On Tuesday, dozens of people gathered on the steps of City Hall to call attention to the Lurie Administration’s moves to criminalize homelessness. The administration is closing shelters, cutting down on Permanent Supportive Housing, and redirecting resources to law-enforcement.
“He could take the money he’s spending on criminalization and spend it on housing,” Kema Straker, a harm-reduction specialist at the Coalition on Homelessness, said.
Speaker after speaker talked about the brutality of life on the streets and the lasting harm of the sweeps. “This city in not trying to solve homelessness,” said Apple Cronk, who lived on the streets for eight years. “They just want to erase visible poverty from rich neighborhoods and business corridors.”
The reality, Cronk said, is that police are expensive, and using teams of cops to roust the unhoused is both cruel and a waste of money. —48 Hills
Also on Tuesday I attended the Board of Supervisor meeting where I heard several public comments given by the Black community. All were serious and heavy: One person questioned why Parks and Rec doesn’t have the funding needed for Ella Hill Hutch Community Center’s Summer youth programming which is supposed to start Monday? Will the kids have supervision? Food? Programs? Another spoke of a lynching of a Black person in San Francisco, in 2025 I believe. I need to check again and haven’t had the fortitude to listen to the comment again yet. The commenter laid out the facts of the case and it’s absolutely horrifying!
Reverend Amos Brown regularly makes public comments on behalf of the Black community. Here is an excerpt of his Tuesday comment:
I must use the words of the late Langston Hughes,
“I swear to the Lord I still can’t see why democracy means everybody but me in the court.”
My friends there has been too much of an assault and an insult to the African-American community. More specifically in the Fillmore. […]
I say without fear of contradiction, Mr. President, members of this Board, we have not received due process. Therefore we have been disrespected, dissed and divided, and I don’t think that you would feel too happy about anybody who would make an assault on your humanity.
And I submit to you that is happening in the city and county of San Francisco. It is happening in the Fillmore.
And I wonder when is such going to stop?
John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath said, “I wonder how many people in my lifetime have I just looked at but did not see?”
My friends, it is high time that in the City and county, in this county, that the body politic stop just looking at Black folks as being tools and things, and see them as being members of the human family.
—Reverend Amos Brown, former Supervisor
Writing this post, thinking about this week, oversaturates my heart with deep sadness and anger. Let me continue.
According to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis earlier this year, nearly 30% of the neighborhood’s residents live below the federal poverty line, compared to 11% in The City overall. The neighborhood also has the highest concentration of children in The City, with around 3,500 children, according to the San Francisco Planning Department.
“Don’t balance our budget on the backs of poor people, don’t budget balance our budget on the backs of immigrants, don’t budget balance our budget on the backs of seniors, or our youth, or people with disabilities, or people in recovery, people living on the streets, or folks just fighting every day to stay housed, to stay healthy, and stay alive,” Bradford said. “The Tenderloin is the front line for the social safety net for the entire city of San Francisco.”
Mahmood represents District 5, which, according to the People’s Budget Coalition, is facing $6.8 million in cuts, more than any other district in The City and representing 38% of the cuts applied across the districts. —SF Examiner
I must point out that LGBTQ+ people are often left out of the conversation with it comes to homelessness and Tenderloin advocacy. You see an example of that in the quote above. Make no mistake, though, the trans community is in crisis and in the midst of an escalating genocide perpetrated by the US Government. LGBTQ+ in general are being targeted too. The LGBTQ+ community is disproportionately homeless. Last year at least 9% of homeless people were transgender. Mayor Lurie knows this and repeated this fact at last year’s SF Pride flag raising ceremony.
I cannot emphasize enough that if you see homeless people as truly being as human as yourself, you would not be terrorizing them like SF Gov, and the US Gov in general, does.
If you truly see Black people as truly being as human as yourself, you would be horrified and outraged at the malicious assault SF Gov, and the US Gov in general, has done—is doing to Black people.
