On Tuesday, July 15, as part of several budget votes happening that day, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will take a final vote on whether to allow Mayor Daniel Lurie to shift money from permanent supportive housing towards his stated goal of adding 1,500 (now scaled down to 1,000) new shelter beds throughout the city.
This week, District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder, housing advocates, and those who have benefitted from permanent supportive housing rallied on the steps of City Hall, trying to persuade the rest of the board to vote the proposal down.
What’s so scary about money for more shelter beds? Mission Local is here to break it down for you.
Taking money from homeless programs to fund other homeless programs
Lurie is proposing significant changes to Proposition C, a 2018 ballot initiative that taxes businesses with gross receipts above $50 million and puts that revenue into different categories of homeless services.
The measure is earmarked to fund permanent supportive housing (50 percent), mental health services (25 percent), homelessness prevention (15 percent), and hygiene and temporary shelter (up to 10 percent).
Voters put the supervisors in charge of how Prop C. revenues are disbursed, requiring a supermajority vote to make any changes to the totals above.
But making changes is exactly what Lurie wants to do, and without the required supermajority. He has proposed reallocating approximately $35 million in Prop. C money away from permanent housing and toward temporary shelter.
It’s a significant total: The total projected Prop. C revenue for the upcoming fiscal year is $303 million and, under the current rules, approximately $30 million of that can be used for temporary shelters.
If the proposal is approved, that number will nearly double, taking funding away from permanent housing to be used for navigation centers and interim housing expansion.
Critics argue that moving any funds away from permanent supportive housing has contributed to a cycle of homelessness. A March report from the San Francisco Controller’s Office found that only 13 percent of the people who left city shelters in 2024 were able to move into permanent housing, largely because that housing did not exist.
Sunbear Jackson, who is formerly homeless, says he was moved around from shelter to shelter for more than a decade as he tried to search for permanent housing while battling a methamphetamine addiction. Funds from Prop. C helped secure housing for him and his young son. Stable housing, he said, helped him stay sober.
Lurie originally had a much bigger ask: $89 million. After a long night of negotiations, that number was reduced to nearly $35 million and unanimously approved by the Budget and Appropriations Committee last month.
The trouble with Section 4
It’s not just the funding changes that are controversial. The section of Lurie’s proposal that has garnered the most contention is Section 4, which ends the supermajority requirement for allocation changes. Instead of needing eight of 11 supervisors, changes to Prop. C could be made with a 6-5 vote.
In the budget committee, District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton was the only dissenting vote on Section 4 of the proposal. It’s unclear how the full board will vote on Tuesday.
If Section 4 is approved, making any changes in how funding is allocated for Prop. C would be much easier.
The budget committee did moderate that ask as well: The simple majority only applies to changes of up to $19 million. Anything more requires the original supermajority. And it only applies for the next two fiscal years.
Still, Lurie’s move has sparked fear of a precedent giving more power to the mayor and Board of Supervisors to modify measures directly approved by voters. In 2018, Prop. C was voted for by a whopping 61 percent of San Franciscans.
The City Attorney’s Office, for its part, has questioned the legality of the move altogether. It sent a memo to supervisors in June, warning that a vote to change Section 4 is a potential violation of Prop. C’s intent and could make the city vulnerable to a lawsuit.
Despite this, Supervisors Fielder and Walton have been the only vocal opponents of Section 4.
‘This will be hard to walk back’
The mayor controls about 15 percent of the $15.9 billion city budget (about $2.3 billion in discretionary funds this time around). The supervisors have power over a fraction of that (about $14.4 million, or 0.1 percent).
But this isn’t the first time a mayor has attempted to dip into Prop. C money. In 2023, former Mayor London Breed, who initially opposed Prop. C, attempted to reallocate $60 million in interest from its revenue to fund temporary shelter beds. That was negotiated down to $16 million.
But this is the first time a San Francisco mayor has proposed diverting funds from prior appropriated revenue, not just interest, and attempted to limit a voter mandated supermajority.
