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 request to make a brief presentation? awesome. okay. when we talk about senior and disability housing we talk about folks living on ssi, the reality is we're talking about an intersection of folks that have chronic and on going mental disabilities. i want to make an open invite to the subcommittee and representatives of different organizations here in this room and unfortunately david campos left but i would like him to

come to a testimonial forum to talk about the proposal of the san francisco police department crisis intervention team armed with tazer guns during interventions. we can talk about down the roads of the why's -- i imagine people in the room have experience with people with chronic mental disabilities and with a weapon is not in the interest of folks experiencing mental health crisis. official there is also the. >> >> intersection of folks living with mental health disorders that have aging issues and people living with aids and different levels of physical compromise and people less ability to advocate for themselves and the side effects of taizing. so quickly we are

having a planning meeting tonight and we open it up to all organizations and the subcommittee and about official that wants to come and talk about strategizing and outreach and bringing members of the lgbt community and allies into the room and help to plan what we feel will be an important experience and i think i saw coalition homeless folks behind me. they were part of what was an outstanding forum of this nature in the tenderloin. they worked with hospitality house and able to get 110 people to talk to the police commission about this. i have fliers with me. i'm going to stay for the rest of the hearing. thank you for your hard work. >> thank you. let's move on to our next speaker. >> howdy. i'm not saying it

right but lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks and gay in the sro's. i think the thing is that those issues are important, but primarily what people are saying is that the housing that they're having isn't really -- is barely habitable so for me i think it really starts with just more accountability regarding the department of building inspection and on some levels the police department. i think if you have a video or if you have audio recording of somebody harassing or botherrerring somebody in a sro i don't think the police department is going to consider it serious. i mean for the most part i definitely believe that the police come into the sro's and have a derogatory stereotype of the people there. i think the

other thing too is we also have a problem with the rent board and the visitor policy. the problem is that the nonprofits they have an exemption, so it's really like if you have a problem with any of the nonprofits you have to do a one man rent strike or start filing in court and it's excessively high barrier to place on someone who is a victim. i think my other problem is is like this spaghetti bowl of the department of building inspection. like if you have -- like say you have water hammer. you turn the water on. you turn it off and it makes a noise. consider you got 80-200 people in the building that becomes a loud

noise and continuous throughout the day. for the building inspector comes out he might or might not find the problem. i mean and then after that they might or might not find the problem then they have to go to a plumbing inspector and several times it seems like i've had to call their supervisors, go to the board of supervisors to just not pencil whip people's problems. i just -- and i also think when you talk about the bed bugs, the rats, the roaches, all of those things. there's not enough inspectors for these problems and how do we get the word out to the service providers and the people who

are living in the sro's to actually understand what these problems are? and i also want to add that i'm wondering what people are going to do regarding -- like, if you go online and (ff÷ at some of the these the building -- you file a complaint under like -- you got these websites and they rank them. you can look at these websites and you can actually see several different violations. you can see them on youtube. you can see them several places and i am wondering is anybody -- what do -- does anybody eventually -vv address that? i just -- i am just looking at this whole system and i am just wondering where the accountability and sometimes you go to other places and it just seems like the voice of the victims in these sro's

are being placated, pretty much ignored and pencil whipping and i am applying the sro task force and that reminds me. the city attorney i am wishing that we could get the city attorney to be more aggressive and serious about having slum lords continuously dominate and have these sro's. the other thing too is the elevators. the building inspector -- they don't really address that. that's the state of california issue, so if you having a problem with the elevator you can call the state inspector and they normally send somebody out, so and i am just

hoping that somehow that information can be connected between the building inspector and the clients, so just so that it gets better. >> thank you. do you mind giving your name because you haven't given your name? >>i am charles [inaudible] >> thank you and you're right about the elevators and if people want to they can call any of the counseling services and we have that information about the phone number you can call. it's a state office that handles elevators. >> oh one more thing. i think there is also a problem regarding documenting cases because see it seems like it's almost like you have to be there, and then point out the problems per se, or how do you -- like if you're not there or if you're in a tourist hotel how do you make sure that room is inspected? because i am seeing there is a gap there as well so

we need to consider that. >> great. thank you. any questions? okay. we're going to move on because we were hoping at 1030 we will have city departments testify but anyone that would like to testify please line up, and we are running a little bit behind so if you could keep your comments to two minutes that would be great. next speaker. >> my name is tony rob else and with senior and disability action. >> >> i work on these issues. thank you for the vibe this morning. i feel like we really have your attention and you care in this room. one of the things that is kind of a major concern is isolation and aging in place with the work that we do. there has been a lot of points that have been brought up. i think

