Mayor London Breed of San Francisco has announced a plan to offer summer courses in partnership with HBCUs in the city, SFist reports.

Titled “Black 2 San Francisco” or B2SF, the initiative which is spearheaded by the city’s Human Rights Commission, will offer courses at San Francisco State this summer and was created for students to offset the low number of workers who populate downtown San Francisco. From 2020 to 2022, San Francisco lost 65,000 residents who left for more affordable housing options.

Additionally, the University of San Francisco will provide students with housing for the summer program, and the University of California San Francisco will collaborate with  HBCUs “to expand mental health mentoring, training, and internships.”

According to the report, the long-term plan of the mayor is "to launch a satellite campus partnership with several HBCUs, including a physical location and a full suite of academic and professional programming."

In an official statement issued by Breed on Friday (February 2), she shared the vision behind San Francisco partnering with HBCUs.

"In San Francisco, we are working to build partnerships that strengthen our leadership as a center of education, innovation, and opportunity," Breed said. "By bringing HBCUs to our city, we can not only create a connection to empower our next generation of leaders, but we can also contribute to the revitalization of our city. I want to thank all of our private sector supporters, as well as USF, UCSF, and SFSU for their partnership in this work and continued commitment to San Francisco’s future."

Dr. Sheryl Davis, executive director of the Human Rights Commission spoke about her excitement in launching the program.

"After many years of planning, and months of seeding and working to create meaningful partnerships, all the stakeholders are together to explore how we can connect San Francisco to the incredible talent that has historically been cultivated and supported by HBCUs," Davis said.

“Our local higher education partners have been actively involved and are central to this project. These efforts have been a long time coming from both community conversations to design the Dream Keeper Initiative and recommendations from the Reparations Advisory committee,” Davis continued.”I am heartened to see where the work goes from here."

On Friday (Feb.2), a meeting was held by the city’s key stakeholders but no decisions have been made about which buildings in downtown San Francisco will be used in the pilot program.

"Preliminary work has focused on cultivating a network of sponsors and collaborators,” the mayor’s office said.

While no specific HBCUs were revealed, Charles R. Drew University, Howard University, Morehouse College, Morgan State University, Morris Brown College, Tuskegee University, and the University of the District of Columbia are among the potential candidates, local station KTVU reported.