>> good afternoon. my name is alex madrid, the cochair of mayor disability council. good afternoon and welcome to

the mayor's disability council friday, february 16, 2024. the disability and aging services commission. this is in person and virtual hybrid meeting. this meeting is open to the public on sfgovtv and open captioned and sign language interpreted. if you need any accommodation or have difficulty attending

this meeting, please send an e-mail to mod@sfgov.org or call 554-6789. the mayor's disability council holds public meetings--they are generally heard on the third friday of the month. for information about past or upcoming meetings, visit mod

website at www.sfgov.org/mod. the next regular meeting will be on friday, march 15, 2024 from 1 to 4 p.m. it will also be a hybrid meeting and broadcast on sfgovtv. we thank you for joining us.

asl interpreted. can you please conduct the roll call? >> hello. this is john cost and i will be naming the roll call now. for the mdc council members, we'll start there. madrid, here. albers, present.

next we have sassouni--

[indiscernible] okay. starting over, alex madrid, here. sherry albers, present. orchid sassouni, present. denise senhaux, which i believe is a online participant. patricia arack, i'm here.

now we'll start with members from the dac council. janet wisespears, present. nelson lum, present. martha cunsen.

[roll call]

>> thank you. can you please read the agenda? >> at this time, members of the public may address the council-- item 1 is the welcome and roll call. action items will be read next.

then we have general public comment. then information item. then the next will be information topic, and next will be a presentation by nicole bohn, mayor office of disability and then a discussion item, update on disability community cultural center, and number 7 will be-there is a mod deputy director debbie kaplan will discuss correspondence and then number 8 is general public comment and number 9, there will be a information item from alex madrid and number 10, adjournment.

and number 11 is an action item, adjournment. >> control room, can you please focus the camera on the clerk, please, when the clerk is speaking. thank you. >> the next part is general

public comment. at this time, members of the public may address the council on items of interest to the public within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council which are not on the agenda. each member of the public may address the council for up to minutes, unless the cochair determines interest of time comments may limited to a shorter time when there is a large number of public comments. with respect to today's item specific discussion items, your opportunities to be address the council will be afforded at the conclusion of each discussion item before the council discussion begins. a reminder, the brown act

forbids the council from taking action or discussing items not appearing on the posted agenda, including those items raised at public comment. if you would like a response from the council, please provide your contact information by e-mail to mdc@sfgov.org with subject, mdc comment reply request. or call, 415-554-6789. if you join the webinar using your tablet or smart phone, use the webex app, click on the three horizontal dots icon and then click on the raise hand component. we will recognize you when it

is your turn. you may also use the q & a feature in webex in the webinar to make a comment. it is located on the top part of the video after touching the screen. if you are using a desktop or laptop computer, press, raise hand and the q & a icons located at the bottom of the video screen. if you join by phone, dial * 3 to indicate you would like to make a comment. we will prompt you when it is your turn. are there any public comments at this time?

>> we do have one public comment card from mr. lopez, if you would like to come forward, please do. >> i think we need to set the timer here, just a moment. >> hello. many disabled people in san francisco want to work and become productive citizens, however, as you are aware, the private sector have been slow accepting disabled workers or do not consider hiring them at

all. most private industry managers believe the disabled do not center the agility, intelligence, skills and capacity to learn or train for many occupations and careers. others will hire one or two disables persons while boasting they are doing their part to eliminate workplace discrimination. inonly glimmer of hope the disabled can look to is government and initiatives to help the disabled through funding for training, support for accommodations and in some cases, programs aimed at direct hiring of disabled people. one such city government program that promotes entry level hiring of the disabled is access to city employment known as the ace program. the program intentions are admirable, it falls far short

the expectations of its clients, the disabled. it takes months even years for ace to place a client. one disabled person in the mayor's office waited three years to be hired after constantly applying. i too have tried many times for city jobs through the ace program, but all in vain. not withstanding a graduate degree and years of working for multi-national companies. and so, i'm here to ask that you the mayor's disability council to mandate all city departments to open their arms to the disabled and to employ at least five percent of their staff with disabled people in all departments, at least five percent. we the disabled all want to be working citizen s and do our part in our society and for the city of san francisco. thank you. >> thank you for your comments.

do we have other public comment at this time? >> i give this card to someone up here? you can go ahead and make your comment. >> hello, good afternoon. my name is--coming today to lodge a complaint. i have been-about 15 years ago been asking for communication

access for myself. i was born and raised in san francisco. my family is from san francisco. we own property in san francisco and i have come to city hall with several frustrations, especially during the mask mandate with communication barriers. people will not take the mask off for establishing communication as far as reading lips and i asked for a vri station to be set up for communication access needs t. is very frustrated and not just in san francisco, but there are several other municipal departments that should be providing access, rec and park and so forth and i have to use personal app or phone to get access to communication and for communication with different city departments. there are several other languages offered for interpretation services, spanish, chinese and so forth,

but not asl, which is very frustrating. even if i go into any department in city hall or any other city businesses or organizations, they tell me that they can't provide interpreting access that they need two weeks notice, so i can't just show up and request services or get my needs met. it is extremely frustrating. thank you for your attention to this matter. >> thank you for your time. thank you for the comment. do we have any comment at this time? in person. >> [indiscernible]

>> do we have anyone--in webex? >> we do have another person from the general public. i will stand over here at the bubble where the camera seems to be focused. hello, thank you council. good afternoon. thank you council members and staff and public community members. i haven't attended a meeting in quite some time. maybe 15 years, 13 to 15 years or so, and i didn't feel there was a lot for me to do here, but the community has been asking me to speak up on in

support of access and different barriers that the deaf community is facing. this community is extremely focused on spoken language, and audio communication. whereas-i'm not speaking specifically to the myriad of disabilities that people have in the world, i'm speaking to specifically the approach to how the city handle things. if we cannot make a comment with speech, we are directed

into other avenues, various corners and asked to filter our simple requests through various systems simply to get our accommodation needs met to be able to make a comment, whereas, other people can come in and get their needs met in person very easily. even if they need interpretation services. this has been something that has been going on four years. these complaints have been brought to this particular council four years. people have been going to the second floor for example in this building and making these comments. specifically to the mayor's office. and i'm asking for more then lip service. this is the mayor's disability council. if you make noise on these topics on these issues, more then what you have been just

kind of a head nod, i need more minutes, because of translation purposes. three minutes isn't enough for this. if you give attention to our community and the needs we are asking you to address and barriers we are asking you to address, rather then just giving us lip service, it would be extremely important. it is offensive to have this same issue be discussed for over a decade where this time and again has been brought to your attention. it has been at least 16 years i personally know of, and i appreciate your time. i fee the mayor's office on disability should be closed and then maybe at that point the mayor would actually pay attention to this request that has been ongoing for years. >> thank you for your comments. do we have comment for webex at this time?

thank you. now, we'll go back to my report. as the cochair, since the december 2023 meeting, responses from the city departments to recommendation to -- sites within san francisco. several departments indicated--

have decided to make this one of the projects for winter and spring. they will make a report to the mdc about it. regarding--at the october 2023

meeting,--department of human resources regarding the presentation on the october 23 mdc public meeting about reasonable accommodation.