the sister with one of the legal referral organizations was talking about the advirsairial nature of tenant landlord relations and we are seeing that on the increase. i mean there was a woman that came into senior and disability action who is getting evicted but without an eviction notice and it's just underlying current of intimidation and fear they am very concerned with because you know our elders and lgbt are very vulnerable, and when you get somebody who is bullying you, who has that kind of landlord status, it can be very intimidating. we try to -- you know, we support tenants that

are in situations like that, and we try to organize tenants. there has been talk about elevators and contract compliance through the sro's that have -- they have contracts with the city. how do we make them more accountable? and how do we keep people housed? there's a pentive nature to a lot of the housing organizations. hey, if you have a problem you're out, so that is one of a list of things that we have on our agenda, code enforcement. working -- i know tommi you talked about working with the san francisco land trust. it's something we're interested in. perhaps obtaining a piece of land or property where folks can own

part of it where it could be theirs and have ownership. we did work in regard to the grab bar and phone jack legislation we worked with the mayor's office on disability for technical advice on the grab bar issue, how to mount grab bars because a lot of the sro hotels are old and not ada compliant so there is wriggle room there. with that being said perhaps we can work with the task force to come up with a technical guidelines about fighting homophobia in terms of housing. maybe we could get together and work on that as well. if somebody's being insulted, intimidated that is something i take very personally, and our

organization do anything -- we will do anything in its power to fight that along with other organizations so i know i have a two minute limit. i reached my limit. >> that's okay. >> again senior and disability action is our organization. wwwsd action .org and work on issues of health and other issues. we try to keep folks served. we don't want them to lose their hours. we fight cuts up in sacramento so there's a lot of stuff that we do. >> thank you and we will take you up on your offer to work with you. oh i'm sorry tony stu has a question. >> yeah. i will make it brief. approximately how many clients do you guys serve? >> are you talking about housing or over awl? >> everything. >> i don't have a number on that. our organization has

been around a long time and serve primarily elders in san francisco. our organization is the merging of actually two organizations, planning for elders and senior action network. it's a good question. do we have a number? >> [inaudible] >> yeah. probably somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000, closier to the 2,000. >> are you able to keep records or statistics about the lgbt percentage of your clients? >> not that i am aware of. we do have members and people that are very active in the organization from the lgbt community who very passionate about senior issues and they're very valuable in terms of the work that we do. >> okay. well thank you very much tony. >> okay. >> thank you tony. next speaker .

>> good morning. >> good morning. >> wow a lot going on. i want to thank everybody for putting this together and thank supervisor avalos for the work that he did to provide the lgbt community some structure on housing and i am here to advocate for myself as a senior disabled lgbt person, and i last march was threatened with eviction after 20 years of residing in my unit which is in the knob hill tenderloin area and prior to this i was a volunteer for two and a half years at the housing rights committee advocating for seniors and also for all of the community of san francisco and i had to relinquish my counseling

duties because i was harassed, intimidated, and threatened constantly to leave my unit, and it went on for one year, and after one year, which started in march and ended in around december, they were refusing my rent and they were holding my rent for two months at a time and have no reason to why. the reason they weren't cashing my check because they had to talk to their lawyer which is totally unbelievable, so with senior disability action if it wasn't for them i would probably be on the street today no doubt. they allowed me to use the facility at any time of the day and they would stay over time to make sure that i was able to get my letters out to the lawyer in a timely manner including faxing,

including printing, and they were very, very accommodating to my needs and my listening. without them i would be on the street i am sure because i had no lawyer. nobody would help me because i didn't get my three day eviction notice, and today i am not being harassed because senior disability action has stepped up to the plate to help me in calling my landlord on a monthly basis and asking why aren't you cashing the check? and findly march 1 they cashed my check. april i have no idea what is going on happen. i have been xeroxing my check and going to senior disability action with james who is here in the audience and they are keeping a record of everyday i do everything, so in case this gets any further i will have all the documents lined up, all the ammunition ready to fire, so i

have been devastating. i have nightmares actually. i walk down the hall thinking there is going to be a note on the door. i am scared. i am intimidated. i was pushed down the stairs by my manager because of trivia but it's over the top and i'm not going to go on and on but as a lgbt person living in san francisco since 1971 i deserve more than this when i pay my rent in a timely manner and i am being pushed out and furthermore a one bedroom apartment is now converted into a three bedroom apartment and they don't have a permit for it. i just discovered a week ago a studio apartment is converted into a two bedroom. they are taking a 400 square unit apartment and making it into a two bedroom. now what is this micro managing

about? please tell me. i want to know. it's ludicrous. it's disgusting and we need to do something about it mpd. thank you. >> thank you so much and i am glad you got good assistance. >> thank you. >> to fight the eviction. >> thank you. >> any questions for joy? thank you. >> you're welcome. >> our next speaker. >> jenner and i am the director of the coalition of homelessness in san francisco. we create permanent solutions for homelessness and protecting the civil rights of people on the streets. in san francisco we have thousands of people living without housing that are experiencing homelessness and that crisis is only getting more severe. we are here today to talk about lgbt seniors and what i wanted to talk about

