multiple departments. we have also been trying to do some work around public housing and we have got legally involved in the public housing conversation as to what can we share, what can we send in the bills, what can we do specifically for our students in public housing, because such a high percentage of our kids in public housing tend to have the services not quite get to them. so we have been working closely with public housing as well. and we have also been working to -- with the funding that we have through dcyf, actually asking the question, having the c.b.o.'s ask the question, what does attendance look like for each of our students. adding that as one of the criteria that they look at when they are doing their regular reporting. so that wasn't something we were doing in the past and we are actually able to see where the

chronic students lie and what additional services we can give to them. one of our partners is sfpd. they have been cooperative and hasn't been an area they have been thrilled about but they understand the challenges that we have been faced with and they have been great partners. speaking directly to the mo

magic collab ritive. bringing together people every month to talk about the challenges of the youth. so we have made sure that the school district has connected directly with the organizations bringing these groupings together and make sure we're at the table to show our support of the work they've doing, and secondly, to make sure we're partnering directly with them and the value of the work they're doing in the community and thirdly, solving some of the issues that they themselves have not been able to penetrate in the school district, so we're giving them a front-line face and staff member or staff members to make sure that they have a direct connect from the outside to inside. and so those are all really just in addition to all of the tremendous work you guys have been doing and i want to thank you for the collaborations that have been happening and the consistent meetings you've been having. and people show up.

i think that we have put this on the front, forefront of the work we want to do. this has become a real priority and we saw some small changes in our -- actually, it was about 16% in our truancy both on chronic and habitual average. and we have some goals, now, that we really want to reach and they're going to be higher than the 16% and i think with all of these mechanisms in place and the other things people are talking about wanting to do including reaching out to the community, you know, saying to the merchants, as we've done, if you see any of our students who are out and they shouldn't be, here's an anonymous phone number you can call or these are ways you can help so we want to come outside of the school, also, to help our students not get into situations that they don't need

to be in and continue to support them the best ways possible. so thank you for the work you've been doing and being that collaborative partner that we've all being the last year and a half. >> commissioner kim? commissioner kim: i was going to add that i'm so happy that, hydra, you just mentioned the partnerships going on because i think to solve the issues we're talking about to deal with violence, to prevent it, to intervene it, to address it, we have to be able to first identify a partner, a neutral party that will be able to create this collaborative effort, this collaborative opportunity with multiple city departments. and then we need the departments that are experts in, let's say, mental health,s for, dph has taken the lead on addressing the needs overall for mental health of young people.

so creating the partnership, identifying who is the lead, and moving on with the issues that deal with violence, that's really helped us, for example, in the truancy reduction initiative. tark is an anchor, a base to be able to look at as a possible solution. however, truancy reduction is something we had to communicate to all city departments and say this is an issue that we're facing, truancy, who is at the table and what resources are available that already exist and how can we better work on a consistent basis to be able to resolve this, come up with better solutions. so i want to echo that. another thing i would say is dcyf, we've recently submitted to the nccd the 13-city plan that reduces community violence and it's an effort to bridge all different departments. we've had letters of support from all the departments we've mentioned already involved with the truancy reduction initiative

and we've identified five major goals that reduce violence and that includes legislative support, that includes education and work force, it includes community safety and community policing. it also includes really looking at re-entry services, bridging that gap for the 18- to 25-year-olds. so developing these plans and making them live and assuring there's a department that consistently tracks and meets all the goals that are met in our plans is also really important so i'd love to share the 13-city plan in the future with some of you and i know we have panz to meet with supervisor dufty and a couple of other board of supervisors to share more about these plans. but again, collaborative efforts, partnering, leadership, all of those efforts support solving this big problem. >> commissioner kim? commissioner kim: these questions are for tark. i was just curious, now that i

know it's still not been that much time, but if we've been collecting data and how things have been going at tark and maybe some of the success stories and some of the challenges thus far. >> i can give you just briefly. we can arrange another time to come. i know we were trying to schedule a time to talk about specifics. i can tell you that in general there are about 46 cases that are enrolled. commissioner kim: how many? i'm sorry. >> 46. and most of them are kristin cavallari and habitual. and there's been an estimated 36% decrease from chronic to habitual. some of the profiles we're dealing with, we're talking about youth that are multisystems involved so jdp and h.s.a. have been at the table to talk about dealing with wrap-around services and addressing some of the needs young people have through sfusd. we've worked closely with student support services. the referral process has really