If you truly see poor people in the Tenderloin as truly being as human as yourself, you would be panicking about the axe that’s set to come down on the TL’s neck.
I am not exaggerating. Mayor Lurie does not see Black people as equally human as himself. He does not see homeless people as human. In fact he personally bullies them. I must assume he enjoys it as he has stated in the Chonicle that he won’t stop. He does not see poor people as human. He sees poor people as a mess that needs to be cleaned up so SF can get to gentrifying the neighborhood, conquering and profiting off the land even more. I don’t make these accusations lightly.
I visited a few Supervisor offices with TL folks to advocate for the TL. I didn’t say too much as I find the whole process insulting, politely asking your government to not abuse you. But I wanted to show my support in all the ways I could. Please read TL Voice’s article as they were with the TL folks advocating too, Tenderloin rallies at City Hall to fight program and service cuts. I was impressed and grateful for their advocacy.
Many in the Tenderloin say that City Hall’s budgeting process is opaque, which puts them at a disadvantage to guard against its fallout. In recent weeks, organizers had to make informed guesses about what was on the chopping block by pouring over individual departments’ budgets and piecing that information together with city memos and news reports. —TL Voice
Here are the points advocates made with Supervisors.
June 10, 2026, San Francisco City Hall
The Tenderloin should not be asked to absorb cuts that undermine the very systems the City says it wants to strengthen. This neighborhood already carries a disproportionate share of San Francisco’s supportive housing, shelter, low-barrier services, and street-level stabilization work.
Cutting essential programming here does not make problems disappear, it pushes them onto residents, small businesses, emergency rooms, 911 and the streets. The smarter fiscal choice is to prevent deeper harm now, protect essential neighborhood infrastructure and do so without negatively impacting other communities.
We oppose cuts to essential Tenderloin programming and similar cuts in other neighborhoods. Neighborhoods with concentrated poverty, high needs, and heavy service responsibility should not be first in line for destabilizing reductions.
The Tenderloin is one of San Francisco’s primary neighborhoods for supportive housing, shelter, walk-in services, navigation, and street-level care. It is a frontline system of care for the whole city. If the Tenderloin is destabilized, the impacts do not stay in the Tenderloin.
When low-barrier, preventative, and neighborhood-based programs are cut, people still need help. The result is more crisis response, more strain on emergency systems, more visible instability, and more expensive public interventions later. That is the opposite of fiscal responsibility.
Some Tenderloin Community Action Plan (TCAP)-supported and community-serving programs have been successful precisely because they build safety, belonging, youth engagement, and positive use of public space. If funding disappears for programs like the Holiday Tree Lighting, TL National Forest, Elm Alley, Eid festival programming, and the Iman Network Arab Youth Program, that is not just a line-item cut, it is a direct cut to community stability, connection, and visible neighborhood life.
Small businesses in the Tenderloin are essential to the neighborhood’s economic and social fabric - they provide not only goods and services, but also stability, cultural identity, and daily points of connection for residents and workers. While resources exist through OEWD, CAP has played a vital role in helping address key gaps in small business support, demonstrating that when local businesses and community activations are invested in, they help increase safety, drive foot traffic, and strengthen overall neighborhood resilience and revitalization.
The City and community have already done the work through the TCAP Investment Blueprint.
Budget decisions should align with that framework by sustaining existing commitments, moving already-funded resources into community priorities, and protecting progress already underway.
TCAP is a coordinated and accountable model the City should continue partnering with, not weaken midstream.
Youth Safe Zones need programming, activation, trusted adult presence, and community ownership. They should be supported with dedicated funding for public space activations and related neighborhood programming.
The City should fund a neighborhood-based grants process so local groups can propose and implement activations, events, and safety-building projects connected to Youth Safe Zones and other public space goals.
Grassroots groups often have the ideas and neighborhood trust, but not always the infrastructure to receive and manage public dollars. The City should fund a community-serving organization with the capacity to act as fiscal agent and facilitator so community-led groups can access funds successfully and compliantly.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.