San Francisco Government SmartTranscripts:

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: Oh, hello. Good morning. The meeting will come to order. Welcome to the 11/12/2025 meeting of the board meeting of the budget and finance committee. I'm supervisor Connie Chan, chair of the committee. I'm joined by vice chair supervisor Matt Dorsey. Our clerk is Monique Creighton. I would like to thank Eugene Labadia from SFGovTV for broadcasting this meeting. Madam clerk, do you have any announcements?

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Yes. Just a friendly reminder to those in attendance to please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices to prevent any interruptions to our proceedings. Should you have any documents to be included as part of the file, they should be submitted to myself, the clerk. Public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda. When your item of interest comes up and public comment is called, please wind up to speak on the west side of the chamber to your right, my left, along those curtains. While not required to provide public comment, we do invite you to fill out a comment card and leave them on the tray by the television to your left by the doors if you wish for your name to be accurately recorded for the minutes. Alternatively, you may submit public comment in writing in either of the following ways. Email them to myself, the budget and finance committee clerk at brent.jalipa@sfgov.org. If you submit public comment via email, it'll be forwarded to the supervisors and also included as part of the official file. You may also send your written comments via US Postal Service to our office in City Hall. One doc one doctor Carlton, b. Goodlett Place, room two four four, San Francisco, California nine four one zero two. And finally, the item acted upon today is expected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda of November 18, unless otherwise stated.

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: Thank you. And, madam Cook, have we received a, memo from president Mendelmann about the substitution today? Yes. Wonderful. And so I wanna acknowledge a a substitution, for this committee, and, welcome supervisor, Bea Alcaraz. Thank you. And then with that, just a general reminder for the public that for any, item that when we have a budget and legislative analyst report, we will go to the department presentation, and then we will go to the budget and legislative analyst, and then we will have comments and questions from this body, and then we'll go to public comment. So with that, madam clerk, please call item number one.

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Yes. Item number one is an ordinance appropriating 3,500,000.0 from the general reserves, the mayor's office of housing and community development, to expand access to existing coordinated immigrant legal and community response services in fiscal year 2526.

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: Thank you. And today, we have wonderful. We have the presentation from the mayor's office of housing and community development.

[Julia Sabore (Director of Community Development, MOHCD)]: Good morning, chair and members of the Budget and Finance Committee. My name is Julia Sabore. I'm the director of Community Development at the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development. Today, I'll provide a brief overview of our division, highlight our key program investments, and share how this supplemental could strengthen coordinated services for immigration legal defense and coordinated response services to the immigrant community. Our community development division takes a holistic and equity focused approach to managing city grants and community programs. We manage funding that supports homelessness prevention, housing stability, as well as community safety and vitality. These efforts ensure that our investments create measurable, lasting impact for San Franciscans. For nearly twenty years, MOHCD has managed the city's immigration legal services portfolio. We fund both individual legal providers and collaboratives of multiple organizations that coordinate to serve residents across the city. The growth you see in the chart on the right reflects a shift in the federal landscape, an increase in community need, and the city's commitment to increasing access to legal services for immigrant communities. With this supplemental, we're proposing to expand the coordinated services for immigration legal defense and coordinated responses services to the immigrant community. This investment would grow staffing, improve technology systems, and expand outreach so that services maintain access remain accessible and well coordinated citywide. The goal is a more connected and efficient system that meets the needs of immigrant communities in real time. This funding would allow us to fund additional full time attorneys and paralegals to meet rising caseloads. It would also expand local legal representation within the immigration court, and strengthen the technical capacity of existing providers. Through these efforts, we would be better equipped to support San Franciscans who are facing immigration challenges. The second component would strengthen the coordinated response services, ensuring that residents receive timely and coordinated help in urgent situations. We would expand staffing, improve technology for real time communication, and develop web and mobile tools for coordinated intake and tracking. There would also be an increase in outreach through multilingual Know Your Rights workshops and enhanced collaboration across San Francisco. I wanted to offer a snapshot. The rapid response hotline shows how much community demand has grown. The projected fiscal year twenty twenty five annual goal was a total of 1,200 calls, but in just the first quarter of this fiscal year, the hotline has already received over 1,400. This is a 20% increase above the total yearly target. Compared

[Andrew Craycroft (Immigrant Legal Resource Center)]: to

[Julia Sabore (Director of Community Development, MOHCD)]: the same period last year, calls are up 350%, showing that awareness is growing and residents trust this coordinated network for support. Over the last three months, every entity, city government, nonprofits, news outlets, and the general public has relied on these systems and the coordinated effort of these nonprofit providers. The surge of activity and need reflects a significant increase in demand. Looking ahead, MOCD is deeply grateful for the partnership community organizations, the board and the mayor's office, and especially OSEA that makes this work possible. Together, we have an opportunity to support a coordinated citywide approach that meets the growing needs of immigrant residents. Thank you for your ongoing support and partnership in this important work.

