Schools closing, shelters opening, audits dropping, and housing money actually working — SF's reform agenda is moving on all fronts, whether the city's ready or not. Welcome to the San Francisco Daily Fix — I'm Cassidy, with Devin. Today we've got a packed Saturday: SFUSD finally putting dates on school closures, a zoo audit that'll make your jaw drop, Lurie's new alternative to jails and ERs, a Mission housing nonprofit in financial trouble, and a business tax that's actually delivering. The through-line on all of it is accountability — who's spending money, who's getting results, and who's been coasting on good intentions for too long. Let's get into it. First up, Jill Tucker has the SFUSD piece:
The San Francisco School District has announced plans to address the controversial lottery-based assignment system and potentially close or integrate schools by 2030. The announcement will be made at the May 12 school board meeting. Changes could include changing lottery tiebreakers or shifting attendance areas.
Jill Tucker at the Chronicle has this one — SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su is rolling out a two-part plan: fix the infamous school lottery system by next year, and potentially close or consolidate schools by fall 2030. The announcement drops at the May 12 board meeting. The lottery system has been a disaster for working-class families for decades — wealthy parents game it with private consultants while everyone else just hopes for luck. And the closures? Enrollment is way down, the district is bleeding money, you cannot keep running half-empty buildings. To be clear for listeners: the lottery is how SFUSD assigns kids to schools — there are no automatic neighborhood assignments, so families rank their choices and the district runs a randomized process with tiebreakers. Those tiebreakers are exactly what Su wants to revisit. Maria Su has been one of the more competent people in that building in years. If she's putting a timeline on this, I'm cautiously optimistic — but 2030 better not become the new 'we'll get to it eventually.' Okay, and then Aldo Toledo and Tara Duggan at the Chronicle have this zoo audit — and it is rough:
A scathing audit released Friday shows the San Francisco Zoo violated city rules by spending $12 million on projects without required approval, amid financial instability and a toxic workplace zoo leaders allowed to fester. The examination of the zoo’s operations and financial decisions from 2019 to 2025 found widespread failures in management, oversight and financial planning, while the zoo operated at a deficit for years, misrepresented its financial situation and failed to raise the alarm.
The Chronicle's Aldo Toledo and Tara Duggan broke this one — the city's Budget and Legislative Analyst just released an audit finding the SF Zoo spent twelve million dollars on projects without required city approval, and that's on top of years of operating deficits and what the auditors call 'misrepresented' financials. And the punchline? The city is *right now* about to hand them eight and a half million in loans to 'revamp operations.' You run at a deficit, hide it, skip approvals for six years straight — and the reward is a fresh line of city credit? To be fair, the zoo is a beloved institution on the west side — Ocean Beach, Sloat Boulevard, been there since 1929. But 'beloved' is not a financial control. This is exactly the pattern that bleeds the city dry — a nonprofit with a city contract, no oversight, toxic management allowed to fester, and working-class families in the Sunset who depend on that zoo as affordable recreation get stuck with the tab when it all collapses. Next, KQED has the rundown on Lurie’s new RESET Center:
The RESET Center, a new facility in San Francisco designed to offer an alternative to jail and reduce space in hospitals. The facility will provide a space where individuals are brought to sober up and have access to services and healthcare. It will also provide a command station for law enforcement and other staff monitoring individuals brought to the center.
KQED has the details on Mayor Lurie's RESET Center — it's not a jail, not an ER, but something in between: a sobering facility where people can be held up to 23 hours, with deputies, medical staff, case managers, and peer support specialists on site. This is actually a big deal historically — SF has been trying to thread this needle for decades. You've got the old detox model, then the harm reduction wave that basically said don't force anyone into anything, and now Lurie is saying: no, we're going to intercept people in crisis and hold them somewhere structured. Worth flagging — the Department of Public Health is not running this. It's law enforcement-led, with a private health contractor called Connections Health Solutions operating it. First time they've worked in California. Law enforcement-led will make some people nervous, but honestly? The progressive model of 'offer services and hope they take them' has produced the Tenderloin we've all walked through. I want to see outcomes data from Connections in other states — if it works, I don't care who runs it. Over in the Mission, Sarah Hopkins at Mission Local has this one:
The Mission Economic Development Agency, a relative newcomer to San Francisco affordable housing that quickly amassed a portfolio of over 1,300 units a little over the last decade, is in trouble. The nonprofit developer laid off 12 staffers on April 20 and imposed pay cuts on remaining staff, including a 43 percent cut for its executive director, Mission Local learned.
Hat tip to Mission Local's Sarah Hopkins for this one — MEDA, the Mission Economic Development Agency, is laying off 12 staffers and cutting salaries across the board, including a 43 percent pay cut for its executive director. MEDA grew fast — snapping up small apartment buildings all over the Mission through the Small Sites Program, which is basically the city helping nonprofits buy older buildings to keep long-term tenants from getting displaced. Noble goal. But those buildings are old, they're expensive to maintain, and now the math isn't working. The city just approved a 37.8 million dollar refinancing package for 15 of those properties, so there's a lifeline here — but the org still had to cut 21 percent of its expenses to get to stable ground. This is what happens when a nonprofit scales on acquisition and optimism without building the reserves to actually run aging housing stock. I feel for the Mission families in those units — they deserve stable, well-maintained homes, not a landlord that's also in financial triage. And Tim Redmond at 48 Hills has the Prop. C numbers:
The 2018 increase in taxes on the biggest businesses in San Francisco has been a success, with Mayor Daniel Lurie using a $68 million surplus from Prop. C to replace General Fund support for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH). The money from taxing the rich has created 5,620 units of affordable housing and moved 8,420 people who were living on the streets into stable housing, including 2,800 children.
This is a 48 hills piece by Tim Redmond, so read it with that editorial lens in mind — but the underlying numbers are real: Prop. C, the 2018 gross receipts tax hike on San Francisco's largest businesses, has produced 5,620 units of affordable housing and moved over 8,400 people off the streets, including 2,800 kids. Credit where it's due — that is a genuinely good outcome. But Redmond buries the lede: Mayor Lurie is now raiding that surplus to backfill the General Fund instead of letting HSH spend it on services. That's not a Prop. C failure, that's a budget shell game. The piece wants you to connect that to Prop. D — a new tax-the-rich measure Lurie is opposing. The argument is: Prop. C worked, so why not do it again? Because one successful tax doesn't mean every new tax is automatically the right move. Lurie's actual job is to fix HSH's operations so the units we already built don't become cautionary tales — underfunded supportive housing is how you poison public trust in these programs for a generation. We’ll put links to every story we covered today in the show notes, so if one of these made you pause, go read the original reporting.
That’s The San Francisco Daily Fix for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.