In 2025, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors faced a defining set of choices about who this city is for. Again and again, a moderate supermajority supported increasing mayoral power, corporate interests, and punitive responses to social crises over the needs of working-class residents. From criminalizing vehicular homelessness and gutting voter-mandated affordable housing funds, to expanding police surveillance and overtime giveaways, the Board repeatedly voted to consolidate power upward while narrowing democratic oversight and social investment.
This analysis breaks down key Board of Supervisors votes from 2025, outlines DSA San Francisco’s perspective, and examines how these decisions either served or betrayed the working class. Where socialist leadership prevailed, such as with the Green Bank, sanctuary protections, tenant safeguards, and limits on Big Tech encroachment, it showed what is possible when the city prioritizes people over profit. Taken as a whole, these votes tell a clear story about the political direction of City Hall in 2025 – and the stakes for organizing to change it.
See how each supervisor voted on the following votes here.
Housing & Homelessness
RV Ban
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)
- Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
- No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton
In July 2025, the Board of Supervisors voted to institute Mayor Lurie’s RV vehicle ban by a 9-2 vote, with Supervisors Fielder and Walton in opposition. The new policy instituted a 2-hour parking limit on oversized vehicles citywide, making existence nigh-impossible for the over 1,400 poor and working class San Franciscans who live in RVs. This ban, which officially took effect on November 1st, 2025 after a rushed, month-long implementation, has been a brutal failure on a number of fronts. While temporary refuge permits were offered to residents who were included in a May 2025 city count of oversized vehicles, many longtime residents were excluded from this count and struggled to qualify, despite multiple appeals. The funding for rehousing and vehicle buybacks was extraordinarily limited, and simultaneously pitted unhoused communities against one another by promising RV residents that they’d be prioritized over people sleeping on the street.
Since the ban has taken effect, Lurie’s administration has already ramped up tows, while RV residents with permits have reported few housing offers. This all has taken place against a period of skyrocketing rents in San Francisco, where more people are being pushed into both vehicular and street homelessness daily.
Gutting Affordable Housing Funding
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (8-3)
- Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman
- No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton, Chyanne Chen
In 2018, voters approved Prop C, the Our City, Our Home program, which placed a gross receipts tax on the largest businesses to invest in proven, housing-first solutions to address homelessness. In July of last year, Mayor Lurie and the “moderate” supermajority on the Board of Supervisors moved to reallocate tens of millions of dollars away from these permanent housing solutions and towards temporary shelters, hotel vouchers, rental subsidies, and other short-sighted solutions. Framed as a response to urgent needs and unspent balances, this move undermines the clear intent of Prop C: to move people out of homelessness permanently, not cycle them through temporary fixes. By repeatedly suspending voter-mandated allocations, San Francisco is backfilling gaps created by broader budget and housing policy failures instead of investing in deeply affordable, permanent housing and prevention—the very strategies proven to reduce homelessness long-term. This approach risks normalizing emergency shelter as a substitute for housing, erodes trust in voter-approved mandates, and diverts resources away from systemic solutions that working-class San Franciscans were promised when they voted for Prop C.
Read our full statement here: https://dsasf.org/ocoh
Eliminate Affordable Housing Fees in Hayes
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)
- Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
- No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton
Supervisors voted to forego $81 million in developer impact fees that would have funded affordable housing and infrastructure in Hayes Valley and surrounding areas known as “Market Octavia.”
From 2008 to 2024, such fees provided $40 million for affordable housing and $53 million for transportation and public realm improvements in that area, including Polk Street and Page Street bike lanes, the new Brady Park, Dolores & Market intersection improvements, and partial funding for Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit. No alternative funding sources were identified for planned future projects like these.
Although the rationale was to jump-start stalled market rate developments, the sponsors refused to put a time limit on the waiver, and the Board of Supervisors’ own analyst concluded no projects will start in the next three years anyway. These fees amount to only 7% of typical development costs per unit, and were already priced into land costs because they were paired with a 2008 upzoning.
The real reason market-rate housing is stalled is structural: Interest rates are high, and investors can find greater returns elsewhere (like the AI boom). Or as the director of a real estate industry-funded group said in a candid moment, “One of the challenges we face in San Francisco is we need the rent to go back up to get housing to work”—an obvious non-solution for workers who struggle to afford rent already.
