that the landlord decided that he would not let any of the buzzers work. unfortunately this man was getting home delivered meals and they could not continue to deliver to him because the buzzers were not working. this is a man who is living with aids. totally unnecessary. >> wow. >> there is also i think a pervasive pattern of insensitivity of property managers and owners to lgbt older adults. many of our older adults are living in housing that is somewhat affordable, but that has not had a major renovation or repair in so many years that the units are actually dangerous to live in.

i also want to say it's unusual in the business world that property managers and tenants have such an adversarial relationship. i know of no other business that customers and consumers relate to the same way with owners as they do in the city with property owners and managers. we also helped an older adult try to get into mary helen rogers. once again it was a very quick turn around time. they wanted him to produce a check, a security deposit and first month's rent within just a few days of meeting with him. unfortunately he was not i believe to take the unit because it was all coming way too fast. what i would like to urge you to

think about today is moving quickly. the longer we wait the longer many of our community members, people who have lived here 30, 40, and 50 years will be dispersed from our great city. thank you very much. >> thank you and i think we might have questions. can you hold on one second? i would like to know does your housing clinic only help people find housing? sounds like you do referrals to tenant houses rights as well. >> we do but we do listen which is important part and people feel alone. >> yes. >> people are traumatized by this experience. these people have a history of being traumatized just by being lgbt they have dealt with oppression in the history of their lives.

it's like a repetition of that trauma. >> yes, i mention that because i work in housing rights and we are complementing the people in the work. we don't find housing for people and i don't know many that do that. >> it's an educational workshop. we provide them with a list. we show how them how to apply and reacting to openings on the wait list. we help them fill out applications if they need it but it's basically educational. >> right. but believe me that's a lot because we can't even do that at my office because we are inundated with people with tenant problems but occasionally i will help a spanish speaking client to navigate the list and

it can be intimidating and i am glad you are doing the work. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. how many clients are you seeing and how many do you think you could see figure you had the resources ? >> wow it's hard to say because we've actually had to limit the number of people we are serve. we see people two days a week. the second and third friday of the month, the second friday of the month at the lgbt center and the third friday of the month at the 30th street senior center, so if everyone were to come and show up that would be about anywhere from 13 to 15 people a month in the clinic itself and i will see people outside of the clinic at the lgbt center where our offices are. for example if they need help with their applications or they want more

information. we have seen easily three i would say easily 300 people in about two, two and a half years. we could easily see that number in six months if there were more staff and more people available for that service. >> thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> can you tell us what demographic or any lgbt seniors coming from the city or any particular section of the city, which particular district you see them from or a flood of clients coming to the housing clinic from all sections of the city? >> great question. thank you. they're coming from all neighborhoods though i do see quite a bit from the castro area, and i am seeing people who

have historically been middle class who are actually losing their economic status as a result of the downturn in the economy. the way they planned for retirement or didn't plan for retirement and the sheer cost of housing. i think that a lot of people would not have anticipated that their once $543 apartment would now be $1,100 a month, so i am seeing a lot of people from all parts of the city and i am also seeing people who have had to leave the city, but want to come back into the city. >> right. any other questions? thank you very much ellen and thank you for the work that you do. >> thank you. [applause]

>> i want to acknowledge supervisor david campos came into the room. thank you for coming in and we will ask you if you want to speak in a few seconds. we're running behind because we had a late start today. anybody that would like to testify line up over there. everyone is welcome to speak. next speaker. take up too much time this morning. i am jason alley and the outreach coordinator working closely with our lovely folks here who are hosting this housing forum in addition to a group of community based researchers, advocates, and alleys who are concerned about the challenges facing lgbt seniors here in san francisco. i just want to sort of talk a little bit about housing in relationship to just the whole rooster of health and aging needs in the city through the

lens of an important project coming this week so on line survey of lgbt and abling issues is being launched this week and we need as many people to help spread the word so if you're 60 years or older, if you identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and have relationships with the same gender and live in san francisco we want to hear from you and the advocates working on the survey have done a great job of the questions and taking the pulse of the housing and aging services needs are of lgbt san franciscans and we need everyone's help spreading the word, getting participants to

take the survey. if people have challenges accessing the survey there will be paper copies available and available in five languages as well so english, spanish, chinese, russian and that gala and it's an important study and. >> >> that we take stock of important issues for the community so i think this as the most closest we're going to get to a census around lgbt aging issues here in the city, so what i have here are sign up sheets. i'm going to pass them around through the audience. again if you're 60 years or older, lgbt living in san francisco please give us your contact information. we will get back to you about information about the survey, or if you work with seniors who are lgbt aging here

in san francisco and if you could help us spread the word we will like your assistance in that regard as well. >> thank you. any questions for jason? thank you jason and feel free to pass those around. i know people have been coming in during the hearing. i want to introduce us once again. we are members of the housing committee of the task force and david campous was one of the sponsors of that and we investigate the needs and concerns of lgbt seniors in terms of housing, just in terms of housing. there are other task forces looks into the lives of lgbt and we are tasked with what we can recommend to the city to help seniors for lgbt and we appreciate your

