Author: AdminSFLD

As reported in the  Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco Democrats have elected city native Honey Mahogany as the first transgender and first Black chair of the local party. The first trans person in the U.S. to chair a local Democratic Party, Mahogany is now one of the party’s highest-ranking transgender officials in the state and country.

The LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District congratulates Mahogany, who is also chief legislative aide for our District Supervisor Matt Haney, part of the Stud cooperative, a co-founder of the Transgender District, and a long-time friend of our community and organization,

The Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD), Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) and Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) invite you to join us for an online public hearing to provide your input on preliminary funding recommendations for 2021-2022 services. This meeting is part of the annual process to receive community input on funding recommendations in accordance with the City’s Citizen Participation Plan for federal funding.

WHEN
Tuesday, June 1, 2021
5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

WHERE
Register in advance for a Zoom webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UN3RbKf1SgiLZHEbsJ0l1A
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Cantonese, Spanish and Filipino interpretation services will be provided at the June 1^st public hearing.

The preliminary funding recommendations for 2021-2022 community development, economic development, workforce development and homeless services will include funding under the following four federal programs: Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), Home Investment Partnership (HOME), Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG), and Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA). The funding recommendations will be available for public review and comment from May 26, 2021 to June 24, 2021.

The 2021-2022 Action Plan will be the second-year implementation plan under the 2020-2024 Consolidated Plan. It outlines community development and affordable housing strategies and priorities that will be supported with the four federal funding sources listed above and other funding sources administered by MOHCD during the program year that starts on July 1, 2021 and ends on June 30, 2022. The amount of funding the City and County of San Francisco will receive from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for 2021-2022 is as follows: CDBG – $18,887,307; HOME – $5,161,731; and ESG – $1,590,749. The City and County of San Francisco will receive $7,041,373 in HOPWA funding for San Francisco and San Mateo Counties.

CDBG, HOME, ESG and HOPWA funds will be used to support the following five objectives, which are described in San Francisco’s 2020-2024 Consolidated Plan:

• Families and individuals are stably housed;
• Families and individuals are resilient and economically self-sufficient;
• Communities have healthy physical, social, and business infrastructure;
• Communities at risk of displacement are stabilized; and,
• City works to eliminate the causes of racial disparities.

The Draft 2021-2022 Action Plan will be available for public review and comment from June 10, 2021 to July 9, 2021. Please note that the specific funding recommendations for projects for the 2021-2022 program year will be made available for public review and comment from May 26, 2021 to June 24, 2021, as noted above, and will not be included in the Draft Action Plan document.

The preliminary funding recommendations and the Draft 2021-2022 Action Plan will be available electronically on the MOHCD website at https://sfmohcd.org/, OEWD website at https://oewd.org/, and HSH website at http://hsh.sfgov.org/ on the dates listed above. Due to the current shelter in place order, hard copies of these documents will not be available.

Members of the public who wish to provide feedback on the preliminary funding recommendations may do so at the June 1^st virtual public hearing or by submitting written comments to gloria.woo@sfgov.org. The deadline for receiving written comments on the preliminary funding recommendations is June 24, 2021 at 5:00 p.m.

Members of the public who wish to provide feedback on the Draft 2021-2022 Action Plan may do so by submitting written comments to gloria.woo@sfgov.org. The deadline for receiving written comments on the Draft Action Plan is July 9, 2021 at 5:00 p.m.

If you have questions, please email Gloria Woo at gloria.woo@sfgov.org.

The local queer and kinky community has been working over the past year to help protect the San Francisco Eagle Bar by having it designated an historic landmark.

On May 19, 2021, the Historic Preservation Commission voted, 7-0,  to recommend to the Board of Supervisors Landmark Designation of the San Francisco Eagle Bar as an individual Article 10 Landmark.  The matter now goes back to the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor for a final ok.

Many letters and emails of support for this designation were received by the Commission, and several folks also called into the hearing to endorse the action.

Thank you for your help!  Please consider joining our Save SOMA Action Network now, to be kept informed when we need you again.

An important part of our work is helping residents, workers and visitors appreciate the history and culture of the District’s buildings and streets.

We are working on a project to install bronze plaques at key historic locations around SoMa, in cooperation with the SF Arts Commission, Public Works, the SFMTA, and with funding provided by local developers.  You can read about it in the September 2020 Bay Area Reporter article, easily viewable here.

A Resolution authorizing the plaques has now been unanimously approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (as reported in this article  from the Bay Area Reporter).

Additional design reviews and approvals are still required.  Your presence and comments (via Zoom, or by email in advance) will be much appreciated.  Please consider signing up for our SOMA Action Network so we can let you know when we need that help. 

If all goes well, the first plaques should be installed as part of the Department of Public Works’ upgrade to Folsom Street, hopefully starting later this year.

Meanwhile, we invite you to view this presentation about the plaque project.  

View Presentation (PDF file)

Thanks!

New News! 
There will be a special Zoom event this Saturday
to provide more info and an answer questions about the
Guaranteed Income Pilot For SF Based Artists.  

Saturday April 10, 2021   10:30 AM

Join Zoom Meeting here
Or call 16699006833 and use Meeting ID: 820 2830 9679 and Passcode: 979481

A pilot program has been created to provide monthly income to selected San Francisco artists, and applications are now open.

• Funded by the San Francisco Arts Commission
• Administered by the Yerba Buena Center For The Arts
• 130 artists, randomly selected
• whose artistic practice is rooted in a historically marginalized community,
• live in Zip codes 94102, 94110, 94112, 94124, 94134, 94103, 94107, 94109, 94115, 94117, 94130, 94158, or 94108, 
• meet income eligibility, and
• face loss of income due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
• will receive six regular monthly payments of $1000 between May 21 and October 1, 2021.
• These are disaster relief payments, and will not be taxed.  May affect benefits.   

For full information and to apply
click here!
Applications close April 15, 2021.

	“The arts are truly critical to our local economy and are an essential part of our long-term recovery. If we help the arts recover, the arts will help San Francisco recover. This new program is an innovative effort to help our creative sector get through this challenging time, and come back even stronger and more resilient than before.”
	– The Honorable Mayor London Breed