we serve are more disproportionately homeless than the general population of the people that we serve. we also been seeing a tremendous up tick in the increase displacement activity among older adults that we serve and people that know me i have been doing this for 10 years i have a pretty thick skin and let's get -- i have to move on to the next one. let's do it. let's do it. but i have been effected when i see -- i'm a little heart broken and these people are old and fragile and it looks like all of this ellis act displacement activity -- in the last round we're were hitting the 40 year olds but now i'm seeing 60 and 70 year olds evict friday their apartments.

>> >> and it started during the last election cycle certain candidates started promoting the condo conversion give away and i backtrack. it was -- it fueled uptake in the speculative evictions and i think it needs to stop and i think the people promoting it need to be held accountable for their actions. one of the things that we do measure at the housing alliance is we measure people's sense of belonging in their neighborhoods and their homes and i think that is -- the way of quantifying a sense of blonning. do people have a right to feel they belong? do people have the right to feel safe in their neighborhoods and their homes? and i think if we can start as a city start measuring what it feels like to exist in

different types of housing, different types of programs, i think that will be a nice complement to leaders decision making capacities. hud requires the city every five years develop what is erm impediment to housing and they finished this cycle and they have identified these for senior and disabled house holds they think are worthy of this body's review. and especially around access to tenant base rent assistance and san francisco because of the sister average

agencies and ard vocating for these and we haven't done for this lgbt adult seniors and there are strukts url barriers to accessing -- to providing fair and equitable assistance to help lgbt seniors stay in their homes and i think we need to look how effectively other entities are and emulate their model and especially around the public dialogue where is the crisis in housing and who does it affect? and what is the fair and appropriate way of responding to those needs? so i'm not someone who just likes to complain. i like to complain a lot. it's my nature. but only because it's a prelude to presenting solutions, so one of the things that is absolutely critical as we have to ve

permanent rental subsidies that allow lgbt seniors to age in place and i would say that's among the highest priorities because we need to protect the housing that people already have. there's lots of models for it and i think this requires advocacy. also i am seeing a lot of need for grants to cover common space accessibility modifications. i have several households right now of people who are aging, and they can't -- they're worried about getting up their stairs. i have people with a two bedroom for $700 a month and needs to move because he can't get up the stairs. he has the legal right to modify the public stairs to maintain the accessibility to the unit. however he doesn't have the $5,000, $10,000 it takes to put in that chair lift that actually two people on his floor could use. two lgbt seniors on his

floor with permanently affordable housing in this neighborhood and all they need is a little money to do it. the city provides accessibility funds for homeowners but not long-term tenants and i think it's something that we could look at. we piloted a case management program which i am hopeful that can leap frog the housing infrastructure for the lgbt community. we are behind the curve when it comes to investing in affordable housing for the community and we have eight agencies that are access some of the emergency hotel voucher programs so open house can provide vouchers to seniors that they serve and bay area

young positives can provide vouchers to those and it's brilliant if i may say so myself and increased investment can do wonderful things. i have 100 affordable housing applications in my office and i have the ability to put those online and even though my data internal base screens people and makes recommendations for housing they qualify for. it's part of the intake process. can i put it on line and make it accessible to all lgbt serving organizations and we can dramatically improve the number of people who get into these lotteries for affordable housing which dramatically improves our access rates. it's a numbers game; right. there is a methodology. there is a metric to it that we can really help achieve. i'm also acquisition -- we're

having an rfp next year for senior housing, and i have been working with the san francisco community land trust and we identified a potential target building that we could acquire. it's primarily filled with lgbt older adults with hiv/aids and we're talking about turning that into a 55 plus building for lgbt and hiv positive people as a community land trust and i think that would be a interesting national model and i would like to reinforce what we're talking about with data gathering. a little while ago hud came in and there was a national dialogue about lgbt discrimination in housing, and i strongly advocating against their "don't ask, don't tell" policy, so what they came down with is they're

not going to require jurisdictions to gather data about lgbt folks but they will allow them to do it on their own and i think we have the opportunity here to set the national standard about gathering data about access rates for lgbt individuals in affordable housing to ensure we're getting our fair and equitable access to these resources and in my organization 99% of the people disclose their sexual orientation and we can find out those entities with higher disclosure rates and those that don't and we can develop best practices. if people aren't disclosing their lgbt status at

disproportionate rates we want to look at that and why they don't feel safe enough to do that and how safe are g they go be in the housing provided? anyway that's enough for today? >> questions from the subcommittee? thanks for that. >> thank you brian for informing us. i have a question. our average on adult and aging services and said in the next 10 years onslaught of our baby boomers like me and many others that is going to be turning 60 in 10 years. have you seen anyone that is come to your office before -- that's 60 -- before the 10 year mark or not? or really can you go into detail about the age that is

instructed to use your services? >> yeah. 19% of the folks that we serve are 55 plus and then a subset of those are 62 plus. i think the demographics of the hiv epidemic show this incredibly bulge of people reaching that age and wofn the factors and especially the folks that are long-term disability by the employers and when they hit retirement age they lose that income and this is income that kept people in their houses and at 62 it's gone over night, but they can't -- so i lose the income that keeps them in the

homes but they can't apply for senior housing yet and we have the huge gap and where we need to organize around funding for permanent -- it has to be permanent housing subsidies for lgbt folks, for seniors to keep them in their homes or provide us with the ability to transition them. maybe that's a subset five year subsidy and allows to transition them into affordable senior housing and again i can do that with the system i have built and delivered. >> thank you very much for everything that you do. >> yes and for everything and aids housing alliance has done. let's call up ross mirkarimi sheriff to talk to us and again if people can try to stay within five minutes that would help us. we only have 35 minutes left.