been from sfpd, from the d.a.'s office, all the active partners have did referral services inside tark. >> have local businesses and parents been referring students, as well? >> oh, yes. parents have. we haven't received too many local business referrals. part of our efforts were just to out-reach and have the community involved with preventing some of the truancy. but besides that, we've mostly received referrals from parents in that area and there are parents that have come specifically with their children on an ongoing basis that just say, please help me with some of the issues dealing with young people but we can arrange a specific presentation so you can hear more. commissioner kim: i'm curious as to what has been most successful so far. >> the success has been, according to what we hear on a weekly basis, is really having the case managers engage and

identify the agencies that are already involved and coupling some of the mental health services, like, for example, with d.p.h., and offering multiple opportunities for some of the young people. the case management is one piece of the puzzle. so walking these young people back to the school environment, having the school community engaged, all of those have been the successes or the anchors that have really resulted in improvement in attendance. commissioner kim: have we thought about, for the students that aren't going to civic center, for example, or principal center, have we thought about calling those families and door knocking to see what we can do to get them back in school? >> at this point, i know that the d.a. has tried to communicate with them on that heavy hand lens. there has been notices. we've done some calls but definitely that's an area where we need a lot more staffing and

support. but we have done a couple of phone calls and i know that there are some efforts through the city that we were all going to purposely commit to per agency. so there's different calls in different ways. there hasn't been something that's been done large or systematically. commissioner kim: i would be very interested in that because i think that sending letters is not the best way to outreach. i brought this up at the last school board meeting but i have been meeting our truant students on the streets, door knocking, and i think it's the best way to reach out to them to find out why they're not in school. i personally feel uncomfortable asking you to pick them up with the police. i don't feel comfortable doing that. it's not because the police are not friendly, but i feel bad after i build that relationship with a student to have the police officer come and pick them up.

i wish there was another way to have someone come to their door and bring them another way. >> we have found a good solution is having the c.r.n. involved. commissioner kim: that's right. yeah. >> so what we've done is that some of the young people that have been truant know that -- especially with the northwest c.r.n. chris commissioner kim: that's a great use of c.r.n. >> so we've been providing the safe transportation they provide to get young people back to the center and reengage with their education. >> what's the break on elementary, middle, and high school students of the 46? do you have round numbers? >> they're all high school students. the 46 are all high school students. there are no middle school students enrolled at the moment. and the elementary students,

they're not tark-focused. >> commissioner mendoza. commissioner mendoza: the other thing i want to add is that we have parents that bring their kids to tark which was really surprising. but there were a series of things that they were not successful in doing so they brought their own children down to ask for support. >> i want to piggyback on this a little bit. i know the board of ed members know this, but the supervisors may not know that in addition to the wonderful work that tark is doing, the school district also employs at this point six -- i wish it could be double that number -- but six child welfare and attendance liaisons that work out of student support services, and nine attendance liaisons that work directly out of the assistant superintendent teams, and they are, in fact -- and i couldn't agree more that what really needs to happen

oftentimes is to go and knock on a door and say, gee, we're here because we care about you. we know you're not attending school, can you talk to us about what's going on. so that is happening, not on the scale we wish it would happen. i do know that at civic center, they have a full-time attendance liaison there who i believe is doing some of those home visits now to try to find some of those students that were assigned there and for varieties of reasons didn't go to school there. so we also have retired teachers that we have making phone calls and in some cases home visits, as well. >> colleagues, i think we've handled the questions that we've had. i want to thank the presenters. i think this is an excellent continuation of our hearing and we're glad to know that tark has got clients and to talk about the big issues ahead.

and most importantly, about the collaboration. i want to acknowledge assemblyman reano with proposition h. that created a whole different dynamic where we were investors and supporters of the success of the school district and it opens doors in both direction and it's much, much more than just the money. beyond that, i think there's a whole area of collaboration. i did not open this up to public comment. if there are any members of the public that wish to be heard on any aspect of this hearing, we'll open it up to public comment. seeing none, we'll close public comment and with that, we will continue this item to the chair and thank everyone for their participation. we are adjourned.