If supervisors are serious about jump-starting housing, they should stop trading away our parks, street safety improvements, and affordable housing funds in a futile attempt to entice developers, and instead invest in building social housing directly. They can start on Hayes Valley’s city-owned Parcel K.
Suspend Empty Homes Tax During Litigation
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)
- Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
- No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton
San Francisco faces a daunting affordability crisis, driven by speculative developers and exploitative landlords. In 2022, voters passed Prop M to penalize owners who kept their properties vacant – nearly 40,000 units in pre-COVID San Francisco. Despite clear voter support, Prop M was immediately challenged in court by landlord groups. When the board voted 9-2 to suspend the empty homes tax during these court proceedings, they stood in the way of a potential $61 million per year in net revenue for working-class rental support programs and affordable housing projects.
Eliminate Affordable Housing Fees for Office Conversions
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)
- Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
- No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton
This ordinance exempts downtown office-to-housing conversion projects from development impact fees, including the Inclusionary Housing fee, and removing deadlines to apply for the program. While supporters frame this as a way to spur housing production and revive downtown amid high office vacancy rates, this legislation trades away critical, permanent funding for affordable housing, transit, and neighborhood infrastructure with no guarantee that these conversions will actually move forward or deliver homes that ordinary people can afford.
Like past fee waivers, this policy is based on the flawed assumption that developers are only a small incentive away from building, when the real barriers are high interest rates, construction costs, and profit expectations: factors this ordinance does nothing to change. By allowing large, centrally located projects to bypass inclusionary requirements, the city undermines its own affordable housing goals, deepens reliance on luxury market-rate housing, and sets a precedent that public goods are negotiable whenever developers claim hardship. Instead of giving blank check subsidies to real estate interests, San Francisco should be directly investing in social housing, while ensuring that any downtown development meaningfully contributes to affordability, public services, and working-class communities.
Family Zoning Plan (FZP)
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (7-4)
- Yes: Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Alan Wong
- No: Connie Chan, Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton, Chyanne Chen
In December 2025, the Board of Supervisors voted 7-4 to approve the Family Zoning Plan (FZP) which rezoned San Francisco’s western and northern neighborhoods as part of the City’s Housing Element compliance program. The rezoning targeted commercial corridors for significant height increases, eliminated density controls throughout the plan area, established a local density bonus program to encourage market-based production of affordable housing, provided 100% affordable developments with some additional height incentives, and allowed developers the option of replacing their “inclusionary zoning” requirement to set aside 12% of their units for affordable housing by opting into San Francisco’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance.
The FZP’s shortcomings include incentives for the redevelopment of approximately 20K rent controlled units in 2-unit buildings via significant height increases, targeting renter-heavy commercial corridors for redevelopment while freezing heights in wealthy owner-occupied neighborhoods, and lacking an explicit affordable housing program. The BOS separately passed a tenant protection ordinance.
Amending FZP to Protect All Rent Controlled Units
DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: No (4-7)
- Yes: Connie Chan, Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton, Chyanne Chen
- No: Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Alan Wong
While the FZP was successfully amended to remove rent-controlled buildings with more than 2 units, it left approximately 20K rent-controlled units vulnerable to demolition. This amendment would have removed these duplexes from the crosshairs of redevelopment, but failed 4-7.
Tenant Protections from Demolitions
DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (11-0)
This Tenant Protection Ordinance passed unanimously following the passage of the flawed FZP. This ordinance strengthens tenant protections in the context of residential demolitions and major renovations, responding to widespread displacement driven by speculative development, harassment, and abuse of buyouts. The legislation recognizes that “temporary” displacements tied to renovations or redevelopment often become permanent, forcing working-class tenants out of San Francisco entirely, and it shifts responsibility for those harms onto property owners rather than tenants.
Specifically, six of the following eight criteria must be met in order to demolish existing housing that has been occupied by tenants in the past 10 years:
- The new project is a rental project (i.e. not condos for sale).
- The new project has more units than before.
- The new project has more rent-controlled units than before.
