San Francisco, CA. Mayoral Power Grab Approved by Board of Supervisors Committee

Coalition on Homelessness statement on Prop C Our City Our Home Changes Mayoral Power Grab Approved by Board of Supervisors Committee

Early this morning at 1:30 am June 26th, the Board of Supervisors Budget and Appropriation committee voted 4 to 1 to remove the voter mandate of a supermajority in the legislative branch to change spending allocations. While this authorization was limited in nature to new revenue under $19 million, it was startling and unprecedented.

Many voter initiatives have this provision as a protection against executive abuse of power, ensuring that the legislative branch has guardrails in place to protect the will of the voters, except in exceptional circumstances. This is why a supermajority vote is required to change spending mandates in Prop C Our City Our Home. For the first time, the Mayor asked the Board to vote to remove that super majority threshold.

“San Francisco is not a kingdom, and it is not a corporation, it is a democracy. Prop C Our City Our Home was carefully constructed to ensure that data driven, voter approved mandates existed to build a responsive and efficient homeless system that was protected from wrongheaded political winds. We anticipated that there might be a need to change the spending categories over time, but that those changes should be made with great care and oversight by the people’s legislative branch. The supermajority vote that this current board removed is the very mechanism to protect that spending.” According to Jennifer Friedenbach, Director of the Coalition on Homelessness.

The Mayor originally proposed cutting $88.5 million from primarily youth and family housing funds and moving them to primarily single adult shelter. However, only some of those shelter expenditures had a plan or identified building. The original proposal was shrunk down, as the Mayor did not have the a supermajority of votes for his initial plan, especially given the blow that would have delivered to efforts to address the doubling of family homelessness in San Francisco. The investment plan as laid out by Our City Our Home oversight body had allocated $30m to family housing subsidies, $10m to transitional aged youth housing and $1m to Bayview housing, all of which was wiped out in the Mayors budget. The final proposal restored $20m of the family housing, $9.5m of the youth housing and none of the Bayview housing. However proponents of Prop C were especially concerned about the change in the supermajority requirement.

According to Homeless Oversight Commissioner and Prop C proponent Christin Evans “We need a balanced approach to addressing homelessness. Placing all our eggs into the shelter basket does not end homelessness, and it does not target root causes. Beyond shelter, we must make investments in housing and prevention, especially for invisible demographics which include families with young children and transitional age youth. That’s the only way we tackle the long-term trend of growing numbers of homeless exacerbated by our City’s severe lack of affordable housing.”

THIS ITEM COMES TO VOTE TO FULL BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ON TUESDAY JULY 9TH. PLEASE PLAN ON COMING AND SEND LETTERS OF OPPOSITION NOW!

The Coalition on Homelessness was founded in 1986 to create long term solutions to poverty and homelessness while protecting the human rights of those forced to remain on the streets. The organization led the efforts to craft Prop C Our City Our Home in 2017 and place it on the ballot in 2018 with input from unhoused people, front line service providers, policy makers, business and neighborhood groups and everyday San Franciscans. The measure received a groundswell of support, passing with 63% voter approval, attracting over 600 volunteers and collecting a record number of signatures. In addition, over 300 unhoused people worked on the initiative, calling voters and knocking on doors. The measure, the funds of which were released in 2020, has led to over 5,700 San Franciscans being housed including 1,700 children, along with thousands receiving prevention, shelter and behavioral health services.

Thanks so much for considering sending this letter. We are especially focused on Supervisors Mahmood, Melgar and Chen.

We really need your help to honor the will of the voters and preserve the integrity of Prop C. Taking away the supermajority requirement for two years is a very dangerous precedent to set. If the Mayor has a solid helpful proposal it will get the support!

Here is sample language for letter. By the vote on July 8th please email to: Chyanne.Chen@sfgov.org, myrna.melgar@sfgov.org, Bilal.Mahmood@sfgov.org, Board.of.supervisors@sfgov.org

Dear Supervisor _:

I am writing to strongly urge you to reject Section 4 from the trailing legislation (File No. 250609) associated with Proposition C, Our City Our Home (2018):

Section 4. Under the authority in Business and Tax Regulations Code Section 2811, the Board of Supervisors authorizes the City to expend future revenues that will be deposited in the OCOH Fund through fiscal year 2026-27, after addressing the specified costs required under subsections 2810(b)(1) and (2), among any or all of the eligible programs to address or prevent homelessness as described in subsections 2810(b)(3)\A}-(D), notwithstanding the specific percentage allocations that would otherwise apply, subject to approval by the Board of Supervisors by appropriation.

This is a major departure from the provisions of Prop C. Voters specifically required a supermajority of the Board of Supervisors to approve any changes to Prop C allocations. Section 4 of this legislation weakens the voters’ deliberate safeguard by enabling reallocation with only a simple majority vote.

The removal of the supermajority requirement is a major departure from previous versions of Prop C trailing legislation. This change undermines the will of the voters and puts the integrity of citizen initiatives at risk. The Board and Mayor must honor the intent of the voters as well as the citizen initiative process protected in the San Francisco Charter.

We call on you to respect the will of the voters and proponents of Prop C such as <> and reject this section of the trailing legislation.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.