Two Castro Community Benefit District grants were spared cuts in Mayor Daniel Lurie’s proposed 2025-26 balanced budget of $15.9 billion. The spending plan, which will now be reviewed by the Board of Supervisors, closes an $800 million deficit and sets aside $400 million in reserves.
A Lurie spokesperson confirmed that the two grants – one for $100,000 that funds 40 hours of cleaning per week in Jane Warner Plaza at 17th and Castro streets, and another $415,000 grant that funds four full-time Castro Cares community ambassadors – will continue.
Andrea Aiello, a lesbian who is executive director of the Castro Community Benefit District, was relieved at the news.
“The Castro CBD board and I are thrilled these crucial public safety and cleaning services are fully funded in Mayor Lurie’s budget,” Aiello stated June 2. “These services will help the Castro continue on its path to economic recovery. I want to thank Mayor Lurie, President of the Board [of Supervisors Rafael] Mandelman, the Bay Area Reporter, the 103 merchants who signed letters of support, and the countless residents who signed our petition and wrote their own emails to the mayor in support of these services.”
Aiello had previously told the B.A.R. that the grants were on the chopping block.
“I was really worried that our public safety and supplemental cleaning services would be cut. It would’ve been awful for the neighborhood,” she added June 2. (The B.A.R. had editorialized in April that the grants are “crucial to Castro’s success.”)
City grants for nonprofits that serve LGBTQ youth also appear to be spared in Lurie’s proposed spending plan.
Last year, the LYRIC Center for LGBTQQ Youth sustained some budget cuts, as the B.A.R. reported at the time.
Larkin Street Youth Services and the San Francisco LGBT Center had initially been considered for cuts, but $11 million of their Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families money was restored before the final budget was signed.
This year, the mayoral spokesperson wasn’t able to identify cuts to LYRIC and Larkin Street, but did state, “The SF LGBT Center does have impacts. There is a reduction to their workforce development work and there was an elimination of the strategy of community building at [Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development] from which LGBT center gets money, as was made public in March when they sent out preliminary RFP [request for proposal] results.”
Mandelman, a gay man who represents District 8, including the Castro neighborhood, on the board, had previously told the B.A.R. that the San Francisco LGBT Community Center would see at least a few hundred thousand dollars in cuts.
Asked about the cuts the LGBT center's outgoing Executive Director Rebecca Rolfe, a lesbian, stated that, "We have heard from about a third of our contracts with preliminary information that is subject to change."
"With the preliminary information available to us, we are looking at cuts related to our information & referral/community building grant as well as our financial coaching grant," she continued. "For most of our contracts, we do not yet have detailed information, so do not yet have an assessment of the overall impact on our budget or our programs."
Layoffs expected
Overall, Lurie’s budget, which he released May 30, includes layoffs of city workers. After a news conference, a Microsoft Teams meeting between reporters and the mayor’s staff revealed that 1,400 city positions being eliminated are spread across 40 city departments. Many of these are unfilled, but those that are filled are spread across 17 departments, officials said.
The mayor’s staff was not able to give specifics, citing the need to inform those departments in a timely manner. Officials did not indicate which departments would see the most layoffs.
The Board of Supervisors needs to approve the two-year budget by August 1. (It also includes funding for 2026-27.)
Speaking on a livestream announcement the morning of May 30, Lurie said that public safety spending will be preserved, as well as legal services to help immigrants, including those from the LGBTQ community. Public safety has been Lurie’s top priority since taking office in January. He said the city will continue to invest in police officers, sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, and 911 workers, as well as other core services, such as street cleaning and Muni operators.
At the news conference, Lurie was not able to say which LGBTQ immigrant legal services he was able to spare. Asked later, a spokesperson replied that, “There is funding in both the City Administrator’s Office and MOHCD for immigrant legal services and the LGBT Asylum Project.”
The LGBT Asylum Project didn’t return a request for comment June 2.
The budget states that the San Francisco Public Defender's office saw a 3% budget increase, and that the office helps immigrants who lack legal representation in deportation fights.
"San Francisco protects immigrant communities by investing in legal services, including establishing PDR’s Immigration Unit. This created a crucial safety net for immigrant communities and substantially reduced deportations, as represented immigrants are five times more likely to win their cases," the budget book states. "The Public Defender’s Office is actively responding to the federal administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies. Deportation constitutes one of law’s severest penalties – causing exile, family separation, income loss, and community disconnection. Despite having legal rights to contest deportation, many immigrants accept removal simply because they lack legal representation."
The office is currently handling between 150 and 200 cases, the budget book states.
