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tv   [untitled]    June 1, 2011 12:00am-12:30am PDT

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this. thank you. [applause] thank you. that was a great way to end. i did want to acknowledge some of the hard-working dpw people that are working hard to keep things safe and clean every day of the year. a lot of people working really hard every day who are really committed to the state of repair of our city's infrastructure. so that concludes the conference. for those of you who are not sure if the city is in bad -- city streets are in bad shape, you can head out to grove street. we will be having a media event there. we will all be available here for questions afterwards. thank you all for coming.
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>> is one that probably a lot of you don't understand the intricacies of it. a good portion of that goes to police services, social services that you value the most. and what i try to do in spreading the word with our commissioners, the department heads, and with you here today, i gave three general principles to guide us. i want the city to be safe. not only safe in the public safety sense, but in the core level of social services safety net. how one of the city to be solvent that we have programs that we can afford to pay for. i want the city to be successful. that we celebrate and try to support all of the diverse things that we do to bring visitors here to keep our children here and keep families
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wanting to come and go up here. safe, solvent, and successful have been the principles i have shared with city staff and commissioners as we began this budget process. tonight is all about listening to you first and foremost. and getting that in but that we always said we have a value. so i will be listening very carefully to what you have to say church tried to make that balance. the $380 million balance is not that easy to do. there will be decisions that we all have to make. and we have to come together to make those decisions of it we have a balanced budget. i will have my ears open and listening to what everybody has to say. we'll have a budget that i believe is an honest one.
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[applause] >> and this is one of our amazing public schools in the city of san francisco. i want to thank them for hosting us here tonight. i want to introduce the emcees for tonight. we have the united players. and we have anaconda, and at the camp here in our district. i turn it over to you. >> thank you for being here tonight. this is the first step in the budget process. we are beginning early. we are being engaged. there will be a short time for public comment. it will be a short time. if you are not able to speak or bring your issues to the table, there will be more of these town halls.
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there will be the budget process. the more we are involved, the more we can work with the mayor and the supervisors to make sure that the budget reflects the priority of said francisco. one correction is that the translation today was provided by the office for immigrant affairs. [applause] >> how are you? thanks for coming out tonight. we want to thank greg wider. i did not read that correctly. the budget director. i could not read my own handwriting. chief good when from the police department, please be respectful. these people have given their time to come and be part of the
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process. from the department of public works and barbara garcia from the department of public housing. i am new at this just like everyone else. sorry for making those mistakes. even though all of you can't speak tonight because of the limited time, it is important that we remember the example that i can think of in recent memory with the community came together to change how the cpmc was going. and i think this is the first step in the community engagement, you have the voices to make those changes. [applause] >> in the last couple of weeks,
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supervisor kim's office has been holding meetings. a lot of the meetings are city- wide. if you live in a different neighborhood, it might resonate with you. there will be the committee open mike. if you would like to speak, there will be people walking around the audience. waved them down and let them out of you would like to fill one of those out. the open mic time will be short. there are differing viewpoints a different priorities to how people feel the budget should be allocated. we are here to work together. when someone is speaking, do not interrupt them. be courteous. we are sorry, but you need to
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cut your comments short. be direct and to the point. if you don't want to come up and speak, you can write your thoughts down. those will all be tallied had a documented and given to supervisor kim and mayor lee. we will call up angelica to give us a short budget overview. [applause] >> first off, we should give everyone in this survey and for being here today. this is the people's town hall budget. this is your time to speak. every year, the city budget is one of the most important decision making groups that the
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city of san francisco makes. decisions that are made about the city's money impact -- the budget is created in three phases. there were few handouts. from march to may, the mayor makes those proposed budgets and creates the entire proposed city budgets making changes along the way. from june through july, we come out to the board of supervisors. they get the mayor's budget into it to make changes. how many of you have been the the city budget?
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i hope you will all come out during gym because we will meet you there. we are very excited that mayor lee has partnered with supervisors. we all know this is the first time we saw the marriage to a budget town hall. this is the first time we have seen the mayor, right? [applause] again, there will be many opportunities to be heard at the board of supervisors, so don't feel like this is the only place. there will be a budget and finance committee hearing in june. again, this is the first opportunity for you. we really want to make sure that we hear from you. the mayor wants to balance the budget. we want to make sure it is not
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balanced on the backs of immigrants, people of color, homeless. we want to see a balanced budget, not on the backs of district 6? can i hear power to the people? [applause] >> they gave me another name. we would like to welcome maria sue. hello. we will hear from larry from seniors and disabled. >> thank you all for coming. why are you asking me to come up here in a speech to the seniors? you were broke a few years ago after working all of your life.