that's my report. now i'm going to have--mod director. information item. report from mayor's office on disability. >> hello. i'm nicole bohn, mayor office

of disability and like to welcome the members of the commission today for our second joint hearing. we are very pleased to have you with us for today's items. this director's report to the mayor's disability council is a snapshot of some of the issues that the mayor's office on disability has been engaged with over january and february. members of the public who wish to engage with aspects of this report, please contact us at mod@sfgov .org, or call 415-554-6789. this report will be posted to sf.gov/mod following today's meeting and we can also give you this in a printed format if you contact us via the phone

number if you don't have access to the internet. so, a few legislative update said i wanted to provide that the council has been tracking. the council has been tracking for some time the file number 231020, amending the rules of order related to remote public comment. there isn't change related to this item, but i did want to let you all know that deputy director kaplan will be attending commission secretary meeting on february 20 ck that is this coming tuesday to help public body clerks better understand their obligations to provide reasonable accommodation in the instance of remote public comment. the council may wish to monitor or call for update on this item at a future hearing. also, wanted to highlight that the legislative amendments for

the disability access improvements for places of public accommodation file 231005 better known as accessible business entrance ordinance is still in progress and i believe that members of our council are engaged with supervisor mandelman's office related to that and would also like to continue to encourage you to continue working with supervisor melgar's office around our progress around honoring the legacy of judy newman. related to state legislation, i don't have significant updates today, but federally i wanted to let you know that last time i announced the federal register request for comment on the u.s. census and i am very excited to give you the update that after extensive nation wide comment provided by

persons with disabilities, advocacy organizations and municipalities like us at the city and county of san francisco who are concerned -who were concerned about potential undercounted of deaf and disabled persons and impact to federal and state programs, the comments helped to maintain the way that disability status information is collected by the census. this is positive step for it disability community and thanks especially to our colleagues at the human services agency and disability and aging services policy team for assisting in submitting comment. just a few more things i wanted to highlight for today and we'll move on to our presentations. in termoffs news and announcements, i wanted to let you know mod has been actively engaged with colleagues in the

department of emergency management regarding disability access and community protocols in extreme weather and power outages. the council may wish to request a update to this item at a future hearing date and just to reminder, we are getting another storm this weekend. please stay safe in that extreme weather is expected again. make sure you sign up for alerts through alert sf by texting your zip code to 888-777 and you can bookmark the alert sf and sf72.org website. this information can also be accessed if you need to by calling our colleagues at 311. the additional items for consideration for future hearings remain largely the

same and as cochair madrid mentioned, we have some items coming up. i just wanted to also highlight that we as mod have been engaged with the ramp taxi program update, sfmta has received some funding through federal and state programming to work towards improvements in this service. you may want to learn about that at a future date. there is also work being done with the department of the environment around dining reuseable's and also directly related with our colleagues in disability and aging services, age and disability friendly san francisco implementation. it has been a while since you heard a update from them. and so just some things for consideration for now. that ends my report.

thank you very much. >> thank you. before i go forward, disability aging services commission and joining us today with a important issue. welcome. i go forward to item number 5, which is discussion item on update on the disability community cultural center presented by--mika kie

weissbuch and emily beitiks disability community cultural center. welcome. >> thank you so much everyone. my name is [indiscernible] a special project manager with department of disability and aging services. i'm here just a incredible privilege to introduce the new operators of the disability cultural center. i'll slow down. thank you. this grant is going to create the nation's first funded community cultural center that is lead by and centering

disability community, adding another chapter to san francisco prolific distability history on corner of van ness and grove overlooking city hall. some have been watching the construction so you can see the skeleton of it, which is really exciting. the cultural center will be located on the ground floor of the civic center which is disability forward and affordable housing community built by the kelsey and mercy housing with 112 beautiful accessible new housing units. the center will be a space full of life for people are able to access referrals to critical services, explore and express their identity through art and education and community is able to gather and advocate for change and to connect to each other. it is super exciting and it is again a great privilege to be able to introduce to you the operators and three cochairs of

disability cultural sentser who will be able to talk more about what it will look like and there plans around it all. mika kie weissbuch is virtual. dagny is not here with us today and here today is emily beitiks. >> thank you. good morning everyone. just me today. mika and dagny doing other work. happy to share with you about our plans and what is underway. i just queue this myself? okay. we are benefiting from the work done in 2018 lead by the [indiscernible] institute by department of disability and aging services to develop a strategic plan and there was a advisory council of disabled

leaders who came up with a mission and vision statement following large amount collection of data from the san francisco disability council at the time see they offered the mission statement by providing hybrid educational artistic and social networking opportunities. the san francisco disability cultural center brings diverse people with disabilities togethers to access resource [indiscernible] cultural community and pride. we envision city with a strong sense of disability culture and identity where the people with disabilities who live, work and visit actively engage in the services and support available to them participate in civic life and feel valued and proud of who they are.

maceo share adlittle about the space. it is directly across from city hall which we are excitesed about. in 2018 people sharing hopes and are dreams people had a lot of specifications it be within 4 blocks of bart and muni. it be near so many other disability organizations so we are incredibly happy located in the kelsey civic center especially with the connection having disability forward housing. in 20s 18 when we did research of looking all the other city cultural centers,b it was really clear ones most thriving had the built in lived in or local community population that could tap into the cultural center so we think it is really valuable and important there will be disability people living in the building as hopefully the core of who is coming and also using that core

to grow and expand to many others. it is a really small space though. it is 1876 square feet including a courtyard space and we are doing a lot to think how the courtyard space is a important addition to the space, because so many with disabilities still do not feel comfortable or safe just inside spaces so we are building out a wall that allow that to be a insides/outside venue with heaters because we know san francisco can get cold so people who cannot come to inperson with still benefit from the cultural center. hybrid is core to everything we are planning and really amazing in 2018 before the pandemic the people who we spoke with in that strategic planning phase had articulated how incredibly important it was to disability community to have this be hybrid so it was part of the plan. it is a small space that is

really looking at about 50-70 people for bigger events. that is very small but when we think of hybrid we are able to reach many more people in the population. and also using that as a opportunity to not just limit this to san francisco residents, even though that is primarily who we focus on service, but able to offer digital we hope san francisco can continue to be a leader for disability cultural as it has historically been. i will share renders from the architects we have been working with who have been amazing partners but these are very much work in progress and i'll be describing them but there are lot of access teachers tied to do the design software so we know this isn't complete and i'll flag what some are. this is a layout of the space seats set up facing front

projection. we are hosting super, disability film festival run from the cultural center or hosting a speaker event. a more traditional bigger crowd environment. and it has this image has all the same type of seats, but we know already core to our design philosophy is loss of different seatsing to accommodate different kinds of bodies so they would nlts be all this traditional seating. one thing thatd is core to the design feature is a lot of plants and lot of color. we heard very early on that so many people feel they have to spend a lot of time in institutional spaces where it is just not a very joyful space, so that will be a very key element for making this feel immediately warm and celebratory when you enter it. i clicked to a new slide that shows all those stadium seats

now swapped and instead just a lot of furniture that shows there could be somewhere where you just lie down and rest your body if you are out and about in civic center and need a place to take a break or you could be meet wg a friend and sitting having a conversation, catching up. off to the left when you enter there is a library space where we will have rotating books to show off incredible works being publish ed in disability studies and activism. we heard from a lot of people they want artwork to just be this way to celebrate local disabled artists and racketer then pick one or two things, we instead are planning to build the space with lots of options for how we can rotate art so we will constantly be rotating through. there are far too many disabled artists to pick a couple and we want to be able to show off a lot.