Asked about potential cuts of federal HIV/AIDS dollars, the mayoral spokesperson replied that, “Historically, we have always made our best efforts to backfill federal cuts related to HIV/AIDS. At this time, we haven’t seen the proposed federal cuts yet and do not have information on the fund. Of course, we will continue to do whatever we can to support folks with HIV/AIDS.”
Proposal would merge civil rights agencies
The Human Rights Commission would see a cut of $16,803,083 from last year's funding total of $44,751,345.
The Human Rights Commission oversees the troubled Dream Keeper Initiative. That department’s former director, Sheryl Davis, a friend of former mayor London Breed, resigned last year after it was revealed she approved $1.5 million in contracts to a nonprofit run by a man she shared a home with. Already, the Transgender District is out nearly $1 million because two Dream Keeper grants were canceled.
Also in the budget is a proposal to merge the Human Rights Commission with the Department on the Status of Women. That department, too, garnered headlines after its former director, Kimberly Ellis, was removed in April following reports she directed funds to friends and organizations without a fair bidding process.
The Department of Children, Youth and their Families would see a cut of $955,156 out of a budget of almost $350 million. The Office of Economic and Workforce Development would see a cut of $56,989,417 from last year's funding total of $140,623,065.
The Department of Public Health would see an increase of $144,896,544 out of an over $3 billion budget.
‘I was elected to make hard choices’
During his livestream address, Lurie said, “Here’s the bottom line: we have to stop spending more than we can afford. The era of soaring city budgets and deteriorating street conditions is over.
“The budget I’m introducing today faces the $800 million dollar deficit head-on,” he continued. “A crisis of this magnitude means we cannot avoid painful decisions, and I am prepared to make those decisions.”
The city is putting aside $1 million for city attorney litigation efforts, but Lurie said at the news conference that how the $400 million in reserves will be spent depends on the depth of Trump administration cuts to federal services the city relies on, which is as yet unknown. That number could be as high as $2 billion, he has previously said.
“I was elected to make hard choices, and that is reflected in today’s budget,” he said.
Speaking of homeless services in his livestreamed remarks, Lurie noted that the city now has “the lowest number of encampments since 2019,” and that the city will continue to address the behavioral health crisis by “unlocking critical funds to build the type of housing and treatment we need right now.” A news release from Lurie’s office indicated that figure is $90 million over three years.
Lurie also acknowledged Mandelman and Supervisor Connie Chan, a straight ally who is the budget committee chair and represents the Richmond district.
In a statement, Chan was blunt about the fiscal situation the city finds itself in this year, warning, “We have no good options.” Nonetheless, she pledged that she and her colleagues will “fight and protect” their constituents from whatever decisions the Trump administration makes that harms the city. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday that the White House may try to claw back $140 million that the city received to help cover costs associated with the COVID pandemic, while two of the city’s more prominent LGBTQ service providers could lose their federal contracts if their lawsuit against the Trump administration isn’t successful in unfreezing the funds.
“We will be faced with some very difficult decisions, especially given the federal government’s attacks on our critical safety net programs and threats of funding cuts to our city budget,” Chan stated. “But we will meet this moment head on. We will focus on the core mission of city government and ensure we create guardrails for our future including placing an estimated $400 million on reserve against federal cuts.”
Several unions are already planning a protest June 4 at noon at City Hall. These include the San Francisco Labor Council, Service Employees International Union Local No. 1021, and International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local No. 21.
“This is the budget that Airbnb wants. None of these job cuts should be on the table, but the mayor has decided that tax breaks for Airbnb are more important than public services,” said Sarah Perez, San Francisco City Employee and SF vice president for IFPTE Local 21. “And, this budget is a big payday for private contractors. Cutting public jobs often means handing over important work to for-profit companies, increasing costs and inviting corruption.”
The labor groups are working in tandem with the People’s Budget Coalition, which issued a statement the afternoon of May 30.
“The mayor’s office continues to evade this accountability he himself demands by not even releasing the budget following his budget release announcement,” the coalition stated. “As of this release, we are told the budget is still hours from being publicly available. This follows an unfortunate trend of the community, service providers, and the public being the last to know the real details.
“We appreciate the mayor’s dedication to address this budget crisis head on, but we are concerned at who these cuts target and who they spare,” continued the coalition, which includes Jennifer Friedenbach, the executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness. “The city is balancing the budget on the backs of essential workers and the communities they serve. Difficult choices have to be made in unprecedented times, but the mayor is taking familiar routes: balancing the budget on the backs of working-class San Franciscans while protecting the wealthy and powerful. Someone always has to pay, and it’s always us.”
Updated, 6/3/25: This article has been updated with comments from the SF LGBT Community Center.
