On April 11, 2023, a coalition of in-home supportive services (IHSS) workers with SEIU 2015 and frontline nonprofit workers with SEIU 1021 joined together to gather on the steps of San Francisco City Hall to call on the City and County of San Francisco to raise the wages paid to workers responsible for combatting homelessness, addiction and caring for seniors and people with disabilities in San Francisco.

The workers say that poverty wages and worker burnout have caused a short-staffing crisis that is hampering San Francisco’s response to its most challenging problems.

“You can’t win the city’s battle against homelessness, addiction and despair when your frontline troops are burned out, short staffed, and trying to stay above water on poverty wages,” said SEIU 1021 President Theresa Rutherford.

“At a time when San Francisco is in a care crisis, which includes 2.8 million in-home supportive services (IHSS) hours of care for our most high-risk population going unmet annually due to an inability to retain and attract caregivers because of low wages, we should be investing in a care infrastructure,” said Kim Evon, executive vice president of SEIU 2015, which represents over 24,700 IHSS providers in San Francisco. “Programs like IHSS not only provide critical supports and care services to our seniors and people with disabilities and help reduce the risk of homelessness for those suffering from severe physical and mental impairments, but also bring millions of extra federal dollars into the county and saves taxpayer’s money as home care costs on average 4 times less than institutional care. Investing in care is a win-win for all of us.”

“In the third-richest metropolitan area on the planet, we can’t retain the workforce we need to solve our biggest problems,” said SEIU 1021 San Francisco Region Vice President Kristin Hardy. ”We can’t help people get out of encampments, break out of addiction, or prevent seniors and disabled people from sliding into homelessness. That’s because the people we need the most are paid the least. We need to change this. It’s time to reform San Francisco’s minimum compensation ordinance to pay the workers on the frontlines of our care crisis a $25 per hour minimum wage. It’s time to drive to $25!”

Standing beside SEIU 1021 and 2015 members at the rally and pledging support for raising the MCO to $25/hour were a majority of members of the SF Board of Supervisors: Connie Chan (D1), Joel Engardio (D4), Dean Preston (D5), Rafael Mandelman (D8), Hillary Ronen (D9), Shamann Walton (D10), and Ahsha Safai (D11). Additionally, Supervisors Catherine Stefani (D2), Matt Dorsey (D6), and Myrna Melgar (D7), who were not able to attend the rally, pledged their support for raising the MCO to $25/hour.

IHSS workers are responsible for caring for homebound seniors and people with disabilities in San Francisco. Frontline workers at many of the city’s 70 human services nonprofits are tasked with providing homelessness and housing services, addiction treatment, mental health services, HIV prevention, and other services. 

The coalition, which includes the San Francisco Labor Council, SEIU1021, SEIU 2015, Teamsters 865, Jobs with Justice, and others, calls on the mayor and the board of supervisors to “Drive to $25” by lifting the minimum wage for city-funded nonprofit human services workers and IHSS workers to $25 an hour to  retain and attract qualified frontline workers.

During and since the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare and human services workers have fled the profession in droves. The “great resignation” —the movement of workers quitting their jobs in alarming numbers during the COVID era — already has cost the healthcare profession nearly 1.7 million workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Industry experts believe America has lost as many as 20 percent of its healthcare professionals.

San Francisco fails to provide more than 2.8 million hours of approved human services and supportive care to San Franciscans because they can’t staff the work. Much of the cost of providing these hours is reimbursed by the state and federal governments. San Francisco can’t afford to leave money on the table at a time when real investments are needed now to fully staff frontline care positions that can respond to the crises of care, homelessness, untreated mental illness, and drug addiction.