Innovative programs at risk in sanctuary cities
A program to screen kids in the Bayview for signs of trauma. Therapy for victims of domestic violence who have nowhere to live. Housing for homeless young adults in a special program to have their criminal records expunged. Money to purchase body cameras for police officers.
Those are among the Bay Area initiatives that benefit from U.S. Department of Justice grants, money that Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday he would “claw back” from sanctuary states and cities that limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
In response, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed a legal brief arguing that the city does, in fact, comply with the federal law as part of his lawsuit challenging President Trump’s executive order to strip that funding.
At stake is money for an array of programs that touch on different facets of the criminal justice system, none of them connected to immigra-
tion. San Francisco and Richmond could each lose more than $2 million annually. Oakland could lose more than $5 million.
“We are concerned that a lot of these innovative programs that are important to reforming the criminal justice system are on the chopping block,” said Max Szabo, a spokesman for San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón.
In San Francisco, an innovative court program that helps young adults facing criminal charges or who have been convicted pull their lives together began in 2015 with the help of a Justice Department grant. A team of city employees helps the defendants find jobs, housing and enroll in school. If defendants meets their goals — about a third graduate — they earn a reduced criminal record or even no record at all.
In weekly hearings at San Francisco Superior Court, Judge Bruce Chan questions the participants on their progress, offering words of encouragement mixed with warnings to do better. In a hearing this week at the Hall of Justice, he called participants to the podium one at a time. He gave a children’s book to one 24-year-old woman with an 8-month-old baby.
Chan asked another participant who had been convicted of stealing a car where he was living. The defendant said he lived in Stockton, with his grandmother.
“If this were to happen to your grandmother, then how would you feel?” Chan asked. “Mad,” the defendant responded quietly.
Chan told the defendant: “You have to be able to see other people in the way you see yourself and your family.”
Justice Department grants provide $438,000 annually that cover the salaries of the court reporter and clerk, public defender, a coordinator from the District Attorney’s Office, a deputy probation officer and aide for the probation officer. It also pays for housing for some of the defendants.
Emily Fox, a data analyst with the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families who oversees administration of the grant, said she had “no idea” what would happen if the funding was cut.
“I have these rose-colored glasses that tell us maybe our agencies would be willing to eat it, and I’m just not sure that is true,” Fox said. “The truth is if we lost this funding, my assumption is we wouldn’t be able to figure out how to cover it all because we would be hurting in other places.”
San Francisco Superior Court presiding Judge Teri Jackson said these alternative courts improve public safety.
“These courts provide lifechanging services together with judicial oversight to monitor and motivate clients to move toward productive, law-abiding lives to benefit themselves, their families and our city,” she said.
The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office received a $1 million grant in 2013 spread over four years to provide services like therapy and help navigating the court system for people affected by crime and violence in the Bayview neighborhood.
The district attorney distributed that money to five nonprofits, one of which, the Third Street Youth Center and Clinic, receives $125,000 annually. It used some of the grant funds, which are set to expire in December, to create an app that is used to identify signs of undetected trauma, which can range from witnessing violence to being a victim themselves.
It also hired a social worker trained in mental health to provide “culturally appropriate” counseling to people in the neighborhood, a challenge given that many people in the Bayview resist the idea of traditional therapy, said Joi Jackson-Morgan, the organization’s executive director.
The clinic has begun partnering with the Rafiki Coalition for Health and Wellness, which receives $50,000 annually from the same Justice Department grant and leads group support sessions for people in the Bayview who have experienced trauma.
“It’s been so helpful to get funders to see how important screening and training for trauma is,” Jackson-Morgan said. “For it to be in jeopardy feels like all the help we did to help these communities might be undone.”
In Richmond, a $150,000 Justice Department grant helped outfit more than 100 police officers with body cameras.
Several Bay Area cities have gone on the offensive to make sure they can still qualify for the grants. Richmond, San Francisco, Santa Clara and Oakland are challenging in court Trump’s executive order to strip funding from sanctuary cities.
Herrera’s brief, filed Wednesday, argues that San Francisco already complies with the federal immigration law Sessions accused sanctuary cities of breaking. That law prevents local governments from in any way restricting what information its officials share with the federal government about an individual’s immigration status.
What San Francisco doesn’t allow — and Herrera maintains the law doesn’t require — is holding inmates beyond their release date without a court order because Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials want to pick them up for questioning. The city also prevents its employees from releasing information to ICE about an individual’s release date from jail, except in limited circumstances.
San Francisco’s lawsuit received some state backing Wednesday. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a friend-of-the court brief, as did a group of 13 current and former police chiefs and sheriffs, including police chiefs in Houston and Salt Lake City.
The Justice Department has declined comment beyond Sessions’ announcement.
San Francisco and Richmond could each lose more than $2 million annually. Oakland could lose more than $5 million.