(Presented at HANC's April 2023 Meeting)

By Joe Wilson, Executive Director, Hospitality House

Recent media coverage of the struggles nonprofit organizations face in fulfilling contractual obligations has renewed the public's call for more accountability. Hospitality House fully embraces accountability, openness, and oversight in monitoring the use of public funds, and we welcome public scrutiny as a catalyst for constructive dialogue and improved performance. We express full support for our partner organizations needing resources, assistance, and capacity to meet contractual obligations – while holding them accountable for the use of public funds. Hospitality House does not and will not excuse misuse of public funds.

Human service organizations largely came into being to fill gaps - to augment gaps that have widened over time because of racial, ethnic and gender inequities, America's disappearing safety net, and systemic retreat from our social contract. In communities of color in San Francisco, these needs have deepened because of the COVID pandemic, seismic shifts in the national economy, and widening inequality. Millions of America's low-income renters live in substandard housing.

California - like many states across the country - has struggled to rebuild its community based infrastructure because of well-intentioned, but poorly planned, closure of state-run mental health facilities known as deinstitutionalization. In San Francisco alone, more than 300,000 local residents have experienced one or more instances of unemployment since the advent of the COVID crisis. One out every 24 students in SFUSD is homeless. Tens of thousands of local residents are behind in their rent, thousands could be facing eviction. In barely 5 weeks, San Francisco exhausted its 90-day Season of Sharing allocation - requests have been suspended. The need remains.

Black and Brown San Franciscans are overrepresented in the homeless population, overrepresented in health disparities, overrepresented in the criminal justice system, overrepresented in youth homelessness. Community based nonprofits are fighting to meet overwhelming demand, as more and more San Franciscans are living on the margin.

To repeat: nonprofits have an obligation to fulfill their missions, and to use public funds responsibly. However, Hospitality House will not abandon friends and colleagues – and especially not the communities they represent – when help is needed. We express full support for those organizations needing resources, assistance, and capacity to meet contractual obligations – while holding them accountable for the use of public funds. Criticism is easy. Extending a helping hand can mean everything. Our work through the years has taught us that. Words should lead to positive action.

Hospitality House encourages various stakeholders – including members of the media – to come together in unified efforts to rebuild, strengthen, and reinvest in the City’s community-based nonprofits. Let's work to ensure that community-based nonprofit partners safeguard the public's trust. Community partners are a vital part of the City’s behavioral health infrastructure, the City's workforce development system, the citywide supportive housing portfolio, and the City’s homelessness response system. An indispensable part of economic recovery in every neighborhood.

Lastly, Hospitality House believes that supporting community-based nonprofits ultimately supports the tens of thousands of nonprofit workers – neighborhood residents, working parents, local taxpayers themselves - that helped carry the City through the depths of the COVID pandemic, at much risk to themselves and their families. Ultimately, we can lift up the communities that make the City of St. Francis a place to be proud of.

Let's not be satisfied with publicizing the problem - let's join together on solutions that invest in the best of us, for all of us.