hit the most vulnerable individuals and also hit their families really hard. so i encourage you to -- i encourage and pray and hope you would keep our services alive and yes, help the hospitality house does save lives. thank you. . [applause] >> good evening, supervisors. thank you for your time. the location is so centralized that this is accessible to everyone. the case management and mental health services, the self help was closed.

for some of us, we even called his home. self help does save lives on all level. it saved mine. please to not close these doors. thank you. >> i am here to support the homeless coalition and all of the budget cuts. please do not close hospitality house. my son is back in my custody. they need hospitality house not just for a restroom but someone who can talk to us. it was going to close this?

they will always open their doors. -- who will close this? they will always keep their doors open. thank you. >> the definition. -- thank you. i lost my place to stay. they took me in and they let me stay there for six months. they gave me the encouragement that i needed in order to get back on my feet. i would not be on my feet if it had not been for people helping me to strive. people will turn right over to the drug dealers. it is difficult for the children

to walk down the streets without seeing things they're not supposed to see. not only for myself, for my son, for his mother. please try to make these streets safe and do not cut the budgets to where they will not be able to provide. give them a chance to grow as i have grown. thank you. [applause] >> hello, my name is keith williams jr.. please don't cut the budget because if i grow up to be an adult, i need to have a chance to get jobs, earn money for if i have a family. that's it. thank you. [applause]

>> i had a heart attack. i came in here today to support any one of our people who works day and night to save our lives. you said you were going to cut the budget, i urge you to talk with barbara garcia. supervisors, i don't have money to spoil any one of you. i cannot give you a limousine or taxi. i want you to have courage to go two blocks from here. hospitality house is not far.

if you go there, you'd be ashamed. i used to be there 10 years ago. i am here to survive with my heart disease. and give some barbara garcia only five minutes for each one of you can see in the issues that she has. thank you and never be ashamed of yourself. wake up, smell the coffee. [applause] >> next speaker please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am here on behalf of central city collaborative.

we don't have the budget cut this year and i would like to thank you for that. i'm here on behalf of the other people that have their budgets being cut like hospitality house. these are services that the community greatly needs. thank you for your time. [applause] >> to want to reiterate that we have a role in the board chamber and i asked you to respect that. >> walter. [singing] at the cope with a bayonet, we need them best medical in the land at the medical cabana, music can make it better all-around

at the city medical cope but, coper cabana, we needed and we cannot stand it copa cabana, you make it better and hope it is soon now. don't take it away not to day please make it today ole. >> thank you, next beaker. -- next speaker. >> please do not closes down. we need help. i used to be homeless. i used to be a drug addict. i needed help. i had a friend and i said, i

need a home. we really needed. we need the help. please do not closes down. -- close this down. >> i was kidnapped somewhere. the closet door went straight out. anyway, this is the right touch. i don't understand the budget cuts at all of that but i know that we can ask for help to bring in more generation.

we reach out to the people instead of trying to dig into the funds that we need. i'm trying to do this right. i am trying to find out about my business and everything else. i am also a singer and so on. this is a whole different story. all i'm asking you is for people to reach out. i have been trying for years and i am trying to reach out.

the tax machines and -- the facts machines and everything else, making cutback. >> bank you so much for listening to it. we work at central city hospitality house. i'd come today to share with you what i know to be true. the proposed cuts are unacceptable and dangerous. if they go through, tens of thousands of san francisco residents will be at increase risk for homelessness. the jails and hospitals will fill up and cost taxpayers

millions. the cuts will put 18,000 of the city's most vulnerable residents at risk. additionally, five staff positions will be lost. tech companies get tax breaks for cutting jobs. these are hard economic times, we all know that. the seniors and disabled have seen their cups. this can be up to six months. we are meeting longtime tenderloin residents who are needed our help. hospitality house has been providing service and since 1967 and we are netted now more than ever before. -- we are needed now more than

ever before. stand up for us as we have set up for you. think you. >> next speaker. >> i am from the institute on aging. we navigate people and we educate people how to use the social services. we advocate available services.

also, we navigate for the care givers. this program was saved by the city about two years ago. >> thank you. >> i am a case manager. the budget cut is trying to get rid of one case manager. we are a small team of the case managers managing older adults,

disabled, and seniors. i see more need, people asking to be on our wait list which has been put on hold. we have 80 or more people that were on the list and more people need to be on there. seeing sad to see the services -- it is sad to see the services being cut. we hope people will be able to stay in their homes and foster independence and enhance their strengths rather than looking at any disability that they have but rather encouraging them to take their strengths and become stronger people. we hope that you reconsider the budget cuts. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker.

>> good afternoon. i am one of the care managers. i am here to express my concern on the cut on the program and it will cause a lot of stress for the clients and their families. this helps people connect to services so that they can remain living at home independently. please save this program. thank you. >> hello, supervisors. i am a retired paramedic and i have worked on an ambulance for 20 years. i am here to speak in opposition to the dangers proposal to replace institutional police officers with private security companies that san francisco general hospital.

the general deals with staffing and has a protocol to deal with lockdown situations sometimes on a daily basis. i don't know how to convey what it feels like to be in a situation with someone who is a threat to themselves or other health-care providers. perhaps you felt goose bumps when you heard about a psychotic patient who wrapped his hands around a nurse practitioner. this was unsound four. fortunately, the police were there to save the practitioners life. what happened if that offender was taken to the facility where people were less trained. the outcome would have been different. you can ask any paramedics or firefighter or police officer given a choice whether they would bring a combative or violent patient.

