San Francisco Gave Me a Certificate of Honor!

A couple days ago Supervisor Matt Haney presented me with a Certificate of Honor on behalf of the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco. It was to celebrate BAS publishing more than 10,000 articles over the past 10 years!

If you wanna make sure BAS is around to stir shit up for another 10 years, please join my Patreon and help us continue to do what we do best.

It is such an honor to be recognized by the city I’ve devoted half my life to, and I plan to continue fighting for the soul of this place for as long as I can. Thank you coming along on this journey with me so far.

Now here’s what Supervisor Haney had to say:

Today I’m proud to honoring someone who has helped to make San Francisco the quirky, creative, dynamic place that it is, and who has helped a generation of young people in our city learn how to live, as he has coined, “young broke and beautiful”…An SF Cult Hero, journalist, filmmaker, publisher, District 6 resident, former Mayoral candidate, and Underground legend, Broke-Ass Stuart aka Stuart Schuffman was born in Texas and grew up in Southern California.

Stuart first moved to San Francisco after graduating from UC Santa Cruz, and eventually found himself working in a candy store in North Beach. After years of learning to get by in the city on free happy hour food and recycled clothes, he took his friends’ advice and brought his creative talents and penchant for thrift together, creating a zine on how to be “young, broke and beautiful” in San Francisco.

The 33-page black and white zine was called Broke-Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco and was printed on regular computer paper which he first made copies of at Kinko’s. The zine was later published at Pip Printing, a publisher he found through Craigslist, and quickly sold out. Stuart eventually sold around 1,000 copies of his zine, earning him the “Best Local Zine” award from the SF Bay Guardian. The zine was updated and re-released in 2005 and eventually became a book in 2007.

Following the runaway success of his thrifty living series based on life in San Francisco, Stuart landed himself his own television show on IFC in 2011. The show, entitled Young Broke & Beautiful, was created and hosted by Schuffman, and explored lesser-known and “alternative” travel experiences; the series included visits to New Orleans, Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis, Boston, and San Diego.

Stuart is probably most famous for his blog, Broke-Ass Stuart, where he and his cavalcade of writers have written over 10,000 articles on local news, politics, arts and culture, nightlife, gossip, and how to be young, broke, and beautiful for the last 10 years.

You also may have remembered his run for Mayor in 2015, and among other things, made some pretty incredible viral videos on the need for more toilets, which helped inspire some of the changes that have been made.

At a time when San Francisco has become more and more expensive, and harder and harder for young people, and artists, journalists, and creative folks to be here and thrive, Stuart Schuffman has been an essential voice for the counter-culture that is still here, and even a bit of a guru and moral compass for many of the dreamers and creators who are still here, and I am proud to be honoring him today with this commendation.