SF's Lurie takes on City's homeless industrial complex
Lurie moves money away from Housing First and to shelters. Also increases mayor's power to direct homelessness spend. Housing advocates squawk. Sound familiar? The SF Examiner reports.
As two of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s initiatives aimed to address homelessness moved closer to becoming law Tuesday, advocates and activists for the unhoused met the news with frustration and by echoing the concerns of lawmakers who voted against it.
The Board of Supervisors passed the ordinances on second reading Tuesday. One reallocates nearly $34.8 million in tax revenue raised for the Our City, Our Home Fund from permanent housing toward shelter over the next two fiscal years.
It also enables the Mayor’s Office to spend up to $19.1 million in excess revenue “on any programs to address homelessness” as outlined by the fund without approval from a supermajority of supervisors, according to the legislation.
The pieces of legislation will become law no later than 10 days after reaching Lurie’s desk, and, perhaps sensing that inevitability, organizers and homeless residents opposing the changes rallied prior to Tuesday’s meeting to “mourn the death of democracy.”
“The Mayor's Office says that this is a small adjustment to help manage a tough budget season, but it's not — it's a test,” said Maria Zamudio, the executive director for the San Francisco Housing Rights Committee, of the surplus spending decisions now in the hands of the mayor. “It's a trial balloon. If they break the seal now, they'll do it again.”
Proposition C passed with 61.3% of the vote in 2018, creating a fund estimated to raise up to $300 million per year for addressing homelessness. The fund originally allocated 50% for housing, 25% for behavioral health, 15% for homelessness prevention and 10% for shelter.
But Lurie and his allies, including Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, have argued that changing conditions since Prop. C’s passage required reallocating the funds. The City’s unhoused population has grown since 2018, even as Prop. C tax revenues have funded the creation of thousands of units of permanent supportive housing.
“The answer cannot — as it’s been for a decade — perpetually be to add more and more money,” Kunal Modi, San Francisco’s chief of health, homelessness and family services, recently told The Examiner. “We’re going to spend the money smarter to get better outcomes and actually better supports for people on their pathway to self-sufficiency.”
Just as they did last week, supervisors voted unanimously to reallocate the almost $34.8 million in Our City, Our Home funds. Supervisors Chyanne Chen, Jackie Fielder and Shamann Walton once again voted against the excess-spending provision, with Zamudio echoing Fielder and Walton’s contention last week that it amounted to a power grab from the mayor.
Read the whole thing here.
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