Improving our transportation infrastructure reduces car trips, helps us reach our carbon emission reduction goals, is healthier for our residents, and saves lives. Too often in the past we have been slow to make these common sense improvements to our streets.Collection: Car
Our wisest long-term investment is not in the dirty polluting fossil fuels from the past, but in the clean energy of the future.Collection: Future
Subsidizing someone's rent is much cheaper than paying for new housing, police or medical responses, or hospital or jail stays.Collection: Medical
It is our responsibility to stand up for equality, fairness, and civil rights.Collection: Equality
Young people experiencing homelessness often have a difficult time accessing services, including shelter, medical care, and employment. This is due to the stigma of their housing situation, lack of knowledge of available resources, and a lack of services targeted to young people.Collection: Medical
Businesses have played an important role in advancing nondiscrimination protections across the county because they have recognized that inclusion is the right thing to do and fairness and equality are good for business.Collection: Equality
By providing every student with a quality education, and the materials they need for class and to do their homework, we can help students from all backgrounds learn and thrive.Collection: Education
In San Francisco, our diversity is our strength.Collection: Strength
As the COVID-19 situation evolves, we need to make sure we have enough medical professionals to care for people in need.Collection: Medical
Every day on our streets there are people who are facing a combination of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction. Each of these conditions is challenging alone, but when experienced at the same time it creates a downward spiral that makes it even more difficult for the person to get treated and housed.
San Francisco needs a Mayor who will make all our neighborhoods safe, a Mayor with a record of standing up for public safety and fighting for the resources we need.
Setting San Francisco on a course to sustainability will require all of us to work in concert on a number of ambitious efforts.
We need more housing in San Francisco, plain and simple, and we especially need more affordable housing for our low-income households, seniors, teachers, formerly homeless people, veterans, and middle-income residents.
In my sophomore year of high school, I watched my friend Loretta leave in a U-Haul headed for Oakland. She and her mom had been tenants in a nearby apartment, forced out by rent they couldn't afford anymore.
When I was in college, the bell tolled for us. Just as my grandmother, the woman who had cared for me all my life, started needing me to care for her, we were told our home was being torn down, and we would need to find another place to live.
The voters have been very clear that we need to address the homelessness and housing crisis that is affecting our City, and I remain focused on solving these issues.
I grew up in Plaza East public housing in the Western Addition, five of us living on $900 per month. 'Recycling' meant drinking out of old mayonnaise jars.
Fighting for tenants' rights has never been about political posturing for me. It's very personal. It's why I fight for everyone who's struggling to stay in San Francisco.
Both San Francisco and New York are taking bold, sweeping action to reduce emissions, make our infrastructure more resilient and improve the health of our people. We are also leading the charge against those who continue to deny the existence of climate change.
If we are ever going to fix our housing affordability crisis, we have to make significant changes to how we plan and construct, and we have to be open to solutions that make it easier and faster to build much-needed housing.
We have to cut the red tape, eliminate barriers, and reduce bureaucracy - for all housing, for everyone.
We need a coordinated, citywide approach to make sure that everyone in San Francisco is sheltered and has access to the care they need.
When I was growing up in San Francisco, one of the experiences that changed my life was my first paid internship - a summer job at The Family School.
As a young girl growing up in poverty, I know firsthand how much a paycheck from a summer job can make a difference.
Money should never be a barrier to whether or not a young person is given the opportunity to succeed.
Youth should have access to paid internships or jobs year-round, so they can keep developing important skills and earning income.
As a kid growing up in public housing, I didn't always get show up at the first day of school with a new backpack full of supplies. Having the school supplies I needed would have made me feel more prepared and ready to learn.
Every student should be able to start the school year with the supplies they need, and shouldn't feel left out if their family is unable to afford a new backpack, notebooks, and pencils.
In San Francisco, we strive to be a beacon of progressivism for the rest of the country and the world, whether it is leading the way on gay marriage, immigrants rights, or combating climate change.
Costly jail calls and high commissary fees have forced families to choose between paying their bills and talking to their loved ones who are serving time, adding further costs to an already difficult situation.
Far too many LGBTQ individuals are the victims of violence and hatred, and we must all fight together to ensure that no one is erased or marginalized because of how they identify or who they love.
In San Francisco, our businesses, healthcare services, workforce, and housing will always be Open to All.
We can't keep limiting ourselves when it comes to housing. Affordable housing and teacher housing are too crucial to let the failed policies of the past get in the way.