there is a side conference room and again, all the chairs are no good, so know i know that. there is a side conference room built out to be hybrid and this will be a place where it wont just be all on the disability cultural programming toserve community, it allows a lot of other organizations to come take advantage of a central place to use our meeting space, which will be accessible. when we did the planning in 2018 we heard from people who just participated in the women march and wanted to be involved and felt a lot of behind scene organizing was taking place in inaccessible spaces so there was desire to have access to disability friendly space where people say come and plan together and you come to me. we are thinking of this side meeting room as a place where lots of different groups can have access to rent out. currentsly we are in a planning

stage which goes until june 2024. we are getting all the infrastructure and systems in place and doing a lot of listening. we have been meeting with a ton of different disability leaders to hear what the ways the dcc can support their organization and some of the work already happening in san francisco and really be a hub for helping make connections happen, and we are also doing a series of focus groups that are meant to make sure we are listening to some of the community most marginalized within disability population. we are very confident that there is a lot of people who we know already look frgward to this and know btd this and going to show up when we are ready to do that ribbon cutting, but we want to make sure some people who maybe don't feel comfortable identifying with the word disability, but benefit from the community and culture we have to offer are able to learn about this. these focus groups are focused

on that. i'll skip to this slide and return to that. we-the focus groups we are focusing on-sorry that is awkward--we already completed lgbtq ia plus and disabled bipoc and disabled and did one with people physically isolating whether it be because of transportation and unable to leave the house very often, or because of covid safety. some of the upcoming ones we have are systems impacted, so wanting to connect with people with traumatized relationships being in institutions whether formally incarcerated or foster youth who left the foster youth system. we have done one with transition age kbrup grateful to partner with sfusd for that

focus group, and we have more coming up. we have one focused on deaf community, one on spanish speakers conducted in spanish and i didn't bring my glasses. one second. one for the [indiscernible] partner with the san francisco public library. so, we are in the planning stage right now gathering all the feedback. we will also have a town hall march 5 to hear much more broadly from those rather then those specific populations that show up in the focus group, open to anybody in the disability community. we'll share what we are planning and listen and collect more ideas what people are hoping and dreaming for this space, and in july 2024 for disability pride month we'll kick off and begin with some a year of virtual programming and then in the spring or summer

depending when the kelsey center is open and when the space is open, we will begin our brick and mortar stage and begin two years of hybrid programming for the disability cultural center. so, that is what's underway. happy to answer questions and hear more and i am extremely grateful to the people in the room, so many players working behind the scenes to make this happen. it has been a tremendous honor to be a part of this and haven of hope and [indiscernible] two organizations with this incredible responsible of moving this thing forward. >> thank you. at this time, we will let people know how--public comment and then we are going to do

member questions. please open the public comment. >> do we have camera on the clerk please, control room? thank you.

>> public comment is open to anyone in the audience for public comment. please step up to the microphone or fill out a comment card. fill out whatever information you like to--is there anyone in the audience who would like to make public comment? seeing none, do we have anyone on webex? >> nope. >> alright. thank you. >> just let the chair know, there is no public comment at this time. >> thank you. >> sorry to interrupt, one more thing--if you would like a response from the council, please provide your contact information e-mail to mdc@sfgov.org with the subject

line, mdc comment reply requested or call at 415-555-6789. and back to you chair. >> thank you. at this time, i see--council member questions and after that, i'm going to ask-- >> go ahead. okay. hello. thank you so much to emily for the presentation. i want to circle back to the part regarding the deaf community and asl using community, which i believe will

be next week on february 22 from 2 to 5 p.m. 4 to 5 p.m. i notice the asl community is host said on zoom and will be lead-i don't know if you are letting people know, i don't know if there is a lot of awareness in the public about that event so i'm concerned no one is showing up because of lack of getting that out to the community. i think we need to do a few things. we need a deaf interpreter who can-for that meeting specifically. i recommend deaf interpreter for the meeting. we will be working with a hearing interpreter and then a deaf interpreter. i think for some people who live in san francisco, english is not a language that they use and so really to get the community feedback, i suggest

you work with a hearing and deaf interpreter team. >> i have good news because i just got the e-mail confirming we have a deaf interpreter, so we are on-boards and it is only-the focus groups are smalls because it is just a hour, so it is only five people, so we do want more broad participation at the town hall. we want everybody, but at this point we are just looking for people but we still have a couple spots so we would love the help spreading the word, and i'll follow up with you as well as other outreach we have been doing. thank you. >> great,b thank you so much. >> thank you. council member albers. >> thank you alex. mic, please.

>> go ahead. >> i can use alex mic. thank you emily. i have been looking forward to another report on the dcc. now, that it's really really coming along and i'm seeing these renders, it is getting exciting. i have a few concerns. it is a smaller space and i was

anticipating-maybe i wasn't paying attention in the beginning. also, i was envisioning more smaller separate spaces for meetings with people and their maybe counselors or social workers or things like that as places people can come and have private conversations. there is a lot of open space. my concern is, what's to prevent this from just being a hang-out for people who just need to take a seat and-you know, just have a place to go? and who's monitoring like that kind of thing happening? is that what we wanted-what you

want it to be? and what exactly are the focus groups asking? what kind of questions are you asking now? >> thank you. you have good stuff. i think that-yes, the space is small. there is no doubt. i think that in 2018 we had no idea where the space would be and so all the planning at that point was like, what are your dreams and the dreams were very big and involved a lot of different options, and this space is small. i think that part of what we are planning is that not everything is also happening in the space. part of what we can do is be a connector that organizes some of the things that are going out into community and working with a lot of other different organizations, so for example, we are bringing a lot of connections to the other museums and some of what we might be doing is organize disability meet ups that visit the asian art mew seem so it doesn't all have to happen in

the space, while dcc will be the hub of the organizing of it. i also think there is opportunities for some of the places just so close to us like partnering with public library, somebody we have been talking about where they have bigger space option when we want something bigger then a 70 person space. i think in terms of the hang-out question,er that is a big one. that is a very big one we are grappling with. on the one hand that is what we want. we everybody together and want a place where people can network informally and hang out with a friend and be in a space where they feel a sense of belonging and comfort and hopefully a little bit of a break from the ableism in so many other spaces and also knowing where this is and how many people don't have access to public space and what that might look like with such a small space where it could immediately be inundated with

too many people hanging out spend ing a whole day and nothing else is possible. we are planning a lot what that may look like. it involves people having access to the space need to be able to participate in certain community guideline s and on-boarding before you can just come in and spend time there. a real mixture of like, days where it is open office hours-not open office hours-like this is a time where it is open, come hang out and chill and other times it is only open if you rsvp in a certain program underway. a real mixture and a lot of planning happening right now for how we will handle some of the conflicts that will come up and what it will look like how the space is used if there are things making sure all the staff is trained in de-escalation and supporting messyness that will happen.

and then, there is one more thing. >> what are your focus groups? >> thank you. the focus gruchs groups we are asking different questions depending on the focus of the focus group. the physically isolated one, we wanted to ask questions that explored things like, if there is a inperson event that has inperson tangible experience like a cooking demonstration, but also hybrid, so people at home can learn how to cook, but everybody is tasting something. how do you want us to grapple with that? you have a different experience then people in the room. that is a example. some questions are kind of targeted specifically to that group. others are just generally asking how do we best represent the community you are a part of, trying to understand that we are wanting people to come in the door with all the identities they hold and not just disabled and push everything else out so asking people what it will look like

to feel comfortable in a space as a disabled person and lgbtq disabled person and exploring lots of questions around programs that are broad and open to everybody, versus ifinity group programs so listening to people what their hope and dreams are and getting brilliant ideas what some of the programming can be. that just expands what our staff would come up with. >> thank you. i am going to ask any commissioners if any questions? >>--i just want to say how

excited i am about this, and i am looking forward to talking one on one--i'm looking forward to exploring-- >> thank you. looking forward talk toog you one on one as well. >> thank you. any other commissioners at this time? >> [indiscernible] [microphone not on. unable to hear speaker]

>> here we go. we just use one over. that seems to work. this okay? i just wanted to, as president of the disability and aging services, we have been hearing about this project going forward and i just wanted to comment and say, glad to see we are having these multiple listening sessions and collaborating with the various communities with multiple identities in order to get the best product out, so thank you for this update and i appreciate being in this joint meeting today. >> thank you.

