About Joel
Supervisor Joel Engardio believes San Francisco’s best days are ahead — if we are willing to address today's problems with equal doses of innovation and common sense. His focus is getting the basics right: safer streets, better schools, more housing, and vibrant small businesses.
Read Joel’s views on local issues.
Joel represents District 4 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. District 4 is best known as the Sunset. It has about 80,000 residents living west of 19th Avenue between Golden Gate Park and Lake Merced (see district map).
Joel’s election in 2022 made history as the first candidate to oust an elected incumbent supervisor in more than 20 years. Joel is also the first openly gay supervisor elected to a westside district.
Joel and his husband Lionel Hsu became westside homeowners near Stern Grove in 2014. Joel has lived in San Francisco since 1998.
Background
Joel was raised by a single mom who cleaned houses for a living in Saginaw, Michigan. She didn’t have much money or education, but she taught her son how to get things done with the resources they had.
Joel and Lionel
Joel’s husband Lionel Hsu was born in Taiwan. He grew up in poverty under Martial Law and became a software engineer in Silicon Valley.
Joel and Lionel want to make sure the next generation has access to the San Francisco dream. They were married in 2015, the year same-sex marriage was allowed nationwide by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Journalism
Joel moved to San Francisco in 1998 to take a job as a journalist. He wanted to advocate for people who don’t feel heard. He believes San Franciscans deserve an innovative city government that is fiscally responsible, free from corruption, and fully transparent.
City Hall’s budget doubled the past decade. If $16 billion isn’t enough to have twice-as-clean sidewalks and twice-as-fast Muni, Joel believes we need to change how the money is being spent.
Joel has won multiple journalism awards for his reports, essays and documentaries in outlets like the San Francisco Examiner, USA Today and PBS. Joel produced and directed an award-winning PBS documentary focused on First Amendment rights.
Joel hosts the popular presentation “SF Politics 101” where he educates residents about how they can be participants in creating our best San Francisco.
All of Joel’s articles are posted on his blog.
Work History
Joel was a journalist for over 20 years. He also worked for tech startups, public relations firms, and nonprofits including Out & Equal and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Labor Union History
Joel was a proud union member of NABET-CWA when he worked in the ABC News network television studio. He was also a member of the freelance union of the Pacific Media Workers Guild when writing a column for the San Francisco Examiner. Joel supports collective bargaining so workers can have better pay, working conditions, and benefits. He supports the right to strike. The UAW was an essential part of the community in the Michigan automobile factory town where Joel was raised. One of his first jobs was in a fast food restaurant and Joel supports making it easier for fast food workers to unionize.
Protecting Our Rights
Joel felt it was not enough to only report on the issues as a journalist. Joel became a civil liberties advocate who worked for the national ACLU to establish and protect Constitutional rights for LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and voters. Joel also focused on free speech rights and upholding the rule of law.
Joel’s contributions in journalism and at the ACLU were recognized by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy with a scholarship to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Read more about the impact of Joel’s work to advance civil liberties.
Lifelong Democrat
Joel is a lifelong Democrat who is forward-thinking and practical. Joel served as a longtime board member of two of San Francisco’s largest political clubs: the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club and the United Democratic Club. At United Dems, he started Team Q for the club’s many LGBTQ members.
Joel also served as a member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, which governs the local Democratic Party.
Education
Joel is a product of public schools. He has a degree in history and journalism from Michigan State University and a masters in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Joel earned his college degrees on full scholarship.
In San Francisco, Joel helped lead the effort to bring algebra back to middle schools. His ballot measure Prop G in March 2024 passed with 80 percent of the vote. Read more about why 8th grade algebra matters and how we reversed a well-intended but failed policy to ban it.
Read more about Joel’s views on education.
Public Safety
Joel believes we should prosecute serious crime and repeat offenders while seeking criminal justice reform and police accountability. Joel supports criminal justice reform. For it to succeed, residents must feel safe and victims cannot be ignored. Reform and safety go together. We can have both. Read more about Joel’s views on public safety.
Joel and his in-laws
Stop Asian Hate
Joel wrote articles to raise awareness about attacks on Asian seniors. He also helped run a campaign to stop anti-Asian discrimination. Joel’s in-laws are Chinese and they were afraid to visit San Francisco. It shouldn’t have to be this way. Asian crime victims were long overlooked, but not anymore.
Public Health
Joel is a longtime volunteer for Stanford University’s Asian Liver Center, which works to end the epidemic of hepatitis B and liver cancer in the Asian American community. Joel’s contributions to the effort were acknowledged in a letter by the center’s director, Dr. Samuel So. Joel has also written numerous articles about the issue and introduced a resolution at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to sound the alarm about the threat of hepatitis B.
2022 Supervisor Campaign
Joel’s 2022 campaign for city supervisor was endorsed by well known Democrats like State Senator Scott Wiener and multiple Democratic clubs including the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club and the United Democratic Club. Joel was also endorsed by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Senator Wiener said: “I'm endorsing Joel Engardio for supervisor because the years he spent advancing Democratic values and LGBTQ rights under fierce resistance will serve him well. Our city needs leaders who can take the tough stands for creating our best San Francisco."
Joel’s ideas were informed by public policy training along with years of community involvement and advocacy.
During Joel’s 2022 run for city supervisor, backers of the status quo subjected Joel — the candidate of change — to an extraordinary barrage of outlandish and baseless attacks that are easily debunked here.
2020 Supervisor Campaign
Joel ran for San Francisco supervisor in 2020 to represent the westside neighborhoods of District 7. He won the most first-choice votes but lost after the ranked choice reallocation of votes. Learn more about the results here. In 2022, Joel’s neighborhood and its thousands of residents were moved into District 4 because of redistricting.
2023 Inauguration
Joel’s January 2023 inauguration celebration featured guest speakers Mayor London Breed, State Senator Scott Wiener, and former District 4 Supervisor Katy Tang. City Administrator and former District 4 Supervisor Carmen Chu administered the oath of office.
Local band Cotton Polly and soloist Ava Nicole Frances performed. The artists have known Joel for many years and shared their personal connection.
Watch the full video of Joel’s inaugural celebration and read a transcript of his speech.
Or watch just the video of Joel’s speech below:
A Love Letter to the Sunset
This is Joel’s love letter to San Francisco’s Sunset District in video form.
Joel worked with producers at City Hall’s cable channel to pack the video full of Sunset life. It’s a whirlwind of people, places, history, food, and culture.