- The new project has more two-bedroom units than before.
- The new project does not significantly change a historic landmark.
- In the case of an owner-move-in eviction, the owner has lived there for at least 3 years.
- No affordable housing is demolished.
- There are no violations with the Planning Department or Building Inspection Department.
This legislation confronts the structural drivers of displacement, prioritizes the right of tenants to remain in their communities, and affirms housing as a social good instead of a speculative commodity.
Protect Rent-Controlled Units Resolution (Fix SB 330)
DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (11-0)
This resolution urges the California legislature to amend the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 (SB 330) so as to bring it in line with the City’s more thorough and generous protections, specifically with regard to demolition regulations, tenant relocation benefits, and right of return regardless of tenants’ incomes. The resolution zeroes in on several loopholes in the existing Act through which tenants can easily fall and which incentivize keeping protected units empty and displacing tenants. The resolution passed the Board unanimously and became law without the signature of Mayor Lurie.
Immigration
Sanctuary City Recommitment
DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (11-0)
In Socialist Supervisor Jackie Fielder’s first piece of legislation, the city reaffirmed its long standing status as a sanctuary city, which prevents local resources from being used to assist federal immigration enforcement, and situates that commitment in the current political moment. This was especially significant as fears spiked within the broader immigrant community, who make up roughly one-third of the city, of what a second Trump term could mean for our friends, neighbors, and family members. Sanctuary policies are proven to strengthen collective safety and solidarity by refusing to pit working-class communities against one another or turn city workers into agents of deportation.
This resolution passed unanimously, emphasizing San Francisco’s unwavering support for our immigrant neighbors.
$3.5M in Immigration Legal Services
DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (11-0)
A unanimously approved allocation of $3.5M from the General Fund to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development to expand existing immigration legal defense and community response services. This funding strengthens access to deportation defense, legal screenings, and community support at a moment of heightened fear and uncertainty for immigrant communities, particularly amid threats of renewed federal enforcement. By investing in legal representation and protection rather than enforcement, the Board affirmed San Francisco’s commitment to collective safety, due process, and standing with immigrant workers and families.
Policing, Surveillance, & Carceral Spending
Mayoral Power Grab (Fentanyl State of Emergency)
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (10-1)
- Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Jackie Fielder, Chyanne Chen
- No: Shamann Walton
One of Daniel Lurie’s signature campaign promises became his first big win at the Board of Supervisors, as the so-called Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinance passed by a 10-1 margin. The bill is indicative of Lurie’s approach in that it transfers power from the Board of Supervisors to the Mayor’s Office, in this case the approval of contracts and grants related to homelessness, substance use and mental health needs, and public safety hiring. It also authorizes the Mayor to solicit private donations of up to $10 million to advance those causes, an early instance of Lurie’s tendency to allow his ultra-wealthy friends to directly fund the initiatives they hold dearest (mostly cops). The passage of this bill was a feather in the Mayor’s cap and afforded him a reputation for tackling San Francisco’s most deeply entrenched problems, yet augmenting the power of the Mayor’s Office hasn’t yet led to a notable decrease in overdose deaths and Lurie fell significantly short of his promise to bring 1,500 shelter beds online in his first 6 months.
Crypto-funded “Real Time Investigation Center”
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)
- Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
- No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton
In 2024, voters approved Proposition E, letting the SFPD “use technology to the maximum extent possible” in the name of public safety—the key issue Mayor Lurie campaigned on, despite crime rates being down across the city. Prop E helped the SFPD spy on the public using drones, license-plate readers, and surveillance cameras via a facility named the “Real Time Investigation Center”. As the original location for the RTIC was unequipped to handle the technology needs, the SPFD looked to move the headquarters to a new location. Chris Larsen—a crypto billionaire who funded Prop E and the recall of progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin—gave more than $9 million of technology, facilities, and services to a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the SPFD. By law, the city has to solicit bids from multiple companies before accepting any such offers, but last summer, the SFPD asked the BoS to waive this requirement, which they agreed to do by a 9-2 vote. As a result, an unaccountable and untransparent nonprofit, funded by tech billionaires, was able to implement unpopular surveillance measures without civilian oversight or review. The RTIC is now housed in Ripple’s corporate office space, in a building complex partially owned by Donald Trump, and Larsen, et al, can provide it unlimited donations without further Board approval as long as it remains there.
