San Francisco’s $138 Million Health Care Fund Now Available for Rent, Food and Utilities for Qualifying Employees
Another big move from San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed today to help struggling employees in the retail, hotel and restaurant industries. The funds gathered by the Health Care Security Ordinance, which you may recognize as the Healthy San Francisco initiative that comes in the form of an additional fee at local restaurants, will be opened up to over 100,000 employees to include a one-time payment for basic needs like rent and food.
Mayor Breed’s Supplemental Declaration allows employees to withdraw funding from their MRAs for basic expenses including food, rent and mortgage payments, and utilities during the declared local emergency. The funding will continue to cover eligible medical expenses. Approximately 104,000 covered employees of San Francisco businesses and nonprofits that have MRAs will be able to request a one-time disbursement of their available funds. Employees can find the most updated information on the San Francisco City Option website (www.sfcityoption.org) about the disbursement.
“We are in a public health emergency unlike any we’ve seen in our lifetimes and workers need those funds for their health and basic living expenses now. I applaud the Mayor’s efforts to return this money to restaurant employees to help them cope with this pandemic.” – Anna Weinberg, co-owner of Tosca Cafe and the Big Night Restaurant Group
The HCSO fund was established for “businesses with 20 or more employees and nonprofits with 50 employees or more”
You can read more about the plan here.