commissioners,-- >> i have a comment. >> pennington? yep. then we'll go back to online. thank you. we don'ts have your microphone yet. sorry. i'm not sure what's up. try it again. >> is it on now? hello. okay. alright. thank you so much. i really as commissioner spears said, we have been hearing about this and now it is exciting to see what it looks like and to see it emerge and get more detail about it, so i did have a question about your

groupings, your focus groups. i have a corporate background and there is a lot of interest in the autistic community and i was wondering if you had some focus group around the autistic community? >> so, we definitely grappled with that. we did do deaf community specifically because of thinking of the language focus for how a focus group works, but we instead prioritized all focus groups have a wide range of disability representation, so we have a lot of neuro divergent people participating in all, rather then just a specific one, because it was a box of how many do we do going with each specific disability. instead, that is part of what we are looking at when we have people fill out the intake form, which i will use that to quickly do a plug, which is i

forgot to share the link. it is tiny url.com/dccfocus groups. we ask big range of disability questions there. and also part of that is insuring even though each has a certain focus of what we are pulling forward, disability and bipoc doesn't that mean is the only one . that is just the guiding force to the conversation, but we are looking for all kinds of diversity in all of them. thank you. >> thank you. >>--commissioner lum, go ahead. >> can you laer hear me? >> yes. >> thank you very much for the

tremendous amount of work that has been put forth in order to have all this positive progress on this particular project. one question i do have is, has there been any special provisions made towards facilitating the needs of disabled veterans? >> that is the group i forgot. the one other group is disability veterans one happening two weeks from now. thank you. >> thank you. >> are there any commissioners or council members who has questions? >> i believe we had one on webex. is that correct? >> yes. >> go ahead council member arack, please. >> yes. couple questions for emily.

number one, is there a mailing list and can you give more information about this town hall meeting? is it going to be online or is it in person? how can we find out more information about that? that's the first question. >> thank you. yes. we launch ed a very basic website. we just hired our team of web designers and sales force designers and all that. the very basic website allows you to sign up for the list serve and it is disabilityculturalcenter.org. the town hall, if you enter information on the tiny

url.com/dccfocusgroups. at this points we are still just a virtual operation. >> another question. this may be a little premature, but i highly recommend when you are figuring out your furniture, you include several hip chairs for people who have mobility issues and cannot sit in a normal chair that is like 18 to 20 inches from the floor. they have chairs with usually 27, 28, 29 inches. personally, i can't get up out of a chair. it either takes two people to get me up or i don't go, but if you have several hip chairs, people that are weak and can't stand up from a normal chair

would feel much more comfortable going to the center. >> thank you. chairs we are thinking a lot about chairs. we are definitely aware that the starting with the sense of belonging is if you are at a event for hour or two you want to be comfortable so we heard hip chairs and chairs with bars to transfer out of a wheelchair if you hang out for a little longer and chairs big enough to accommodate patrons so want that to be core of the sense of belonging. no one size fits approach to everything we are featuring in the design. >> thank you. >> thank you. i have a question. thank you for coming.

i have a couple questions. one question is, do you have a focus group that includes people with disability discussing what's going to happen--i understand you gave a overview. --i am just wondering if there is a focus group or group that can--as plans go forward.

that is one question. the second question is, i know that the institute of san francisco state is one of the main organizations that is organizing. just wondering if you have any classes? within dcc from san francisco state. i think it would be good to have classes within dcc that san francisco state. -- >> thank you.

the first question, we are currentsly working to assemble our advisory committee. a goal for the advisory committee is that it include representation from all the most marginalized inside the disability community stow so matches with the same with the focus groups, but some fit many of those boxes so we are working to put together the right mixture of folks and already got a couple council members lined up, so definitely that is essential. we are so aware that even with our diverse team that we still need to always be listening to community feedback of the community programs. classes for sf state, [indiscernible] haven of hope is it the operator and they are a non profit, and think it is interesting idea. we played around around with a

lot of programs of speakers and bringing in disability studies and have that piece but in terms of actual classes tied to the university, not something we thought about. the institute isn't allowed to offer classes formally, but it is something to play with. >> i think it would be something to consider, because-- >> yeah. >> the last question i have, i know that--housing for people with disabilities and a long time ago, dcc was discussing -trying to--i'm just curious,

how did you guys try to still--i know--i'm just curious on trying to mimic accessibility with-- >> well, in san francisco we will do our own thing. [laughter] >>-- >> we will learn extensively. one of the first things that i lead with the team is like a site visit to ed roberts to see what is out there. the institute spent a lot of time work wg ed roberts campus

because we had a exhibition there 6 months. we know the strengths and challenges. ed robert campus came up a lot when we were hearing from community, both the desire to have what the ed robert campus has and people felt when ed roberts campus opened it had so many services and the cultural piece fell out. not always having that space for cultural programming and i think over the last few years because of the pandemic less and less people hanging out and coming together in that space if they are not utilizing service so i think there is a really important opportunity to learn from the many strengths we have seen at ed roberts and also make the cultural center something new.

>> i just want to clarify that, there is some-whatever you want to call it, aspect of-physical accessible. >> the actual access. >> yeah. >> like, we went is and looked at the changing tables in the bathroom and a lot of that same approach that was-that came up so much in the strategic plan of people saying make sure you see ed roberts bathrooms, there is nothing better then so making sure we learn and also i had conversations with the leaders and they said we messed up the [indiscernible] getting the insider information has been a huge help. >> thank you for that. with that, i'm going to turn to

staff from disability ager service and mayor's disability. >> thank you chair madrid. thank you emily for coming back. i will be very brief because we are needing to take our break. we are right on time, which is great news. i want to say thank you again and offer that as we are developing the materials for the town hall and any other assistance you want with publicity with the focus groups send us material and we'll get it out through the disbition. this is exciting news. a lots in the community have been waiting for this a very long time, so congratulations on the contract and on good work so far. >> thank you. i will send it to you by the end of the day. i appreciate that.

>> thank you so much emily and-- go ahead. sorry about that. >> is that picking up? or is it on? okay. is that picking up? >> yes. >> don't forget about me. [laughter] as a east bay resident, and somebody with a lot ofties to the erc and the east bay disability community, i am curious what are your-i mean,

you were sort of joking a minute ago about, we'll do our own thing, but i'm curious what is the thinking so far about how to take advantage of the fact that there is a really strong disability community throughout the bay area really? especially in the east bay, and about not looking at it solely as a san francisco thing. so, that's really my question. >> yeah. i think we have been talking all along about the san francisco disability cultural center is for people who live, work and play in san francisco, and then when you factor in the fact that every program will be virtual, there is zero reason to limit any borders, anybody--so much as a programming we have been able

to do virtually, we heard from people who are in parts of the countsry where it is unthinkable for them to have a disable cultural center and they are thirsty for content and the bay area has historically served that role for the country of being a leader in disability cull clr and showing what that community can look like so we hope this cultural center will continue that. i also think it looks like collaboration across the bridge. where we cross the bridge. my co directors both live in oakland and oakland and berkeley. i also think there is partner with what ed roberts offers and what the new cultural center will offer. ed roberts is a incredible venue events. if you have a office retreat, this cultural center can be a fit so i hope we can have a lot

of lines of collaboration. >> thank you so much emily, and we are looking forward to getting updates going forward. >> thank you all for your time. appreciate it. >> with that, i'm going to let us take a break for 15 minutes. i would ask everybody to come back at 245. [15 minute break]

>> [meeting reconvened] >> welcome back. today is february 16, 2024 for

mayor's disability council. we are going to discussion item. report on housing needs assessment implementation plan. presented by malena leon-farrera , san francisco office of resiliency and capitol planning. do we have malena on the line? >> yes, i'm here. hi. >> hi, welcome. go ahead. >> thank you so much. >> just one second. this is nicole speaking. we just need to switch.

