Budget committee backs $498,000 recommendation for Community Justice Center after heated public comments on homelessness

The San Francisco County Board of Supervisors budget and finance committee voted to recommend that the full Board consider a mayoral appropriation of about $498,000 to the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice to fund a Community Justice Center.

Chair Supervisor Jake Magota, who opened the special meeting, said he had objected to the proposal earlier in the budget process on fiscal grounds but that recent restorations to the budget made it appropriate to move the item forward as a committee recommendation to the full board. "I am willing to today then, as we are still in the middle of our budget process ... to send this to the full board a recommendation for $498,000," he said.

Much of the morning’s meeting centered on whether the center would divert scarce resources from housing and social services and whether it would effectively criminalize people experiencing homelessness. Several public speakers—representing the Coalition on Homelessness, Tenderloin-area advocates, Poor Magazine and individuals who identified themselves as homeless or formerly homeless—urged the supervisors to use the approximately $500,000 in available prior-year balance for housing and direct services rather than for a court-centered approach.

"This court will be criminalizing homeless people," Molly Glasgow of the Coalition on Homelessness said, listing municipal and park code sections she said would be used to bring misdemeanors against people who sleep on the street. Freddie Powell, identifying himself as homeless, said the policy mirrors "beating someone in the head to cure their headache." Several speakers urged expansion of 24-hour drop-in services operated by Tenderloin Health and other providers.

Opponents on the committee, led by Supervisor Daley, said the proposal risked converting infractions historically used to deter nuisance behavior into misdemeanors and described the center as a "poor court" that would be counterproductive without guaranteed service connections. Daley recommended inserting explicit administrative language to exclude homelessness-related offenses from the court’s jurisdiction and cited specific code sections he wanted clarified.

Budget staff explained the appropriation would be drawn from an available prior-year balance. Staff described "about $500,000" in additional prior-year funds available to the Board and mayor to appropriate; the committee did not record a full, itemized roll-call tally in the provided transcript.

After public comment and debate, the committee took a motion to send the item to the full Board as the committee report. A roll call was requested; the provided transcript records Supervisor Sean Ellsberg (name also appears as "Ellsberg/Elsberg" in the record) saying "Aye," but the complete roll-call tally is not captured in the available segments. The motion was recorded as carried and the meeting adjourned.

Next steps: the committee’s recommendation will be considered by the full Board of Supervisors later that afternoon. Supervisors said they intend to offer amendments clarifying the court’s jurisdiction and reporting requirements before final action.