2024 Year in Review
Photo Credits: Tina Martin (above, left), Dan Ryan (above, right)
Advocacy Agenda Accomplishments
SDA members and staff worked together on three main campaign priorities for 2024.
Keep masks in healthcare: We fought incredibly hard to keep masks in healthcare, staging a powerful protest with over a dozen allied groups this spring. Our members met with UCSF and the SF Department of Public Health, advocating to reinstate universal requirements, and sharing personal stories with UCSF that we compiled from the community. We hosted multiple phone banks calling on SFDPH, local healthcare facilities, and Bay Area counties to keep and improve existing healthcare masking requirements.
Restore remote public comment: SDA has led a campaign this year to restore remote public comment for Board of Supervisors committee meetings. We released a campaign letter in September that was signed by over 80 local community organizations. As of this writing, Board President Aaron Peskin has introduced a motion to restore remote comment for committees, and we are urging Supervisors to support.
Win more deeply affordable housing: We worked hard as part of the Extremely Low Income (ELI) Housing Coalition to pass Prop G – the affordable housing opportunity fund for seniors, disabled people, and families. And we were successful! With $8 million from the SF General Fund, Prop G creates around 500 units of truly deeply affordable housing for people making between $15k-35k per year.
New to SDA This Year
Damara Lopez joined SDA in January as our Community Resource Program Manager, leading our wonderful team of Peer Advocates to help seniors and disabled people navigate the complex web of home and community-based support services that can keep people living at home.
This summer we welcomed Liza Mamedov as our new Senior and Disability Survival School Coordinator and Organizer. They are also supporting our Masks for Equity work.
Mia Satya, SDA’S new Transit Justice Organizer is supporting our work on the Fund the Bus campaign (Yes on Prop L), and helping lead our Transit Justice team.
And introducing our new Executive Director, Erik Greenfrost! Erik has lived in the Bay Area since 2007 and has been deeply involved with community events, development work, and strategic visioning throughout their career. We are thrilled to welcome Erik to SDA!
Highlights of 2024
SDA’s team of Peer Advocates assisted approximately 150 seniors and disabled people this year in navigating housing, benefits, and other needs for individual support.
We successfully saved $10 million in the city budget to fund elevator repairs in Single Room Occupancy (SRO) buildings and this year succeeded in getting funds disbursed, with elevator repairs slated to begin in the next few months.
In September, we co-hosted a candidate forum with California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA), where candidates for Mayor and Board of Supervisors answered questions from attendees about key issues impacting seniors and disabled people in our city.
SDA partnered with Canon Kip Senior Center to host Transit Talk, an interactive workshop for Filipino seniors on transit justice. Participants voiced their concerns about issues with Muni, BART, and pedestrian safety.
SDA member Ana Malinow, through the Healthcare Action Team, has educated over 300 seniors in San Francisco on the rampant privatization of traditional Medicare, and led efforts to defend the program.
SDA members gathered at the Medicare & Social Security birthday rally, co-hosted with CARA, July 2024
SDA Housing Organizer Ocean Coast spoke at a rally in support of the No RV Tows campaign, September 2024