this community. also, since i am up here and have the opportunity to have worked with mario paz in several capacities, particularly around his advocacy and his work within the latino community, i am definitely supporting him and his appointment as well. i just want to say, i think we have the opportunity here to continue some great work with two individuals with this appointment. i just wanted to speak on behalf of them for that. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. >> good afternoon, rules committee. ♪ good luck with appointments to the immigration rights commission i have made up my mind to live in memories of a city better time

better time in line i cannot stop loving and wanting you it is useless to say so i will just lived my city life in dreams of immigration rights of yester immigration rights and immigration of yester yesterday yesterday integration of yesterday -- immigration of yesterday pick a good candidat3 supervisor kim: thank you, mr. paulson. is there any other public comment? >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am actually applying for another commission, but i do not want to let this opportunity to come before you today to talk for mr. felix fuentes.

i identify with his struggles in life. i think his example of preservation, and i imagine he is working great for the community, especially spanish- speakers. so i think you should have a lot of consideration for him. thank you. and congratulations. supervisor kim: thank you. is there any other public comment? seeing none, public, disclosed. colleagues, we have six applicants for six seats, two of whom will be needing residency waivers. the immigration rights commission sees requires them to live and/or work in san francisco. i believe they all qualify for that. >> first, and what is a thank you aide to everyone for coming out. this is a day where we're blessed to have so many qualified people willing to serve on our immigrants' rights commission to thank you for being here. i accept the residency waivers

for the two that need them. supervisor kim: we can do that without objection. >> and then move forward with recommendations for he kathleen coll, mario paz angus mccarthyangus, felix fuentes, melba maldonado, and toye moses. supervisor kim: thank you. i concur. i believe we can do that without objection. i know that melba maldonado, but she has been serving on the commission to the we have seen her commitment and work on this commission as well. we will be moving forward with all six applicants for those six seats. we can do that without objection. thank you also much for being here. thank you for taking the time. mr. moses, to ever coming in. we really appreciate all of your service in your continued service. to what. madam clerk, please call item number two. >> item number two, hearing to consider the quarterly reports of the shelter monitoring committee. supervisor kim: thank you.

the secretary of the shelter monitoring committee is here. thank you so much for being here. and i have a note that scott walton will be here to represent herehsa. -- to represent the hsa. >> good afternoon. i am the secretary of the shelter monitoring committee. i am going to review our quarterly report. it is the final quarter of fiscal year 2010-2011. and then at the turn away report. and i will answer any questions that you have. during this quarter, we were able to conduct 31 of the assigned 33 inspections, which we are proud to say we did, even

though we're not fully seeated and do not have a full staff. there is a chart on page 3 of the visits we did and did not do. supervisor kim: i have two handouts to the draft quarterly report in the executive summary for july 2011. page three of which one? >> there is the turn away report. that is not the one i am working on. the other one is the quarterly report. supervisor kim: so page 3 of the turn away report? >> no, the quarterly report. it is just the chart, an overview of our visits that we did. during the quarter, there were

67 standard of care complaints that were filed. the committee conducted two investigations and forwarded them to dph. page four 15 of the same document breakdown -- page four and five of the same document breaks down the outcomes. supervisor kim: could you go over those two investigations briefly? >> the investigations that occurred, there were next door to the sanctuary. so each inspection conducted failed a minimum of one standard of violation. both sides did provide responses and documentation. yet these are the same violations we have been saying over a period of time. supervisor kim: what were those

violations? i am sorry. >> i am not exactly sure what they were right now, but i believe that they were facility violations. supervisor kim: it is ok. if you do not know, it is fine. we can keep moving. >> ok, let's see. we had the 67 different complaints, and we investigated them and forwarded to dph for further investigation. which dph came back and said that they were in compliance. we are currently behind, aid investigations -- eight