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i will tell you, without the family service, without the housing clinic, i would have been in the streets. after working all of my life. i want to say thank you to all of you that have the nerve to come up and ask the mayor and the staff to please consider keeping those units open. there are people that don't have food on the weekend. they will cut out the food program to the weekends. they have nothing to eat. they need someplace to go to claim himself a. -- clean themselves up. they connect you to the community.
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to get clean water to drink, to have associations with somebody that might be able to tell you something that is helpful. he never was without a job. after three operations, you are stuck. you are still stuck. i would like to say thank you for the opportunity to come before you. i could not believe it, i was
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broken after working all my life. the family service, those people are doing a great job. thank you. [applause] >> next, i like to call maria to speak to us about family and youth issues. [applause] >> good afternoon everyone, my name is maria gomez. i am the mother of a family of three children. all of my children have an iep.
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[speaking spanish] and i have a child with severe artisan -- autism. he needs to speak with sign language. [speaking spanish] and i go to a lot of different programs, principally to the center of resources. and also [unintelligible] [speaking spanish]
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>> i go to a lot of different programs, i think you understood the ones she said. i don't speak english. and i also receive mental services. >> i have had a lot of difficult experiences. it has been very hard for me to find help. ok. even asking for help in the agencies that speak spanish, it is hard for her to ask for help. >> [speaking spanish] >> and i have come up against a
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lot of discrimination. >> [ speaking spanish] >> ok. and i feel that they don't support the people very well. >> [speaking spanish] >> and because it has been so hard for me, i want to thank all of the agencies that help our children. because they are the future of our country. [applause] and that was, "thank you very much for your attention. please have a good day."
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[applause] you have to go where they can see you, ok? a little bit more. >> thank you for being here. my sister has been there. [unintelligible] i think if you take the money away from them, and there will be no more programs.
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does all i have to say. [unintelligible] >> thank you, maria and oscar. >> [unintelligible] [inaudible] [speaking spanish] >> ok. all right. [applause] and you know, i encourage you to
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share that. we will hear from sro tenants with david. [applause] >> my name is david lewis, i am here representing the city. i am here representing -- these decisions need to be smart. treatment can cost so much more. consider these trade-offs. community health services verses domestic violence.
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affordable and supportive housing programs verse is homelessness spearheaded -- homelessness. it stands for a single room occupancy hotels. most of these were constructed after the 1906 earthquake. they were built to house the workers after the quake. they are home to over 500 families and 1000 children. just in the area alone. to some of the city's most vulnerable residents. after many, these are a safeguard to homelessness, and
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they are also a step up and they step out to people that have been homeless. please remember that the true cost of homelessness is not just found in the service issues, it is in the impact of the quality of life. helping to move people out and stay out involves a series steppingstone programs. the begin with shelters, case management, they include advocacy programs coupled with a function of behavioral health systems will help get the -- that will help get the seniors into the community where they can help themselves and help the community. thank you for your time.
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[applause] >> think you so much. -- thank you so much. we want to bring up erica to share with us about homelessness. >> district 6 has the largest population of homeless people in the city. it resides in the south of market area. it is the largest proportion of other social conditions often linked to poverty, overcrowding, disability, mental illness, addictive disorders, and more. 9000 different people, into small shelters.
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three of the shelters were located in district 6. after the recession hit, the list went up. it has fluctuated between 140 and 175,000. over half of the resources have been lost citywide. 5 resources centers have closed, and one has opened up. they are the primary solution to homelessness, and san francisco has demonstrated a strong commitment to affordable housing. some of the support of housing for these have maintained their housing. this is known to have saved the city $20,000 and other public
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costs. excuse me. at the same time, how funding in san francisco has been cut $1 million. district 6 is home to a disproportionate number of individuals that are suffering from mental illnesses. many of them self medicate and perform serious addictive disorders. they have to mental health clinics that are privately run. due to over 32 million in reductions to substance abuse, mental health, and funded programs in the past four years, the mental health system does not have close to the capacity to serve district 6 residents. there is a two-month waiting list.
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any reductions have his darkly had the impact in cutting off assistance or reducing benefits. 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.
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[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.
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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 of our nation's largest employer in the military.