By Calvin Welch and Christin Evans, HANC Board
This month's general membership meeting will focus on the unprecedented series of unilateral actions taken by Mayor Breed during the longest period of "emergency powers" in recent San Francisco history. Specifically, three of Mayor Breed’s recent actions will be discussed by our invited panel: the declaration of a SECOND emergency (and emergency declaration within an existing declared emergency) regarding executive actions to be taken in the Tenderloin to "address the drug crisis"; the proposed charter amendments for the November, 2022 ballot to transform children services and funding by placing them all under the Mayor (see BoS file 211284) and finally, to redefine "affordable housing" to be up to 140% of Median Income ($2850 a month rent) and make its development as a "matter of right" with no public hearings (BoS file 211289).
Our panel will include three particularly experienced and knowledgeable participants: Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness will discuss the Tenderloin State of Emergency; Margaret Brodkin, Director of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth for 26 years and former Director of the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families and leader of the campaign that created the San Francisco Children's Fund will discuss the Mayor's children's charter amendment ; Joseph Smooke, coordinator of Racial Equity in Planning (REP) a citywide housing coalition (of which HANC is a member) and former Executive Director of Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, former Program Director for the Housing Rights Committee and a past aide to two San Francisco Supervisors, will discuss Breed's "affordable" housing measure.