San Francisco Chronicle - Thursday, May 23, 2002
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer

The noontime rally was the first in what is expected to be a series of demonstrations at City Hall through early summer as Mayor Willie Brown and the Board of Supervisors work out a new spending plan for the city. The mayor is scheduled to submit his $5 billion budget proposal to the board June 3.

City officials were already grappling with a $174 million deficit before Gov. Gray Davis unveiled a state plan that could mean at least another $25 million hit. It's the bleakest budget scenario the city has faced since the early 1990s.

"This could be devastating for the city," said Steve Fields, executive director of the Progress Foundation, which runs supportive housing programs for mentally ill people after they're released from the hospital.

City officials are still crunching the numbers and haven't said exactly which services and programs will be hit.

"Nonprofits are the lifeline for the city's poor and vulnerable," said Ann Lazarus, co-chair of the San Francisco Human Services Network, which organized the rally. "When the economy is weak, the need for a stronger safety net is greater than ever."

Fields and others said the most obvious way to pay for the programs was to raise revenue. "You can't take personal and business taxes off the table," he said.

Officials already are looking at raising fees for everything from marriage licenses to playing a round on a public golf course. Any proposals to increase taxes would have to go before voters. The next election is in November, and any tax increase is expected to be a tough sell in a dour economy.

Rally organizers handed out a new report by the San Francisco Urban Institute at San Francisco State University that detailed the role of nonprofit service providers in the city. It said the nonprofit sector, armed with $313 million in city grants, provided nearly $1 billion a year in services for hundreds of thousands of poor and sick people. The nonprofits employ about 15,000 people.

Clifton Matthews is one of those who receives help. At 68, he's been homeless for the past two months and living at a South of Market shelter operated by the Canon Kip organization. There, he gets a cot and two meals a day.

Although he receives Social Security, Matthews says he doesn't have enough money for housing or meals to live on his own.

"I came down here today because I need help," said Matthews, who heard about the rally from shelter staff and went to Civic Center Plaza with a group. "I want to make sure the help is still there."

Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who serves on the board's Budget Committee, said the city is faced with difficult choices. "It's not going to be easy," he said.

E-mail Rachel Gordon at rgordon@sfchronicle.com.
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