For steel, depending on how bent it is, it could be possible to bend it back, but the shop wants to leave itself outside of an liability. Could you post a picture?

Is the fork hard to replace because that exact fork is no longer available, or is it because the fork is a super weird size? I would think an early Salsa wouldn't be any sort of exotic steer tube size.

If it's a common enough size, I would look to replace it with something that had a more substantial brake mount. I would hate to think of something like that being a future issue.