Speakers urge Mayor, board to free Dreamkeepers funding as community groups warn of service disruptions

Scores of community speakers at the Dec. 17 San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting urged the mayor and city officials to release or restore Dreamkeepers Initiative funding after months of delay and public scrutiny over the program's administration.

Several speakers described Dreamkeepers-funded programs that serve seniors, formerly incarcerated people, families and youth and said they face immediate harm if contracts and payments are withheld. "Don't throw the baby out with the bath and join forces with the community and say to whoever is handling that Dreamkeepers money, don't you stop it," said Reverend Amos C. Brown, a longtime community leader who addressed the board during public comment.

Community nonprofit leaders said the program has supported workforce training, early-childhood cohorts, housing navigation and neighborhood outreach throughout Black and other historically underserved neighborhoods. "This initiative has helped so many people," said one speaker, describing pathways from incarceration to employment and citing education and case-management cohorts for residents. Several presenters said Dreamkeepers enabled organizations to hire staff and deliver services that would otherwise be impossible.

Speakers also described the practical challenges nonprofits now face: staff unpaid for months, programs operating on shoestring reserves and the inability of smaller organizations to carry multi-month cash-flow gaps while awaiting city reimbursements. "Some of the complaints are coming from our next door neighbor and she hasn't made an effort to differentiate between the two of us," one sponsor representative said earlier in the meeting about odor complaints at a separate hearing, underscoring that community realities are often intertwined.

At least one supervisor noted that the release of funds is the mayor's office prerogative rather than a direct board appropriation issue. "To be fair to all speakers, we're just giving everybody the same amount of time under 2 minutes," President Aaron Peskin said after extensive public testimony; Supervisor Walton observed the board does not directly control the mayor's spending decisions, and that organizations should work with the mayor's office for contract and payment resolution.

Speakers asked the board to pressure the mayor to free payments for organizations whose services fund housing navigation, youth employment, senior services and other safety-net activities. Several community advocates said they intend to continue public pressure and to work with the mayor's office to resolve outstanding payments and sustain services.

Provenance: a cluster of public-comment items spanning the latter portion of the meeting captured repeated pleas from community organizations and residents, followed by officials reiterating that spending and contract execution falls under the mayor's office and relevant departments.