representatives of three of our member organizations are going to share in the public about the work we are doing. just to start us off, i would like to introduce a family g-- emily gasner, executive director of working solutions, and code- share of -- co-chair of sfeda. >> thank you, jenny. i'd like to thank the small business commission for giving us the opportunity to tell you more about the sfeda this evening. we are a coalition of small business assistance organization. our mission is to help low and moderate income san franciscans by improving their quality of life by small business and small enterprises.

what we do is we maintain a member forum for our member organizations an we share best practices in our expertise. we leverage resources. we share business referrals. we develop high business development services. and we act as an advocate for small business and funding in san francisco. sfeda consist of nine members of organization, la cocina, mission development agency, pacific community ventures, renaissance enter per nureship center, the small business development center, urban solution, women's initiative for self-employment and working solutions. the sfeda, member organizations have had a combined impact on san francisco. last year sfeda, member

organizations supported 2,500 small businesses which created over 1 new jobs and retained an additional 2,000 jobs. we did this with just over $1 million of city funding from the office of economic and workforce development fund which enabled us to also leverage an additionalle $4.5 million of funding so we could invest in micro enterprise and small business support in san francisco. i'd like to acknowledge the roll of the small business assistance center and their partnering with their san francisco san francisco alliance in helping us to get the word out of our coalition organization. and now i'm going to switch hats and tell you a little bit of working solutions as i am the executive director of working solutions. working solution has a lot of great sort of interesting updates to provide. but tonight, i just wanted to

share three in particular with you. we provide micro loans of $5,000 to $50,000 to small businesses, plus five years of business coaching, advicing and mentoring. to each of the businesses after they get a loan with us. the first thing i wanted to mention is that we administer the city of stran's revolving loan fund. despite starting this loan fund in the midst of a very tough economic time we successfully lent out all of the loan funds to date. we've made close to $670,000 in loans to 27 small business at a 4%, 6% reasonable interest rate. these loans have resulted in new jobs and all the businesses are paying back their loans. that means the money is revolving. $70,000 has been paid so far on these five year loans and as we receive those payments we're

able to make those. half of them are pure start-ups. those are businesses which increasingly have absolutely no access to credit whatsoever. so we really feel that that's a really great group of businesss that need our assistance. secondly, i wanted to acknowledge the partnership that working solutions has with the small business assistance center. we not only refer -- receive referral for loan candidates, we have a great partner for resources for the businesses we work with when they have questions about permits and licensing and in particular the a.d.a. compliance topic which is affecting many of the businesses that we work with. thirdly, we're celebrating the success of the city's loan fund on monday may 16 at a ribbon cutting ceremony with the mayor. i'd like to invite do you this

event. we hope you can join us and the information on the -- sorry -- the information on the event you can find in the brochures that we have handed out. in conclusion, thanks to much for your time. working solutions is a vibrant part of san francisco providing economic opportunities for small businesses. we're successfully administrating the city's loan fund. we're successfully partnering with the small business center and we hope to see you at the ribbon-cuing ceremony on the 16th of may. next we have a representative from women's initia five who will tell you more about the great work their doing. >> thank you. my name is elizabeth planning and i'm here with women's initiative and we are so proud to be part of the san francisco development alliance. i wanted to share a bit of you about women's initiative in case you are not familiar with program and ask for your help. it was founded 23 years ago to

help low income women start and expand small businesses by providing business management training, micro loans and ongoing support in english and spanish. we have served 24,000 low income women in five bay area counties. helping expand and start hundreds of businesses and feeding the local economies and all the cities of our beautiful san francisco. nearly 1,000 of these jobs are located in san francisco. on average, our clients increase their household income by 60% just one year after graduating from our program. our return on investment is 30-1 which means that for every dollar invested in our program, 30 has returned to the locallele economy. as a result paying taxes job creation and decrease dependants on public assistance. and we need your help. women's initiative has received

