eight parties that were identified for funding by the stakeholder groups. these are low threshold drop in- based behavior of programs that include crisis intervention and substance abuse treatment, employment services, basic services like restrooms and a place for folks to go. we are slated for a $195,000 cut, which would result in cuts to and decreased services at sixth street. i know my time is short and there are other folks here to talk about hospitality house. we'd really appreciate your consideration in restoring this funding for us. thank you so much. [applause] >> to the esteemed memberings of the board of supervisors, to my hospitality family.

my name is shirley deholme box and i'm a native san franciscoian. i'm going to read my testimony because of my ailment, my mental health and physical ailment, so bear with me. i will first preface my testimony with the face of homelessness has changed, and no one can stand before you and say that they will never experience homelessness. all it will take is one illness, one scandal or any other life-altering event that can change that face from me to you. yes, i was one of the homeless. the same person who provided san francisco with successful strategies to combat gang violence and founded the first gender-specific program for girls in gangs and a group home for girl gang members, just to

name a few. i left social services to make money in real estate, and like my father who died, i made bad choices. as a result, it started a downward spiral in my life leaving me one community health worker away from destitution and death on the streets of san francisco. after previously owning property in blackhawk, sea cliff and other golf course communities. i share this brief synopsis of my life because a c.h.w. workers named ron sanders in the transition clinic in the southeast community health center, under dr. shra shavit is one of many in instrumental in aiding me in my recovery of my plight of physical and mental illness and of course homelessness. the day i made the call to the health center under san

francisco was -- >> thank you very much. thank you. [inaudible] >> every member of the public is afforded the same amount of time. thank you very much. thank you very much, ma'am. [inaudible] >> thank you very much, ma'am. [inaudible] >> next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors, lovely to see you. i want to say hi to malia and scott, laura guzman, i'm your representative of a local board but today am representing hospitality house. here we have done an incredible job about your -- with your help with the mayor to prioritize what is dire. we cannot cut any homeless products. you just read our report of the

homeless count. people on the streets are growing. it's your number one voter issue. the costs will continue to tripoli indicate and cutting hospital -- continue to trip licate and cutting the hospital funds will hurt. we do an intervention in a community setting. the hospitality stations are for people who are homeless infections would increase because they can't have access. we can't do that. we'll have a larger deficit for d.p.h. i urge you to keep the priorities in line with the mayor who was one of the most amazing advocates to protect the most vulnerable, and we count on you because you've done it every year. protect the house, the homeless outreach team and the only room we have to put homeless people. thank you very much. we need to be whole. thank you.

>> good afternoon, my name is rosanna salazar and work at the sixth street self help center, hospitality house. a few years ago i was having trouble finding work and went to the hospitality program and helped me find work as a bike messenger and was a great job. i got to know the city and enjoyed it. i've been employed since then. after almost 15 years of working with people, two years ago i got a job at the self-help center when we opened. in the 1980's it was scary and couldn't walk down sixth street. now we're there, there are less people in the alleyways and less people on the street. if i see somebody on the street, i give them my card, i don't give them a quarter and tell them to come to my center and let me get you a house or something. i am proud to be part of hospitality house. i can sleep at night. i feel what i do, i'm not selling a product and i have a

heart every time i go to work. that's what i have to say. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. after my comments here today in relation to the cuts that are being made by the d.p.h. for the central city hospitality house, my name is eric sullivan, i am a board member and also the treasurer of the organization. i think it's important to understand that these cuts don't tell the entire story. the department of public health is proposing a cut of $195,000 from our organization. but we also face additional cuts and also reductions in our revenue and increased costs. on the revenue side, we face not only this cut but also cuts from federal funds. on the expense side, we have higher costs each year, this year in particular we have much

higher costs from workers' comp as well as other health care costs. so the funding that we've been receiving has actually been level funding over the last several years and this cut is significant because we have higher costs but our revenues are decreasing. the affect of this cut is significant for several reasons. it will directly impact the ability for the hospitality house to deliver its services. there will be a direct reduction in the number of hours that we'll be operating from 12:00 to 8:00 every day. it also will reduce the services available to those on the sixth street corridor from our sixth street center. the cuts will directly affect as many as five of our peer staff positions. in addition to these cuts, there is a ramification from the city's standpoint. there will be a direct affect to the city from these reduced

