San Francisco, Mar 12 (IANS): San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a $2.2 million funding over the next two years to serve the city's African-American transgender community.

This is the first city funding dedicated to providing services to the Black trans community and is part of the newly announced Dream Keeper Initiative, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Dream Keeper Initiative is a citywide project that reinvests $120 million over two years in redirected funding from law enforcement into San Francisco's African-American community.

"With the Dream Keeper's significant investment in the black community, we knew that it was critical to provide dedicated funding to address the unique needs in the Bblack transgender community," Breed said in her announcement on Thursday.

The $2.2 million over the next two years will go toward technical assistance and capacity building for non-profit organisations serving this community, so that they can be better positioned to work with the city in developing and implementing programs within the Dream Keeper Initiative and other City programs, she added.

According to a statement issued by the Mayor's office, black trans people across the US have experienced the dual crises of the Covid-19 pandemic alongside an epidemic of violence since March 2020.

At least 44 transgender people were murdered in 2020, and black transgender women accounted for over half of the cases.

According to the National Transgender survey report, 42 per cent of black transgender people have experienced homelessness at least once in their lifetime compared to 30 per cent in the general transgender community.

Black transgender people are incarcerated more than four times the rate the general population and 47 per cent of black transgender women have attempted suicide at least once in their lifetime, the survey report revealed.