Community Budget Alliance Calls on City Council to Fully Restore ALL Equity-Focused Budget Cuts

Letter to the San Diego City Council from the Community Budget Alliance

May 30, 2024

Honorable City Councilmembers 
San Diego City Hall
202 C Street
San Diego, CA 92102

Re: Community Budget Alliance Calls on City Council to Fully Restore ALL Equity-Focused Budget Cuts (UPDATED) 

Honorable City Councilmembers,

The Community Budget Alliance creates a People’s Budget every year that prioritizes keeping people housed, addressing climate change, reversing systemic inequities, and ensuring people have good jobs.

The reality is that we cannot continue to postpone action on housing, transportation, protecting youth, and raising wages in this region. The planet won’t wait, our lungs won’t wait, our young people are growing up no matter what, and the inequality gap is making it difficult for too many families to live here. Those families and all of our communities can’t wait. 

Mayor Todd Gloria’s decision to propose cuts to departments and services needed by community members is the typical response to deficits policymakers have made over decades, leading to our current situation. Regardless of the budget situation in any given year, the budget process always requires the Mayor and City Council to determine what areas of the City or programs and services to prioritize over others. Instead of investing in what we need to address these long-standing issues, the Mayor’s budget reinforces systemic inequities. We’ve seen that a lack of investment and upkeep led to massive flooding and exacerbated the damage caused by the rains. The damage was caused by putting things off, using short-term bandaids, and refusing to invest in low-income areas, which has cost us more than it would take to address these issues. 

The choice not to find better solutions is a choice to favor an inequitable city where wealthy people and corporations benefit at the expense of most San Diego residents. Among these choices is dedicating a third of the general fund to the bloated police department and consistently funding criminalization and incarceration instead of the programs and services that really keep people safe. These decisions create a city that pushes families and working-class people out of their homes, jobs, and communities. 

The Community Budget Alliance (CBA) urges the City Council to help right these wrongs by fully restoring all equity-focused programming identified by the Independent Budget Analyst in the final budget to truly work towards making progress in our city, including:  

• The Housing Instability Prevention Program, which provides short-term financial assistance for housing-related expenses such as security deposits, past-due rent, utilities, and application fees. 

Cost: $2.3M in additional funding to meet the need identified by the San Diego Housing Commission ($5.3M total allocation). 

• The Eviction Notice Registry, which is a requirement of the Tenant Protection Ordinance, that was passed in May 2023. It requires landlords to inform the Housing Commission when they issue an eviction notice. The registry will help stop illegal evictions by ensuring tenants receive information on their rights and legal assistance if a landlord files an eviction. 

Cost: $400,000 

• After-school and teen center programs in the Parks and Recreation Department.

Cost: $144,000 in additional funding to match FY24 service levels. 

• Youth Drop-in Centers that provide mental health counseling, trauma-informed care, job skills, and youth development activities to the area’s youth. The program was included in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, yet for a year, the Mayor has delayed implementation of the program. This year, the Mayor decided to eliminate the already approved funding. 

Cost: $1.0M funded through Council Administration as a grant. 

• Office of Child and Youth Success Programming, including college readiness workshops for youth, career readiness workshops for young women of color, and community outreach. 

Cost: $50,000 to restore cut programming. 

• The Office of Immigrant Affairs. Eliminating this office will continue to make it difficult for many immigrants and refugees to fully exercise their rights and access the services they need to make San Diego their home. 

Cost: $562,000 to fully restore the office. 

• The Climate Equity Fund that provides funding for infrastructure projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and congestion to help communities most impacted by climate change better respond to its impacts.

Cost: $7.4M to restore outstanding cuts. Allocate funding to Jeremy Henwood Memorial Park ($1.0M) and Barrio Logan Street Calming Measures ($6.0M). 

• The Cannabis Equity Program. This program was created using cannabis tax funding to repair harm to people unjustly criminalized during the War on Drugs. Eliminating this program reinforces the barriers and inequity in the cannabis industry and would cause the city to return $900,000 to the state.

Cost: $417,000 to continue program implementation. 

• Community Equity Fund. This fund provides grants to community-based organizations leading racial equity-focused projects in the city. Cutting this funding is another blow to advancing equity in our city. 

Cost: $3.1M to restore to FY24 levels. 

The City must do more to reverse systemic inequities and create long-term change. Our city’s goals should center on equity and provide much-needed support to the communities that need it most if we want San Diego to be a livable region. Please act now to reverse these cuts and modify the budget in the final budget. 

In Community, 

Keara O’Laughlin
Senior Researcher & Policy Advocate 
Center on Policy Initiatives on behalf of the Community Budget Alliance