Collateral damage — that’s how nonprofit leaders are describing the latest fallout of the Dream Keeper scandal.
In the last few weeks, the city wrote letters to more than a dozen organizations informing them they would no longer be awarded a collective $10.6 million promised by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.
The cancelation of the grants is already having dire consequences. The Transgender District, which endeavors to offer economic stability and cultural empowerment to the trans community, is facing layoffs after losing $250,000 in promised funds.
In an April 1 letter to the mayor’s office, which The Standard obtained in a public records request, co-executive directors Breonna McCree and Carlo Gómez Arteaga requested urgent financial relief — or else they’ll have to “drastically downsize” staff.
“Without this support, we will no longer have the financial capacity to maintain our programs, staff, or services at the level needed given the anti-trans rhetoric and the federal administration’s attacks and cuts to federal funding that supports [transgender and gender non-conforming] programs and research,” they wrote.
The myriad organizations were sent “award letters” for the grant money late last year. The letters are precursors to formal contracts used to disburse the funds. Cathy Davis, director of Bayview Senior Services, which lost $700,000 in promised funds, said the reversal is unprecedented.
“This is the first time in my 45 years I’ve seen an award letter rescinded, ever,” Davis said. “If you depended on this to run your program, you’d be really screwed.”
The city withdrew grant dollars that were crucial to the organizations’ programs: $1.7 million to the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center, $200,000 to the Chinese Culture Foundation, and $300,000 to the Zaccho Dance Theater, among others.
Dream Keeper contracts were imperiled last fall after it was discovered that the Human Rights Commission’s former executive director, Sheryl Davis, improperly awarded contracts to Collective Impact, an organization whose leader, James Spingola, she lived with.
A March city controller’s office report said Davis and Collective Impact “tainted” the Dream Keeper program’s grant process. The organizations losing grants were awarded funds from the same bucket used to pay Collective Impact.
In a statement, Human Rights Commission spokesperson Devi Zinzuvadia said the city controller’s report raised red flags about how these specific grants were awarded, leading to a “difficult decision.”
“Within the past months and before formal contracts were executed, HRC became aware of significant irregularities in how contract awards were selected and prioritized and how funding amounts were decided,” Zinzuvadia said. “These irregularities could have compromised the fairness and integrity of the entire process.”
Not all of the impacted nonprofits are facing layoffs. However, programs serving Black, Chinese, and transgender communities, among others, may face significant cuts as a result of the loss in funds. Some nonprofit leaders who spoke to The Standard said they managed to avoid job cuts by redirecting dollars meant for planned expansions to existing community programs.
Queer Women of Color Media Arts lost $500,000 in promised grants. Kebo Drew, managing director of the nonprofit, said Dream Keeper previously funded the pilot of its critical juncture program, which paid queer and transgender Black filmmakers to tell community stories.
One of those films, “Belly of the World,” a documentary by April September, explores systemic racism faced by people seeking reproductive justice. It tells the stories of two Black trans men navigating pregnancy and parenthood and features a San Francisco doctor and a Mississippi midwife who pioneered economic support for pregnant Black people.
“That film is going to be a standout once it’s finished,” Drew said.
While it isn’t in a “crisis,” the arts nonprofit won’t be able to fund an apprenticeship program to train community filmmakers to get top-tier industry jobs. The funding also could have had a “multiplier effect,” Drew said, helping the organization raise even more. The Human Rights Commission hasn’t said what will happen to the grant money originally awarded to the group. The uncertainty forced the nonprofit to dip into its reserve funding.
“We didn’t get contacted for months,” Drew said. “Then we found out our contract was being rescinded for absolutely nothing we did. They didn’t explain why they made that choice.”
Bayview Senior Services cut programming across the board. A genealogy class for seniors and intergenerational arts activities featuring drama, art, and music were axed. A project to help seniors tell stories about African American contributions to San Francisco was also canceled.
Perhaps most tragic for Davis, the head of Bayview Senior Services, was having to shelve a plan to expand the nonprofit’s housing navigation team. Housing navigation staffers help people facing eviction — often Black seniors — find apartments or other living arrangements in San Francisco.
The team also helps Black families and seniors who were displaced during the city’s racist “urban renewal” project return to the Fillmore District.
“Some are homeless. Some want to come back home,” Davis said.
The need is great — the housing navigation team has been overwhelmed with calls. They can’t get to every San Franciscan who needs help finding housing.
“I don’t want to say any of it wasn’t bad, because it was, but we shouldn’t have all paid the price,” Davis said. “Why did we all have to suffer like that, collectively, the whole community?
“We had little flights of hope, and it got pulled away,” she added.