Police and Sheriff Overtime Giveaway
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)
- Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
- No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton
For the last seven years, the SF Police and Sheriff’s Departments have submitted budgets for Board approval, only to then ask for tens of millions of dollars in additional overtime. The cops claim they’re too understaffed to work within their budget, but a 2024 City audit found overtime cards with fraudulent signatures and revealed that most officers take 5 weeks of paid sick leave, with many working paid private security jobs on days they called in sick. Some officers even claimed 80-hour workweeks, every single week, for years. Despite this abuse of overtime, last spring cops asked for an additional $90 million from the city—which is currently in a budget deficit of $876 million. To close this deficit, the Mayor and Board are cutting funds to public education, Muni, housing services, legal aid, and many other departments. By stealing essential services from the public just so corrupt cops can take home more money, the Supervisors voted (9-2) to balance the budget on the backs of working San Franciscans.
Allow Sheriff to Purchase Military-Grade Riot Guns
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (8-3)
- Yes: Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
- No: Connie Chan, Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton
It’s hard to talk seriously about public safety when cops are given deadly weapons in the name of “crowd control”. Last year—in addition to its many assault rifles, sniper rifles, submachine guns, and automatic pistols—the SF Sheriff’s Office asked the BoS to approve the purchase of ten AR-15–style rifles that fire pepper balls with greater velocity than the chemical-agent weapons currently in their inventory. The product manual for the proposed rifles indicates an increased risk of death or injury, but no mention of the weapon’s lethality was made in the Sheriff’s report. In 2025, the number of reported crimes in San Francisco fell for the third year in a row, and yet the Board voted 8-3 to approve these excessive and unnecessary weapons, bolstering the cops’ arsenal to the detriment of essential city services.
Economic Justice & Public Investment
Green Bank Resolution
DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (10-0)
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution directing the City to move forward with creating the San Francisco Green Bank, a publicly owned finance institution designed to fund affordable housing, small businesses, and climate projects.
The Green Bank will be a non-depository public benefit corporation, meaning it will not act like a normal retail bank. Instead, it will function as a public financing engine that uses city, state, federal, and philanthropic capital to invest in projects that serve the public good rather than Wall Street profit.
Under the resolution, the Green Bank’s mission is explicitly to promote equity, social justice, and ecological sustainability, with lending focused on:
- Affordable rental housing and homeownership
- Local small businesses
- Green investments tied to environmental justice
The Treasurer is now directed to pursue regulatory approvals, hire a Green Bank Coordinator, and work with a public advisory group to design the institution. The Treasurer must also report back to the Board every four months, creating ongoing political accountability. While this vote urges the Treasurer to design and pursue approvals for a Green Bank, the legislation itself says the bank cannot be established without an appropriation for staff/legal work and without securing capitalization.
Supervisor Jackie Fielder sponsored the resolution and secured unanimous support across the Board. Although the Mayor returned it unsigned, it became law automatically under the City Charter.
For socialists, a Green Bank is about democratizing capital. Instead of relying on profit-driven banks that underfund working-class communities and overfund fossil fuels and luxury real estate, San Francisco can begin directing money toward housing, climate resilience, and local businesses on public terms.
Learn more and get involved: https://sfpublicbank.org
Billionaire’s Budget
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (10-1)
- Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Shamann Walton, Chyanne Chen
- No: Jackie Fielder
The budget approved this past summer was shaped by claims of a looming fiscal crisis and prioritized “downtown recovery” and spending on the punishment bureaucracy over meeting the actual needs of the working class, continuing a pattern of neoliberal austerity politics in one of the richest cities in the world. While moderate city leaders framed the budget as fiscally responsible, it protected or expanded funding for policing, jails, and business incentives while cutting or severely underfunding essential services like public health, stable housing, homelessness prevention, transit, and nonprofit workers who deliver critical care across our city. These deliberate choices came amid rising rents, stagnant wages, and deepening inequality, effectively asking working-class San Franciscans to bear the costs of the economic volatility of capitalism, while corporations and wealthy interests were shielded.
