presentation of the climate -- family violence council's report on the status of family violence in san francisco. we all had a lot in common, working in nonprofits, not city agencies, and we are often dealing with victims. i am really happy to be here and feel their support and field support of all my brothers and sisters who work in family violence. bette davis once said that old age is not for sissies. she is right about so many things, and she was right about that. when you look at the status of family violence in san francisco, it is startling. 18,000 people who feel victimized enough to call someone. that is the city agencies, aps hot line, and that is startling. but the most startling part of that is the part that has to do with elder abuse.

and why is that? well, if we compare child abuse and elder abuse, taking domestic violence off the table for a moment, 14% of san francisco is comprised of children. 14% is comprised of people over the age of 65. cal protective services receivers -- adult protective services received 5758 cases. basically, pretty cool. the child abuse police unit has 10 officers. there is no elder abuse police unit. there are elder abuse specialists assigned to domestic violence units and to the financial crimes unit, and it is about 2.5 fte's. there are over 500 child protective workers in san francisco.

45 adult protective -- protective workers in san francisco. total budget for the city, for services to seniors, $137,000. not including aps. and let me be the first to say -- kathy and everyone else knows this. the moment you said that money should be transferred from child to adult, i would chain myself to something in here. i do not want you to take away any dollars. supervisor mirkarimi: i do not think you have to worry about that. >> ok. supervisor mirkarimi: your goal is to increase the budget on behalf of elders. we will keep the children costs and increase the elder's. >> it becomes an equity issue,

so i thought it was representing today. what we do have in elder abuse is -- we do a lot with not very much. what we do not have is a state- funded hot line. we do not have a line where you are not making a report to aps. either you are making a report or there is no one else to call. we do not have the same place to say i am not sure what is going on with my neighbor. i do not want to report elder abuse, i just want to talk to somebody. we do not have counseling, we do not have a shelter. we have a forensics city for which the city dedicates $50,000 a year. it is doing a great job. statistics, recently from the l.a. center, cases that are brought through our center are 10 times more likely to go

through the forensics center. we do not have a one-stop shop. what we do have is a lot of smart people. i hope you will hear from them during public comment, who are doing the best on behalf of vulnerable adults. supervisor mirkarimi: you are one slice of this consult but there is a robust network of institutions and nonprofits the city that is focusing on questions of aging and senior needs. growing out of that consult, why is there not a more pointed question and objective being pressed to the city to help satisfy some of these demands? i have had conversations, like

the senior tsunami that i have been to that i have spoken at, others that deal with the general health and welfare of those who are aging in san francisco, questions of safety, domestic safety from violence does come up. so why is that level of advocacy not streaming over into this level of advocacy? >> i will give you my answer and then maybe others from the elder abuse community. even among aging people -- first of all, america is agist, period. all of us, if we grew up in america, our sense of what is old is, by and large, not attractive. people who even do aging do not

think of violence at the same time. people in aging -- they have blinders around some of the issues of violence. when i was in the aging world, i wore my violence hat. when i was in have violence, i wore my aging hat. i want to be in both worlds advocating. do not forget violence, family violence. this is a small apartment. it stood on its own for a while and then was observed into hsa, which can be a good thing, but it does not have a lot of money. if you think about the hierarchy of needs, food, shelter, transportation, housing. that is where the priorities are.

in many cases, it was small amounts of dollars. if you can eat -- supervisor mirkarimi: all of that makes sense. one of the growing trend that can be denied hi is the increasg demographic of people over 55, 65, especially in immigrant communities. it would be unlikely for me to feel confident that those communities, in particular, -- that we are getting through to them on questions like domestic violence. if there was more, i think, of vocalized presence from the senior community about us finding resources -- we are working together to do that --

aimed at this objective, i do not think we would have the after thought that you think might be. in the russian community, asian community, where we hear anecdotal reports of, i think you are at a tipping point right now of the population in san francisco looking for some attention and needs to be a focused response back to that. maybe the beginning of that is what is taking place right now, but we are fielding those calls of it -- individually in our offices, and what i hear out on the street. there are tools and tactics, like a hot line, for example, which is a mainstream idea. we are silly not to have that established already. if that is the kind of strategy coming out of this presentation, then that is something that you should put on the front burner of asking for. i would not be shy about it at all.

