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Artists, small and large organizations unite at Board hearing to demand more arts funding
Summary
Dozens of speakers from Arts for a Better Bay Area, the Arts Alliance and individual artists urged supervisors to increase Grants for the Arts, protect cultural spaces and fund youth arts and artist housing amid displacement pressures.
Public comment at the May 6 Budget & Finance Committee hearing was dominated by arts-sector testimony calling for increased city support to prevent displacement of artists and cultural organizations.
Representatives from the Arts Alliance, Arts for a Better Bay Area (ABBA), SFMOMA, San Francisco Symphony and numerous small and mid-sized groups told the committee that arts funding has not kept pace with rising hotel-tax revenue and city budgets. Several speakers said Grants for the Arts general-fund allocations have effectively remained flat (the transcript cites a current GFTA number of $11,400,000) while cultural organizations and individual artists face rent increases and threatened evictions.
Speakers made specific asks: ABBA and allied groups sought a substantial multi-million-dollar increase to city arts funding, including dedicated funds for small and mid-sized organizations, individual artists' commissions, arts-capital improvements, and artist housing. One artist and multiple speakers described recent evictions and steep rent increases, while several organizations urged expanding youth internship, apprenticeship and neighborhood arts programs.
Arts leaders framed cultural funding as essential to neighborhood vitality, economic activity and youth opportunity. "Artists are being driven from the city and small and mid sized arts organizations' very existence are being threatened," one speaker said. Supervisors thanked the coalition and acknowledged the urgency; the matter will be part of ongoing budget deliberations.
