life program of the continuing of h.i.v. care. shantee has a long-standing of for relationship with the department of health and the h.i.v. prevention section. the life program has a perfect record of performance on d.p.h. monitoring reports and has been cited by the d.p.h. as an example of best practices. the h.i.v. prevention section supports this program and realizes its importance as the section changes its direction in terms of h.i.v. -- protection. the loss of this program will mean fewer positive h.i.v. individuals engaged in primary care and the collective viral load of san francisco increasing and eventually the number of preventable new h.i.v. infections increases. this can be avoided and should be avoided and i'm asking others to please help us do so. thank you very much. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon w my name is

tracy bell and i'm the program manager for sixth street self-help for hospitality house. and what i would like to ask is that for all of the participants and staff of hospitality house, if you're sitting, stand up or wave your hand silently. the reason i'm doing that is i wanted to show this is the reason why i'm here speaking with you. i was here three years ago for my program and i was in the same situation where a -- our whole entire program was shut down and i know the affect of that. i know we had a program that served 300 homeless and now we have 150 right now that are going to be just without services or possibly limited services and it's very important, i think for you to understand, if you guys don't, the importance of services for the homeless. on sixth street, i see daily big money coming in to the community, and i just want to question what is going to happen to the people that are

there already. in my program we have -- we just lost our whole senior program we had where we were able to help people, seniors in the community. we have a growing number of seniors in the united states at this period that are growing. we're all getting older and we're at a point where we could be homeless. and so three years ago, i was in the same situation, how i'm servicing people, i was in the same situation where i was homeless with a child. i'm pleading to please restore our funds back because we need our funds. we need our program and sixth street, in order for it to be a viable community like people are planning for it to be, we need to be there. we need this. we're the only place people can actually use the bathroom. if you walk down the streets in the tenderloin and on sixth street, how many times have you had to walk over stuff? and that's just something we are asking are bathroom services, people to come in.

thank you. >> that's a hard act to follow. president chu, members of the board, i'm bob bennett from the services committee. i want to thank you for this year's budget process, you and the mayor, supervisor chiu and robert and greg. i think it's been a different day. we were always on the same team before but during the budget times it felt like we were all pitted against each other. this year, it's a different spirit. and i hope however bad things are next year, we can carry this spirit into next year. we're not asking for all of our cuts to be restored. we've gone through our budget and figured out where we can back fill or get different resources. we are asking for $150,000 to be restored in our outpatient mental health program.

we offer -- except for very few civil service staff at the clinics, we offer almost the entire system of mental health care for older adults in the city. 2/3 of this funding cut is coming from them. now, the mayor restored residential treatment but not outpatient treatment for the larger agencies. i think under the idea that they served more difficult clients than we served. in fact, we're serving the same clients and we're serving them when they're out on the street, when they're living in s.r.o.'s in the tenderloin, when they're living in care homes. our clients are about 2/3 psychotic, the other 1/3 major depression. 50% have substance abuse problems. if they go into a hospital, they almost always lose their homes. so this is a critical service and it's a unique service in the city. it offers services in

cantonese, mandarin, spanish, english, vietnamese and korean. we actually have been invited to go to china -- >> thank you. next speaker. >> i'm an institutional police officer from general hospital, mark makita. i had lunch on eddie and mason before i was here and i noticed looking out the window that one out of every four people walking by has come to general hospital for some services, be it medical or psychiatric, mental health, social services. i did notice that. but i'm here to speak about the contracting out services that cannot happen and the cost savings, the department of public health should go back to institutional police at the cost of $2.5 million and the 30-plus deputies at the hospital now would go back to the jails and that would save

$2.5 million in overtime so that would make us cost neutral and that's $6 million budget could go back to other vital services you're talking about cutting right now. the last thing i want to say is substance abuse, social service and mental health service is san francisco. if you're from san francisco, you know that. everybody knows that. that's it. >> my name is tatum davis. i'm here to represent for walden house. bringing my experience because i know that all these people are here because someone's life is on the line. whether it's a mental health issue, a homeless issue, and just eliminating the resources that we have is going to put people back on the streets that are fighting for their lives. i know walden house has done things for me and today i'm a

productive member of society. i have some things, i've been reunited with my children. we have friends that encourage me and when you take places like walden house out of the scenario, you leave opportunity for so much damage to be done to the city of san francisco, i know that i was one of those people who needed help and i needed recovery and i had a place to go to and the people embraced me and allowed me to see something in myself and allowed me to change. i'm just saying without hope, there's hopelessness and in this city crime is very rampant. so taking away places that allow people to change will probably increase that. so i encourage you to consider or reconsider eliminating and reducing the health care that's provided to us because without those places i'm afraid of what will happen. thank you, my name is tatum. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is michael tong, an institutional police officer at san francisco hospital in