$100,000 from the community development block program. we have completely exceeded our goals. despite our exceptional economic impact, unfortunate lirks women's initiative has been recommended for a 50% cut for fiscal year 202011-2012. we urge you to reach out to these supervisors and advocate for full program so our program can spur economic dopment in the city of san francisco. thank you for your support. >> hello, again. to tell you a little bit of urban solutions, we are here to help businesses success. the statistic that 80% of businesses that receive technical assistance are still in business five years later which is -- compares to -- of

under 50% for businesss that don't receive technical assistance. like many of the other organizes that are part of this alinings, we are part of a network that supports businesses in accesses loans. we'll help them in gets loans that may range from $1,000 all the way up to $5 million working with businesss that are looking to purchase commercial real estate. since 1992, we've served 4 rkeds 500 clients to help create 560 jobs and secured over $20 million until loans for small businesses. 2% of our clients are from low to moderate snk households and neighborhoods and we're best known for the neighborhood revitalization work we've done on 6th street and on the western edition. on 6th street we have seen additional progress. we have a broker's license. we've been able to reduce the retail vacancy rate down from 43% all the way down to 9%. this summer we'll invite you to

the grand opening of pearl's deluxe burgers who which will be opening up at 6th and market. we've worked on the lease negotiation, on securing loans from two different city agencies. we have a green business program. so we helped them select energy efficient equipment. and we're working on a daily basis to get that store. they've already started training them. these are good jobs. they pay health insurance. they pay above minimum wage. so sometimes, right now san francisco is -- is being very, very heavily hit by cuts to the nonprofit sector. state cuts, federal cuts, general fund cuts. everything is getting cut. we just want -- want to keep in mind that we are also a part of

the safety demet. if you can employ people. they don't need to go into, you know, some of the other service providers. and i think sometimes people forget that -- that this keeps people employed and that's a real focus for all of us. urban solutions has a second office in the western edition. and this summer we're launching a program in partnership with another partner with mi conina. the legislation was changed to make it easier to get at permit to operate a mobile food business. we have to make sure that low income people have a chance to benefit from this opportunity. so we'll be training people who are residents. la con -- cocina will be making food preparation training. as we mentioned we have a green

business program. we work for free for low income individuals and companies can hire us. we help them get green certified. one of our clients we were able to save them $17,000 a year and their income was $45,000. so without those savings, they would have been truly low income and they had a better way as a result. we also send many clients to the small business assistance center for help getting permits. now, i'd like to invite all of you to come along. we're doing a tour, may 26, it's from 2:00 to 5:00. and if you contact i can get you more details of that. we'll be startings on 6th street and going to the fillmore and taking people around to meet our clients.

we're rerouting the tour because unfortunately, we were going gather on moya on folsom and 7th but there was a large fire that building so that business had to shut down as of last week. but we'll be rerouting the tour and would love to have you. lisa kerrbin joined us here and was not able to stay. she needed to go home to put her son to bed. she was here to represent the entrepreneurship centers. she left her comments with me. so i'm going to give you a few highlights from renaissance as well. she had just come back from the a.e.o. conference in d.c. she had a couple of interesting statistics about micro enterprise which are businesss that have zero to four employees. if 1-3 hired a singlelele employee the u.s. would be at full employment. and also that the median net

worth of business owners is two anded a half times that of nonbusiness honers and the statistics are more stunning in terms of the minority communities where it's for african-american business owners they are earning 10 times more than african-americans who do not own businesses. so it's very critical in helping them become business owners. renaissance was established in 1985. they have three sights. one in the bay view, one in the south of market, one in the mid peninsula. they serve 1,600 annually. and they core is training, workshops, a business incubator, capital access to technology and graduate services. on behalf of both urban solutions and the renaissance entrepreneurship center, i did want to share with you that our two organizations collectively receive over $1 million each gleer funding from the redevelopment agency to do work

on the bay view on 6th street and also for renaissance's business incubator. so redevelopment in other parts of the state isn't funding this small business development type work, but they are in san francisco and it's a crucial funding to help business develop. there's still a lot of uncertainty about what's going to happen come july. we may lose this funding. we may hang on for one more year and we may see it gone a year from now. so we did want to ask you to watch this process. if it has ended come july, there may be some other funds that come back to san francisco. we would certainly like to see some of that funding continue to support small business development. so please -- please watch it. it's going to have a big impact on both our organizations where we have a very fast contraption in our budget and we'll have to make adjustments. and also just to kind of echo

