergency Rent Assistance, and funding to support food access and community-based grants, just to name a few.
My team worked hard to improve the original proposed budget and prioritize our most urgent needs. Here are some highlights below:
Restored Community based grants funded by the sugary drinks tax in the Department of Public Health to fund Healthy Communities Grants for health education, chronic disease prevention, physical activity, urban farming, chronic disease prevention and healthy lifestyle promotion, and oral health support, were all reduced by the Administration and the Board seeks to restore these programs by $5,400,000
Restored $500,000 in funding to the Department of Children, Youth, and their Families funding for the Adolescent/Transitional Age Youth System of Care programs providing unique behavioral and physical health prevention, early intervention, and treatment options and services for youth that was reduced by the Administration
Restored $1.7M in funding to support workers’ rights outreach and education for low-wage immigrant workers, youth civic engagement and outreach, community arts and culture, education, and engagement, and language access in the Office City Administrator through Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs, and Office of Labor Standards Enforcement were reduced by the Administration
Restored $3.3M in funding for the nationally recognized Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs program that the Mayor completely eliminated. The OCEIA ambassador program is critical to our neighborhoods because they increase safety awareness and public service assistance with cultural and language competency serving residents and visitors across the City.
Restored $7.4M in funding for the City’s workforce development through the Office of Workforce and Economic Development, and the Human Services Agency in the areas of sector training and unhoused employment opportunities were reduced impacting the job opportunities for young people, low-income households, unhoused people, and immigrant workers, putting more people at higher risk of homelessness, and continuing trap of the cycle of poverty.
Restored $5M in funding from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development providing Emergency Rental Assistance, which are grants for community-based organizations serving the unhoused, low-wage workers, and immigrants as well as women and people impacted by domestic violence and human trafficking; tenant counseling, education, and outreach.
Restored $720k in funding to support food access and community-based grants to fund neighborhood-based grocery access, especially in the low-income, high-need neighborhoods, and other food programs, by the Human Services Agency that were reduced by the Administration.
Restored $14.6 in funding for the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families for robust programming serving children and youth citywide, and unique populations and neighborhoods in San Francisco, including recently arrived youth/TAY, LGBTQI, linguistically isolated, unhoused and system impacted/involved youth that depend on programs previously funded by the department.
Restored $5.4M in funding for violence intervention programs for adults and youth
Restored funding to the Code Enforcement Outreach Programs within the Department of Building Inspection that was reduced by the Administration
Restored $1M in funding to support transitional aged youth and a flexible pool of subsidies for homeless Transitional-Aged Youth in the Homelessness and Supportive Housing Department
Advocated for $8M in funding to support environmental justice, urban agriculture, and food justice programming, operations and infrastructure within the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
These are just some of the hard-fought wins through this year’s budget negotiations. Thanks to community organizing, progressive revenue measures passed at the ballot by voters, and progressive leadership on the board, these critical programs can continue.
The Board of Supervisors will be on Summer Recess the week of August 5 to September 3, meaning the Board of Supervisors and our committees will not meet and vote on items during that time. We are working through the recess, so don’t hesitate to reach out with any issues.
As always, stay in touch with the District 5 office by emailing us at PrestonStaff@sfgov.org, calling (415) 554-7630, or replying to this email.
In community,
Dean Preston, District 5 Supervisor
Up to 3,667 Deeply Affordable Homes Coming to San Francisco
We are thrilled to share that in response to our resolution, the Mayor and Housing Authority have committed to using the federal Faircloth-to-RAD program to create 3,667 deeply affordable homes! This is a huge victory for public housing residents, tenant organizers, and affordable housing advocates who partnered with our office to demand that San Francisco utilize these available federal funds. The announcement commits the Housing Authority to submitting requests to HUD to reserve funding for all 3,667 units before the September 30, 2024 deadline, a key demand of our office and tenants that until recently had not been met. The announcement from the Administration, released just hours before our recent oversight hearing, is a huge step forward toward providing housing for thousands of extremely low-income San Franciscans.
San Francisco Passes Resolution to Back ‘Justice for Renters Act’ and Repeal Costa Hawkins
The Board of Supervisors passed our resolution to support the Justice for Renters Act, aiming to repeal the state Costa Hawkins law that limits local rent control. Since Costa Hawkins’ passage in 1995, California cities have struggled to extend rental protections and regulate rental prices, leading to runaway rents in San Francisco. The law, created by the real estate industry, has prevented cities from adapting rent control laws to the housing affordability crisis. Repealing it would allow San Francisco to strengthen rent control and stop unfair rent hikes, and is a primary demand of the tenant rights movement. Costa Hawkins currently exempts over 100,000 housing units in San Francisco from rent control, including all condominiums and everything built after 1979. It also prohibits “vacancy control,” allowing landlords to hike rents in an unlimited amount when a unit becomes vacant. The Justice for Renters Act, a California State Initiative, will appear on the November 5, 2024 ballot, requiring a simple majority of votes for passage.
OCEIA Ambassadors Saved!
In a major victory for public safety and community engagement, funding for San Francisco’s Community Ambassador Program (CAP), run through the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs (OCEIA), was restored in the budget. The funding will allow the only City-operated community ambassador program – consisting of 60 ambassadors – to continue to operate. The popular program was defunded in the Mayor’s proposed budget and would have been forced to shut down in the upcoming fiscal year if not for the Board’s action. Thank you to everybody who liked and shared posts from the Don’t Cut CAP campaign, attended our rallies, or joined us at the Board of Supervisors when we honored these ambassadors before the Board of Supervisors with a special commendation for their service to San Franciscans. We fought to bring ambassadors to every D5 neighborhood and we are proud that we were able to save this program.