laguna honda. thank for you letting me speak. i'm here to urge you to reconsider the cost saving measures of priority security at san francisco general and laguna honda. it's not going to be a good way to make things safe at the hospital. there's shootings coming in, psychiatric patients that get active like you heard from the vocational speaker earlier. it's not a good way to save money and will cost more money in terms of expenses and health and safety and make the hospital a more dangerous place to be at so i ask you to reconsider it. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is david golden, i'm a resident at 201 crest lake in carmen chiu's district and am here as a board member of hospitality house as a voter and homeowner. as a resident of san francisco, i urge you to take a look at all the people who come before you and see the difference hospitality has made in individuals' lives and improving them and getting them

back as productive members of society. as a resident of san francisco, i urge you to think about homelessness as something that affects the entire district. every day i bicycle to work along the great highway and see the growing fleet of dilapidated winnebagos, they're not the two issues that are directly related but urge you to understand that both community services hospitality offers and the tenderloin don't just affect the tenderloin. lastly as a voter who watches the homeowners, the value of his house go down on zillow and gets an annual letter from the city of san francisco see my property value assessment go up, i'd like to see you understand and make sure you're making rational decisions about how your dollars are being spent and that by cutting transitional services of those like hospitality house, you make a greater financial impact. we all watch and -- watch and read in the paper of cost of am

am ambulance care each time people collapse on the street and using the police to serve the homelessness and this is not an efficient way of our tax dollars. thank you so much for listening. >> hello, supervisors, my name is barbara bath, a resident in supervisor farrell district and i know times are district. community services are highly needed and is a foundation for many of us. i don't understand why the city is willing to spend millions of dollars on a money-losing unsustainable failing park golf course in pacifica. we're also in a failing golf market as you know. yet we are allowing these cuts to community services which blows my mind. it needs to be in line with our needs and is wasteful to continue on this unsustainable path and is important to find other sources of revenue rather

than always jumping on the cut funding community services bandwagon every single time. one such source of revenue is closing the sharp park golf course. not only will it become a better park, it's not only an accessible issue and environmental issue, it's a wasteful spending issue. we need to bring this money back to our community services and by doing this is one source. the money can be used for hospitality house. it can be used for other services here today. so please, we need to realign our priorities in a manner that is sustainable and sharp park golf course is not sustainable. all these community services are sustainable. thank you.

>> i'm happy to have supervisor compose as my supervise -- supervisor campos as my supervisor. i've worked as an emergency worker at san francisco general hospital for the past 16 years and want to tell you we often have very dangerous situations there. and it has been crucial to us to have armed security, additional police officers who have kept us alive and helped maintain situations in the

emergency room that are safe to work. safe for our patients to get care. the proposal put forward to contract out to rent haifa-cop will not work. it's not the level of security we need. i don't see a proposal to cut your security here. don't cut ours. to have the department of public health say year after year say we want rent-a-cops to provide health services at laguna and the clinics. every year our union came back to say we have a country proposal for how to provide good security, people carry guns that deter violence in the hospital and the clinics. and we basically have been ignored by the department of

public health. we're happy this year the mayor's office is involved in the negotiations and we encourage you not to support the contracting out. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. first of all, i want to commend everyone, all the hard work you do keeping the quality of life so good in san francisco. i want to commend all government workers, the police, the fire department, the doctors, nurses, the clinics that you have, we have good quality of life here. it's very sad we're working with low funding because it's like fighting a volcano with no tools. the only problem is there are people enriched in our cities

who are working against our quality of life they are in businesses and do a legal business. they are in street businesses and do legal businesses. we need a little bit more enforcement. we're too easy on some of them. we're too easy on some of the other people that's the problem. i commend everybody in government and the supervisors for their hard work. thank you. >> my name is nancy wan, the director. i'm here to talk about linkages program. one of our case managers presented. our program is designed to

prevent snulalization of real at risk adults age 18 or older who are not eligible for other case management programs. we constantly have a waiting list of more than 80 people and with the budget cut of $75,000, 55 at risk individuals with new linkages services in the coming fiscal year without adequate and appropriate assets to health care and social services it will mean the cost shift from case management to crisis intervention by public services. as we know the cost of hospital states, our nursing home is not economical. not it mention the version of our first responders like 911 operators, firemen, policemen, social workers, nurses. i understand we have a difficult task in front of you but a roll to make a positive

impact on people of san francisco. particularly the vulnerable population. i strongly appeal to you to consider today and make a wise and strategic budget plan for san franciscoians. thank you. >> thank you, honorable board. my name is dawn moore, i've worked at san francisco general kaiser permanente as a bedside nurse and volunteered as a chaplain at laguna honda for 1 1/2 years and am here to talk to you about the high quality of work the sheriffs provide laguna honda hospital. the private security officers that worked with kaiser are inferior of that of the sheriffs. it's my experience that the best they can do is show up in greater numbers. they are not trained well these

often are temporary jobs and they often retreat from situations to provide security for themselves. the sheriffs, they get to know the patient population, they get to know the staff. they provide high quality care, counseling. they know what to say to the complex residents and staff needs at laguna honda hospital. i urge you to please not pull the cadets and sheriffs from laguna honda hospital. the hospital has provided the city with many, many dollars for the general fund for decade.