control room we need to switch to you. there we go. go ahead. >> are you going off the slides on the screen? >> do you need us to drive the slides? we can do that. >> i thought it was going to--i have that-i apologize. >> they are on the screen right now. we just need to- >> perfect. >> let me see if we can get someone help us drive in the room. cindy is here, and--hello. deputy director kaufman. we will drive in the room. go ahead. >> thank you so much. first i like to thank the commission for the meeting more then anything for the

opportunity to speak and be able to present this plan. my name is malena leon, part of the san francisco [indiscernible] aging and disability affordable housing implement ation plan. >> malena, if you can slow down for the benefit of our interpreters, we would very much appreciate it. >> apology. >> thank you so much. >> next slide. i like to first start by giving you some background on the plan itself. next slide, please. in december 2020 the board of supervisors ordinance 206620 and in that ordinance there was a requirement for two new [indiscernible] the first was the aging and disability affordable housing overview

report which needs to be published every two years and the snapshot of the city's funded affordable housing for older adults and adults with disabilities. the second report is part of this ordinance was the aging and disability affordable housing needs assessment, which needs to be published with new amendments every 8 years. this report must include analysis of housing needs, relevant city programs and recommendations to address unmet needs of older people and older adults and adults with disabilities. next slide, please. in line with that ordinance, departmental [indiscernible] formed to support the work of producing these two reports. this committee includes the department of disability and aging services, the mayor's

office of housing and community development, mayor's office of disability, the department of homelessness and supportive housing, and the planning department. all of these agencies are part of the steering committee and supported the work of producing these two reports. the first needs assessment is called 2022 aging and disability affordable housing needs assessment, published october 2022 and it came to the joint hearing last year as you may recall. it included data on housing needs for older adults and adults with disability, senior and disability affordable housing and existing housing that we have as well as housing down the line. housing that is in the pipeline and will be developed, as well as 49 recommendations to meet

unmet needs. basically all the needs that were identified. this report however was not an implementation plan. it just made those recommendations. therefore-next slide, please. -the planning department was tasks the 49 recommendations into implementation plan. the purpose of producing this plan is first track the status of the recommendations and investigate any potential constraints to recommendation. second, reach consensus on responsible. what agencies are responsible for what, what are the timelines and what are the estimates they are required or necessary. finally, to strengthen interagency collaboration and coordination in the service for older people and adults with disabilities. basically what we are here to

present today is a draft of what has come out of this effort, and i just want to focus before i start working on the plan, can you go to the next slide. who [indiscernible] this plan mainly serves the following two populations:first, lower income seniors or older adults, and populations can be described in different ways and that is because of how the funding we received from the different entities, what the funding rules are for this population. seniors are defined age 62 and older. for hsh there are two [indiscernible] depending on the funding. 65 and older and 60 and older. the second population that serves by this plan and it is not only these [indiscernible]

these are the main populations served by the plan, are lower income adults with disabilities. defining this population defined by the american disability act as a person with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. a person with a history or record of impairment or person who received by others as having such a impairment. the idea is the plans are served more people outside of these two populations, but it mainly target this population because they are the most vulnerable. and who are affordable housing program should be serving basically. next slide, please. i also want to comment or provide definitions on what do i mean when i say affordable

housing. i will go into what are the three main types of affordable housing we are trying to-we are discussing in this plan. the first one is 100 percent affordable housing and this is city funded units rented at reduced rate for lower income households. in this buildings are 100 percent-all the units are subsidized units. they are all rented at reduced rates. the second type of affordable housing is inclusionary or below market rate known as bmr housing. these are units that are also rented at reduced rates. market rate buildings that are built by for profit developers so when a developer was to develop a building of a certain size, san francisco is asking them to have a few units in the

building so [indiscernible] subsidize units or rent below market rent. thirdly is permanent supportive housing, which is very similar-it is basically 100 percent affordable housing and combined with on-site supportive services for people experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness. so, now i like to-basically the plan is trying to address these type of affordable housing and those populations, but it doesn't mean it ends there. it does address other things. those are the main priorities of the plan and the main part of the scope of the plan. next slide, please. [indiscernible] did i hear something? no. okay. i would like to now go over the

plan itself. first i want to start by saying, there are 6 objectives that are part of this plan. each objective has multiple actions with different responsible agencies. timelines and ease of implementation for each of those actions. given the city right now has a $800 million deficit, only actions that fit within current work programs have been prioritized for year one and year two. accept for crucial action that require [indiscernible] that is the reason we are here today. i want to focus on actions that need your support in order for them to happen and [indiscernible] from the community that live in our city. next slide, please. the plan was developed based on extensive community engagement and research performed for the

2022 needs assessment. also, in collaboration with the steering committee i described earlier and it was important as well by several interviews that were done to more then 39 city employees, advocacy organizations and senior disability affordable housing developers and also supplemented by research in land use and elevator maintenance of subsidized housing. before i go into the content of the plan itself, i just want to mention that it has been truly a interdepartmental effort and that i want to thank all the work and all the advocacy dedicated to older adults and adults with disabilities have done through the years. this plan wouldn't be here, a lot of actions wouldn't be here without [indiscernible] continuous work and i think it is important that we recognize the community for their efforts

in making all this possible. alright. so, let's jump into the plan. and the other thing i want to say, again what we are try ing to do is do a overview of the plan and also to talk about select actions where we believe the joint hearing, the joint hearing of the two committee and commission to get your support for the tasks that we think are going to require a lot moremore-[indiscernible] objective one, facilitate building more housing appropriate for older adults and adults with disable. prioritize affordable housing. what that means is that we want to insure that san francisco is doing the most to develop affordable housing and

incentivize market rate developers to also develop for older adults and adults with disabilities to provide those incentives. we are also working in tandem with other city efforts happening at the same time as this plan and one is a 2022 housing element, which was adopted this past january 2023 and which has been implemented right now so this work is not happening in a void, it is working alongside that work and in coordination with the work of implementing the housing element. as well as with mohcd consolidated plan which they are doing outreach and engagement right now to build it. and that consolidated plan is required by hud in order for us to get funding for housing and for community development programs. so, i believe one of the strengths of this program is that it is doing a lot of this project in particular, it is doing a lot of coordination and

collaboration in line with other efforts that the city is doing right now. for objective one, the select action i want to go over is advocating for state funding to support the development of affordable assisted living. can you go to the next slide, please? so, basically there has been a proposal to develop senior housing and affordable assisted living housing at laguna honda. that has been going on quite a few years now and it hasn't moved forward and one issue is the state funding that exists today for assisted living is-goes with the person. it is assigned to the person, not to a unit, so it is hard to develop affordable assisted living and right now we really don't have that model in the city. we do feel like this needs to be a city effort. it would be invasion of how we

build housing for older adults and adults with disability that need assistance and it would be a-could be a pilot for the entire state. as part of the proposal on the table, there were-included 95 assisted living studios in a lot in laguna honda and it is part of the plan to advocate for this state funding it requires the state creating a new program that attaches the funding to a unit so that developers can have the assurance and we move forward in coordination with mohcd. next slide, please. objective 2 is improve maintenance, modification for accessibility and preservation of affordable housing. as we know, san francisco affordable housing stock is essential to serving oldser adults and adults with disabilities that rent and

that's because a lot of them live in fixed lower income and have accessible needs and so the preservation of this type of housing and the maintenance is crucial. unfortunately a lot of city permanent supportive housing is in older single room occupancy hotels that we also know them as sro. with elevators that are in poor conditions and that has been a main focus of the mdc housing committee that has actually been attending every month and so i want to go in terms of selected action for this objective-next slide-i do want to talk about-i highlighted the action which is add a permanent line item to the capital plan for elevator maintenance in city funded affordable housing and what we are initially recommending is $500 thousand annually. there used to be a program a few years ago, it was a rebate

program where that is how much was allocated every year but it wasn't a permanent line item and disappeared. currently there is $10 million at hsh that will go towards elevator maintenance, but we don't have funding that is permanent to address this issue and it is a issue of liveability, dignity, independence for oldser adults and adultds with disabilities community. communities. can we please go to the next slide? for objective 3, says that we make access to affordable housing units easier for older adults and adults with disabilities. affordable housing isn't affordable for lower income older adults and adults with disabilities for renters in our city. this pop ulations make around 50 percent of the ami while our

affordable housing stock is usually built for incomes that are at around 60 percent. a lot of our affordable housing is inaccessible for a lot of lower income oldser adults and are adults with disabilities. additionally, older adults and adultss with disability expressed the affordable housing system in the city is complex, hard to decipher and the application process isn't always accessible to these populations, so this objective has actions to address the issues, but in particular today i do want to highlight the creation of the disability operating subsidy. this is a idea that has been on the table for at least three years i know of and in our initial calculations it will have a estimated cost of around

