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Hundreds of speakers urge supervisors to restore cuts to supportive housing, HIV and safety-net services
Summary
At a lengthy Budget & Finance Committee public-comment period, service providers, clients and health professionals urged restoration of cuts to supportive housing, San Francisco’s HIV/LIFE and Stonewall programs, and other safety-net services, warning reductions would increase homelessness and medical crises.
Chair Carmen Chu opened the Budget and Finance Committee’s public-comment period, where dozens of community organizations and hundreds of residents urged restoration of proposed reductions to supportive housing and related services. Community Housing Partnership Executive Director Gail Gilman told the committee that supportive housing is the most cost-effective intervention to move people off the streets and called on supervisors to “find money through the budget analyst report to restore cuts to health and human services.”
Speakers from Community Housing Partnership, Hospitality House and other providers described how service reductions would undermine retention rates, jeopardize new development and jeopardize private investments tied to tax credits. David Schnoor, director of housing development at Community Housing Partnership, warned investors require evidence of stable services before funding developments; he said cuts risk losing those investors and stalling construction of new supportive housing.
Representatives of the Stonewall Project and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and dozens of Shanti LIFE clients and staff described consequences of cuts to HIV prevention, outpatient substance-treatment and peer-support programs. Shanti LIFE’s executive director and current and former participants said the LIFE program provides evidence‑based behavioral interventions and long-term peer supports that improve adherence and reduce community viral load. Affected populations cited included older adults living with HIV, monolingual Spanish speakers and people co‑infected with hepatitis C.
Speakers from Veterans Equity Center, Family Service Agency, Larkin Street, Compass Family Services and many smaller CBOs described potential closures of drop-in centers, case-management reductions and cuts to transitional housing. Several speakers provided quantitative estimates: Hospitality House asked the board to restore approximately $10 million to human services; SEIU representatives said Santa Clara County pays 66 cents more per home‑care hour than San Francisco; speakers described program-level impacts such as elimination of after-school programs and loss of case managers for SRO-based supportive housing.
Multiple speakers emphasized cost and public-safety consequences of cuts: they argued reductions would increase emergency-room visits, police contacts and longer-term fiscal costs. The public-comment period covered a wide cross-section of the city — service providers, program participants, nurses, public-health clinicians and neighborhood organizations — and concluded with the chair acknowledging additional department negotiations and scheduling follow-up items to future meetings.
