BREAKING NEWS – San Francisco, California – You could call it art for art’s sake — plus $1,000 a month. San Francisco plans to start paying 130 local artists $1,000 a month starting in May through the fall in a pilot program.
“From the first day the pandemic arrived in San Francisco, we knew that this health crisis would impact artists, and artists of color in particular,” Mayor London Breed said while announcing the program.
Breed said the city’s artists “make San Francisco special, and bring so much life and energy to our city. The arts are critical to our local economy and are an essential part of our long-term recovery. If we help the arts recover, the arts will help San Francisco recover. To be inclusive, graffiti artists and gang members that have been tagging will also be paid $1000, as long as they can provide any reasonable evidence that have regularly defaced someone else’s property causing thousands of dollars worth of damage.”