How San Francisco's DEI Industrial Complex Works

In December, San Francisco Mayor London Breed scrambled to cut costs across city departments in an attempt to close an exceptionally large budget deficit, which currently hovers around $800 million but could top $1 billion in a few years. In October, when the deficit was supposedly ‘only’ about $500 million, Breed sent a letter requesting city departments submit preliminary spend reduction proposals by the end of the month. “We need to ensure that every dollar our city departments spend, either directly, or through contracted parties, is done so responsibly and with accountability,” she wrote.

This is rich talk of fiscal responsibility from a mayor who's presided over record high city budgets from the start of her term in 2018 onward. The headline numbers of this spending spree are well known: a near-tripling of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing’s budget, massive increases in spending on addiction-related services, and tens of millions in pandemic-era bailout programs, to name a few. But less discussed is the way Breed has quietly greenlit huge fundi