Housing advocates have expressed concerns that Lurie’s proposal would set a precedent that would make it easier to divert more funds from permanent supportive housing in the future, and bypass a voter-approved mandate.
At a rally on Tuesday, Fielder said changing the rules of Prop. C sets a precedent that “will be hard to walk back.”
Former District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston stood in the crowd on Tuesday. Preston, who was heavily involved in the shaping of Prop. C, echoed those fears.
“The mayor and the board would basically be rewriting the legislation,” said Preston. “Who’s to say that wouldn’t change how decisions are made for the next 10 years? Or the next 20?”
> “Taking the popular disgust with public squalor off of the table would disarm the progressive kill switch that is persistent homeless public squalor.”
Is this a riddle? I tried it as a palindrome, and that didn’t work.
I feel like most of those involved are at home in the evening with a bag of chips and a vape pen watching a chef get eliminated.
As Care Not Cash took effect, progressive nonprofits glommed onto the “Care” contracts, housing and services. They hijacked the progressive message from a well rounded complete political agenda to one in service of those contracts and grants. Part of that involved defending public squalor, calling for housing and services instead of a police crackdown. The other part involved conservative mayors using Care Not Cash funding as a kill switch to keep nonprofits in line and setting themselves up as the political villains defending the squalorific status quo. This severed the nonprofity progressives from the electorate. After almost 2 decades of shrilly defending increasingly appalling public squalor the electorate has been delivered into the hands of the hard liners, progressive political power is at a nadir and shows no sign of recovering. Yet progressives keep doubling down on that which led them off of a cliff. It is not just homeless where progressive Democrats deny the risks of advancing narrow policies that alienate more than they magnetize. They denied the risks of immigration and trans at the federal level, attacked the voters as “privileged,” and proceeded to get their clocks cleaned on both, and now the backlash is just getting going. The reason why SF has Lurie is the same reason why the US has Trump. Local Democrats catered to everyone who didn’t vote, imimgrants at least in numbers, trans and homeless people, while deriding the electorate as privileged.
Whenever conservative mayors want to check any progressive elected, the mayor simply informs the supe that the mayor will cut off their favored nonprofit unless the supe plays ball with the mayor. That’s yer kill switch. I’ve seen them run this play several times.
Increased policing has been proven ineffective. You are speaking to a political strategy wherein other aspects of progressivism can be implemented if progressives attempt to sell the lie that cops and crackdowns are the way to go in order to get their candidate elected. It’ll never work.
Has Mamdani called for increasing NYPD staffing levels? No.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/nyregion/zohran-mamdani-crime-plan.html
I over debated the national election in the months following and burnt out, but I will say that I think it a myth that Dems are in a poor position. It’s there for the taking.
It’s about police OVERSIGHT and enforcement priorities, not necessarily “policing increases” per se.
I think everyone would benefit from police doing their jobs effectively, but that’s not something that simply comes from having more police officers or a larger budget. It’s all inclusive. If the political agents control the police commission and oversight, and they’re not interested in either, expect the best?
We need to respect the laws on the books – in this case, Prop C’s super majority requirement on allocation. We have enough lawless chaos/power-grabbing in the country right now. Let’s be better than that here at home by working together to find the right mix of temporary vs long-term supportive housing/services.
Lurie is pulling all the Trump moves. All he is a tik tok mayor.
What a waste of taxpayer funds. I wish I could receive free housing instead of paying over 50% of my income on rent.
Bus everyone who is not from San Francisco *out* of the city. We must stop the bleeding! These policies only incentivize people from outside the city to come.
This is what happens when progressives are reduced to the development, fundraising, junior partner arm of the corrupt political machine, in the hopes that their nonprofits will get contracts, after severing any meaningful connection to residents and consequently seeing their political power evaporate to where they are marginalized to a fringe minority.
These are judgement calls. It is not a slam dunk that building shelter beds that have a good chance of checking the public squalor that’s animated the electorate in recent years is any better or worse than the years long timeframes of new construction PSH. Given that PSH is being proposed adjacent to an elementary school is a good reason to put the brakes on PSH.