hours and these reduced positions. there will be costs related to the psychiatric emergency services admittances because the critical -- >> thank you. next speaker. >> supervisors, i am lucia summers, president of the board of the central city hospitality house and live at 2393 filbert street in san francisco and supervisor mark fair else's district. a little while back when the candidate mark farrell knocked on our door and asked for my vote, i told him how i seem to regularly come down here to city hall to speak in front of this agust body which he was aspiring to become a member. i come to beg and plead usually to restore the funds that they

are threatening to take away from hospitality house again, so here i am, supervisor farrell. the yo-yo money game, i call it , 3 1/2 years ago the city said yes, yes, please come and set up a drop-in center just like you have, a self-help center, just like you have on the tenderloin on sixth street. now they say to us no, no, with you can't have the money to operate either of the centers properly anymore. i told you then, supervisor farrell, how all the time and money we spent in organizing these efforts to fight the cuts is exhausting and decompleting of our energies, and instead should go to serving our clients. so up and down we go just like a yo-yo. more importantly, i told supervisor farrell, i have my neighbors on pierce and green,

on union and chestnut, and they know all about hospitality house and they respond to my solicitations for letters of support in times just like this, and you will start, all of you, to get those letters. why is this? well, they know that whether they're going to work or to the symphony to see my neighbor -- >> thank you very much. thank you very much. thank you [. next speaker. >> hello, my name is brenda barros. i hope everybody is listening. i know a lot of people feel like they were ignored when they were talking, so please pay attention. this is not directed to you barbara, to me, this is coming from the mayor's office and the one i'm holding accountable for this. i asked once before, which side are you on?

are you on the side of the working people? are you on the side of the sick people in san francisco? or are you on the side of big business and big money? it seems the mayor has made a decision which side he's on. i hope you continue to fight for public health. i know you care about it as much as i do. i worked with you a long time. it will come down to the supervisors making a choice on what they want. either they want a public health system or they want a destroy the public health system where people get half care, unsatisfied workers because they're not being paid properly, and all these other things. all these services that people have been talking about, we at primary care, we need these people to do our job. so you can't cut them and then expect to have the same system. it's not going to work. [applause] >> excuse me, before the next speaker, i need to ask folks to

please respect the rules of the board chamber, no applause, no expressions of opposition. i don't want to have to recess this temporarily until folks understand that, ok. i please ask you to respect that. next speaker. >> thank you. thank you, brenda. my name is gary kuch, a psych tech at san francisco general. and i'm here today to voice my opinion about the sheriff's department possibly losing the security detail on the hospital. i've worked with those guys shoulder to shoulder for about 10 years now. and they have a real tough job to do. they're asked to do a thankless job, controlling people that are temporarily out of their mind, without hurting them. unfortunately it's not a glamorous job that gets a lot of attention but a very

difficult job that they've developed the skills to do over the years that i don't think can be matched by a contracted out security unit. so i'd just like to ask you guys to really look at that carefully and let's keep the sheriff's department in the hospital. i think it's a good idea. thank you. >> this winter we went to the alleys looking for people without blankets in order to look for space for them in the shelters. without our intervention,

hypothermia and death could have followed. last week my partner and i responded to a man calling for help on the sidewalk lying in his feesees buzzed by flies two days when we drove up. he was unable to walk and we helped him to the van and helped him shower and furnish him with a wheelchair and clean clothes. with our assistance he completed detox and was in a long term program. without our assistance, he might have died. these are two quick anecdotes. i can talk hours with the accounts and actions 6 our team and how we intervened to preserve lives of the city's residents and doesn't even begin to address the drug overdoses or suicides we may have prevented and helped stem the drain on emergency rooms and ambulances that heavy use can cause. it's probably a sound economic policy to allow people to die in the streets but isn't an ethical one. it can't be san francisco's. please restore funding for the outreach team.