specifically is where -- >> what is going on with the sound system? sorry. >> when they're interesting the system and what they're faced with and some of the things that we can move forward with here. we don't have a lot of exact data on this population but i can actual from different areas to talk about what we have seen and what we hear from folks when doing outreach and we conduct weekly outreachs in san francisco shelters and dialogue with folks. when we do it more formally in the sense of survey what is we find is some of the more -- >> okay. sorry. >> [inaudible] >> [inaudible] >> oh -- let's hope that's the answer. >> so for what we found in one

study that we did called shelter shock is that transgender folks faced harassment, physical abuse and verbal abuse at three times the rate of other folks. we also find in outreach on a regular basis and my partner is going to talk more about this is that you can imagine if you're in a shelter and congre gat living situation and we have a high level of homophobia in our society and inside the shelter walls and 100 =áñpeople living similar spaces folks face that in their living environment and it makes an unsafe situation for them. in particular with seniors who tend to be more vennable they also end up with another barrier and that is actually even getting into the shelter system itself, so we have a shelter system currently set up that is very difficult to access. that's a line base

system that takes -- people typically spend 14 to 17 hours to get a shelter bed and often for one night and have to repeat that process night after night and there are a lot of complicated reasons for that but a lot has to do with the care not cash initiative and the setting aside of beds and releasing them and holding them. another has to do with the design of the system and a fawltdy system that makes it very difficult for folks so for folk who is are elderly trying to simply find a place to lay their head to rest at night they're having to overcome significant barriers in order to do that. we have been working really hard to change that, and we did a lot of work in getting input from homeless people putting recommendations forward and those have been accepted by the city and the mayor's office and the human services agency but they are yet to implement those changes and today in san

francisco lgbt elders are facing the dual barriers getting into shelter. as we move forward one of the things that we identified and needs to happen is a lot of work to make the shelters safe. one thing we have been working on is get the lgbt shelter which has been funded which is just like not there yet, and so we're hoping over the next several months and i think this body can play a role in asserting the necessary pleasure to make that happen. it's several years in the making now and it's really frustrating for a lot of folks. so those are two issues. another thing in terms of moving forward and ensuring that folks have access to housing. we have a situation right now in san francisco where we have public housing units sitting vacant for extended periods of time. we have 300 units long-term vacant and put city resources into that and

get those turned over to folks and folks that are homeless and have a preference in san francisco and move up the list and get into the vacant units. another thing that we can do is make sure that the housing coming on line that is affordable has the rent dropped down by subsidizing doing some additional what they call loss subsidies or other subsidies and draw down the rent in the hundreds of units and affordable housing but not to people who are homeless and incomes don't qualify and lastly i think another piece of this is right now we should not allow one more household to lose the rent control units, and we can do that in san francisco. we can work effectively and maybe we won't get 100% but if we put resources into it and make sure at this point and a pledge from the city we won't allow someone

else to lose their rent control apartment and beefing up funds for back rent and term rarely out of work and lost income, et cetera we could have creative bridge funding to keep them in. putting subsidy money in the rent control if that's what it takes. just using creativity to make sure that not anyone else losing their rent control apartments. we talked about eviction defense. that's a huge part of it. our resources in san francisco we do have some but they're pretty short, and a lot of folks do not have access especially when you get to the legal phase of needing an attorney to go through and stave off the eviction and the resources aren't there and we basically letting them fall through the cracks and we're not investing in this and of course with the pressures and the

housing market right now that is one basic thing that can be done. thank you. >> thank you very much. any questions? >> thank you very much. >> no questions at this time but thank you jennifer and thanks for the work that the coalition does. next speaker. >> hi i am lisy marie altory and also with the coalition. we conduct outreach weekly and most recently in january and february we did a focus group of folks in shelters and captain the issues and solutions regarding the current shelter conditions so i wanted to share feedback that we got that is relevant to our conversation today and a lot of it is similar to what we heard from the senior action crew and the work that they do in the sro's but the feedback that we got that affects the lgbt aging community -- i have four points i want to share. the first is

regarding staff treatment of seniors and lgbt people and this continues to be a place of abuse, lack of support, lack of competency from the staff. no training of the staff and get a sense of the issues that affect the homeless and accessing the shelters. the second is accessibility and supporting housing needs so some of the basic ada issues aren't met and places for walkers and wheel shares and elevators and getting bunk assignments appropriate to their abilities are. this includes access to showers in terms of time, not having enough time to shower or accessible showers. a third point that we heard about and impact this is community is health and wellness and access to food so for folks with diabetes or other needs don't have access to fresh food