comments. if you have ideas what you think we should recommend feel free to state them and we appreciate any hearing and i i'm going to keep the hearing going and i know we have people that want to testify. next speaker please. >> hello. my name is john edmond abraham and i feel incredibly blessed to be here with the kind of support. i have been with aids since 1984 and i am still here which is at the get go is a great blessing until you find yourself in a position where for one reason or another you could be easily forced out of your housing, and

it turns out these wonderful section eight vouchers, the hoppa voucher that i got, and i was the first section eight person in my building. now, there are many. they're elderly but it's no longer economically a good deal. it's a good deal to get them to pay the rent because the rent is always paid but now they can get a thousand dollars more for a one bedroom apartment by simply making minimal or just improvements. some improvements need to be made because the city mandates certain things be changed. in my building the woman lies her way through her conversation with me making up the next most reasonable sounding excuse, so my problem is with management in the building where the elevator

is out of service for 10 days and i'm on the fourth floor, but it's five flights up to my apartment, and if i need -- i mean i'm alone and i have a pacemaker now. it's very difficult for me to negotiate doing laundry which is now practically unaffordable, and carrying groceries up the stairs when the elevator is broken. i feel -- i am grateful for my apartment, but i feel kind of closed in you know, and most recently we got these electronic keys instead of a key, and she wants a 50-dollar deposit for

any additional which i couldn't afford the increase in the gas dryers, but this woman wants that much to get an additional key. i live in the back of the building so i can't throw the key down for someone to come in. you can't buzz them in anymore. so it's just my difficulty is with management, and regardless of what has been said -- i mean i really appreciate the age legal referral panel. they have been there in years past for me and for friends and loved ones that are no longer here. it's difficult to get a telephone call returned for months sometimes at a time. i have to keep on them. i guess i had no idea they were so over -- i thought we were being felled

with aids but sounds like the work load has increased and i am sorry it's about housing. mostly with me it's housing, so i can appreciate that and it's just the little things that mount from the increase, and you have to use an electronic card to use the gas dryers in my building now. used to be you could use cash, coins and they thought it would be great to have the electronic cards and now you need the electronic key to get in the building, but on my floor, the two apartments at the end of the floor where the bathrooms and kitchens were being demollished since the mid-february and saturday they were tearing up the floors to restain them and polly iewr thain them. that has been

disruptive. they take sledge hammers to the walls and i found out -- at least in these two because it's the first time i tried. these two apartments did not apply for permits and my assertion is they never did, but whenever they wanted to demolish an apartment and get increase in their rent therefore for doing that, and no appreciation for the impact on the people, on the residents living there, and no appreciation for the impact on the tenants who can't -- who don't have the use of the elevator because a decision was made to not call the repair man and pay the extra what he or she might want to repair it over a weekend or a holiday. that doesn't figure in. the heck with these old people or

anybody else. it's one thing to br dot compeople and people that can afford and they treat it like a dormitory. loud, loud all the time, and it's almost una tenable. i am getting older and i like it quieter and i listen more to classical music than the heavy base oriented pop music that comes out of -- sludge really, that comes out of their speakers, and affects by every moment in my apartment to when i have to leave and come back and it's still there. it's still there and to involve the resident manager who thinks it's reasonable. it's a reasonable amount of noise and they have until 10:00 o'clock until it becomes a police matter. well,

it's very difficult now because i am older and i have different issues now, and what was a great blessing with this manager, the building -- the company that let me live there in this wonderful building. it's upside down now in my experience. >> can i ask you have you been to one of the tenant organizations for counseling? perhaps there are a number of counseling organizations. >> a lot of people think i need counseling. >> no. in terms of the tenant, the buzzer and the key -- >> yeah, the switch over to the electronic key happened this past week. >> okay. >> and i have with the aids legal referral panel an ongoing conversation that the woman tried to get back to me, and i

was out, so i called back, so gives them some slack -- >> no. everybody is overwhelmed clearly. i suggest that you do talk to her about this and this could be something that could be resolveed. >> maybe. and now the other thing with my pacemaker and the fact that i have for somehow over the years -- i don't have any evidence of the aids virus in my body or hepc and this pacemaker made me a lot more difficult. i mean i seem to have myself again. like you have to reinvent your life once you get healthy and i feel that but i feel if i bring one more thing to the aids referral panel they may show me the exit, but they're great

soldiers. >> yes they are. >> i don't know if they are listening to me anymore but they're great. >> well, i want to thank you -- anybody have any questions? stu? >> can you tell me who manages or owns the property. >> martin a gagler and they turned what is a getty building into a marvelous. it's right in front of jefferson square park and it's a great building but the management sucks. >> any other questions? >> thank you. >> okay. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. our next speaker -- [applause]