>> next speaker. >> my name is hugh gregory from the outreach team since november of 2009. i must admit my 10 years working in this field, never have i worked so intensely with the homeless population. i've experienced very deep and intense interaction with these people. many do not understand the dynamics of outreach but is a crucial part of getting the homeless engaged in services. some clients actively seek out shelter and request services, but large majorities are so mentally ill or ingrained in their homeless lifestyle, outreaching is the only way to establish a connection. in situations like this, we take a long-term approach. with this method hopefully by initiating contact with a client, we can aid, persuade he or she to utilize shelter or b, maintain contact with the client on the street long enough to process the necessary paperwork to successfully house

them. among other things, we serve as a buffer between clients who are high users of county and city medical services. all too often emergency services such as ssfpd, fire paramedics respond to what essentially are social work problems in the community and do not require high cost rapid response emergency services. essentially among other functions we serve as a mobile urgent care team for poor and homeless people in san francisco. we routinely assist clients of both upper services to critical health care, appointments, support them to get their medications and provide leakage among shelter providers, mental health providers and ongoing care. supervision is provided which help provide clinical rational and helps those in targeting most in need and can't be transferred to any other agency

or team that i'm aware of. i shudder to think -- thank you. >> good evening, supervisors, my name is adam shindler, an outreach specialist. every day we're in your districts. last night we were at scott weiner's district at harvey milk library doing outreach there as you requested. every day we're in the tenderloin, jane kim. we're there every day and have shelters there and people we pick up off the street every day. mr. mirikimi, we're in the haight every day providing shelter for the homeless. i don't know what the people will do if you go through the budget cuts. as my director said, we have hundreds of people we're providing shelter for and stabilization rooms, where are these people going to go?

they're going to be back on the streets in your neighborhoods and what is going to happen and how will you treat that? you'll have the police officers coming out because people are calling and saying hey, will you take care of these people. would you rather have people doing that or the s.f. hot team taking care of it? thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, my name is vitka ivan, the c.e.o. of walden house, the ash bury free clinic. i just got married. actually, our wedding date is july 1 and you know, sometimes in a wedding you think maybe you'll get flowers, maybe a nice little card, but you don't expect nearly a half million dollar budget cut. and so -- and that is actually $487,000 cut to outpatient services for both walden house and haight ashbury free clinic

and want to talk about what that means in terms of client care. there's a $128,000 cut for the ocean center, a safe place for women to be. it's not quite a shelter but operates on a 24-hour basis. >> that was quick. >> i think that was a quick two minutes. why don't we give another minute to you. >> ok, thank you. >> it's a possibility -- it's a thinly staffed program, we have middle-aged women typically in their 40's, between 45-60 who are there and always is full. it's unlikely we can operate with any less staff than we have and i'm not sure that program will survive the cut. we push people to higher levels of care which is more costly. i think many other folks have shared that with you. but i also want folks to acknowledge that when we cut outpatient services for people, it's not like they wait on a waiting list, let's say we're

on a waiting list to get cataract surgery, we'll wait until our turn comes up. the folks we see, they get in trouble, they get hurt, they hurt other people, they do irreparable damage to themselves and sometimes to the community and may never get another chance. so a waiting list isn't quite a waiting list for folks in behavioral health. i urge you to reconsider. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, my name is wayne garcia, vice president of programs for walden house. and giving hope in change in life is what we do but will be difficult with the budget cuts. 78% of the population we serve at walden house is people of color. 48% is african-americans that we serve and the remainders go on. with these cuts, the bay view, hunter point, southwest, patrell hill, mission tenderloin, all these areas will be hurt. also, another area i want to cover real quick is women and children services.

with the cuts through outpatient services, a lot of the women can't find adequate residential already as it is so a cut to these services will cut these sources drastically which will help women and children find adequate services. and most of all, public safety, with cdcr making these cuts, we lost prop 36, mental health is being affected so a lack of resources for the criminal justice will be overwhelming for all the streets of san francisco and this will impact all of us. realignment money they're talking about will take some time. believe me, i go to plenty of these meetings and will take time and this will not help. the end result, no resources, no services, no hope, no changes for all of san francisco, and our community and children will suffer. thank you. already good day. my >> good day. my name is marcell brown and