$6 million in order to support 30 households. usually the way the city builds these type of subsidies is planning for at least 15 year period where we can support those households for that period of time and so our initial proposal is that the operating subsidy is created and it is funded at least for 30 households and this would have several benefits, one of them obviously is making affordable housing accessible for a lower income adult with disabilities. f it would also open up affordable housing for more people with disabilities, meaning that, people that cannot access our accessible units because they don't have those particular accessibility needs. it would open access in a bunch of different ways and so we believe this is a important program that needs to be created and funded and we recognize that right now there

is a deficit, but this is a crucial step that the city needs to take. we recently sat at a hcd meeting and i asked for support for this. can we go to objective 4, please? objective 4, improve outreach and housing services, cultural competency for older adults and adults with disabilities. during the process developing the needs assessment, older adult and adult with disability express a lack of cultural competency. the fulfillment of reasonable accommodation request and inaccessible communication. basically we were not living up to our promise of having accessible communication with the people we serve and how we do our outreach and how we provide the tools for people to have access to our programs. older adults and adults with

disabilities also called for a physical location and online spaces where we centralize the wide range of services, housing services and resources we have in the city across city agencies and these are all issues that we have taken seriously. we made great steps to advance the recommendations put in that needs assessment, but today i want to focus on the training in particular, which was a big thing that came up. how we serve people and how we address their disability concerns, so we-the action is calling for development of standard training by the city, and for city star and for housing services staff and to insure that it gets implemented and those frameings are tracked basically, and the type of trainings that we identify is

the reasonable accommodation obigations around those obigations, accessible communication, obigations, what are the obigations of both service providers and city staff around this issue. elevator maintenance obigations, so basically what housing providers need to do in case of an elevator issue, and how they need to proceed and what they need to comply with and finally, compliance with digital accessibility. these are things that are move forward now, but whee need to develop more standard systems how those trainings happen and how we are tracking them and how we are improving them over time. mod put out training on reasonable accommodation request. i sat at one of those a few

months ago. objective 5 is, enable aging in place stabileizing those already housed. basically what i tried to do with the objective is like what happens before you apply for housing in the process of applying for housing and what happens once you're housed. the purpose of this objective is that we can stabilize who is already housed and these objectives in particular is not only people housed currently in affordable housing but also market rate housing outside our system. older adults and adults with disabilities are better served when services are colocated and referrals are effective and properly trained to do those referrals, so those are part of the issues this objective also addresses, and also rental

subsidies, tenant right counseling, mediation, [indiscernible] legal services, all of those to insure oldser adults and adult with dizability remain housed and part of the scope of this objective. for today, what i want to focus on is basically how we-the requirement we will make full property manager housing counselor and navigators, social service providers, that they are properly trained and also making sure our training is appropriate and fulfilling the requirements for serving this populations and the resource connections they are making, they make them in a effective manner and connect people to behavioral health service and [indiscernible] other social servicess appropriately in a timely manner and in a accessible way.

objective 6, we have improved data reporting and accountability on affordable housing and services for older adults and adults with disabilities. we want to make sure all those things we have been talking about in the other objectives that we remain accountable, they get implemented,ish we are tracking progress in some way. the needs assessment in particular highlighted the need to [indiscernible] data collection on adult with disability served. better data quality and better data sharing among city agencies so we understand how well we are serving these populations. the report also-needs assessment report also shed light on the need for the city to better understand the accessible affordable housing inventory and the accessibility features of the units in particular. we understand also the process how we are assigning people to

those units. for today in particular, i just want to focus the continued support for this interdepartmental collaboration and effort and service coordination, in particular across housing social and health services agencies, and to continue to implement the actions of these collaborations and these coordinations will only help us continue to implement the actions of this plan. finally, those are the six objectives and some of the actions that will require your support, your continued support. i'm here to answer any questions and expand more on other actions that are included in the plan, and i just want to reassure you that a lot of recommendations on the plan we

already started work on and already implemented [indiscernible] these are some of these actions we require funding basically and big efforts needs to be made by the city in order for those actions to happen. in sense of next steps, i want to provide a timeline what will happen next. we are in the process of finalizing the draft line now. it is reviewed by the different agencies, and we are doing a preview of the draft plan with different stakeholders including in this joint hearing. we will be doing one on one briefings with supervisors about it, and also with other senior disability community based organizations just to get feedback, make sure we clarify things before we publish the report. we will take any comments we received and make sure that they go fl into the report and plan on finalizing the plan in march 2024.

the idea right now as planned will go up for endorsement on the planning commission april 4 and then after that we plan on socializing the implementation plan. that is basically the timeline of what is happening with the plan and what we are working towards. obvious ly once it is endorsed by the planning commission, we'll keep working on the implementation and you know, we hope to be able to come back here to keep talking about at future meetings. that's it for my presentation and thank you very much for giving me the space and i'm here to answer questions. i also have the support from lisa chen online as well as in the room i believe-there is nicole there and cindy from dos as well as sheila from mohcd and we are here to answer any

questions you may have. >> thank you. thank you malena. now, i open it up to public comment. >> make sure microphones are on. malena can you hear me okay? this is nicole speaking? >> yes. >> okay, try again, alex. >> can you hear me? >> yes. >> alright. good. thank you. now, i'm opening up to public comment at this time and after that we are going to do a commissioners and council members questions and then

staff. okay. can you please open public comment? >> control room, please put the camera on the clerk. thank you. >> okay, we can start by any person here in interested in making public comment, please come up to the podium and form a line, or we do have comment cards you can fill out that you find at the front table. fill out the information there of the purpose of your comment. do we have anyone here that wishes to make a public comment? no one in person, so i'm going to reach out--hold on. do you have a comment you would like to make? okay. please come forward. if you can give me a quick

moment, i need to set up the timer. and then when i you the go ahead, you may start. >> thank you for the presentation. i want to say that it is a good first start to have a disability operating subsidy. i guess that was based upon a senior operating subsidy, but to start 30 units is obiously not sufficient, and a dos report 8 years ago in 2016 that were approximately a hundred thousand people in the city of san francisco with disabilities. coming through with the covid-i assuming there will be long

covid survivors. that number has probably increased, and on a separate comment, on objective 5, lots of people find it really hard to admit that they have a disability. it is high bar to step up, and i want to suggest also instead of in addition to reaching out to disability and senior populations that this be done through public service announcement. maybe through ongoing event type information with both

in-person as well as zoom webex type situation where the general public without having to go through an organization can access this information. thank you. >> thank you for the comment. do we have public comment at this time in the room? >> is there anyone else in the room that wishes to make a public comment? so, i'm going to see anyone online to the webinar. >> i don't believe we do. if you could just in case-no hands up. no hands up. >> no one online, so i'll move from there. >> we can close public comment. >> thank you. >> if i could, there is no one online, so we are going to go ahead and if you wish to provide information from the council, please provide your contact information by sending an e-mail to mdc@sfgov.org with

subject matter of mdc reply or you can call us at 415-555-6789. >> 554-6789. >> thank you. now i'm going to turn to council members and commissioners questions. do we have any commissioners or council members quon okay. i won't go through--go ahead.