the people, they have earned the right, or the security, the staff needs the security. this is a very high stress, multiproblem population and hope you will remember at the very least, please do not take all the sheriffs out. >> thank you. next speaker. >> the board, my name is alex hodson, a field representative from service employees international. i want to echo what many of my colleagues here have stated with regards to the proposal to contract out security forces at our san francisco hospitals. i just want to reiterate that private visitation will not provide the quality or level of security the public deserves at the city at san francisco general and laguna honda

hospital. we have a robust civil service system that we should use. look at the classifications we have already available to us and work together to find solutions to save money at the same time provide excellent services and maintain a robust public work force so we have a choice, we can either race to the bottom with hiring rent-a-cops or we can continue to hire competent, committed and competitive work force. so i would humbly request that this proposition j be denied. [inaudible] [no audio] >> there,

>> there, i don't know where to begin but with a poem i had over memorial weekend. unfortunately, i leave with -- [inaudible] [no audio. [inaudible] >> they did not -- a report, because they said that the only time they give a report is when someone gets shot or stopped. i heard the supervisor mayor say something that they have -- i don't know how many millions of dollars for the san francisco police department. so maybe why don't you give the money, instead of giving to the san francisco police department whether you give them money to the mental health or education with prevention. and another issue, i guess i

want to address this to the president of the board of supervisors, mr. chu and also to the mayor that why don't you veto the proposal of park merced that will lose 1,500 homes to people who are already there, so instead of allowing all these corporations make thousands of millions of dollars for very expensive condominiums while these people are going to be leaving their homes and i don't know where they're going to be finding housing after five years. so you should consider that and send back that to the board so you can vote again. and i'm voting totally against that. so i guess i --. >> thank you very much. thank you very much. thank you.

>> i have laryngitis. i represent central city hospitality house. i've been affiliated with this system and this business for about 13 years. but they provide coffee, toilet paper to the people on the streets. i used to give career talks. i went into the gutter. i did drugs. i'm coming off drugs. i'm an alcoholic. but they provide service for me. don't take the budget cuts from them. we need them, please don't take the budget cuts. >> my name is elvis bird, i'm a program manager with hospitality house and manage the tenderloin self-help center. i'm here today to express my great concerns over the

proposed budget cuts to our organizations. both our drop-in centers serve 18,000 people a year. half of those are homeless and so if these cuts are allowed to go through, that will be 9,000 people who will not have access to basic human needs and being able to use a clean restroom to brush their teeth, things we take granted from time to time and doesn't include our case management services and's substance abuse programs as well as basic health and hygiene services. right now the self-help centers operate five days a week and 12 hours a day. it's half a day people have to escape from the cold, hard reality of being on the streets, a place to find community and not be labeled for homeless and prepare themselves for the other 12 hours they have to be by themselves alone, homeless. it also does not include the 48 hours we closed on weekends where people have to fend for themselves. i've been with hospitality house for seven years and i can say -- definitely say that

being here has changed my life for the better but i guarantee you i can make a list longer than the line of people we've had that want us to speak with you guys today of the number of folks that have come to me or supervisors. i'm the program manager of the community arts program. i created throughout the center hospitality house. in the last fiscal year, we served 3,400 individual artists for assistance of 9,600. these are people getting off

back on their feet and discover their talents and abilities and get themselves back on their feet financially. so, you know, in an era now, where would you like these people to go? we're housing them and giving them a sense of purpose and making them better people. we are at our minimum and would force us to close and lay off people. so please keep hospitality house alive. thank you. >> next speaker. >> hi, my name is amanda sage and i work for central city hospitality house. first i would like to say i'm just touched and moved by everybody and this is a very clear statement right here. i would like to say at central city hospitality house we don't

just provide employment resources, public bathrooms, sanctuary from the street and access to the entire network of san francisco resources, but we also provide an environment for personal growth, creativity, zrofere, and the fostering of -- discovery and the fostering of communities. it's a place where everyone, each person that comes through our door is treated with dignity and respect and our staff is trained how to help people who come in to get that dignity and respect and take that back out to the community to foster that sense of community outside of our doors. the impact of that support and that human connection, the value of being told yes to your community cares is invaluable. and it's clear that in removing these services we are sending a signal where our priorities are and it would be detrimental and unfathomable ways, i believe, to our community's growth and health. we have the capability to increase each other's quality of life and our sense of community and we're asking you

at hospitality house to give us back that money and let us do our jobs. >> thank you for having us here today. my name is robert salazar and i work for hospitality house for three years. and we help between 200 and 300 people every day and we're only here to ask you to consider, to continue our hospitality house, that we can continue helping our community and the tenderloin for a better future and for a better future for our beautiful city, too. so please, we ask you to consider how many people need our help and you can let us continue helping these people who need us and for the benefits. thank you.

>> good evening, board of supervisors, my name is gordon wong and am a case manager at central city hospitality house. i am very frustrated and angered about the budget cuts. and in turn, this would really create a chain reaction, with me being fearful of being laid off and due to unemployment, 25 or more people in my caseload will lose employment services, resources, referrals and employment opportunities and because the budget cut is going across all boards, it's going to hit -- it's going to get hit really hard and will not be linked or connected to the right places and it will make it that much harder for them to find people who they can trust. also it would really, reall