testing -- unfortunately it's this one. >> [inaudible] >> i don't know how you switch it though. this mic works over here. [inaudible] >> as long as you don't mind and i'm not city staff. >> [inaudible] >> at least people can hear me. >> no. it shows. it shows. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. >> thank you tommi. hi everyone. i am jessica layman and director of san francisco disability action and we educate and mobilize seniors and people with disabilities to make change in san francisco around health

care, housing, all other issues that come up. we are very delighted to have jazzie collins works with us and we are excited about the task force and on housing and thank you for your work. i wanted to speak today about a study and work that we're doing with seniors with disability and sro's. we have a couple of people to talk about some of the other housing work, but we have been aware this has been a real problem. the issues affecting seniors and people living in sro hotels and we worked together with the senior action network and one that merged to become the group and along with the collaboratives came together and surveyed about 150 seniors and people with disabilities living in sro hotels and were in various

languages. san francisco what more than 500sro hotels and 19,000 units and i am surprised by that figure and the estimate is and this is a couple years old there are 8,000 living in sro's. we don't have data how many are lgbt but we have reason to think it's a pretty large proportion and one thing that we do know is that one of the survey results was that seniors and people with disabilities in sro's and two issues were isolation and safety and we know they're issues facing lgbt seniors so the major concerns were personal safety, and bed bugs and other infestations, noise, cleanliness, health and safety and harassment and disrespect. unfortunately it really covers the gamut. so once the survey came out we presented it to the board of

supervisors to make sure people were aware of what is going on in the city and we introduced legislation last year on two of the recommendations from the report which was getting grab bars in common bathrooms and people can be safer and having working phone jacks in the law and it was enforced and contributed to the isolation and problems with safety, so we had hearings last year. i think in the fall and winter of this year and we are delighted to say that legislation passed urkts nan mousily and pass by the mayor. >> that's very good. >> thank you for that. of course now there is more work to be done to improve living conditions for seniors and people in sro's i don't want to go through all of the recommendations because i know you're short on time and some

are with enforcement and working with department of public health and others and there are consequences when landlords let things go. there are other new policies and having desk clerks in sro's, training for staff, physical accessibility and elevators and that came up today and that is a big one, access to nutritious food and what outreach can we do and people can getting access to benefits and disaster planning and long-term we have recommendations in the report and make sure people can form a tenant council and not attended by management so people can speak freely, having on site staff and locked mailboxes and wellness checks or i'm ago door hanger and i can get you the

survey and better yet ask for the report if you're interesting in seeing that. our next steps we have several committees working on the issues and we are inviting other people here today or watching on on tv today and one issue is food access and we have that as far as the gentleman talking not able to get meals delivered and that is an on going issue in sro's. we have another committee on enforcement and elevator maintenance and looking at evictions from nonprofit hotels and an issue that doesn't get a lot of attention so that's what we're working on right now and i will stop there. >> thank you so much jessica. any committee members have questions? i am sure we have

lots of questions. >> thank you very much. a couple of things. you mentioned elevators. there are a lot of specific things that you mentioned but i was thinking this morning i left my building and 150-yards to the elevator and it's not working and i'm on the fourth floor. i can do that. i can navigate that. it's a challenge, but is there enforcement capacity that anybody has to -- so people i hear can't get up and down in their buildings because of broken elevators. >> department of public inspection issues notices of violation. unfortunately those don't get responded to in a timely manner that we would like and we have been working with them to get them fixed faster. the sro's a lot of them are incredibly old and sometimes

it's legitimate and takes a couple of weeks to get the parts and these are different from modern elevators and that is a problem and we feel people struggling to get down the stairs and risky and people do it and people physically can't and stuck in their rooms for weeks or months at a time. that's why we have a committee on it. there is no easy solution but we are hoping to bring the heads together with people that experienced this and figured out what to do. >> great. >> good morning jessica. doing the surveys was there a demographic of the hotels that the seniors are living in such as floor wise or second from the lower floor to the highest? >>i am glad you bring that up. i don't believe our report documents exactly what floor people live on but that came up as one solution to the issue of

elevator maintenance and thank you. as far as looking at when somebody is moving into an sro can they get the option of living on a lower floor if that would be an issue? and this is a little complicated too because we don't want to spread the idea that if you're a person with a disability you necessarily need to live on the ground floor or want to and have property owners or managers making that decision for people and we know that happens often but if we can make that another question they ask or a choice or if a room becomes available and they have the option to move down. >> one another question and folks living there and the managers will use antigay epithets and call them fag and

queer and i am assuming that is incorporated into the training aspect you're talking about and homophobia training is provided. >> yeah. that is definitely on the to do list. >> okay. good. glad to hear that. thank you jessica -- oh sorry. >> excuse me. do you have any indication or knowledge of the number of sro's that are being sold and being converted into a different type of house something. >> i don't have those numbers. i'm glad you brought that up. it's something we're looking into. >> thank you jessica and thank you for the work that you do. okay next speaker. >> hi i am carmen and i apologize beforehand. this is something i should have asked to add to the agenda. it's off topic but can i make a