Hundreds crowded San Francisco’s City Hall on Monday to protest Mayor Daniel Lurie’s proposed budget cuts, which include $200 million in cuts to non profit funding. These cuts would impact organizations that provide social services like housing counseling, bilingual language support, employment resources among other outreach work.
We went to downtown San Francisco to ask people how this budget would impact them.
At noon, there is a frenetic energy near the Ferry Building. People walk with quick strides, phones tucked by their ears, a whittled down cigarette between their fingers. It’s difficult to see someone not in motion, but architectural glass worker Dan Rogers is perched on a small structure, taking a lunch break with two coworkers when I approach him.
Dan lives in San Mateo, but his company often contracts him to work on low-income housing units in San Francisco. When it comes to the budget cuts, he questions if the mayor is really addressing what’s important.
" I mean, I think his priorities are a little skewed," Dan says. "I think everybody needs some assistance in some sort of way, you know, maybe food, transportation, housing. I think that a lot of people rely on that benefit."
As the mayor prepares to slash non profit funding, he aims to continue funding the city’s police, sheriff, and probation departments. Tim Gray, a stationary engineer, is conflicted about having more police in San Francisco.
"I'm not for just blanket increasing in police, but that's more nationwide, less a specific town or city," says Tim. "So yeah, the solution for San Francisco maybe to go to the right a little bit, but, but we're pretty left."
Attorney Alexis Ballinger works with communities impacted by incarceration. She thinks that the proposed cuts would actually hurt the city’s most vulnerable residents.
"Pumping more money into an industrialized complex of this obsession with war, given what's happening and more guns and more armed individuals on the streets, I'm not sure that really helps what we're seeing here — the mental health crisis," says Alexis. "And that leads to drug addiction. I'm not sure adding more people armed is what's really going to help that."
Mayor Lurie has until June 30th to finalize the budget, and the city’s Budget and Appropriations Committee will hold a hearing today at 10a to consider any changes.
