Chan, Former CCSF Media Relations Rep, Now A House Rep Hopeful
Speaker Emerita of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA-San Francisco) is retiring, putting the congressional district seat on the ballot for the first time in forty years. Rep. Pelosi endorsed San Francisco District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan, who once worked for City College as a media relations representative, as her successor.
She said witnessing “the incredible determination” of the college’s students and the “dedication of the faculty and staff who believed in them” is why she’s fought to protect, and fully fund, the Free City College program.
“It was an honor telling their stories [as the college’s media relations representative,” Chan said.
Chan and Sen. Scott Wiener advanced from the June 2 top-two primary for California’s 11th Congressional District. Sen. Wiener had been running what Politico once called "a shadow campaign" long before Rep. Pelosi announced her retirement.
Over three decades after arriving in Chinatown, Chan became a homeowner in the Richmond District. Now, she says she wants to preserve a path to economic stability for future generations of the city.
City College, “deeply personal to” Chan
Irene Tam, Chan's mother, moved Chan and her brother, Leo, to San Francisco in 1989, and the family initially lived in a single-room-occupancy unit on Jackson Street with Chan's aunt and uncle.
Tam took computer and English as a Second Language classes at City College's former Chinatown North Beach Community College Center on Filbert Street. Chinatown/North Beach campus moved to its Kearny Street location in 2012.
"City College has always been deeply personal to me,"Chan credits that directly as a “stepping stone” to her mother’s career in healthcare. Tam worked at On Lok, a senior living center, prior to her death in 2021.
“It’s amazing to think that, in 2026, the possibility of a single, immigrant mom can come to” San Francisco and "receive the opportunity not to worry about additional expenses” while studying at the college through Free City College Program, Chan said.
The program, signed by the former Mayor London Breed in 2019, is funded by the city through a memorandum of understanding, MOU, with the college. The MOU pledged roughly $15 million a year through 2029 but has been cut in pieces since.
Chan, a member of the Free City College Oversight Committee, said the Free City program "embodies who we are as a city." She chairs the Budget Committee, which negotiated with the mayor to reinstate funding the mayor had proposed cutting through 2026.
The office of Mayor Daniel Lurie released the signed city budget, set for $9.3 in the FY 2025-26 budget, and allocated $6.48 million to the City College Enrollment Fund as a Department of CHF Children, Youth, and Their Families program in July for FY 2026-27 and $6.85 for FY 2027-28.
To beneficiaries of Free City, though, Chan said she "will continue to make sure" that she "ushers through amending the MOU to have the best interest of students."
Students like her mother, who "thrived in San Francisco" while “becoming better for her and her children’s lives."
Chan said she would continue advocating for workers and students alike. Advocacy, she said, includes changes to Free City that "account for the rising cost of living.”
Her mother used her first paycheck from Chinese Hospital and moved her children to a one-bedroom rent-controlled unit bordering the Chinatown and North Beach neighborhoods.
Chan said "building luxury condos in Rincon Hill" will not solve the housing crisis “when families can’t afford it.”
She said it is increasingly difficult to live in San Francisco on one income, particularly for a single-income head of household like her mother once was.
"We see rent rise but wages remain the same," Chan said.
Homing San Franciscans
"Sanctuary city is beyond a legal definition," Chan said.
San Francisco's sanctuary status traces to the 1989 "City and County of Refuge" ordinance, which generally prohibits city employees from using municipal funds or resources to help federal immigration authorities enforce immigration law, according to the city's Sanctuary City Ordinance page.
"There needs to be more affordable housing," Chan said, returning back to Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan and how it "lacked protections against displacement of tenants and small businesses."
The Family Zoning Plan concentrates new housing capacity, of about 36,000 units, in the Sunset, Richmond and Marina districts.
The plan largely skips out on areas, according to planners, that were flagged as "priority equity" areas like Chinatown, the Mission, Bayview and the Tenderloin.
"[If] a small business is forced to relocate because of mixed development, [are we] providing resources to reopen in the very same space. If tenants are being evicted from a rent-controlled unit, are we able to compensate or find a comparable unit,” she said.
Although Chan voted against the zoning plan, it passed 7‑4 in December 2025.
Going forward, though, Chan "urges everyone to look into" Proposition 3 and Proposition 40.
Proposition 40 arrives on the heels of San Francisco's failed Proposition D, known as Overpaid CEO Tax, this June as part of a broader statewide push this year to tax wealthy individuals and corporations. Under Proposition 3, community colleges would receive an estimated 11% of its revenue, on top of 89% for K-12 schools.
Chan said she supports Proposition 3 because it would protect funding for public schools, community colleges, healthcare and other services
She said "the city has to continue to be vigilant about our investment[s]."
She said sometimes the focus shifts from who to benefit to how to profit, resulting in "speculative investors" whose "backgrounds we’re unsure" about, "whether it be developers in housing to insurance in healthcare."
If she wins in November, the portfolio Chan describes at City Hall, including Free City, tenant protections and SRO preservation, will move with her to a Congress that funds community colleges and could decide whether Free City's federal counterparts survive the next round of cuts.
