Adrian Tirtanadi, the co-founder of Open Door Legal, a nonprofit that provides free legal services to San Francisco residents, kicked off a potential two-week hunger strike with a rally outside City Hall on Wednesday. Tirtanadi says he won’t eat until Mayor Daniel Lurie reverses planned cuts for the city’s legal services.
Lurie, Tirtanadi said, is “out of touch with the majority of supervisors,” gesturing to the seven city supervisors who stood on the steps alongside him. About 50 supporters, including several who have received aid from Open Door Legal, stood below, holding signs reading “Legal aid saves lives” and “Still in debt, many more unhoused.”
Lurie’s budget proposal, which the Board of Supervisors must ratify by the month’s end, eliminates funding for “general civil legal services:” All legal aid that isn’t designated for immigration, domestic violence, or eviction defense. That covers cases like wage theft, foreclosure or informal eviction, such as a landlord creating inhabitable living conditions, or turning off the electricity.
Tirtanadi plans to go on hunger strike until June 25. That’s the date when the Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Appropriations Committee will begin deliberations on Lurie’s budget proposal.
“Legal aid is not a luxury; it is a lifeline for many of our residents, especially those in District 10,” said Natalie Gee, Supervisor Shamann Walton’s aide. “Without legal representation, we are going to see tenants lose their homes and a rise in homelessness.”
Congregants at five churches across the city will also begin fasting in solidarity with Tirtanadi.
Open Door Legal’s offices now span across the city, but the nonprofit began in Bayview in 2013. The organization estimates it has served 20 percent of the largely low-income neighborhood’s residents.
Lurie’s budget proposal aims to close San Francisco’s roughly $800 million deficit by cutting grant spending and eliminating some 1,400 city jobs, though all but around 100 of those jobs are vacant, and only some 470 are tied to budget outlays. Nonprofits have been hit hard: Lurie is seeking to cut about $200 million in nonprofit contracts over two years.
Public safety will not face the budget axe: The San Francisco Police Department, the district attorney’s office, and the sheriff’s department are being spared cuts. Lurie is also setting aside an extra $89 million in unspent funds out of Prop. C monies to help stand up 1,500 shelter beds across the city, part of a campaign pledge.
Tirtanadi, for his part, said that funding would be better spent on preventing homelessness in the first place, which he says general civil legal services help to do.
“I think [homelessness] prevention is a blindspot,” said Tirtanadi on Wednesday. Wage theft, informal eviction, and foreclosure are leading causes of homelessness in San Francisco, he said, and services from groups like his can help. “It seems like what they’re doing is taking money from prevention and moving it towards shelter … Why isn’t any of that funding used for legal services?”
Emily McGinley, a pastor at City Church San Francisco, says that the city is in a “moral crisis.”
“When a mayor eliminates funding for legal services, he doesn’t just betray a budget line item; he betrays the covenant between the government and the governed,” said McGinley, who added that members of her congregation have received free legal services that helped keep them off the streets.
“If this budget passes,” added Tirtanadi, “We will be in the same place in a few years. More people will be entering homelessness, but we will spend even more money to address it.”
Thank you Open Door Legal. By the way anybody who is complaining about their budget or salaries should go look it up for themselves and compare it to a police officer’s salary. All that information is public. Lawyers go to school for 8 years on average while police officers get trained for three months at best.
Who were the Supervisors who did not show up? I’m guessing Dorsey, Sherrill, Mandelman, Engardio and Melgar.
five people make $147k or more, one person made $118k. Rent and a nice sign out front is another cost.
Thanks for reporting
He can do what he wants
How about contiuning to help those you have been without city funding?
Volunteer and altruism
Would like to see this nonprofits operating budget
How much went to
Salaries office etc
I bet the majority
My block has had a drug den for seven years , city always states they dont have the money and resources ; Im not on a hungry strike to get help; just cannot go out on my street for my safety for seven years Welcome to the world
“Lurie’s budget proposal, which the Board of Supervisors must ratify by the month’s end, eliminates funding for ‘general civil legal services:’ All legal aid that isn’t designated for immigration, domestic violence, or eviction defense. That covers cases like wage theft, foreclosure or informal eviction, such as a landlord creating inhabitable living conditions, or turning off the electricity.”
“Wage theft, informal eviction, and foreclosure are leading causes of homelessness in San Francisco, [Tirtanadi] said, and services from groups like [Open Door Legal] can help.”
I don’t believe that wage theft, informal eviction (whatever that is) and foreclosure are leading causes of homelessness in San Francisco. How many foreclosures were there in SF in 2024? How many tenants were evicted in SF last year because Landlord turned off utilities? How many families lost their homes through wage theft?
As the author wrote above, it’s not like Mayor is cutting all legal aid funding–immigration, DV and eviction defense are hugely important and it sounds like Mayor agrees that this funding should stay.
Also, I wonder what role the Mayor’s prior experience at Tipping Point had to do with this decision. I assume Tipping Point is very familiar with the work of all the big legal aid orgs in the Bay Area, and Open Door Legal is a very prominent one.
Defund Open Door Legal.
“If this budget passes,” added Tirtanadi, “We will be in the same place in a few years. More people will be entering homelessness, but we will spend even more money to address it.”
^^^