[beeping] voice: ready. ready. ready. ready. ready. announcer: it can be a little awkward when your friend tells you he's been diagnosed with a mental illness, but what's even more awkward is, if you're not there for him, he's less likely to recover. i'm here to help, man, whatever it takes. voice: ready. >> thanks, guys for showing up. wanted to give you an update on our jobs efforts now. as you know, the jobs now program, which was funded through what is referred to as

e.c.f., through the federal stimulus program, is due to expire on september 30. just a week or so from today. that will impact potentially, worst-case scenario, it will impact regardless, 4,127 families in san francisco. i want to repeat that. 4,127 families will be impacted by the termination of the federal stimulus. not everyone will lose their job, however. but all of them will be impacted because their employers, be it non-profits, private sector businesses, large and small, and the city itself, will no longer have that job subsidy. and that business, that non-profit, the agency will have to make a determination of whether or not they can afford to keep these individuals employed and supporting their families. i want to put in perspective the unemployment numbers just came out in san francisco, and,

again, we're wildly out-performing every other part of san francisco, and no other urban county is doing as well. that bar is pretty high or low, depending on one's perspective. we are 44,400 people that are unemployed. this program supports 4,127. you can do the math. it's an extraordinary number of people when you consider the totality of those unemployed in this city that will be impacted by this date, september 30 of this month. the question for us is what to do. we continue to advocate aggressively for federal extension. we've had the speaker of the house lead the charge, and she has not once, but now twice gotten the house of representatives to support the extension. the president has said he will sign it. we have senators from this

state, boxer and feinstein, that have been champions in the senate. the challenge is, as everybody knows, and i mean everybody knows, you can't just get a majority of the senators to make something happen. you need 60. and for whatever reason, one party seems absolutely committed not to extend this program. which is a rather remarkable thing when you consider that potentially, these 4,000 people in the worst case scenario, and we're going to announce why we don't think that worst case scenario will take shape, will all end up on unemployment, which is $450 a week here in california, versus about a quarter of the people that we employ that are receiving $447 a week, less than an unemployment check, but actually want to continue to work, that are getting the benefit of the dignity that comes with a paycheck and are supporting our businesses that get the benefit of their hard work and increase

in revenue and sales as a consequence. it is, again, beyond me that this is not being extended or at least looks like it may not be. it's beyond me that we're not having the debate around the notion of supporting a job as opposed to supporting someone when they're unemployed. if you're going to spend the same amount of money, why wouldn't you give someone a job. if you're going to spend the same amount of money, wouldn't you give someone something that they want more than the unemployment check? and you don't have to take my word for that. we have over 1,200 people that were over here at city hall, one of the most extraordinary sights i've ever experienced as mayor, and every single person testified that they don't want to go on unemployment. even if it means a few extra buck a week. they want the dignity that comes with work. and you heard the testimonial.

channel 26, i thank them. no one else seemed to be interested. they ran testimonials of these families. and the parents saying, i go home and my kids look at my differently because i have a job. and that's what's at stake here. so this is a big deal. this should be a national debate. this should be front and center about values and ideals, what it is we're trying to do with our jobs program in this country. everyone is preaching jobs, jobs, jobs. and here we are, we're about to in this country and businesses are going to lose out more than anybody else, and the economies of counties large and small up and down this state and around the nation are going to be impacted by this, and guess what, everyone goes on unemployment insurance and end up paying more money for less. so nancy pelosi gets it. most of our friends in congress get it. senate leadership gets it. but not everybody else across the country gets it. so we're now coming to a belief

that we need to do something about it, because you know we don't always like complaining about things without coming up with solutions. so we're trying to figure out a way around this. before i give you the ideas, and trent's going to come up and scott, who has been extraordinarily helpful in getting us this far, explain a little bit in more detail. let me underscore a point that shouldn't be lost on anyone. 4,127 families, of which 2,536 are either african-american or latino. i mean, this is devastating. in bay view hunters point alone, there's close to a thousand families being supported by this program. just in the 94124 zip code. just in the one zip code. this is profound. this is unemployment rates that are two-plus times greater than the san francisco unemployment rates. this is serious stuff.

