By Vanguard Staff

SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco People’s Budget Coalition declared a major victory this week after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Appropriations Committee advanced a budget proposal restoring nearly all of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s proposed cuts to community organizations and workers providing essential services throughout the city.

The coalition credited months of organizing by labor unions, community organizations, residents and advocates for reversing many of the reductions initially proposed in the mayor’s budget. The committee-approved budget now moves to the full Board of Supervisors and then to Mayor Lurie for final approval. According to the coalition, few, if any, additional changes are expected during that process.

The coalition said thousands of San Francisco workers, residents and community members participated in neighborhood town halls, marches, rallies, phone banks, letter-writing campaigns and demonstrations to pressure city leaders to restore funding for programs serving vulnerable populations.

“This budget represents a remarkable victory for every single San Francisco resident,” said Anya Worley-Ziegman, coalition coordinator for the San Francisco People’s Budget Coalition.

“And it shows that public pressure works. Showing up works. Organizing, going out into communities where people will see their lives impacted by cuts, where people feel like their government and their representatives aren’t listening to them, and giving people an outlet to make their voices heard can make real change.”

Worley-Ziegman credited “the thousands of people, workers, unions, community and advocacy organizations, as well as the leadership of Budget Chair Connie Chan and Supervisors who fought for their districts’ priorities” with helping restore “tens of millions of dollars for essential programs serving our city’s most vulnerable populations.”

“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us that budgets are moral documents, and today, City Hall seems to agree,” Worley-Ziegman added.

According to the coalition, many of the mayor’s proposed reductions affecting LGBTQ+, immigrant, student and homeless services were restored through the city’s annual budget “add-back” process during the Budget and Appropriations Committee’s final meeting, chaired by Supervisor Connie Chan.

The coalition said restorations include tens of millions of dollars for senior services, housing and rent assistance, Free City College, HIV services, immigrant services and other community programs.

The organization argued that many of the programs initially targeted for reductions serve communities that are already facing challenges resulting from actions by the federal government. The coalition said restoring those programs demonstrates continued city support for immigrants, LGBTQ+ residents, Black, Indigenous and other communities of color, as well as individuals struggling with mental health, substance use disorders or homelessness.

The coalition said investments in those communities strengthen the city and help maintain San Francisco’s reputation as a welcoming and inclusive city.

Despite celebrating the committee’s actions, the coalition said significant fiscal challenges remain. It noted that not all proposed reductions were fully restored and that city officials project next year’s budget deficit to exceed this year’s.

The coalition argued that San Francisco possesses substantial wealth, particularly amid the city’s growing artificial intelligence industry, and said city leaders should pursue additional revenue sources to sustain public services rather than relying on service reductions.

“San Francisco is one of the wealthiest cities in the wealthiest country in the world, and with the AI boom, it’s only getting richer,” Worley-Ziegman said.

“The fact that we need to exert this much time and energy fighting for such a small slice of the pie is, frankly, as ridiculous as it is shameful.”

“We should be laser focused on expanding the pie. We need to be talking about IPO taxes, wealth taxes, mansion taxes, and every policy tool available to close future deficits,” Worley-Ziegman continued.

“It feels like every year our leaders tell the most vulnerable communities to eat cuts and make ‘hard choices,’ while simultaneously opposing comically small taxes on the city’s wealthiest and well connected residents.”

“It should not be this hard to get an immigrant mother on the cusp of eviction $50 to make rent, or a senior living with HIV on our streets counseling or a hot meal.”

Worley-Ziegman concluded by urging advocates to continue organizing beyond this year’s budget process.

“Yes, let’s celebrate this win, but don’t forget that there’s so much more work to do if we want to move San Francisco forward without leaving its most vulnerable residents behind.”

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Ahmed Ali Mazen can’t remember the last time he missed the call to prayer.

Five times a day, he heads out the back of his restaurant, Old Jerusalem at 25th and Mission streets, and climbs the stairs to his rooftop, which overlooks the Mission and Bernal Heights.

He always concludes the routine with a Marlboro Gold and a scorching-hot cup of tea with fresh mint. 

It’s a lifetime away from the farm where Mazen, now age 58, was raised, one of 11 children, in a small village named Saffa in Ramallah, Palestine. His family grew cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelon and, on the village’s mountaintop, olives. 

The Mazen family raised cows, sheep and goats. Mazen had his own pet donkey, which he said he loved dearly.

“Donkeys were for those who couldn’t afford horses,” he said. “Those who couldn’t afford donkeys walked.”

Mazen’s donkey was his most prized possession. He would use it to plow the family’s land and carry produce back from the top of the mountain. 

He looks back on his childhood fondly, remembering the village’s ceremonial olive harvest and the fiercely competitive soccer matches. 

He and his friends would wait outside the nearby girls’ school in the afternoons, each picking who they said they would one day marry.

“Of course, we never had the guts to go up to them and introduce ourselves. It was just fun to love from afar. That’s what kids do.” 

Mazen was 19 during the first intifada in 1987, a political uprising against Israel in which more than 1,100 Palestinians, many of them children, were killed.

“Nothing was ever the same,” he says.  

He was still in his teens when he left to start a new life in the United States. In San Francisco, he worked all sorts of odd jobs: Bagging groceries at Mike’s on Mission Street, tow-truck driver, and endless kitchen gigs. 

Next came an arranged marriage. “She had seen a photo of me beforehand, I didn’t, but I didn’t really care,” he recalled. “I just wanted to get married.”

His bride was another Palestinian from Ramallah, possibly one of the girls he’d admired from afar during his school days. 

He said falling in love and wanting to raise a family motivated him to be self-sufficient by starting his own business. Mazen felt there was a gap to be filled, that existing Middle Eastern restaurants weren’t serving “true” Palestinian food. 

One day, Mazen noticed a new “for sale” sign in a window on his commute home. The asking price was far above his price range, but with loans from a bank, family and friends, he cobbled together enough money to buy it. 

Old Jerusalem Restaurant opened in 2005. At first, business was so slow that he had to borrow another $40,000 loan from a friend, but eventually it picked up. 

Now, 21 years later, Old Jerusalem offers authentic Palestinian dishes like pistachio-crusted lamb chops and Nablusi kunefe, a dessert made of crispy, shredded phyllo, layered with melted cheese and soaked in sweet, fragrant syrup.

“We serve the food I ate growing up, no compromises,” Mazen said. 

On its face, Mazen’s story is one of the many successful stories of Palestinian immigrants. He has a wife and three kids, all of whom went to college, and a longstanding business.

He has friends in the Palestinian community here, like Sami Rami, who owns the nearby Middle Eastern market. These days he goes to countless weddings for his friends’ grown children. And he has come to love this sanctuary city.

“This place has everything you need to love it,” he said. “There is so much diversity here: Arab, Chinese, Black, you name it. If you want to get to work in this country, there’s also the money for it.”

Yet Mazen longs for the life he left behind. The annual olive harvest has become nearly impossible due to the current conflict, he says, but he still visits home about once a year to check in on his mother. 

“Do you want me to tell you what is good for the story, or do you want me to be honest?” he asked. “I’m so grateful for what God has given me, but if I could go back 20 years from now, I would have never left.” 

“The biggest mistake anyone can make is to leave their country,” he said.

“Money doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t fix that feeling of comfort hearing the mosque’s call to prayer, or seeing your children gather with your nephews, and grow up alongside their cousins. No matter how much money you make, you’ll never be able to get what you once had at home.”