>> by all means. >> sure. >> if you like to break in with questions. i am ross mirkarimi sheriff. thank you for this opportunity to speak with you. with the number of leaders that are here in the audience and with those within the city i was the supervisor of district five that negotiated the 55 laguna project. the units dedicated to lgbt senior housing and it was unprecedented, not just in san francisco, but in the state of california that we were able to corral the kind of advocacy and make a very strong case with the city and of course with the uc regents who owned 55 laluna,

former extension site and able to rally support to secure the facility and not at market rate housing but significantly below market rate housing and why this was such a milestone and as a supervisor i was very proud of doing that. the location of 55 laguna shared between two supervisorial districts but it was critical for me because i was noticing in other adjacent communities like the african-american community and the japantown community which is directly in the heart of parts of district five as well that it is a fast aging growing population and that when we were looking then at 2000 because this was before the 2010 census data mid-cycle census data the birth rates was telling us in many ways -- not just the two communities and african-american and lgbt but our sense about

the lgbt community and many others that san francisco is ill prepared and deficient in their anticipation of what is jazzy collinses referenced in the baby boomer population that is now going over 55 and i can say that is so true for the jail system too. as a supervisor when it was more clear to us that san francisco although laments the lack of families especially families children over the age of five because there has been strong exodus of them and children and once they reach five or over there wasn't the corresponding conversation six years ago when this was really very important to other administrations that what do we do to prepare for aging lgbt senior population or aging population overall? this is

pre-obama health care. we were in the throats of discussing the san francisco universal or health care system in san francisco and how that would be potentially the contingency to deal with these issues demographically but yet it's still policy discussion that is requiring advocates, lawmakers, others and come together and figure out what the solutions should be and at the rate where the population is growing in its age will not keep up in demand on questions of discrimination or access to affordable or quality housing just as it is for those to retain their jobs because of discrimination or access to employment whether you're over 55 or not or lgbt or not but we know that level of discrimination is certainly compounded by being affiliated with communities even in san francisco sometimes is not

given i think the just that it should be. in our population in the jail system we pulled demographic data, and we're seeing an aging population as well. about 25% -- 20 to 25% of our population on the daily average will be over the age of 50 in san francisco's jail system. that requires of course a variable of needs to be able to prepare for those aging and perhaps geriatric needs that are required in an institutionalized system like our. we don't know because it's not classified and someone is affiliated and recognized as lgbt. know do with t on transgander and why we're working with the law center, the human rights commission, national center for

lesbian rights so we can reform policy within the local criminal justice system in the jails so we're more sensitive and accommodating and effective with the transgender population that we are seeing up tick that is in the county jail system and as sheriff i vow to make sure that we are leading and continue to lead here in the state and beyond in what those policies look like as a result of evictions and this is a whole another story and one that i had many conversations with tommi mecca and others in the audience about by the time they come to the sheriff's department there is a court order process and we have to remain agnostic in this process and execute the order itself. the elected sheriff me

and we colleagues across the country have discretion to delay an eviction if there is insufficient information about those potentially being evicted or if they're from a sensitive class meaning elderly or disabled, those suffering from illness and that has to be resolved in the court process but what i am noticing though based on my personal intervention is while the housing crisis may seem to be waning a bit nationally speaking the eviction crisis is not and especially evictions resulting from foreclosures and while san francisco is still in an economic bubble onto itself unlike most of the counter parts in california or the united states indicators do concern --

or what indicators there are and they're limited because the city is not used to keeping data on this level but on anecdotal evidence what we were able to create thanks to my predecessor and one we're trying to build on is the eviction assistance unit and before that we scout and assist the potential evictee in seek alternative housing or being able to route them without taking a position on the eviction whether legitimate or not but route them to alternative resources or referrals so that it is a tight process for them and they don't find themselves homeless. unfortunately the honperson that we have that is able to do this can't keep up with the demand in san francisco and that dominoes

into pressure into us as a last resort to see what we can do without violating our responsibility is in terms of the courts and the law so i wanted to help paint that picture from a slide that i know you're getting great information from outside the jail system, but what happens in the criminal justice system and the evolution as it affects the lgbt community both inside the jails and criminality justice and housing is a place that intersecting with our jurisdiction and i thought that would be of interesting to you as well. >> thank you. i have one question. you send someone out and the senior being evicted and what if you're not helpful and getting assistance from the city what happens then? >> unless they have made personal arrangements they could very well be homeless or find