the comments elizabeth shared about women's initiative and their facing cdbg cuts and the funding that we all get was very competitive and the whole pool decreased. in our eyes the work we do ends up paying for itself because we are creating tax revenue. we are helping businesses open up, create jobs, and create tax revenue. so this is something that really pays for itself. so in terms of just in conclusion of how you can help, please send us clients. please come and visit our sites. we would all be delighted to show you what we're doing. and the last thing that i've approached regina about that we're going to be looking into is we have an idea that the small business assistance center website could develop a shared calendar.

we all put on workshops, different training opportunities for our clients. and we market them individually as organizations but we would love to have sort of a city centralle place where we would send our clients to that website and then they would find out about the workshops, all the organizations are putting on. so this would be a valuable way that you can help us in promoting the training that we're doing to clients. so i invite any questions that you have for us and thank you for your time and your service. >> thank you. commissioner, dooly? >> i just wanted to thank you so much for what you do. it's so valuable. i just can't thank you enough. >> any other commissioners? >> i just want to tell you, all commissioners that i have recommended these services, repeatedly, mostly to women,

young women who are interested in starting their own businesses and i believe i have experienced with each organize and several people so i am continuing to promote this and i'm especially troubled, i have to say that it's true, women's initiative receives $100,000 a year from the c.b.d.? is that right? >> historically we've received about $100,000 for many, many years and this year we're being recommended for $50,000. and about a month ago the recommendation was zero. >> i just have to tell you exigsners, that i find that very troubling. $100,000 for women's initiative for self-employment has such an incredible return on investment and you know, the comment that it is part of the safety net is absolutely true. and you know, i will certainly be contacting the members of the budget committee and

talking about this because i can't think of a more important program really because, you know, keeping people employed and, you know, it -- it's so many benefits an i've watched it. i just want to thank you all for it. i will be advocating for your organizations going forward. it's an investment that's as important as any infrastructure or public safety investment that i can think of. you're investing in your people and people pay the greatest dividends going forward in the future. so thank you. >> director? >> yes, so, thank you for your presentation. and i just wanted to inform the commission that, as imapply and both jenny have stated that our offices work very closely with all these organizations and the one thing that is really terrific about the sfeda is in many other types of fields

where we have our community-based organizations, they don't work cooperatively together to provide the best level of service. and you know, it really speaks to our economic development organizations coming together, collectively meeting, figuring out what's the best way to work together to provide services for our small businesses and developing, you know, area where is they have a particular -- they might have a more skilled program and then allowing another organization to work on its skilled program. so -- which service our business community much better. and it's been a valuable resource for us because when we see clients, one of the first things we really stress out is how well -- do they have their business plan? do they understand their financing before they start going down the road of really looking for a space, getting

their permits? and twhout resource, it's a valuable resource for us to be able to direct these individuals to be able to get that kind of technicalle support that we as the city agency can't provide. and provide certain level of confidence for us knowing that these individuals, the most of them will probably seek these out. and -- and smaller resources mean less capacity for thome be able to work with these individuals. but then that ensures that our businesses have a stronger footing when they start out their business. so i just wanted to thank you for your work, what you do. >> thank you. i don't see any public comments, so -- public comment

is closed. this is not an action item -- >> it's not an action item, no. it's just an information item. to provide you with a status report. and we will probably -- i mean it would be good for us to just agendize the sfeda once a year to provide updates and programming and things that they've worked on throughout the year. >> go ahead, commissioner clay? >> i would just like to give some information to the public. >> i understand your services are not just for start-ups. they're not just for people getting off the ground. they are for people who have businesss that might be five years in and really need to grow and are having challenges getting to the next level. and i just want to make sure thaw the public knows that we have these resources free and at very low cost when anyone is trying to get their business to the next level and, you know,