that's why we are here to underscore, not only our desire to keep fighting for the extension. we're not giving up. we're doing everything in our power to get congress to do the right thing. and it's not a lot of money. it's $2.5 billion. now they're talking about $1.5 billion. we'll take it. of that, only $55 million has supported the 5,000 folks we've employed. a lot of folks criticizing the stimulus. i don't know that anyone can criticize the job creation. it's greater than any program in the stimulus. there's simply not another stimulus program, not one. no one can point out. i've challenged folks for a year and a half. there's not one stimulus program that creates more direct jobs than this. and for a lot of folks, it's less money than what they received on unemployment. if you want to help small businesses, you want to help the private sector and you actually

believe the stimulus is as important as i do, this is a no-brainer. but it's getting caught up in the politics of d.c. so here we are, recognizing not reality. may not happen. we've gotten creative. trent and his team are creative as it gets. we say, what do we do with 4,000 families that may lose their jobs? how do we incentivize them to keep people employed? and so we spent the last couple months in a parallel strategy fighting for extension and trying to come up with a creative solution, where we believe we can employ roughly 1,740 folks by investing about $9 million of local money differently. i think the best approach is not job training in an environment like this, but a job itself. so we have a lot of job training money. we're going to start redirecting

some of that money to actual jobs. and we are going to move some money around, trying to explain how all that happens, that can help support these families. which is as good as we can figure out at this stage to do, which is pretty impressive, but it requires a lot of ingenuity. it's going to require potentially the board of supervisors to support moving a few dollars around. i think it's a good solution under the circumstances. i want to just again thank scott and others that helped us design this. it's not perfect, but it's, i think, appropriate and prudent and could be very, very beneficial. and i want to, again, just acknowledge trent and his team for their effort, their leadership, their creativity, their hard work, and the budget

team, greg and others, for getting us to this point of announcement, and then to get the support we need at the board. >> thank you, mr. mayor. i'm trent, the director of the human services agency. clearly, when you're looking at a federal stimulus program -- the mayor said $55 million, we're probably going to be close to $60 million by the end of the mom. we can't replicate that with local dollars, but we wanted to mitigate the job losses, particularly for placements in the public sector positions as well as individuals who are in a non-profit, more structured transitional program. we know that those individuals will be losing their jobs at the end of the month, because we simply can't sustain their wages. we've come up with a $9 million proposal that's targeted to those individuals who are now in the public sector. and we are going to be providing a $2,500 flat subsidy to private employers who pick up these individuals who will be losing their jobs on the 30th.

all of these folks have gone through pretty intensive training while they're in their placements, and also transitional training. resume improvement, job interviewing skills, job search. we know a lot of those folks will find jobs on their own, but ç more will not. so this program is first and foremost targeted to them. it will be a $2,500 flat subsidy to employers. to incentivize retention in the private sector of folks who are currently placed there, in order to be eligible for the $2,500 subsidy, employers have to keep their jobs and employees who they currently have. many employers have one or two folks placed there. their subsidy will end at the end of september. the vast majority of them, 82% of them, have said that these employees have improved efficiencies of their business. 72% said they related in increased sales.

we anticipate that many of those individuals will stay on absent the subsidy. to incentivize that, we said that -- the guidelines will be to get this additional $2,500 for the new candidate, you will have to keep your existing employees and pay them out of your payroll. we've also created new opportunities with the new slots, targeted to families on the city's welfare to work program. we hope to place them for the first time in subsidized jobs. how are we funding this? well, one of the lessons that we've learned at the human services agency around the efficacy of employment training programs is that subsidized employment works. that we have placed, again, over 4,100 people, over 85% of whom have succeeded. they have job skills, they want to work. they just don't have the opportunity. we're looking at reorienting a rt of what we do internally,

using the money that we currently have to sustain a lot of this $9 million. we're exploring with the mayor's budget office options for additional general funds. if you look at the investment of $9 million and what that will buy us, it will buy us 1,700 job placements, which is a pretty good run on our investment. at the same time, we'll be helping 25 families that are eligible. back to public assistance if we worked long enough. we'll also be serving non-custodial parents, the extent that they're participating in the program, dads who aren't living at home, but are eligible to be served. it was designed internally but with a lot of input from the private sector. scott helped us bounce some ideas off him and so