This budget reflects political priorities, not fiscal necessity: it doubles down on a punitive, carceral approach to social problems, undermines long-term investments in housing and care, and fails to use the city’s full fiscal and political power to tax the wealthy, defend public services, and build a city that works for tenants, workers, and marginalized communities, not just downtown and big business.
Democratic Accountability & Oversight
Removal of Max Carter-Oberstone
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)
- Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Rafael Mandelman, Shamann Walton, Chyanne Chen
- No: Myrna Melgar, Jackie Fielder
Shortly after taking office, Mayor Lurie decided to remove Max Carter-Oberstone from the Police Commission—a group appointed to oversee the SFPD and conduct hearings on police misconduct. Lurie gave no rationale for his decision, which was subject to an approval vote by the Board of Supervisors. In his four years on the commission, Carter-Oberstone helped to pass reform-minded policies—such as curtailing pretext traffic stops, which disproportionately affect Black and brown drivers—and also exposed former Mayor Breed’s unethical practice of requiring her appointees to sign undated resignation letters. Civilian commissioners provide a crucial means to check the overreach and abuses of city leaders, most of whom are backed by tech billionaires. By removing Carter-Oberstone from office, the mayor and BoS (who voted 9-2 to remove) weakened police accountability and signaled to other commissioners they’d better fall in line behind Lurie in his consolidation of power.
Removal of Our City, Our Home Committee Expert
DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (7-3)
- Yes: Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Shamann Walton
- No: Connie Chan, Jackie Fielder, Chyanne Chen
This legislation replaces Jennifer Friedenbach on the Our City, Our Home (OCOH) Oversight Committee. This body was created by Proposition C, which Friedenbach herself architected and led to passage with overwhelming voter support in 2018. Prop. C created a tax on San Francisco’s largest corporations to fund permanent housing and homelessness services, generating over $1 billion to date, with community oversight as a core safeguard against political interference. Friedenbach’s removal comes in clear political context: she was one of the most vocal opponents of Mayor Lurie’s recent effort to redirect tens of millions of Prop. C dollars away from permanent housing and into temporary shelter, a shift which DSA SF has criticized for failing to address root causes of homelessness. Replacing her with a mayoral and supervisor ally undermines the independence of the oversight committee and sends a chilling message that dissent, especially from those who defend the original, voter-mandated intent of Prop. C, will be punished.
This move undermines democratic accountability and punishes principled dissent: replacing the chief author and guardian of Prop. C with a politically connected appointee weakens independent oversight, opens the door to further dilution of voter intent, and signals that standing up for proven, housing-first policies can cost advocates their seat at the table.
DoorDash Drone Experiment Protections
DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (11-0)
This resolution responds to long-standing concerns about the erosion of Production, Distribution, and Repair (PDR) space in the Mission by placing temporary, targeted guardrails on a specific emerging land use: outdoor engineering and development laboratories operating in PDR-1-G districts, mostly in northeast Mission and Dogpatch. While laboratory uses have long been permitted in these zones, the growth of “knowledge sector” firms (especially those conducting noisy or polluting hardware testing outdoors, most visibly exemplified by DoorDash’s outdoor delivery drone testing at 1960 Folsom) has created conflicts with nearby homes, schools, and parks, and accelerated displacement of traditional PDR businesses and working-class jobs. This establishes narrow, 18-month zoning controls requiring Conditional Use approval for these outdoor lab activities, pausing further expansion while SF studies permanent protections for PDR land.
This puts democratic oversight and community health ahead of corporate convenience, defends blue-collar and non-degree-required jobs, and prevents Big Tech from bypassing land-use rules written specifically to protect working-class neighborhoods. While our Socialist Supervisor Jackie Fielder received intense online backlash for this legislation from prominent tech executives and investors, the resolution ultimately passed unanimously, underscoring the broad agreement the SF must set limits when new, untested technology threatens workers, residents, and the public good.
Special thanks to the comrades who helped make this scorecard and analysis possible: Alex L., Annie B., Connor N., Dan R., Dave M., Hans E. W., Jill M., Matt P., Rishav R., and Scott F.
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