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Nick Menard (Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office)]: Good morning, supervisors. Nick Menard from the Budget Legislative Analyst Office. Item one is an appropriation ordinance, that would transfer $3,500,000 from the General Reserve to the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development. The money will be spent, to expand, funding for community based organizations providing legal defense and rapid response services. We summarized the current portfolio of services on page two of our report and the proposed services on page four of our report. You'll see that this is a substantial increase in the existing budget for these services. So it's about a 28% increase off the $12,300,000 budget this year. And it's a one time funding increase. So the budget is scheduled to go down to $12,300,000 next year. The funding from the general reserve will have to be replaced in the next budget year due to the city's reserve policy. So any money that you take now becomes a cut next year. And we also offer the following policy considerations for the mayor's office as they finalize their distribution of this funding, including whether the funding will address barriers to access, particularly linguistic barriers to access to these services, whether there are particular immigrant communities disproportionately impacted by the recent uptick in federal immigration enforcement, evaluating the performance and capacity of providers to accept this new money, and looking at the unit costs of the different providers to see if there are lower cost providers that can deliver more services at a lower cost. Because this is taken from the general reserve, we consider approval of this item to be a policy matter for the board.

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you for your work. I would like to ask a few questions. You have the back, the thighs. Don't be shy. I think that what I really look forward to seeing is, based on the recommendation from the budget and legislative analyst, to be sure that we are not only cost effective, but we actually also provide a long term strategy. I know that the calls clearly have increased by 350%, which is significant, and it's something that we must tackle with this increase. I hope with this supplemental that we can at least kinda ease some of that burden. What I do hope that, though, for the for the next, at least, couple years or more, as we as we continue to think about, immigration defense fund and these type of legal services is to continuing investments for pathway to work permits, citizenship, but really helping people to be able to stay. I know that application fee has significantly increased, for visa, for work permits. But really be able to help our immigrant communities, especially if they are now currently, having issues to get documentation. I think that the investment for legal fees and legal aid to help them be able to have those documentation is more than critical, at this moment. Do you have a strategy? Do you have a thought, about how we're gonna approach this, in upcoming budget?

[Julia Sabore (Director of Community Development, MOHCD)]: I absolutely agree. Thank you for the the question and the consideration. Affirmative support is is is absolutely necessary for this community. We partner with OSEA, who focuses primarily on those strategies. I think, right now, it's it's a bit of, what word do I wanna use? The boat is capsizing, in terms of folks who are here legally, or on particular, orders, but they're going in for normal visits, and they're being detained. So a majority of the attention of the legal providers have been developing court strategies and things to keep folks safe. And and I think once there's some breathing room, perhaps, with this supplemental, then we can look toward affirmative strategies, coupling more strongly with our intervention strategies.

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: Yeah. And I think that's what I'm looking for for the upcoming budget.

[Julia Sabore (Director of Community Development, MOHCD)]: Yeah.

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: You know, as we decide, frankly, in about a month, the mayor is gonna have, his, budget instruction. And what I really look forward to is to having this conversation, a more strategic way. I mean, I think we've been funding this traditionally, as your graph had indicated, but we're not we're in an unprecedented time, tragically, you know. And so I would like to understand, what is our continuing investments, both in the immediate immediate term and long term, as we continue to tackle, like, the deficits too. So thank you. I'd like to see that. I wanna highlight this as one of our budget priorities. Vice chair Dorsey.

[Supervisor Matt Dorsey (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, chair Chan. And I just wanna echo what chair Chan is saying about the importance of, accountability, in this. This is a priority, and I think it would be a priority anyway, given what we're facing. But, one of the things that I've heard anecdotally from folks is that we're in an we're also in an era where philanthropic support is being scared off, for the immigrant immigrant communities. I think it's true also of the trans community. There there are some communities that are targeted and even their allies are are targeted and nobody's coming for them if we don't. And this real to me, it just creates a moral imperative that the city step up and do this. So I appreciate it. And this will be a priority for me, and I know it will be priority for chair Chan. And I agree with, the chair that I'm looking forward to the presentations to come.

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: Yeah. I I before I call on, supervisor Acres, I concur with that. And that's another element to it too is, given our transgender immigrants, and in terms of their documentation, their passports, and what would that actually look like, I think there are gonna have to be some conversation in investments in legal aid to work them through that process. Supervisor Algaris.

