they have been skyrocketing. it will create more homelessness. one is to cut people off of all forms of public assistance when they have other minor rule violations. i utilize these programs. i went from being homeless and unemployed to living independently as a community organizing advocate. given the tools for me, showing them how to share their gifts. i am here today to advocate. [applause] >> we have brian does going to talk about other issues.

>> i am the director of the aids housing alliance. we will talk about the needs of the lgbt community. when we get kicked out -- toledo gets to move back home. also, our issues are your issues. we are you.

we represent every community. just today down a little bit. the other rights that other people get for free, it has been making these substantial investments in trying to secure a marriage of quality and repeal the defense of marriage act. to allow us to have the dignity of our nation's largest employer in the military. all of the safety net services, all of that money is gone. we are tattered at the edges and we are coming off at the wheels. we should not have the most vulnerable people in san

francisco. it is a luxury for us. what people with hiv/aids need in this town is a job. we need a job. anybody know a disabled person that has a job here? raise your hand. where is it? there are money and services for people to get jobs to serve us, but where are our jobs? that is indicative of some kind of endemic discrimination against creating employment. transgendered people need the jobs.

42% have lost their jobs or have been denied employment or a raise because of their jobs. we have this huge problem with transitional youth because they don't have a job. they don't have the income supports necessary we have invested all of this money into two or six years of services. we need to invest in an exit strategy for folks. and we also need to invest in the services. we need jobs, and the agency's need money. [unintelligible]

agencies are going to close. what are you going to do about it? they should find a proposal for subsidized job training program. it is in the city's comprehensive plan. to continue to fund the transgendered employment initiatives, we should avoid the $20,000 cut to the only lgbt services in the city. i know my time is up. thank you. [applause] >> i was to bring the divina that will share with us about the immigrant experiences.

>> i'm a resident of district 6? i like to share some facts about immigrants with you. it is estimated [unintelligible] latino immigrants are 14% of the shelter out of the population, a 23% of all families living in shelters. the center in the north mission, case management, health care, and other critical services to 1700 homeless clients. south of market has a large

concentration. working in much needed services. immigrants face serious barriers. they lack health insurance, access to income, and living wages. access to benefits such as general assistance, food stamps. the long-term shelter, affordable housing, and affordable child care. they protect immigrants from abuse such as illegal rent increases and provide them with a defense. what we are asking you tonight

is to prepare spaces for survival services for homeless immigrants. that support services in the south of market area that provide affordable child care and services to help stabilize these families. protect the filipino world war ii veterans and many of their surviving spouses. cuts to the services will impact them because of their age, language, diminishing health, and ability to access stable facilities, including health care. please prepare the legal services for immigrants. please consider s immigrants for

" -- before preparing your budget. thank you. [applause] >> you are right. thank you. now, we are going to hear from revenue with gordon. hey, gordon. >> thank you. i'm here tonight with a coalition of community and labor organizations working together to promote worker rights and social justice locally and nationally. i was asked to make some brief remarks about the revenue side of the picture and tax policy, so my first point is that we cannot solve the budget crisis through cuts alone, and i think this is a pretty obvious statement to everybody here tonight. this forum tonight is really important to allow the community and people that are directly

affected by these terrible budget cuts to speak out and raise their voice directly to our public officials, but too often, forums like this and the other one that are going to have before self -- the discussion is constrained just to things like talking about the impact of the budget cuts, talking about layoffs of public sector workers, cutbacks to benefits to public-sector workers, or even as we see in the midwest, a tax on even the collective bargaining rights. what i think is really important to broaden the framework of these discussions and include the revenue pictures and the tax picture. the next point i want to make is just that the underlying cause of the budget crisis that we are all talking about here tonight is really a revenue problem and not a spending problem. the top 1% of the wealth holders

are the richest people. they control 34% of the wealth in this country. [applause] the state income tax rates are lower, and the federal income tax rates are lower today than they were before. in 1993, the highest tax bracket in california was 11%. currently, it is 9.3%. the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers averaged $1.6 million per year in income, restoring their tax operating in california back to 11% would bring in $5 billion to the state in revenue that would go to the state and local governments to protect services. [applause] and tax rates for corporations are lower today than they used to be. in 1980, california corporations contributed nearly 50% of the state budget, whereas today, they only contribute 11%.

