London Breed
London Nicole Breed is an American politician who served as the 45th mayor of San Francisco from 2018 to 2025. She served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for District 5 from 2013 to 2018 and was the board's president from 2015 to 2018.
Raised in the Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco, Breed worked in government after college. She was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2012, and elected its president in 2015. As president of the Board, Breed, according to the city charter, became the acting mayor of San Francisco following the death of Mayor Ed Lee. She served in this role from December 12, 2017, to January 23, 2018.
Breed won the San Francisco mayoral special election held on June 5, 2018. Breed is the first black woman, second black person after Willie Brown, and second woman after Dianne Feinstein to be elected mayor of San Francisco. She was sworn in as mayor on July 11, 2018. She ran for re-election as mayor in 2024, but lost to Daniel Lurie.
Early life and education
Born in San Francisco, Breed was raised by her grandmother in Plaza East public housing in the Western Addition neighborhood of the city. As a youth, Breed lived with three siblings, along with an aunt who was facing mental health challenges. Breed later wrote of her childhood in San Francisco, "five of us living on $900 per month. 'Recycling' meant drinking out of old mayonnaise jars. Violence was never far away. And once a week, we took Grandma's pushcart to the community room to collect government-issued groceries." Her younger sister died of a drug overdose in 2006. Her brother, Napoleon Brown, is in prison serving a 44-year sentence for a 2000 conviction on charges of manslaughter and armed robbery, for which Breed has repeatedly asked for clemency from the governor's office. Breed has stated that her brother's early release from prison would be "what's best for both Napoleon and society overall".At age 14, Breed worked as a paid intern at The Family School as part of the Mayor's Youth Employment and Training Program. She graduated with honors from Galileo High School where she played in the band and participated in school government. Although she entered college as a chemistry major, she earned a bachelor's degree in political science–public service from the University of California, Davis in 1997 and a master's degree in public administration from the University of San Francisco in 2012. While in college, Breed babysat and cleaned houses to help pay for expenses. After college graduation, she said that "I just didn't want to be poor," especially witnessing her grandmother's financial struggles.
Early career
Breed worked as an intern in the Office of Housing and Neighborhood Services for Mayor Willie Brown. In 2002, she became the executive director of the African American Art & Culture Complex, where she raised over $2.5 million to renovate the complex's 34,000 square foot space, including an art gallery, theater space, and a recording studio. Breed was named to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Commission in 2004. In 2010, Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed her to the San Francisco Fire Commission.San Francisco Board of Supervisors
In November 2012, Breed was elected to the District 5 supervisor seat, defeating incumbent Christina Olague, who had been appointed to the seat that year by Mayor Ed Lee after Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi was elected sheriff. Following five rounds of ranked-choice voting allocations, Breed won by over 12 points.During her first few months as Supervisor in 2013, Breed persuaded city departments to complete two new bike lanes on Oak and Fell Streets ahead of schedule, prompting the local transportation site StreetsblogSF to say she had “emerged as a bicycling champion.” She secured federal funding for the redesign of Masonic Boulevard in her district, which added bike lanes and traffic safety measures to one of the most dangerous corridors in the city. The official ribbon-cutting for the completed Masonic Avenue Streetscape Improvement Project between Geary Boulevard and the Panhandle took place in August 2018. The project cost $25 million. The bicycle improvements were limited to a buffered bike lane, which typically cost $15,000 per mile.
Breed was inaugurated as District 5 supervisor on January 8, 2013, with then–California Attorney General Kamala Harris administering the oath of office. On January 8, 2015, Breed was elected President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors first by a vote of 8 to 3 and then unanimously. She defeated supervisor David Campos, who was also nominated for the position. Breed succeeded District Four Supervisor Katy Tang, who assumed the presidency temporarily after then-Board President David Chiu resigned to begin serving in the California State Assembly.
