Left literally out in the cold (and the rain), hundreds of San Francisco residents – including health care and service workers, as well as those who use the vital city services that would disappear – gathered on the steps of City Hall to fight Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposed cuts to the Health Department.

As Paul Hogarth wrote yesterday, the Mayor has announced $18 million in mid-year budget cuts. These would eliminate 155 beds at Laguna Honda as well as chronic care nurses, the Workers Comp Clinic at SF General, Busters Place, along with 15 percent in cuts to “community program services.”

SEIU Local 1021 is leading the fight with organizations like the Senior Action Network and the People’s Budget Collaborative. Some Supervisors are already standing with them. Chris Daly, Ross Mirkarimi, Tom Ammiano and Jake McGoldrick as well as State Senator Carole Migden were in attendance, along with progressive Supervisor candidates Eric Mar, David Campos, John Avalos and Eric Quesada.

“I guess it’s the year of the rat in more ways than one,” said Ammiano -- who apologized to the crowd for having to once again come out to fight against public health cuts as in years past. “You can count on us not to roll over on the Budget Committee,” he said. “We will take care of this, I promise you.”

These programs serve the city’s most destitute – and are always first in line to go when there is a budget crunch. But Mirkarimi put the cuts in a larger perspective saying that they aren’t about a budget deficit, but about competing ideologies.

“This is about the creeping privatization of our social services,” said Mirkarimi. “This is about differing political ideologies and the future of organized labor in San Francisco.” He added that these same cuts have been proposed in the past when the city wasn’t facing a budget shortfall.

Along with the services, cuts would also cause a loss in jobs for healthcare and social workers. “These people aren’t doing their job to get rich,” said SEIU 1021 President Damita Davis Howard. “They are doing their job to save people, to help people.” The entire division of public health nurses that care for seniors is on the chopping block.

Daly called out Board President Aaron Peskin for not being in attendance, and McGoldrick told the crowd that it isn’t the healthcare workers who should be losing their jobs, but the “policy hacks” who are getting six-figure salaries from the Mayor’s office.

After the rally a number of people testified during public comment before the Health Commission. It looks like the battle is just beginning, and it’s one that shouldn’t have to be waged every year in the first place.