Domestic Violence Survivor Advocates Push SF to Fund Legal Counsel Voters Approved

Brielle Pajares never thought the charming and supportive man she fell in love with would one day send her running for her life.

But that’s exactly what happened in 2023, after the couple moved into a new place together in San Francisco with her two boys. Her partner began isolating their family from friends, and things escalated one night when he choked and beat her after she said she was leaving because of his drug use.

She said she escaped after biting his arm to break free. But when the police came, 4-foot-11-inch Pajares was the one arrested after he showed cops the bite marks, she said. Without any alternative place to go, she said she returned home after three nights in jail. Her abuser later installed a metal lock on the door, purchased a rifle and threatened to kill her if she ever tried to leave again.

“One thing every survivor understands is that leaving an abuser can be the most dangerous moment of all. When control is slipping away, violence often escalates, sometimes to the point of deadly harm,” she said. “That was the reality I was facing.”

Pajares eventually worked up the courage to leave, spending nights on the street and couch surfing with friends, before she finally found assistance from the nonprofit Compass Family Services and moved into a new place. But she has not yet obtained a restraining order from her abuser, and now that her housing is more stable, navigating the legal system has been a new nightmare.

“It’s extremely scary as someone who’s been through the trauma of having to go to jail as a result of trying to speak up,” Pajares told KQED. “We don’t get the legal assistance we need, and therefore we feel that we don’t have a voice.”

Several years ago, San Francisco took a step aimed at making sure women in the city don’t have the same experience as Pajares. But advocates say the city hasn’t gone far enough, and are calling on officials to do more to support survivors amid concerns budget woes will push their cause to the back burner.

In 2022, voters approved Proposition D, a ballot measure championed by former Supervisor Catherine Stefani that created the Office of Victim and Witness Rights and tasked the new department with establishing a right to legal counsel for survivors of domestic violence.

But the successful measure did not allocate any funds to operate the new office or legal services, and no funding has been directed toward the program, effectively rendering it inactive.

San Francisco has also slashed spending in recent years to address a yawning budget deficit. This year, Mayor Daniel Lurie directed all departments to make cuts to close the city’s $900 million shortfall.

The mayor, who campaigned on being tough on crime, has so far refrained from making cuts to public safety. Many types of crime have decreased over the past year in San Francisco, but domestic violence has fluctuated, going up 1% from December 2024 to December 2025, then down 2% this January compared to the prior year, according to San Francisco Police Department crime reports.

Domestic violence work “is such an essential part of the mayor’s initiative for safety,” said Sierra Sparks, the associate director of development at Open Door Legal, which provides legal aid services to domestic violence survivors. “We need to ensure that our most vulnerable residents are also protected and that there’s a plan in place.”

Advocates are calling on the city to stave off cuts and find alternative sources of funding, such as supporting the proposed Overpaid CEO Tax, which would tax companies where the CEO earns at least 100 times the median-income employee. They also want the city to fund more legal aid services for survivors of domestic violence, and say the city is obligated to do so.

“[Prop D] is exactly the kind of thing we need for our economic recovery and helps the most vulnerable communities,” said Anya Worley-Ziegmann, coordinator for the People’s Budget Coalition, a group of unions and community organizations fighting anticipated budget cuts. “We want to see no cuts to domestic violence, and we need to see an increased investment in it.”

As the city looks to make difficult budget cuts across departments, Sparks and others are concerned that the funding for legal and other domestic violence services could be on the chopping block. It’s deja vu for advocates who sounded the alarm for similar threats to domestic violence services during last year’s budget cycle. The issue is now even more dire with the Trump administration making major cuts to federal health care and social services, advocates said.

“We heard that they’re looking at taking deep cuts from some small agencies that serve really marginalized communities, like the Asian Women’s Shelter. There are other places to cut besides lifeline services,” said Beverly Upton, executive director of the San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium. “We are hoping to see a better outcome in the mayor’s budget. We are really hoping he will find a different place where it won’t have such a huge impact.”

At this time, the mayor has not yet released his official budget proposal, which is expected in May. Officials in the mayor’s office did not comment on whether the city is looking to fund Prop D’s right-to-counsel program this year for the first time. However, the city is currently studying how the approach could work and what amount of funding it would require, either from the city or outside private sources.

Supervisors on the Government Audit and Oversight Committee recently approved a waiver to allow the city to privately fundraise donations for survivors of crimes, including domestic violence.

“The Mayor’s Office of Victims’ Rights is working with a partner organization on a pro-bono basis to conduct an analysis on how the city can most effectively run a domestic violence right-to-counsel program,” a spokesperson from the mayor’s office said.

In the meantime, survivors like Pajares are often left with little help navigating how to escape a relationship or getting back on their feet once they do.

Domestic violence is not only a matter of life or death for the individuals involved, but it often has a direct correlation to the city’s rates of homelessness, something many survivors like Pajares have experienced as they flee an abuser.

In San Francisco, 43% of families who were assessed for housing between 2024-25 reported that they were escaping violence, according to an email from San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing that was shared with KQED.

“If I had legal counsel, it would have just expedited that process [of leaving],” Pajares said, “and I probably would have had a restraining order. There would probably be consequences for this person as well, and maybe they would have put him in prison. But that’s not the case.”