closing the corporate tax loopholes that have been and will mature in the state, just in california since 1991, would actually bring in $16 billion per year again in revenue. that could help protect education and health care and needed public services. i know i was asked to wrap up, but i just wanted to end with a couple of quick points. tax policy can be progressive or regressive. the justice and community labor organizations that we work with, pushing for progress of revenue and progressive taxation as the real approach to solving the budget crisis that reflects san francisco values. progressive policies are ways to address the state and city's budget crisis without adversely affecting the vast majority of

californians and san franciscans. it is fair that people in big corporations, wealthy individuals that have benefited immensely and in many cases obscenely, by the economy and from our economies should pay their fair share to insure that our communities are able to survive and thrive in 2011. so thank you. [applause] , all right. let's thank everyone once again for their thoughtful presentations. [applause] we will now be beginning our open mike process. if you could submit a speaker card, that would help us stick to our agenda. we will be calling speakers up three at a time. if you could please be courteous and stick to the time limit, we know there are a lot of people here with a lot of things to

say, and unfortunately, we probably will not be able to hear all of them. but remember to stay engaged. this is just the beginning of the process. i would like to say that these fine public officials probably did not have to be here today, but they are here, and i think that says a lot. let's be respectful of one another. as we call your name, if you could line up of here. [reading names] i'm sorry if i mispronounced your name. but the other folks could come up here if i called your name. >> greetings to everyone who is

here. nobody can hear you. is that better? in a district 6 resident for the past three years. i have been in the south of market area. i'm here to speak on behalf of my work. -- my work at lyric. i also want to represent the concerns of the community partnership for lgbtq2 youth. it. lyric, lavender street, market street, bay area positive, lgbt center. district 6 is one of the neighborhoods with the highest number of lgbt youth in san francisco. last year, and is 15% to 20% that reported for our services

reported they lived in this district. the number of total the live in the district is unclear because of the lack of comprehensive data in san francisco, but the number is substantial. many that the partnership are working with are facing will double issues, especially transitional age. they are among the most vulnerable and among the least served populations by mainstream agencies. many have left abuses and a supporter homes, dealing with homelessness and affordable housing issues. they have a real need for comprehensive and culturally competent services, and mental health and substance use. as a result, lgbtqq youth are particularly vulnerable because of the budget cuts likely to happen, both because of a lack of culturally competent services and the lack of access for lgbt youtb at many other agencies

across the city. lyric alone is looking at cuts of 50% this year, and that is a 72% overall reduction in our city's funding from 2008 through 2009. i want to encourage you to meet with the community partnership to express our fears about the current rounds of budget cuts and for us to share with you what the agency and community partnership are doing. [applause] >> thank you. i'm going to call three more names. [reading names] . next up as oscar's mom, isn't it? come on out.

>> [speaking spanish] >> good evening, mayor and department heads and general public. i live in the mission. my son attends a lot of programs. he takes classes for guitar.

her son goes to st. peter's, and it is because of generous scholarship programs. he is going to naturalization classes, and he goes to do his homework at different organizations in the mission. without the assistance of these programs, her son would not be able to be the exceptional student that he is. he has gotten a second honor at

school for his academics. i think that the children are the future of this country, and if we cut the money for this programs, there will be more children in the street because they will not have anything to do. [applause]

this is one of her worries about children and another is about seniors, and she wants to see that programs are children and programs for see -- programs for children and seniors are so important to give both of those communities a vibrant and important service. [applause] she helps you can share and that these programs can have some of the money from the budget. thank you so much. >> i am here from the age of the