it would be the general hospital. it is because the police have our backs. did people, they're trained, and culturally sensitive. they not only know that first responders know the patients by the first name. numerous times, i brought an altercation to the private hospitals with is a treaty has been unable to get the patient out of the ambulance. we have a system that works. >> thank you. >> hello, supervisors. i am here to speak in support of the institutional police and

that don't think that if you heard any testimony against the institutional police or any of these cuts, i don't think so. i encourage you to not change to a private security company. the sheriff's department is part of the fabric of general hospital. there are city employees. i was killed a couple of years ago and i am waiting for the city to have to pay out money head over here is for all of the increased injuries that we will see the nurses there from less qualified skilled workers to the budget cuts and public health. you will see its trickle-down in every area.

this is where we need to be strong and show we are the city that still knows how. thank you. [applause] >> good afternoon. and i make clinical social worker at family service agency. i work in the geriatric and case management program. our program serves people over age 60 who have severe and persistent mental illness for most of their adult lives. we're one of the few crisis intervention teams that specializes in older adult assessment. they come from various linguistic backgrounds. most of them are very poor and have no family. they have cognitive decline, complex conditions that are often poorly monitored, substance abuse and trauma. our priorities is to provide

stabilization to clients and avoid possible station and even long-term stays in mental health facilities for which many times are unable to save clients. we say the city and county thousands of dollars every year. if the proposed cuts are implemented, it would mean cutting our teams in half. it would result in an increase in police and hospital interventions. it would also increase overall costs to dph. during the last year that i had been working with the 64-year- old woman with a consequent health issues and medical issues, i have seen her stabilized significantly from working with her to prevent the use of emergency services. the situation becks the question, what would happen to this woman if she did not have the services that we're providing to her now? the emergency services would have been involved and have cost

her more money. my final question is that what does this make a program that is serving the most vulnerable members of our community? thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i would like to thank you for your efforts to minimize the health care cuts to preserve existing services. the health care system we have functions as well as it can but it is held together with super glue. we do not nearly know for certain that it would survive the impact of tax cuts that have had their own earthquake-like effect let alone the future cuts. i have heard it said that the mark of an effective city is how well it treats its potholes'.

i have watched this city treat its streets this year with the utmost care. i would submit to you that the market compassionate city is how it treats its people. please, give the same care to the physically and emotionally ill of san francisco. thank you. >> good evening, supervisors. i'm the executive director and i am here to speak more about citywide services than just the mission district where have worked and struggled for many years. i do want to began commending the department and the mayor and

the community of the board of supervisors in a process which i think has been unprecedented which has been an open dialogue and i think many of us have had the opportunity to voice our concerns to be part of the conversation that is really important. i think that i have to speak today about the issue of the city and how across the system. all the services are connected. when we serve latinos in the mission district and they're coming out of the hospital and psychiatric units, they come to us in distress and they need a lot of services. the services that are mentioned, the hospitality house, that is one of the places where we send a lot of our clients. many of the people that come come to institute here because they began to feel connected

from the committee into the culture and to the neighborhood where they live and where they work. i am here to support all of the city services that we have and to ask all of you to look at accountability. as i have heard, there is about $40 million spent over time. at a time and a point where we're looking at the information of such essential services to the homeless, to the disabled, that is a -- process. >> thank you, next speaker. >> good evening, supervisors. i am here in support of central city hospitality house. i am a former director and manager of the tenderloin self-

help center. you have heard many disturbing facts about how devastating these will be for the homeless but for many other san francisco residents. you have heard the hospitality house provides a lifeline to homeless people and cutting services as like cutting the rope that prevents them from drowning. i urge you to reconsider these cuts. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon. i'm here speaking on behalf of the family services agency of san francisco. i've worked in participants -- with participants of that program. i have no reason to believe that any of the programs or any programs that are offered is of lesser quality than the senior programs that i participated in and that has never been better. i've seen what it is like when

people sit in their rooms and have no place to go and no one to talk to. i am concerned about the total that the therapist and doctors have to do family service agencies. i have had experience with the san francisco house. the house and i also support them. i think they do a great job. thank you. >> i work at the family service agencies of san francisco. i have been watching older adults in the community behavioral health system come back to life after coming out of some very disturbing circumstances. people from all walks of life show up here seeking help from anyone can get depressed. after all, we are human. we have waiting lists for far

too long to accommodate and this not really exceptional. we have to turn people away you are in need and in pain and fear of what has happened to them. most of them don't have families that they can turn to. isolation kills people. some people are left just a waste away and dropped like flies. if you were to see some of these people, you might think twice about cutting down the services that provide these people with their. our agency provides support, case management, people who care for them, we have groups for consumers so they can learn management skills, skills to cope with depression and psychotic symptoms.

we have problems, men's and women's groups and groups that people are participating in and coming to terms with connecting back to those for the human race was they have been disconnected from it. please consider making sure that our programs continue. >> i can see the cuts. that is a reason for cutting hours. 30 years ago, we have lived

there. the community arts project is something that i participate in. some use it on a gambling ship on the public to get elected. now, what i'm concerned with is that the homeless is sitting in line in one project. now we have the objects which is church street. -- now we have the projects, such as church street. you have market street, you have some space. in my concern is that you're taking space and time away from homeless people and where they can go. the police commission and all of this kind of thing. there is no room in jail. the only