[Supervisor Bea Alcaraz (Member, substitution)]: Yeah. So to your guys' point, there's so many important groups that you

[Andrew Craycroft (Immigrant Legal Resource Center)]: Yeah. So to your guys'

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: point, there are so many important groups

[Supervisor Bea Alcaraz (Member, substitution)]: There we go. Hi. Sorry, first

[Andrew Craycroft (Immigrant Legal Resource Center)]: committee meeting. All good. To your

[Supervisor Bea Alcaraz (Member, substitution)]: guys' point, there are so many important groups of people who will be benefiting from something like this. And given the growing demand of immigration services, it's important that our response is both thoughtful and timely. Thank you for the presentation, and for all the work you guys are doing. I do want to ensure that the city reserve funds are being used as efficiently as possible in order to, reach as many of the community members who need the services. And I know you guys touched on this a little bit, but I, would love to see, could you share how your office plans to assess the organizations, and which ones are best positioned to expand their capacity to meet this need?

[Julia Sabore (Director of Community Development, MOHCD)]: Thank you for your question. We did a procurement process in fiscal year twenty four, twenty five, our mega procurement, and got into a five year, process with our immigration legal service providers, among others. At this point in time, in terms of the order of operations, we have not selected the nonprofits. We have done our research, and we see alignment around proposals. And, we are at the ready as soon as this ordinance or this legislation passes, that we will bring it into our office, and we will do our due diligence and work with our city attorney's office to find the most appropriate providers. And I also wanted to add that, as this budget season, begins, I'm happy to meet with your office, keep you abreast of the progress of these investments, and any, any briefings that you may you would like around the providers and legal services, and and what is most needed, and what has been impactful. Thank

[Zada Blotner (Pangea Legal Services)]: you. Thank you.

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: Great. Thank you. And so with that, let's go to public comment on this item.

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Yes. Members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line up now along the side by the windows. All speakers will have two minutes. First speaker, you can come up

[Omar Dela Cruz (Center for Gender and Refugee Studies)]: and begin. Good morning, everybody. My name is Omar Dela Cruz. I'm an attorney at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, just around the corner here. And I'm also a member of the San Francisco Immigration Legal Defense Collaborative. And I'm here today to urge you to pass the budget supplement to ensure funding to critical immigration legal services that protect our immigrant community and allow it to flourish. I don't think I need to spell out for anybody here today what we're up against. You see it in the news every day, in the courthouses down the road, in our neighborhoods when families are ripped apart, when people are kidnapped off the streets, and when the president sends federal agents with military grade weapons into our cities. What I want to stress is that we've been here before. We've fought this administration before, and we've won. Today's administration is even more brazen and insidious than the prior version, yet we've continued to fight and win even today in this heightened, atmosphere. Fighting, however, does take a toll, and is difficult to sustain. When you fund our work, you're ensuring that families are kept together, that our rapid response network remains rapid and responsive, that immigrants, receive access to justice, and that the people doing the work can remain in the fight long term. I wanna stress that this kind of funding also supports these networks of organizations that are supporting trans immigrants, that are supporting people get access to work permits or file applications and have their applications remain pending and have them actually remain adjudicated, getting people out of immigration detention that shouldn't be there, that in and of itself allows people to stay in the country, stay here long term, stimulate the economy, report crime when they see crime, feel confident speaking up. All of this is intersectional. It's interrelated, and, this kind of funding allows us to continue staying in this fight. Thank you.

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

[Zada Blotner (Pangea Legal Services)]: Good morning. My name is Zada Blotner. I'm a contract paralegal with Pangea Legal Services, which is a part of SFILDC and the San Francisco Rapid Response Network. I'm here to urge your support for the budget appropriation and support of immigration legal services. As my colleague said, a lot of these things, I think we all know, but it does bear repeating that the immigration system is one in which there is no right to counsel. People will have no ability to defend their rights if we do not fund these essential legal services. But beyond just the legal services, it is also essential that we continue to build with immigrant communities through outreach and organizing. Immigrant communities have long been at the fabric of this city, and regardless of what comes to pass, they will continue to be. And I believe that there would be a very serious and much greater cost if we turn our backs on them. I heard you all speaking about what is our long term strategy, what is cost effective now. The strategy is to continue to engage with people so that they believe that they do have support and will engage with systems. It will be so much more costly, not just in terms of money, but societally. If we do not do this now, if people disengage from the system, if they believe that they are alone, they will continue to be here, but they will not engage with all of us. We need to build together. And again, as we talk about long term strategy, we need to build with immigrant communities so that they can be the drivers of policy change so we are not put in these situations. Thank you.

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Next speaker.