Breed cosponsored 2014's Proposition A, a $500 million bond to fund street repaving, infrastructure repair, transit service improvements, and increased bicycle and pedestrian safety. It passed with 72% support. She was also the deciding vote to place 2014's Proposition B on the ballot, which required transportation funding to be increased with population growth. It passed with 61% support and now provides approximately $25 million per year for transit, bike, and pedestrian improvements. When Kezar Drive, a major thoroughfare in her district, fell into disrepair, Breed addressed what she called a "case study in bureaucracy" between the Department of Public Works and Recreation and Parks Department and got the road repaved.
In 2015, Breed helped pass "neighborhood preference" legislation to prioritize neighborhood residents for the affordable homes built in their community. When the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development threatened to block the legislation, she flew to Washington, D.C., with a delegation of San Francisco officials and persuaded it to let the program proceed. The program first went into effect for the Willie B. Kennedy apartments in Breed's district, with 39 units prioritized for community residents at risk of economic displacement.
San Francisco passed legislation in 2015 to create the Neighborhood Commercial Transit District in the Divisadero and Fillmore corridors in her district. The laws removed housing density caps, allowing more homes to be built on a given parcel without increasing the building's size or height. The Affordable Divis group requested that Breed rescind the law, citing concerns about the availability of affordable units and lack of community input. She declined, citing the need for more homes in the city and conflicts with Proposition C from 2012.
In April 2015, the city of San Francisco passed legislation to remove minimum parking space requirements for new buildings and allow unused parking spaces in existing buildings to be converted housing.
The San Francisco Fire Department's response times to emergency medical calls spiked dramatically in 2014, with ambulances often unavailable to respond. Breed was outspoken in demanding improvements, pushing then-Mayor Lee to do more, expressing a lack of confidence in Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White, and generating press attention for the issue. Breed fought for substantially more funding for emergency medical services, ultimately succeeding in getting $47.3 million invested to hire EMTs, paramedics, firefighters, and 911 dispatchers, as well as buy new ambulances and fire trucks, and improve SFFD facilities. Breed has cited her work on this issue as helping to reduce ambulance response times by over 26%. Her work also helped her earn the sole endorsement of the San Francisco Firefighters Local 798 union in the 2018 mayoral election.
In 2015, Breed worked with then-Mayor Ed Lee to help add 400 new police officers to the San Francisco Police Department. After the shooting of Mario Woods by San Francisco police officers on December 2, 2015, Breed and Supervisor Malia Cohen passed a Resolution calling for a federal investigation of the shooting and a Department of Justice review of the SFPD's use of force policies. This ultimately resulted in 272 recommendations to improve the SFPD.
As part of an FBI investigation into public corruption and bid-fixing primarily involving then-State Senator Leland Yee, businessman Derf Butler was recorded talking about allegedly paying for access to Breed. According to court documents released in 2015, Butler told an FBI source that he "pays Supervisor Breed with untraceable debit cards for clothing and trips in exchange for advantages on contracts in San Francisco." The allegation was denied by Breed, who as a member of the Board of Supervisors had no role in contract selections, and no evidence has ever been presented to substantiate it.
Breed was the lead sponsor and co-sponsor of two housing ballot measures: Proposition A in 2015, a $310 million bond for affordable housing which passed with 74% support, and Proposition C in 2016, a $261 million housing bond that repurposed unused city bond funds for affordable housing and passed with 77% support. Breed joined Supervisor Ahsha Safai in supporting the 2018 "Housing for All" ballot measure, Proposition D, to increase the city's tax on commercial rents to "raise about $100 million a year to pay for 10,000 low- and middle-income housing units and shelter accommodations for the city’s homeless population over the next decade." After facing a competing tax increase measure, Prop D did not pass.
In February 2016, Breed announced her reelection bid to represent District 5. The top issues she identified in her announcement were building and protecting affordable housing, increasing public safety, improving environmental health, and modernizing public transportation. Dean Preston, an attorney, ran against her. Breed won reelection 52% to 48% on November 8, 2016, beating Preston in 46 of the district's 68 precincts.
In 2017, Breed coauthored legislation to provide civil counsel for tenants facing eviction, reducing the chances of vulnerable tenants unfairly losing their homes. Voters approved a similar measure in June 2018, Proposition F.
Breed was unanimously reelected to another two-year term as Board President on January 9, 2017. No other supervisors were nominated for the position.