Long before this pandemic and due to its nature as a border city, San Diego has known all too well the effects of gentrification, militarization, and surveillance on our communities. This crisis has only exacerbated the extent to which many of our community members have been targeted and/or failed by the current systems, i.e. rising cost of housing and increased immigration enforcement.

Governing officials have failed to address the drastic effects health and safety stay-at home and closure orders have had on San Diego service-industry workers and their families. San Diego’s current aid tactics of rent freezes and loans are insufficient. Nearly 50,000 people in our community are now unemployed, many of whom are without stable housing, and without the financial means or resources to support themselves and their loved ones during this pandemic. While others, including grocery and pharmacy workers, janitors and cleaning service workers, postal and shipping workers, healthcare workers, food processing workers, farmworkers, truck and delivery drivers, waste management workers, etc. continue to have to work without being offered paid leave, hazard pay, child care, or safe working conditions. San Diego is also currently home to the largest COVID-19 outbreak among US detention centers, exposing the current and historic lack of protocols to protect and prioritize the health and safety of our migrant communities. Government support is inadequate both in scale and timeliness, and our most vulnerable workers continue to be excluded from existing safety net programs.

We created this fund with the intention to provide immediate cash relief to service workers in our community. This crisis has also exposed pre-existing hierarchies and particular vulnerabilities of communities who are not provided a social safety net or familial support networks. To address this gap, we are prioritizing:

Black, Indigenous, and other POC who are undocumented, unhoused/chronically houseless, food insecure, disabled/chronically ill, LGBTQIA+, single parents/guardians, and/or have four or more dependents

All San Diego workers and their families directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, please apply!

This is a mutual aid fund. We have no corporate sponsorship or affiliation, and rely solely on our community to help us provide direct support to San Diego service workers and frontline workers bearing the brunt of the economic downturn. We cannot do this without your support. We ask that those with the means, donate what they can. We also ask that those who are able, share this fund within their own networks to help us reach our fundraising goal. All of your support will go directly to San Diego service workers, frontline workers, and their families. By redistributing resources, you are helping workers pay their bills, pay their rent, buy groceries, and/or take care of their own or their loved ones’ health and well-being during this time and beyond.

We are a collective of San Diego-based artists, students, service workers, and community organizers of color who recognize the failures of our institutions to provide for the needs of the people. We strive to fill those needs through working in conjunction with the most marginalized and providing mutual aid to those who need it.

We also want to acknowledge that this fund was created by activists residing on occupied Kumeyaay land. For the purposes of clarity, we will be referring to this territory by its colonial name, but nonetheless want to demonstrate our solidarity with the Kumeyaay people to whom this land belongs. To ensure we are also providing mutual support to our Indigenous communities, please consider donating to the Kumeyaay Diegueño Land Conservancy if you have the means.

We are aiming to raise $13,000 to provide critical cash relief to individual workers and their families. In order to deliver cash relief as fast as possible and in our commitment to mutual aid, we will allocate funding requests based on urgent need and in the style of a rolling jubilee. Here is how it will work:

Round 1: we will redistribute $100 to every black, indigenous, and other poc service worker who is chronically houseless/currently unhoused/on the cusp of losing housing, food insecure, undocumented, seeking political asylum, disabled/chronically ill, a single parent/guardian, a parent/guardian with over four dependents, and/or LGBTQIA+.

We will move folks who live at the intersections of these identities or experiences to the front of the line.

(We distributed these funds between 5/25-5/30.)

* DISTRIBUTION UPDATE *

As of _____,

* DISTRIBUTION UPDATE *

As of May 30th, in solidarity with those organizing for Black liberation and in our commitment to the abolition of a racist carceral state, our original distribution process has been restructured.

For Round 2 of distribution, we will be utilizing our resources and tools to prioritize Black lives by redirecting our priority applicant list:

With the additional funds available, we will first prioritize Black applicants. In addition, the application deadline of May 31st will be extended for all Black folx in need of financial relief in the San Diego community.

** The new deadline is June 15th. **

For remaining funds, the application deadline remains May 31st and we will prioritize additional distribution to applicants who are (in no particular order):

Indigenous
LGBTQIA+, nonbinary, gender fluid, and gender non-conforming
Sex Workers
Other POC
Not eligible for paid sick leave through any organization
Not enrolled in or employed full-time in well resourced educational institutions

During this round, we give every person who asked for $101-$500 the full amount requested. We also give every person who requests $501 or more 60% of the amount asked for, or $500 (whichever is greater).

Individual grants will be capped at $2000.

(We distributed these funds between 6/16-6/18.)

** Originally inspired by the hard work and dedication of Oakland Workers Fund in Oakland. We are not associated with OWF but have used some of their ideas and methods in the creation of our fund **

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Vanessa Santos ︎