>> the dynamic that has happened in the past in the department was that the community based organizations who received the money that flowed from the fed's to the state and then the agency'ies, they will advocate against more money going to abuse services because the plot is so small. so there is sort of warfare, a concern that aps has too much of the pot. on a good note, since we are scrappy -- harvey milk yester day said would have to give them hope. i think there are a lot of little things that can be done to put elder abuse on the map,

including a recommendation from the council that anyone getting money, service providers getting money to work with human beings needs to be trained. those people need to be trained in child abuse, elder abuse, and domestic violence. dos does have that right now. it should be across the board. children's advocates are learning about other abuse, and other advocates are learning about children abuse. that is the unique part of this council. it begins with children, moved into midlife, and sometimes we carry these things with us our whole lives, and that is what we want to stop. so there are ways that elder abuse can be integrated into things that are already happening that would raise its visibility and not put us in conflict with our brothers and sisters trying to do meals,

housing, transportation. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. i have turned the gavel over to supervisor cohen. i have been called into a meeting. in reflection of the report itself, it is an outstanding report, and indicative of the impressive work by members of the family violence consult. i want to congratulate you on your efforts and providing a lucid depiction of what the challenges are coming games and successes, and where the work needs to be done in san francisco. i also want to challenge the members of this consult to not retreat from any of the recommendations and demands that, i think, will require members of the elected body, or the supervisor or mayor, to step up and answer those questions on funding and strategy, so that

implementation is not what i think is often a footnote in the question of violence prevention. so thank you, everybody, for your work. i look forward to hearing the debrief about the rest of this hearing. supervisor cohen: before you leave, supervisor mirkarimi, i have some cards speaking about elder abuse. >> supervisors, i am erica from the institute of aging. i had of the elderly forensics center. i am here to talk about these crapulous that mary mentioned in her presentation. -- the scrappy ness that mary mentioned in her presentation.

just to give you a sense of the silver tsunami that is among us, last year, every day in the country, 6000 people had their 65th birthday. this year, since the baby boomers have been coming on line, that number jumped to 10,000 people a day having the 65th birthday. that will continue for 20 years. fastest-growing demographic are those 85 and older. while many people are aging well, with health, wellness, and mobility, many are not, and are living with greater degrees of frailty. san francisco has the highest percentage of senior citizens in an urban area in california, the highest median age. 40% of households with a resident's 60 or older are single person households. one in three persons aged 75 and

older live in poverty in san francisco. so that is just a taste of the challenge that is before us. i do want to say, san francisco's commitment to the elder abuse prevention -- for the center is paying dividends. since we started in 2008, we have seen over 300 incredibly complex cases of abuse. that has resulted in better communication between the police, district attorney, adult protective services, and medical providers. we have managed to separate many older and dependent adults from their abusers and have secured their help and assets. i just wanted to draw your attention to another effort in san francisco. not sure you are aware but the district attorney's office runs

something called the elder death review, talking about public safety. we believe there are a lot of the elder deaths that are actually homicides that are missing and our elder death review is an effort to look at potential systems failures and to detect a potentially unnoticed homicide. that goes to training our first responders. we know that our best tool is to raise awareness of the elder abuse. i hope that you saw our bus shelter, ads, in chinese, spanish, and english, our golden years should not be black and blue. we have thousands of mandated reporters and people in the public trained on how to report founder independent abuse, and we will continue to do so.

i do want to ask the board of supervisors to continue to sustain the effort of the elder abuse forensics center. we do not have the one stop shop that i think we need. what we are missing is help from the civil side. we are going to have a state of affairs conference in october, where we will bring everyone who touches the issue of elder financial abuse around the table to make inroads into that problem. thank you for the support. i hope that we will not have to be quite so scrappy in coming years. i do want to pass out to you what mickey rooney said when he testified in congress about being a victim of elder abuse this year. he asked other seniors to speak up. here are some cards talking about signs of elder abuse.

>> next i would like to invite members of the family violence council to testify. i have had a request from karen roy to move up in the list. if people could come up so that we can make sure that people are following each other. i would be remiss in not mentioning my staff person, laura marshall, who had a large part in gathering and writing the data for this report. she has moved on from the department, now at the department of public health, which means we are down one staff person. recidivism study, communities report, and analysis of temporary restraining orders. we have suffered a 75% cut in that position, so the question of staff resources will be a challenge. i did want to give time to participating members of the

family violence council. >> good morning comme. my name is karen roy, and i am the director for trout protective services and san francisco and a member of the family violence council. we concur with and support the findings of the family violence council report. out of use its experience in managing cases where domestic violence is an issue. cases are open in one of two ways. they are referred from the human services agency as publicly assisted cases, or they are opened based on client request. with regard to referred cases, the human services agency is empowered to request closure of any case where family violence

is of concern. in that situation, the case is closed by child support for a good cause. for those cases that are open the by custodial party, the case worker is trained to investigate the relationship between the custodial parent and the non-custodial parent. if the custodial party indicates they have concerns, fears, have been threatened with retaliation, or have been the victim of family violence, the case is planned. that flag triggers certain actions to be taken by the department. all information is -- regarding the custodial party is immediately rejected from every document that the department produces. the custodial parent is advised by case workers every step of the way with what we plan to do, in terms of taking the next that for the case.

the custodial parent can decide whether or not he or she would like to continue with the matter. upon request, the case can be immediately closed. as of 2009, the number of cases where family violence was an issue, 391. at the time of the council's report, it increased by 31%, to569. we are currently at 1745 family violence cases that are open and active, and that is a 346% increase, and it is rising fast. these cases are coming from districts 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11. we attribute the growth to the economic downturn, forcing many victims to open and enforce a child support -- abuse case.