Taking the popular disgust with public squalor off of the table would disarm the progressive kill switch that is persistent homeless public squalor. This could open the door to moving a broader left populist agenda of every other issue above and beyond city funded nonprofit maintenance that defending the indefensible status quo on homelessness has inhibited for the past decade.
If the progressive branded nonprofits were not to be the recipients of PSH $, then the nonprofit adjacent supervisors would not be exercised over this matter. Prop C was always problematic in its drafting, and is now coming back to bite sponsors.
And didn’t Lurie walk back his promise to build out shelter beds just last week? Why is he this week attempting a heavy lift on Prop C for shelter beds?
“Why is he this week attempting a heavy lift on Prop C for shelter beds?”
Because negative reporting is his inverse operating priority. He’s no Breed, he actually doesn’t lean into being the corrupt machiavelli-villain of the city.
There is one major problem. People with cell phones won’t call anyone, even anonymously, that someone might be in distress on the street. Often more than two people per day die on our streets, usually from drugs. People admit they ignore those who may need help. How can they know whether this person is ok or not? The city says they want to try to connect people in need with services. Take this seriously.
I am reminded when Toby arranges a military funeral for a homeless Korean War veteran, on the West Wing tv show, President Bartlet asks Toby, if he worries that such an act would bring other homeless veterans “out of the woodwork”. Toby replies, “I can only hope so, sir”.
If everyone would take the smallest effort to call attention to people in need of help, would the city have to do so much more?
I can only hope so, Sir.
Voter-approved mandates are a plague on government.
Handcuffing government is a Really Bad Idea.
I fully support revising the legislation to remove the supermajority requirement.
If government abuses its authority, then throw the rascals out.
That’s what democracy is all about.
By that reasoning, we should abolish Prop. 13, which has handcuffed (and starved) California governments like nothing else.
Thanks for the article
Emergency and temp shelters should be a priority
The Progressives are harming with their insistence on long term housing
The UN refugee camps are a good model
Although not perfect , 6 million persons are housed in canps with services etc
The persons who are from here need to be taken off the streets immediately.
Those not from here and those that have not been residents here with who were had a place , should also be removed stabilized and sent back
US military built a camp for 10, 000 refugees in two weeks .
Refugees from other countries are currently housed at military bases
If people really wanted housing they would jump and take what they can get .
Many on the street here dont want housing they want drugs
Nonprofits have been coaching them to refuse
What kind of horrible person would discourage persons from shelter ?
Also no one is owed anything
People should appreciate an offer for shelter
They need to go where the shelter is
They only want to be in the Tenderloin because if the drugs
There are no jobs there
Get real
UN Shelter Camps … why not RV and Tent Campgrounds ?
What a breath of fresh air you are with your sensible and realistic UN Campground style proposal.
You aren’t from around here or you’d mention how San Franciscans and the Army housed a hundred thousand was it in days and some of the ‘tiny homes’ they built are still standing I’m told.
I’ve been advocating the construction of 4,000 high quality RV/Tent slots inside the City limits on half of each golf course and 2 on Treasure Island.
I’m convinced that AGI will solve the problem of Poverty within the next 10 years and then we can rent to a hundred million or so UBI recipients.
Let me give you a picture at what it might cost to take care of a UBI person at my level of comfort.
I consume around 60k in pension and voucher combined income and live in a splendid little one bedroom in the Mission w/my dog.
To give back my dog and I are City registered Volunteer Trash Pickers for 2 blocks from Guerrero to Mission plus the rear of the Armory and entire perimeter of place (Sparc) I get my pot.
I handed the Mayor a 23 million savings package but like your UN Tent Town it was and will be ignored.
Cancel the 15.3 million for unneeded and poorly designed trash cans.
I shove things through the wide slots of the concrete based units which are best … things I could never get into one of the Parisian thingees.
That, and move the Park Police into SFPD to fill some of their empty slots.
Savings there around 8 million (cops already have the slots budgeted).
On making shelters mandatory I’m told that they fear being raped or robbed or both but that’s probably just fake news ?
go Niners !!
h.