The SF Budget Has Dropped and It's Not Good News
The SF Budget has dropped and it’s not good news. While Mayor Breed is ramping up her rhetoric to protect and fund the Black community, and she promised to
"Fundamentally change the nature of policing in San Francisco" these are the facts. Breed claims she is diverting $120 million from policing to Black communities. However, her proposed budget is smoke and mirrors — SFPD's budget is only going to decrease by 2.6% ($18 million) this year and will INCREASE by 0.2% next year.
For the first time in the history of this country the people en masse are calling for defunding the police and refunding the community. But as we come up against the inertia of the old and failed model of reform, city leaders here in San Francisco, and across the nation, are cowering in the face of resistance from police unions and the rich who want their lackeys to protect them at all costs.
We cannot let the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement be crushed! San Francisco still has a chance to lead the nation by taking radical actions so that no more black lives are lost to police violence.
San Francisco city leaders actually have the power to make dramatic cuts in the police budgets. DSA Afro-Socialist Caucus and the Justice Committee have gone through the budget and come up with 36 line-item cuts amounting to $295.2M in funds that can be saved for community services this year.
But Mayor Breed already defied the rightful powers of the Board of Supervisors in its decision to provide 8,000 hotel rooms for the homeless even as Covid is spreading through these populations with no end in sight. Now the stealing of homeless people’s property and telling them to move on has started up again. Is this progressive board going to show some backbone or not? Can they form their mouths around the words “Defund the Police, Refund the Community?”
If we want to understand what it would be like to live in a world without police, we need not look any further then Pacific Heights. There you will find a world in which people have the security of a home, healthcare, work and the freedom to move freely and fearlessly, knowing that the police will only come when called on to protect the status quo.
When police enter our communities of color, of the working class and the unhoused, their very presence creates fear. Racial-profiling, accusations of gang affiliation, physical abuse and even murder continue to occur with impunity.
The obvious solution would be to provide the programs that would heal our communities of desperation, In San Francisco, one of the wealthiest cities in the world; many people are living day-to-day in constant fear of job loss, eviction, and overwhelming healthcare costs that could land even more people on the streets.
And yet the police continue to patrol our streets to create a constant atmosphere of intimidation.
As the federal government sends unidentified military and ICE agents into our communities, we must call for radical change! Radical means down to the roots.
What is unique about this issue is that they do not need the co-operation or approval of the state or federal government to do so. In this unique moment that’s a lot of power. It will take some brave and visionary action on the part of the Board to create a culture that pulls the old system up by its roots.
The only reason to pool our resources as a people is to create social equality and true security through housing, food, mental health, rehabilitation of our wounded, education, infrastructure as well as protect our natural world and ultimately the soul of this land. Right now our money serves to protect the rich under the guise of providing safety.
Call it socialism or compassion, we are in this together, and must uproot the corrupt enforcers of this violent oppression now.
