As San Francisco faces a massive budget deficit, essential housing programs serving the city’s most vulnerable renters are at risk of being cut entirely. Two long-running initiatives, the Code Enforcement Outreach Program (CEOP) and the SRO Collaborative, could be eliminated by the Department of Building Inspection (DBI) despite their critical role in protecting low-income tenants living in unsafe conditions.
Read: Landlords Flood $2.5M into Cuomo’s Campaign to Block Rent Freeze
Community-Based Outreach on the Chopping Block
On Monday, several housing nonprofits received emails revealing the loss of all city funding for both the CEOP and the SRO Collaborative program. These initiatives, funded through DBI and operating for decades, offer multilingual support, housing counselling, tenant education, and fire safety outreach, particularly targeting residents in single-room-occupancy (SRO) hotels and other low-income housing.
Also read: Landlords Flood $2.5M into Cuomo’s Campaign to Block Rent Freeze
A $4.8 Million Lifeline at Risk
DBI’s proposed two-year budget removes the $4.8 million allocation that funds these outreach programs. This cut is part of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s larger plan to eliminate $185 million in grants and contracts to help close an $800 million shortfall in the city’s upcoming two-year budget. The funding loss would impact approximately 15 outreach workers across multiple nonprofits…