The Board of Supervisors will be considering the Mayor’s proposed budget related to homelessness in the next week. Her proposals call for more targeted and strategic assignment of funds to areas where most needed - but this will require a legislative change to the City’s Homeless Gross Receipt Tax (Our City, Our Home Proposition C) which was approved in 2018.
In order to deliver resources more quickly to help get people into shelter, Mayor Breed’s budget and corresponding legislative changes will lead to
- 600 new shelter beds
- 545 new permanent housing placements
- 1,650 prevention and problem-solving placements to help rapidly re-house individuals who do fall into homelessness.
This new shelter and housing capacity is only possible if the Board of Supervisors approves both the Mayor’s budgeted investments in this area and her proposed legislative changes to the Homeless Gross Receipt Tax. Prop C has specific restrictions on how funds can be spent in each category (i.e., housing, shelter, prevention, mental health). Because of these restrictions, the City currently has resources collected as part of this tax that are unspent. In order to address our homelessness crisis, we cannot allow for funds to go unspent when they are needed to provide more shelter for those living on our streets. Our Supervisors must approve and support flexibility in spending Prop C funds to respond to our dire deficit in shelter beds.
If this legislative change is not approved by the Board, the City will see fewer shelter beds and more people will remain on the street. Specifically, we will lose:
- 120 shelter beds
- 425 new permanent housing placements
- 1,650 prevention and problem-solving placements
We voted this money to be spent on addressing homelessness, now let’s make sure it is used in the most impactful manner.
Tell the supervisors to save existing housing programs and increase the number desperately-needed shelter beds. Send an email today!