Rafael Mandelman

Rafael Mandelman represents District 8 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which includes the Castro, Glen Park, Noe Valley, Diamond Heights, and Mission Dolores. Supervisor Mandelman is the only LGBTQ member of the Board of Supervisors.

He currently serves as a member of the Budget and Finance Committee, member of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, and as Chair of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He also serves as Vice Chair of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, and member of the Executive Board and Regional Planning Committee of the Association of Bay Area Governments. As part of the City’s COVID-19 response, Supervisor Mandelman serves on the Economic Recovery Task Force.

Since joining the Board of Supervisors in July 2018, Supervisor Mandelman has worked to address the City's mental health and substance use crises, serving as Co-chair of the 2019 Methamphetamine Task Force, co-authoring legislation to allow San Francisco to pursue temporary conservatorships for people with severe mental health and substance use disorders, and authoring legislation to streamline the creation of new Board and Care Facilities. Supervisor Mandelman has worked to establish the City’s first community-based Hummingbird behavioral health respite in District 8, which is scheduled to open in early 2021 and will provide 20 - 24 beds for unhoused people suffering from mental illness and addiction. As a member of the Budget Committee, Supervisor Mandelman helped to secure funding for Street Crisis Response Teams, which will respond to more than 21,000 calls for behavioral health crises currently handled by SFPD. He has also led several initiatives to improve the City’s public transportation system, co-chairing the Muni Reliability Working Group. To tackle the climate crisis, Supervisor Mandelman authored legislation declaring a Climate Emergency in San Francisco, and passed legislation incentivizing the construction of all-electric buildings as a first step towards banning the use of natural gas in new construction.

To help address the lack of affordable housing in District 8, Supervisor Mandelman authored legislation to acquire 1939 Market Street, which will allow the City to build LGBTQ-welcoming senior affordable housing in Upper Market. Supervisor Mandelman funded and developed a District 8 Affordability Strategy that will help preserve housing for existing residents and create more affordable housing. Supervisor Mandelman has also been a leader on cannabis policy at the Board of Supervisors, authoring legislation that updated the City’s cannabis regulations to strengthen equity and equity incubator programs and allow for new changes of ownership, and passing legislation creating a new Temporary Cannabis Events Permit to allow for sale and consumption of cannabis at events in San Francisco.

Supervisor Mandelman has been a champion for the LGBTQ+ community during his time on the Board of Supervisors, leading the City’s efforts to implement Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) data collection, authoring legislation to create the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, and declaring the Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band the official band of San Francisco. In Spring 2020 Supervisor Mandelman worked with Mayor Breed, the Department of Public Health, and community stakeholders to keep the Lyon-Martin clinic open through the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring the City’s most important provider of trans and gender nonconforming affirming healthcare would not close amid a global health emergency. As a member of the Budget Committee, Supervisor Mandelman fought for funding in the 2020-2021 Budget for rental subsidy programs for trans and gender nonconforming community members, people living with HIV and transitional aged youth; to open 28 new beds at Jazzie’s Place shelter for trans and gender nonconforming unhoused people; to help Lyon-Martin Health Services rebuild their staffing and gender affirming healthcare services for the LGBTQ community; and to support organizations in the Castro that serve LGBTQ youth and funding to help create more BIPOC-welcoming spaces in the neighborhood.

Prior to his election, Supervisor Mandelman served as a Deputy City Attorney for the City of Oakland and as an elected Trustee on the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees. As a Deputy City Attorney, Supervisor Mandelman practiced primarily in the areas of real estate, economic development, and affordable housing.

Supervisor Mandelman has been active on a variety of public and nonprofit boards, having served as a commissioner on San Francisco’s Building Inspection Commission and Board of Appeals, a member of the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, president of the Board of Directors of Livable City, and Co-Chair of the San Francisco LGBT Community Center Board. A past president of the Noe Valley and Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Clubs, Supervisor Mandelman has been an elected member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee since 2006. In 2019, California State Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins appointed Supervisor Mandelman to the California Coastal Commission as an alternate member representing the North Central Coast. In September 2020, Supervisor Mandelman was appointed to the California State Association of Counties.

Supervisor Mandelman lives in the Mission and grew up in San Francisco, attending Brandeis-Hillel Day School and Lick-Wilmerding High School prior to earning a B.A. in History from Yale College, a Master of Public Policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a law degree from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law.