themselves in a shelter but we do our best to extend our monitoring of their condition with the expressed goal that they have housing and we are pretty successful on the short term, and then it becomes -- we just don't have the system able to make sure they're getting the hong term housing. >> do you have the numbers? do you have any idea how many people you save from being homeless? >> a very high percentage of them and we try to rally all resources in the city. >> a high percentage -- >> to intervene so they're not. >> okay. >> but i wouldn't bode such a figure because we don't have contact after a period of time so i would be guard about saying we have it under control -- >> right. >> -- and less to worry about because i don't think that is

true. >> right. >> thank you very much for being here. i wanted to ask you a speculative question. you were involved in developing housing as a supervisor. is there a role that you see that the city attorney could take in the housing crisis, the eviction crisis that we face now? >> well, thanks for that question because i think by the time the eviction issue comes to us it's done, and in essence the train has left the station. there is very little that we can do except what i expressed to you. the city attorney i think in tandem with the board of supervisors and the mayor could do a lot more. there was a new sort of bill of rights established on the state level in sacramento over the last couple of years dealing with evictions. that has yet to translate down to county governments, to local governments to really make it meaningful so i am concerned. i don't know if it's lack luster

or just confusion that we're not more assertive in san francisco in intervening on this process how to protect those that are vulnerable but also those maybe evicted. >> jazzy. >> thank you sheriff mirkarimi. i do have a question concerning the delay of the evictions. how many or does your department have a calculation of how many have been -- how many seniors took advantage the opportunities such as acquiring the services that are before the eviction is fully executed? >> i don't have a hard core concrete number for you. and we are trying to work on the data and this wasn't data that

was kept before. >> thank you sheriff. >> if i can be of service let me know. >> we may want to meet you to elaborate more of this. thank you. i think maybe star dust and people are other organizations and heapfully we will get everyone in. >> i am with star dust and i want to thank the task force for having this for lgbt and crucial to the communities in san francisco. i would like by mentioning a report from the american association of retired persons public policy institute. it's called nightmare on main street, older americans in the orange crisis. as someone has brought this before the task force? >> no. >> okay. briefly this was the

first report that was done on the progression of the mortgage crisis and effect on people 50 or older and it could be helpful in findings statistics for lgbt seniors here in san francisco. as of december 2011 approximately 3.5 million loans of people 50 or older were under water and they owe more than the house is worth so they have no equity: 600,000 were in foreclosure and 125,000 loans were 90 days or more delinquent. thousands of americans lost their homes as a result of the mortgage crisis. i will not redo this but i will leave you with a summary of the report. however seriously delirchtacy rates of bowers and that group

is particularly impacted by the mortgage crisissed and people of african-american and others are affected. people experience a good deal of shame and in organizing with these people we call the foreclosure and eviction fighters and we recognize this process -- it's like a coming out process similar to lgbt folks out of the closet. when they meet other people in this situation and realize that perhaps this isn't just their fault somehow but could have something to do with nationwide conditions and the great recession that we are still in there is a tremendous

pipeline of foreclosures happening, and i would like to give a few examples of local cases very briefly. i know we're not supposed to have large signs in the city hall -- >> it's fine with us. >> just to give you a picture of [inaudible] who is a disabled senior whose family got a home -- >> can you hold it this way so the camera can get it? >> yes. had a home in diamond heights and there for 50 years. they were the first african-american family to get a home there and what happened that larry developed a disability and he was no longer able to pay his mortgage to wells fargo temporarily. wells fargo sold his home at foreclosure action. the first day he heard of it was the first day of the sale. he couldn't

stop it. wells fargo sold his only in 2012 and they evicted larry on december 15, 2012 leaving his brother, -- his disabled brother still in the home with a tenant. a second case is the case of [inaudible] who is mixed race disabled senior in the bay view and mostly bedridden and ill with emphysema and asthma. she's in litigation with the bank of america who sold her home in 2011. this morning i talked to her. she wasn't able to come because of her disability. she said she wanted to die in or own home. with current senior housing timelines she told me she feels like she would be dead before getting a placement and she is scared of being homeless. in another case a fellow named

henry terminally ill gay man with aids complications living in the sunset. he's trying to get wells fargo to delay his eviction so again he can die in his own home. the financial strain and displacement and services and medical services and support contribute to much or decline of lgbt seniors here in san francisco and elsewhere. we have to often institute a suicide watch in these cases due to the feelings that people have when they are being evicted from their homes. our goal is keep our neighbors in our homes. we work with a liances in this room and outside and we are glad that they're there to help people facing eviction. they're like the

last line of defense. she said no when we can't help them we send them over to you. we use occupy style tactics. we door knock on their homes from foreclosure lists that the investors buying the homes get and we find that half don't know the house is up to sale. we have weekly meetings for the foreclosure and eviction fighters. we have ways to pressure banks and investors to do the right thing and starting with action calls and alerts and many calls and emails. protest bank branches and we also provide referrals to hud approved counselors. get help through representative nancy pelosi's office and the mayor's office and the