>> hello. this will be short. this is a quick thing. but i do have a question regarding-95 assisted support-just thinking about the numbers. i don't think that is enough. i think about the type of support assisted living would require and thinking about individuals like deaf, senior citizens who applied for assisted living here in san francisco and the list is over 300 people long. so, just not sure if those numbers are syncing with the need. i mean, 95. there is quite a few people who applied. i think people are looking for assisted living support, and that it is a challenge for the city to meet those needs. that being said, one issue i

feel is that in my opinion, we need to ask for more things. i think we are posting in certain neighborhoods of san francisco, but i don't know if this is just food for thought, that we should be thinking about communication access needs and also the support, because communication access has not been met. at least for deaf people who live in the city, there is extreme frustration, even to this day that we have seen where people have tried to get communication needs met, tried to get things done and the city response is just, do it yourself. there are no deaf based organizations in san francisco. there are not places where people can go to get support due to budget cuts and i think the issues that were stuck in a number of ways and there has been so many people struggling to get communication access at

a minimum, let alone apply for public housing or other support. it is extremely frustrating, so i am thinking about top concerns right now and the barriers for this specific group i'm speaking of are quite high. more then 50 percent of adults at some point lose their hearing or experience hearing loss, so just thinking about what the needs are. maybe 16 thousand people who are experiencing houselessness and thinking about the number of people, the population being served in that. there has to be a way to stratany agy with the population needs in mind. >> i just want to mention the 95 units, it is not we will

[indiscernible] the program from the state doesn't exist currently and they have to create a program just to be for us to [indiscernible] so, we are trying to operate as a example when possible, but the need is much bigger and we need to ask for way more then that, but at the very least we want to commit that there is-currently we have no sites where people can live in a facility setting that is affordable.

the more affordable options we have, we are looking at smaller residential care facility and they have been getting converted to housing and [indiscernible] or families no longer want to keep those services in those units. i do recognize that it is not enough and i appreciate your comments about the communication access and [indiscernible]

>> great. thank you so much. i really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> we need--nope. try this one. is this working? >> yes. >> okay. thank you. i just actually have a comment in general, not specific. i want to thank you for the update on the status on the housing addressing housing. i think housing in san francisco is a big problem for everyone and anyone and more especially for seniors and people with disability with limited income and i appreciate the collaboration going on to try to address the need. i do hear concerns that this is

not enough, but i think looking at a positive. at least we are taking beginning steps and there is a great steering committee with collaboration of different city departments looking at this to help us move forward. one miner recommendation i want to make is that, i think it is important to continue to make sure that we get this information out. there be more out reach and communication regarding this plan and in order to basically let more people know as the person who made the public comment. i agree with her that we need to just get more information out and more global way. thank you. >> thank you. >>--

>> got it. thank you malena. one couple comments. one on objective 5. it is requiring a whole slew of different staff, including property managers and navigators and social service people to be trained in mental health, behavioral health, intensive case management. i just think that-i just dont know how realistic that is going to be, especially with property managers and who's going to provide this training? i mean, that sounds absolutely in a perfect world like the

most wonderful thing, but thinking about a property manager being able to step in in that capacity when they can't even get their elevators to work, i'm sorry, i'm being very cynical. this sounds great but who would be providing this training? >> i apologize. property managers do not be there. there is other action regarding training that does concern property managers, but this is more geared towards people providing the social services and housing counselors or nav igators connecting people to resources. and those trainings already happen, so we are already training--staff trained--[indiscernible] coordinating trainings with the people providing housing

services, so we do is a program-we are [indiscernible] but, we just need to have more coordination dos, and hsh or mohcd so we are providing referrals that they know how to do the referral appropriately and they are connecting people to services in a more effective manner. it isn't that it isn't happening, that work needs to be strengthen jd the coordination between the agencies needs to be strengthened. >> this is nicole speaking if i might add with my steering committee hat on. one thing we found in the needs assessment is that people with disabilities in particular said we needed to improve cultural sensitivity and awareness around-for all our persons providing services to those populations so that is partly

what this is in response to. >> okay. thank you. i do have another question on objective 6. concerning data collection. data reporting, accountability. i just-and also about better understanding affordable housing inventory. i would think this would be something moved up in priority, because for me, i'm thinking how do you-if we don't know what we have to start with, and we don't know how valid our data is even what is in existence out there, how do you know what the need is?

in effect, this makes me feel like there are residents in affordable housing or low income housing that may not even belong in them, if that's-that's my thinking. so r that concerns me about not knowing the inventory that is existing right now. >> i love to provide context to this action in particular. the main point of the action is that we can continue to work on this collaboration and issues between the agencies and work on how we collect affordable housing data and how we share it and [indiscernible] between the agencies better, because that is a issue with agencies

with different platforms to track the information. i do want to make clear that mohcd has already [indiscernible] they are tracking inventory and it isn't that we don't know how many accessible units we have or where they are at, b especially since we changed the system and we are now working with dahlia. dahlia is very consistent and very data on disability and the type of accessibility in the units and where they are located and unit number. very specific information about that. the information that is a little bit less reliable with our older stock, but even that stock is updated and new lists get created, one place where we found we need vetting information better is with permanent supportive housing,

so we do know where the accessible units are and we have them identified, but we don't know the-we are not as clear how truly accessible they are, and what type of disability features they have. if they are 100 percent-if they meet all the accessibility needs by currents standards we should have and so in a more specific action in the plan, we are saying let's look at those in particular and sort of how accessible they really are. in terms of the [indiscernible] i did look at that issue. that issue came up for the needs assessment. the idea that people-accessible units are not used by people with accessibility needs so i [indiscernible] and i would

love to give you context on that. for mohcd in particular, since insertion of dahlia that is no longer a issue. when people apply for a unit and say they have accessible need that is noted. when the lease is created [indiscernible] and the people that don't have accessibility needs and for the units that are accessible we go down that particular list. for example, for one of the more recent developments there were 10 thousand applications and just for accessible units i think around 800 people applied for them, so we have more then enough people to fill those units. we are also assigning in a affordable housing building, not all the units are assigned to the same income levels, so mohcd is also making a effort

to assign the lower ami or lower income to [indiscernible] i don't believe that mohcd has a issue with this, but i do have to say that if a unit may be accessible, but it doesn't mean it is designate frd a person with disabilities and what that means if we run out of the list and didn't find anyone with a list [indiscernible] accessible unit that is still available, then it goes to someone who doesn't have accessible need. if that were to happen, which it hasn't happened since dahlia was inserted, we make them sign a temporary lease and contract that once a unit that is not accessible gets opened up, they have to move.

it may be a issue in older housing stock, but it is the same thing. somebody who doesn't have accessibility needs is occupying a accessible units, they have a contract where they have to move as soon as another unit is available within the building. for hsh [indiscernible] people get into coordinated entry where we [indiscernible] whether or not they have disability needs and they will [indiscernible] hsh i was told by the person interviewed, any given time has--[indiscernible] at any given time they have accessible units available for the people who have been referred to housing because they have so much attrition. people entering and leaving the

housing. i do want to assure that i don't believe that making sure a person with accessible needs gets assigned to accessible unit. [indiscernible] but i do think we need to strengthen our knowledge of how accessible some of our units are and we need to strengthen how we communicate between agency ies and how we collect data who we are serving. for housing issues, people need to self--disclose whether or not they have a disability and we just don't have any data about how many people we are serving in affordable housing on the mohcd side of things. 100 percent affordable housing, so that's another thing we are trying to fix for--i just

dumped a lot of information- >> thank you. >> thank you. >> are there any commissioners or council members with questions at this time? online? >> i have a question. do you have the financing for example for the disability operating subsidy? i don't know if i heard you correctly, but it sounds rather sketchy that you would have that and be able to keep it like you-correct me if i'm wrong, but you can have that money maybe for a while and then you have to

