S.F. drops fees to help lowincome people
San Francisco will eliminate more fees and fines that disproportionately affect lowincome people of color in an effort toward racial and financial justice, Mayor London Breed and the city treasurer announced Wednesday.
The city will stop charging artists who sell their goods in designated street spaces and who are often lowincome, immigrants or older people trying to support themselves. Families dealing with the deaths of loved ones, who can be homeless or lowincome crime victims, will no longer have to pay for some documents and services from the medical examiner. It will now be free to get a city ID card, which many undocumented residents use. And people surrendering their animals or late to apply for a dog license won’t have to pay.
“For some people a single fee can have a dramatic impact that can make it hard to put food on the table or pay their rent,” Breed said in a statement Wednesday. “We know that now is the time to be investing in people who are struggling to get back on their feet as we all do the work to lift this City out of this pandemic.”
Treasurer Jose Cisneros said in a statement that San Francisco “should not balance our budget on the backs of people who can least afford it.”
Lynn Vandenberg, who has been paying the city for a license to sell her handmade jewelry in Embarcadero Plaza for 40 years, celebrated at the news that the fees would be gone.
“It couldn’t come at a better time. It’s really quite wonderful with everybody struggling so much,” she said. Vandenberg said that more than 100 people used to sell handmade goods in the plaza, but there are now only about six during the pandemic. She goes only on Saturdays and said she has been lucky to receive unemployment benefits.
Over the next year, even more departments will develop or enhance fine and fee discounts. People who qualify as lowincome could get cheaper permit fees for mobile food facilities or massage and tattoo parlors through the health department. The Fire Department will expand how many people can get a discount on ambulance fees because of financial hardship. And the Recreation and Parks Department will expand its outreach for scholarships to get kids in summer camps, afterschool programs and sports.
The work is part of the treasurer’s Financial Justice Project, which was set up to “take a hard look” at city fees and fines and change any that disproportionately affect lowincome people or communities of color, director Anne Stuhldreher said.
Over the past four years, that has meant waiving $32 million in debt, making jail calls free and eliminating commissary markups, ending overdue library fines and discounting towing.