and we are concerned with the growing number and looking at specific ways to manage the relationship that the non- custodial parent has with the case. we are engaging member of the and often to inform them of their responsibilities and how to manage their issues that may have consequences for inappropriate behaviors. we are working with the san francisco unified family court to provide video and teleconferencing of court appearances by non-custodial parents. we are developing a structured training module. all the red this presentation we have been hearing about training. training is key. we are developing a structured model for these parents specifically to teach them how to interact with child support as well as interacting with the custodial party. we are injecting ourselves as

the go-between. if there is frustration, anger, you need to bring into child- support. -- you need to bring it to child support. we have a pocket of experts who have been trained to manage this population and we are working closely with adult probations, district attorney's office, sheriff's department, as well as workforce development, to ensure the issues of non- custodial parents that proceed violence are addressed. i would like to just close quickly by saying the family violence council is an umbrella for communication, collaboration, and prioritization of solutions. i think the report this year, with what supervisor mirkarimi stated, should be followed up on. thank you. i would be happy to answer any questions you might have. supervisor cohen: supervisor

campos, any questions? thank you. >> i am the board fellow on aging for asian-pacific islanders. i wanted to thank the committee for providing me the opportunity to speak. the population of asian and pacific islanders seniors is concentrated heavily in the major metropolitan areas. particularly on the west coast. there are more than 40,000 seniors in san francisco alone. additionally, more than 30% of those seniors have difficulty with english. nearly three-quarters of that population, of that 30%, speak pacific islander languages. in absolute numbers, san francisco api seniors consist the largest group with more than three times more than any other minority group. cultural, financial, language

barriers, lack of community infrastructure are just a few of the barriers that exist for seniors seeking to escape abuse. api legal outreach is a social justice organization that provides direct legal services to low-income asian income or pacific islander seniors. we represent roughly 500 seniors annually in elder law cases including an elder abuse. our agency also spearheads the api elder abuse task force which is a collaborative between the zero social-service is and community-based organizations to provide multidisciplinary and cost-effective less services to api immigrants seniors. from the public safety perspective, our services are vital to the asian and pacific islander senior population who, due to cultural barriers and language, would be left to exploitation or abuse.

so i want to thank you for your continued support of our programs, in particular, thank you for your special attention to problems on elder abuse. supervisor cohen: thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i direct the program in san francisco. we go to all of the nursing homes, assisted living homes. at first, you within the the role of the ombudsman is tangential to family violence, but many elderly are often placed in nursing homes and assisted living facilities as a way to stabilize their care and offer a secure, protective setting. however, assisted living facilities bring another seven securities. many victims of abuse in the community are traumatized and bring those sets of unresolved

emotions to the long term care settings. in these centers, they deal with behaviours in a medical way, often through on monitor use of prescription medications without the ad jump of therapy. group living after a traumatizing event can be traumatic in another way. expectations of a violent response will be with staff and other residents. the ombudsman program -- we get up to 60 abuse reports a month involving resident abuse. these are the most difficult cases to handle. in addition, we are also an older americans act program to the department of aging services provides complaint monitoring and investigation. however, in california, we have an additional mandate. ombudsmen programs are also the prosecutors of abuse were victims reliant and care homes.

in addition, this abuse extends beyond ombudsmen services to the behavior of health services at the golden gate bridge the center. ombudsman, in this way, are set toaps. however, in 2008, we lost our general fund dollars. we presently have 2.6 fte staff and volunteers through the nursing home. we have no abuse of investigator. happily, we work in conjunction with aps with those individuals who are being abused in the community. as a director, and alliance share of these abuses in collaboration with aps. since 2008, this ability to coordinate meetings have run against the necessity of my providing direct his work. the most difficult cases are those where family exploitation and sometimes violence spilled over into the nursing home. conflicts around the elderly

require protective hours and specialized skills among our staff people. the ombudsman program is in the middle of these family situations, which after the victim is placed in a long-term facility. on my children who go into foster placements until safety is achieved, the elder victims are unable to go home as easily, like all adult victims of abuse in their community, their wishes to beat reintegrated into a potentially productive setting, and if they are capable, self- determination as a right. ombudsmen as advocates would advocate for such a right. on but meant for a production worker would advocate for safety before anyone can leave to go back to the community. in most cases, however, the elder bic and never returned home. detected though they may be, they need protection in a rather amorphous, uncertain life in institution. i just want to thank everyone for bringing to bear the role

of family violence. i would urge that we all think of this across all settings, including long-term care, assisted living. there safety issues there. the ombudsman is currently working with law enforcement proposed legislation to have ombudsmen and the law enforcement respond to receive mandated reports of victimization in nursing homes and assisted living. we look forward to an improved legal enforcement remedy but we are the first responders to this reported abuse. like individuals in nursing homes, often the ombudsman themselves are not physical until needed. i do have a written transcript of what i just said for the record.