[indiscernible] >> yes. yes. so we created a draft proposal for the operating subsidy. this program has not been created nor funded now. it still needs to be vetted but the first numbers we ran for 30 households, that is the initial proposal so that [indiscernible] proposed this [indiscernible] if we did it for 30 households we assume that it would be 30 people that would go into-i'm reading the proposal in front of me. [indiscernible] we assume they go into units that are at 60 percent ami. just the average of what we develop our units at, and we assume they receive ssi and ssd as income, so what we are doing

is trying to bridge the gap between affordable rent to somebody living on ssi income, and the rent of the unit. i don't know if that makes sense. if the unit is [indiscernible] and they make this much income and this is the affordable rent we try to bridge the gap and then we are calculating the gap for 16 years so any time we fund a subsidy of this kind that is more permanent subsidy we fund it initially for 15 years, because we don't expect-don't want to fund just for three years because we expect people to stay in their units for a long time. always when we build this type of subsidy as a [indiscernible] plan for 15 year timeline and when we ask for money we already plan-we will have 30 people living at this particular income and this is the gap we need to meet and

need to meet the gap for 15 years. that make sense? when we make those numbers that amount is around $6 million to start the program for the 30 households and then we have to keep building it to serve more households. but every time we build it and put more funding, we have to make sure we offer funding for 15 years because we don't want anybody to run out of the subsidy. i don't know if sheila would like to add anything. shealy- >> she's coming up to the microphone. >> did the commission have additional questions? >>--is there additional

comments? >> to summarize what malena was saying, the operating subsidy does not currently exist. this is a proposal and the way that we calculate it is looking at the gap that would be needed to move people into those units. i think the core of her question was, is the funding actually available and the answer is no, not right now. >> thank you. are there any comments or questions from council or commissioners? i have a question. maybe sheila or malena can educate us regarding dahlia. i understand that some of--

>> yes. sheila nick lopilous, the directser of policy and director affairs at mohcd. >> thank you, great to meet you. >> dahlia is an online portal created in 2017 for all affordable housing units that are not managed through the coordinated entry system, which is for people exiting homelessness. there is a tract for those exiting homelessness and that is through hsh and the dahlia portal is for all other affordable units in san francisco whether those are inclusionary units or hundred percent affordable buildsings. those go through dahlia. in 2017 we created a very clean simple online portal that people can access from their phone to be able to apply for affordable units. >> thank you for that.

my next question,--clarify on the portal when it comes to people with disability when they apply for--some of the information is confusing. for example, the income limit. sometimes i have seen one particular property has a income limit and when someone applies to that property they

are told that the income is too high, because of ada requirement. i think it would be good for us to make it clear from the beginning what is the income limit for a unit and for non-ada unit. that's one. the second thing is that, my question to you is that, i understand that we are talking about lower income people which are passionate about--i am wondering if we have a

objective on a plan when it comes to people who have a disability, but working? i am just curious on how would you--when it comes to apply for "affordable housing". like i said, it is so confusing for some people that applying for--like dahlia, for those people who are working, but the income is above and they don't know that the income is above.

>> so, just to summarize the question is, the application process for dahlia can be confusing. i think that a lot of people would say that. just across the population. we recognize that and so in creating dahlia, we are trying to try to find a balance creating a easy system to enter into, so we are not requesting a lot of information up front and we ask people to self-report income rather then submit a lot of paperwork to verify their income and then, once we run the lottery and place them in the lottery, then that is when income verification happens, so it is self-reporting where sometimes there is discrepancy between what is allowable in a unit, what the threshold is for that unit, and sometimes that is a simple as just a misunderstanding of net versus

gross income, or number of people in a household and how that gets calculated. i -in the effort to make a simple system sometimes the questions are differed to later in the process, so we will continue to work with mayor's office of disability and others to try and-we are always fine-tuning the system and application process, particularly for populations that have a hard time, but for population in general because we recognize that sometimes it can be-navigating any bureaucratic praess process can be challenging. >> a second question is when it comes to lower income to moderate income populations for people with disabilities they

are above--i forgot if they mentioned it, but ami60 percent of or 70 percent. i'm curious on--it would be interesting if we have that information on a particular website or--i think it would be beneficial for people with disabilities that is working and has potential housing needs. i think it would be good to identify those needs as well

besides--lower income population. >> alex-- >> who is that? >> it is malena. i think i understand alex question and i think i have [indiscernible] what happens when people with disabilities who don't have such a low income and more at the-make moderate income, is that correct alex? >> yes, and i think we need to be cautious on how we can include those populations on [indiscernible] those people that have moderate income that

has disability. >> yeah. i think maybe your question is coming from the fact that i mentioned that mohcd is making-insuring accessibility units, income assigned is the lower-in the lower income that will be in the building. so, i just like to clarify that for a lot of our 100 percent affordable housing buildings, it is not an [indiscernible] we actually have programming where some units are 80 percent, some 60, some 50, some 30, and mohcd is making sure some of the accessible units are assigned at 30 percent income if they are going to be units that at that level. >> i understand that.

what i was encouraging everybody in this meeting is, don't forget people who have those moderate income and has disability also and i think it would be nice to have that information in front of--when you decide to put that information so people can easily identify and apply. that's all i'm asking and i think it would be good to do a study how many people who has that income going forward.

thank you. thank you so much and with that, i'm going to ask if staff has questions or comments? >> this is nicole speaking, the director of mod. i wanted to say thank you to everyone for being here today. thank you especially to malena. very passion ate about this and really moves these objective frzward. i want to reemphasize for you as a council member and members of the commission, the objective that malena highlighted today as well as any additional ones you may be thinking of as a result of this conversation, really do need continued advocacy so i do encourage the council to follow-up if you have

additional requests and think about which pieces of this if not all of them that you would like to advocate for. we hope you do and we need your help. so, this is another putting in a exclamation point on malena's point. we have a lot of good intentions and we need continued support ■/■from the community and like you to make it happen. that's all from me. >> are there any comments? staff? >> no. i think we are good. >> i just want to say thank you very much for your work on this report and for you to-i hope this is a start for us to work

together and--now i'm going to go to item number 7. information item. correspondence. >> okay. thank you cochair madrid. thank you. is the mic picking up? okay.

correspondence received as of today. mdc continues to receive e-mails in support of a city wide, no turn on red policy. you received 16 additional e-mails in the past month. or since last december. in addition to that, there have been two letters addressing the issue of where bike share stations are located by the mtc with a lengthy letter, which has been shared with council members from howard chapner

describing difficulties experienced by him as a user of an accessible van in finding a parking throughout the city. i'll summarize his letter, because it is pretty lengthy. in particular, he was responding to a proposal to locate an additional bike rental station near fell street , and near grove and masonic and he pointed out, there already are existing bike rental stations in that area and he was objecting to creation of one more, because it would eliminate street

parking. and he describes in his letter many of the different reasons that parking spaces have been removed in his neighborhood resulting in the elimination of dozens of spaces. he also points out difficulties in finding appropriate parking for wheelchair accessible vehicles, because of sidewalk planters and then, the additional difficulties because of street cleaning days when parking on streets is not allowed. he also points out that parking has become