[Andrew Craycroft (Immigrant Legal Resource Center)]: Good morning. My name is Andrew Craycroft. I'm an attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. We are a legal services provider here in the city and a part of the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative, SFILDC, as well as the Rapid Response Network. I'd like to express my support for the work of these collaboratives and for funding this critical work that they're doing to support our immigrant community. These collaboratives are not only a vital legal support structure that defends San Franciscans from the violent militarized enforcement that this administration is employing against our communities and the many other ways that it's attacking San Franciscans. And this work that the collaboratives do also greatly strengthens immigrant communities. It ensures that they have effective access to legal counsel and can access the types of immigration status that offer greater protections from deportation and from this administration's other attacks, that they're able to make safety plans and know what to do if ICE descends on their community, and that they can continue to participate in civic life despite this administration's attempts to sow fear and keep people from being a part of this city, from coming outside, from being a part of their community, from sending their children to school, and doing all the other things that people need to to be able to do. Being able to continue this work for the collaboratives is essential over the long term. We can't wait until mass arrests happen. We need to be able to be ready now and have the support and infrastructure in place, And that is why I'm asking the board to continue to support this work. Thank you.

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

[Victoria Hartanto (API Legal Outreach)]: Good morning, supervisors. My name is Victoria Hartanto. I'm a managing attorney at API Legal Outreach or APILO. We are a founding member of the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative, and we also help staff the Rapid Response Network. We serve not only our Latinx community members, but also the API community, who also faces the risk of ICE detention and deportation. So I'm here to just express my support, and thank you for your support for the supplemental funding. This supplemental funding would allow us to increase our capacity to respond to our community members' most urgent needs, including those who have been detained by ICE, those who require urgent consultations, and those who may require a habeas petition be submitted on their behalf in federal court. Habeas petitions have been one of the few bright spots this year. It's one of the only ways we've seen to successfully get folks out of unconstitutional ICE detention. So this funding will be absolutely necessary for us to increase our capacity to, those services for our community members. Thank you so much for supporting our work and our most vulnerable community members. Thank you.

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Next speaker.

[Claire Deck (USF School of Law Immigration & Deportation Defense Clinic)]: Good morning. My name is Claire Deck. I am a legal fellow with the University of San Francisco School of Law, immigration and defense, immigration and deportation defense clinic. The demands on our program have been increasing on a daily basis, during these past several months. Our clients are living in fear and uncertainty about their future, and more funding for programs like ours would strengthen our work and doing literally everything we can to support and fight for our clients so so that they're able to feel safe and continue to go to work and school and be active parts of their communities. To speak to the previous speaker's point about habeas petitions, our office was able to use a habeas petition to secure the release for one of our clients who was unconstitutionally detained, and more funding would enable us to do this for more clients, as their risk of unconstitutional detention, increases. So thank you so much. I strongly urge the increased funding for legal services at this time, at heightened of heightened ICE enforcement. Thank you.

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

[Katie O’Neil (Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area)]: Hi. My name is Katie O'Neil, and I'm here from the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. We are a member of the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative and the San Francisco Rapid Response Network. In this time of rapidly expanding federal immigration enforcement in San Francisco, our neighbors, friends, and family are under attack. Our attorneys are already working around the clock to ensure due process for immigrants and asylum seekers here in San Francisco. Through SFILDC and the rapid response network, we already have the experience and expertise to provide a coordinated, robust response and meet this moment with power instead of panic. But the need is greater than ever, and we need additional resources and funding in order to adequately fuel and staff this work. For these reasons, I urge you to pass the budget supplemental to provide these urgently needed resources. Thank you.

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Do we have any additional public commenters? Madam chair, that concludes public comment.

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: Thank you. Seeing no more public comments, public comment is now closed. Colleagues, I would like to first amend the legislation as I have prepared for before you, on page one line starting on line five, indicating services for immigration legal defense, and then line six, to the immigrant community. And that is to make sure that we meet the general purpose, of the fund, and to allow MOCD to be able to, have some flexibility in terms of where they issue and how they issue the funds. So with that, I would like to make the motion to amend, and then send the amended version to full board with recommendation. And a roll call, please.

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Yes. On the motion to amend as presented, vice chair Dorsey?

[Supervisor Matt Dorsey (Vice Chair)]: Aye.

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Vice chair Dorsey, aye. Member Alcaraz? Member Alcaraz, aye. Chair Chan? Aye. Chair Chan, I have three ayes.

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: The motion passes. And please relate to all the lawyers who are on the front line doing this work. We're so grateful. We know it's really stressful. Thank you.

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Madam chair, I have one more motion. So and on the motion to to forward the amended item to the full board.

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: Oh. I I wrote it both into one motion, but Sorry.

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: Okay. On the motion to forward the amended item to the full board, vice chair Dorsey. Vice chair Dorsey, aye. Member Alcaraz? Member Alcaraz, aye. Chair Chan? Aye. Chair Chan, I have three ayes. The motion passes.

[Supervisor Connie Chan (Chair)]: And with that, do we have any other business before us today?

[Brent Jalipa (Committee Clerk)]: That concludes our meeting agenda. The meeting is adjourned.