where it can just be so incredibly hard. so thank you for that as well. >> i support that. thank you all for being here. and for your presentations. >> thank you. >> and thanks for being here so long. >> yeah. >> are ok. next item, please. chris? >> commissioner's item 13 director's report. update and report on the small business assistance certain. update on department programs, update on legislative matters and regarding small business activities. >> commissioner, the first item i would like to bring to your attention is in april due to jane, staff member's vacation, the office had to reduce its counter hours by 40%. so our client services you will see are significantly down in terms of numbers from the previous -- is due the fact

that we had the counter hours closed for 40% of the time in the month of april to be able to accommodate for that vacation. i also provided with you the list of small business week items. so on that list, it includes the ribbon cutting for mission cheese. -- on monday morning, may 16. then we have flavors from 5:00 to 6:00 with our commissioner adams emceing as the co-host for small business week. and then on tuesday, we have the mayor and board of supervisor's recognition ceremony. 2:30 to 3:30 is the reception. 3:30 to 5:00 is the time during the board of supervisor's meeting that the awards or the

honorees are recognized by the mayor and the board of supervisors. we are be doing -- so for supervisors -- i mean commissioners, it would be great to have as many of you attend at least the reception. -- at the 3:30 or right before 3:30 because we will be doing a shot with the honorees. we have the mega contact that evening on tuesday. wednesday is the all-day conference. and the 21st is shop your neighborhood. and i want to say, hopefully you've been seeing the bus adds on the buses. -- ads on the buses. wells fargo is promoting it. we have advertisement on "san francisco magazine."

we took to market this day over last year. policy matters. i know that many commissioners are interested in this parklets. there is a new round of r.f.p.'s that wereish shied at the end of last week. updates, last week i had two presentations, one at the merchant and affairs market and castro and also the business improvement district. on may 16 right before the flavors kick-off event, i'll only be able to be there part-time. but the flyer is in your packet. i will be doing a workshop with the state bar as an educational workshop for lawyers who may -- the state bar is working for the lawyers to be better prepared to deal with small businesses who are being impacted by the lawsuits.

>> and then we will also be doing a workshop on this topic at our -- at the conference, small business week conference. i had a meeting with the golden gate restaurant association on april 13th to discuss opportunities for that organization to reach out and educate its membership on the matter. and they're exploring membership opportunities to incentivize their businesses to do -- take -- to do a cast inspection. i wanted to bring to your attention, the plaintiffs that we have been seeing recently are those -- and some submitting letters, another particular lawyer. we're now just, just encountered an individual that is operating without council and so -- anyway, which is

adding a unique twist to working and informing businesses on what to do around those that are receiving the letters. also i want to bring to your attention that the house of representatives at the federalle level -- excuse me -- congressman hunter, i believe it is in el cajon, california is introducing a bill to amend the america's disabilities act that would require a plaintiff the opportunity to provide the defendant to correct the violation before the plaintiffs can bring a civil suit. so this has unique bearing, in san francisco they're being filed at the federal level as well as the state level. and so this could be a

complimentary matter with the cast inspection with that match of the 90 days. what i will -- whatly be investigating is -- if the outreach committee will -- if the outreach committee will review this but if the full commission wants to have a presentation on legally what this may mean in relationship to our lawsuits in san francisco, then we'll work to provide that, get a presentation for the commission. i'll be brief on legislative matters. it's all written out for you, but just to let you know, i think in your packets today or you will soon receive if you haven't received it already, supervisor campos has introduced legislation to amend the health care security ordinance. so i would greatly appreciate that you read through this legislation very carefully.

i recommend that the small business commission take some leadership in terms of how we do -- how -- leadership around this. and so the legislation and policy committee will be taking a close look at this. but please feel free to talk to staff about it as well. and then that concludes my report. i won't take up anymore time since it's late tonight unless you have any questions. >> i just have -- i want to make this public record, regina spoke at the merchants of upper market on castro and i want to thank her for that. and the response that i've gotten back from membership is they enjoyed it. i mean, it was kind of a downer subject but it was one that everybody thought was well worth hearing. several people thought it was a great benefit. be