was diagnosed as bipolar. i used different health services throughout san francisco since 1989 such as st. mary's, walden house, san francisco general hospital, m.h.a., hospitality house, bay view mental health and due to these services i am no longer a threat to myself or society. i have understand myself and learn to know the services i need to become a well civilized citizen of san francisco, california. and i oppose these budget cuts and the services need to be open for people such as myself. thank you. >> hello, my name is jeff wilkins and i'm a social worker at the linkages program at the institute on aging. and we're slated for a 25% cut which will mean termination of services to 1/4 of our clients. linkages serves people who became disabled as adults but

who are not yet 65 and these are people who became disabled usually because of an awful disease like multiple sclerosis or lou gehrig's disease or a traumatic event like a motor vehicle accident or a stroke. and these are people who as a result are at risk of snulization and sometimes at risk of eviction and homelessness and sometimes even at risk of death unless they're linked to the appropriate services to support them. our clients' physical and psychiatric disabilities often prevent them from knowing the services that exist in the community and from completing the complicated processes for applying for them. by providing case management services as we do, we are able to link this group of people to the services that they need and thereby prevent unnecessary placements that laguna hana

hospital, homelessness and death. so i would ask the board of supervisors to review the decision closely to reduce the spending. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. and ms. garcia. my name is jane vocio. i'm a representative with opeiu local 3. and i'm privileged to represent the majority of the homeless service workers in san francisco, the folks who work at all the big shelters, you know the names, m.s.c. south, the woman's place, next door, the sank tchueary, the folks who work on the homeless outreach team. all these good people you will hear come up today and talk about, as they've already begun to do, their clients, the communities they serve, the fears they have for the folks they care about should their programs end, and what i'd like you to hear as they're speaking is that what they're not telling you and what i haven't

heard so far is save my job, be concerned about me. so i'd like to ask you to take a second to do that. because one thing i've not yet heard today but i know is true is that several of the people who come before you today come up here with a layoff slip in their back pocket. so as vulnerable as those clients are and as crucial as those services are, and as important as the work these people do is for our city and our fellow community members who desperately need and rely on those services, i want you to think about the precious resource that these workers are. you all know that the city has been in a jam when it comes to money for quite a while now. these folks haven't gotten a cola. they're working for very little. and it can just be one check, two checks between themselves and the homelessness they see

in the communities they serve. i want you to think also about those workers and hear their concerns to the folks they're serving. thank you very much for your time. >> good afternoon, i'm george morals, a united states army veteran. i'm here to ask of you to support our funds towards hospitality house. it's very important if you honor us with that. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hello, supervisors, i'm

larry bradshaw, a fire paramedic. i'm here to speak against the contract at san francisco general hospital. i'm going to let the supervisors know the union has put forward a counterproposal that provides for a higher level of security and saves as much money as d.p.h. says it will save by contracting out to unarmed private security guards that have no power of arrest. now, d.p.h. management makes the excuse that they are not interested in our proposal because they're not interested in being in the security business and they with an to concentrate on their core admission which is health. that's an antiquated vision of health. the national institute of occupational safety and health and the federal osha both recognize violence in the workplace as being about those health and safety. workplace violence is the second leading cause of occupational death in this country. each week an average of 20 workers are murdered and 18,000 are assaulted at their place of

work. workplace violence is clustered in certain occupational categories, an estimated one million workers resulted each year at work, the majorities occur in settings such as hospitals, nursing homes and health clinics, the risk increases in an acute care setting and increases with the setting of an emergency room but the psychiatric facility and trauma center, all of which san francisco general has. we're not here today to ask you to reject the cost savings. we're here to ask you to reject d.p.h.'s prop j, send them back to the bargaining table to have a serious conversation with the union about the right level of security and a way to save money. the union proposal on the table saves $3 million to $4 million back in the general fund which will give you the funds you need to restore a lot of these cuts being made to community based organizations. thank you.

>> good afternoon, everyone. my name is koshik roy, the executive director at the shantee project. we serve over 2,400 clients annually. the vast majority of whom are underserved and all of whom have been diagnosed with either h.i.v., breast cancer, or other life-threatening conditions. what i want to address briefly now is the fact that the linchpin of what is known as h.i.v. prevention with positive efforts is at risk of being defunded or drastically reduced this year. and that linchpin is the shantee life program. the life program is san francisco's largest, oldest, and only citywide prevention with positives program and supports over 900 h.i.v. positive clients annually, including those who are most likely to disengage from primary care a adherence to treatment th