With a troubled economy and huge City and State budget deficits, the last few years have presented tremendous threats to the health and human service safety net. In 2002, HSN organized the largest San Francisco nonprofit rally ever - leading over 1000 nonprofit staff and clients in a protest against budget cuts at City Hall. In June 2003, hundreds of nonprofit staff and clients spoke out at a Board of Supervisors public hearing to oppose draconian cuts. In both years, the Board reallocated tens of millions of dollars to prevent cuts in homeless, mental health, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, senior, domestic violence and other programs.

We entered 2004 expecting devastating cuts as the City faced a daunting $352 million deficit. But in an effort to preserve services, Mayor Newsom's budget cuts focused on City administrative streamlining. HSN participated at every level of the process to protect health and human service programs. HSN believes that this budget demonstrates the impact of our years of work to educate public officials about the need to protect the safety net, especially in difficult times, as well as the importance of nonprofits' role in delivering those services. However, the failure of two local revenue measures to pass on the November 2004 ballot threatened to nullify many of these successes. The City implemented an 18-month budget cut of $97 million in January 2005, including about $8 million in reductions to nonprofit services.

The City addressed an additional shortfall of $130 million in its FY 05-06 budget. The Mayor again went out of his way to preserve safety net services in all departments. However, the proposed City budget contained difficult and controversial cuts. HSN and nonprofit representatives participated through hearings, meetings and letters throughout the process. The Mayor and Board ultimately restored over $22 million for health and human services.