planning services council. we need to figure out how to make up the cuts because they fund essential services for people with hiv and aids who are uninsured and underinsured. two other concerns, one is around hepatitis c. the other had the honor of being appointed to previous years, the hepatitis task force. we had a number of things in it that we think funding them will help save us money down the road in terms of preventing new hiv transmissions, insuring that people currently living with it are aware of their status and have access to treatment, and ensuring that the services that the department provides are optimally coordinated so we are not spending too much money and different things and assuring people who are in health the san

francisco have access to the full range of treatments that are available. one of the recommendations in particular around preventing new transmissions to the supervised injection facility has the potential to save the city significant money down the road. the last comment is specific to community policing and how we are deploying police and criminal justice resources. we are spending a lot of money using our criminal justice system to manage public health issues, a mental-health issues, and substance used. [applause] i did not realize that was going to be the applause line. ok. and we need to ensure we have sufficient resources in our public health system so people do not have to go through the criminal justice system in order to access mental health services and criminal justice, and more importantly, they do not end up with a criminal record which serves as such a barrier to housing employment and many

other things down the road because of what is a health problem. that is a plea to enter the we are using our resources wisely. we are not using them to arrest and incarcerate people with health problems and to insure that we have sufficient resources in the public health system to take care of their concerns. thank you. [applause] >> alright. [reading names] big evening. in the tenderloin clubhouse's director. i am also a resident of district 6. i want to thank honored guests for being here tonight to hear from people. in district 6, we have two

clubhouses for boys and girls clubs of san francisco, the tenderloin clubhouse, and the treasure island club house. we serve between both clubhouses 1500 kids a year from all ethnicities. i thought it would be really important to hear from the young people, and if there are some other teams or children in the audience, could you please stand up? [applause] >> hello. i'm troy. i go to boys and girls club, and i am part of keystone, vice president, and i'm also youth leader for the tenderloin clubhouse. growing up in the tenderloin, i see a lot of homelessness, violence, and drug use, and i have a lot of friends and family members that died of violence and drug use, and most of them are high-school dropouts. i feel that a lot of programs in

the tenderloin -- they really support youth to go to schools, and they just do good. i feel that if we take money out of programs like this, kids are not going to have a place to go. they are going to go to the streets and be exposed to the violence, the drugs, and the homelessness. [applause] and basically, i just feel that instead of spending money on things that stop people from doing that stuff, i feel like it should be put into schools and youth programs because that is what really keeps the youth -- and we are a people that is going to be the future. [applause] [applause]

>> good evening, fellow citizens. thanks for your time. i am a muni drivers. i was born in san francisco, 1947. i still live here. the economic crisis is a scam. to me, i union, my pension, my salary, or any other public service worker is the problem. the problem, as this gentleman so alice tully said, is lack of revenue. this time says at a time when san franciscans are facing an economic crisis -- well, they are not. in san francisco, there are 18 billion is, including the heavyweight democratic party.

they control san francisco. sf has the 10 highest gdp of all american cities, 18th in the world. there is extreme wealth here. go down to union square. there is 100 companies that are located here. earlier, an african man was crying here, and a latino woman was crying here. that is a crime, a travesty. that they are crying of here, and these people are pandering to larry ellison. he is worth $18 billion. right? he got the city to give him all kinds of tax breaks, property, everything else. that is who they pandered to and try to tell us we are the problem. it is a crime. these police officers should be addressing them -- for arresting them. san francisco is controlled by the white, the wealthy, and their businesses and corporations. they do not come to a town hall meeting and get two minutes to a

top. larry ellison had his ear right away. they stuffed the agenda. they profit from san francisco, and i will tell you -- their agenda is not our agenda. me? i do not give a fuck about race. fat is not my agenda. we need health care. we need services. we do not need more rich white men and their agenda. [applause] >> before our next speaker, the next three people i would like to call up. [reading names] >> i am director of shelters for episcopal community services. episcopal community services. i am here