investigations, based on lack of staff. we're currently looking for ways to support staff and to provide, especially, spanish-speaking support. there is eight outstanding investigations, and we failed to meet the 10-day requirement. the problems with the committee is that we had one staff that was out for four months or more, and there is no staff right now. we have no spanish-speaking capabilities. we're months behind in our investigations. so this is very crucial at this point. and we just really want to have the spanish-speaking needs met. our policy recommendations are

the same four recommendations that we have made for the past few years. and that is measuring vacancies, the types of beds that are going vacant and not being used. tokens, they will not be able to use tokens at each site. training and case management. so we believe that if we knew which types of beds were vacant, then we could better outreach to communities so there would not be so many vacancies. i am sorry, so there would not be beds that are vacant when there is such a high turnaround. this corridor, with respect to the tokens, there have been a

huge improvement. the sites that tend to have tokens, or at least there were coming, there were on the way, the tokens would be there soon, so that was important. training, training and case management are based on improving staff and service availability to clients. this quarter, we requested information about the training that the staff had received. and we got -- it looks like the average level of compliance for the training that is required by the standards of care is about at 49%. and this is based on information received onhsfrom hsa and follog up with individual shelters. and it then, finally, the case

management. we feel there was case management embedded in each side and if there was that in tracking systems, we could track individual clients as they go from site-to-site. that is the quarterly report. do you want the turn away report now? this one is pretty explanatory. we're now required to conduct an annual turn away account. the committee conducted the account and staff observed the process and outcomes at three locations. this happened in february and march. of the 303 clients seeking

shelter from a less than 50% were provided a reservation. the number of vacancies reported in changes on march 11 was 64 and the number of clients unable to get a reservation was 84. 48% of individuals were able to get a reservation, and 48% were not. six of the seven people surveyed did not answer the question about receiving a reservation. 15 individuals with less than six hours to obtain a reservation. 12 individuals waited more than six hours for their reservation. two of the three locations provided tokens. of the 36 individuals surveyed

self-identified as disabled, 38% were unable to get a reservation. the recommendations here are two o do two turn away accounts in a year and compare the data and doing needs assessment. that is so we can get a better idea of how to address the needs. supervisor kim: thank you. just a clarification, when you said on march 11 that there were -- so that night, there were 64 vacant beds and you counted 84 clients that were unable to get a bed reservation. is that what that states? >> yes, that is correct. supervisor kim: ok, thank you. thank you. i believe we have scott walton from hsa here today.

thank you so much for being here. also, if you could address to staffing the shelter monitoring community and why there has not been staff provided to the committee. >> staff for the shelter monitoring committee is that dph. >> [inaudible] supervisor kim: ok, why don't you do your report? it looks like we have someone from a dph. >> good afternoon. i am the manager of adult programs in the housing and homeless division of human services agency. we received this report and have had a chance to begin to review it. and some things we want to point out would be that, related to the issues of the types of beds, at the request is that that be reported, but that changes type, meaning that there can be a bed

that is something during the day but will it -- but then released as a resource center bed at 5:30 p.m. to we do not have the ability to track the types of beds in the current system, partly because it is somewhat dynamic. in terms of tokens, we point out that, like many assets of the standards of care, it is not a fully funded mandate. so we do provide as many tokens as we can, but we do not have funding to provide token's upon request for every client. we have established a token policy for transportation to and from reservation stations and shelters, medical appointments, and certain factors like that. but we do not have the ability at this time to fund an open supply of tokens. at your request, supervisor kim, based on information that there are some other government areas in the bay area that are

offering transportation to homeless, we did do some investigation. we found that in santa clara county, there have been some monthly passes provided at a cost to general fund their of approximately $180,000. and that that was not, again, fully open to every homeless person in the county, because it was not a sufficient supply. we have not been able to obtain from them the criteria they have used for releasing those, but it was a commitment on the part of the government to pay for the passes that they did use. and our current relationship, just like that one, we are paying full price for the tokens. we do issue, and that is what we understand santa clara was doing, too, purchasing full price passes for the appropriate clients there. in relationship to the issue of training in meeting standards of

care, we have some questions about methodology that we need to follow up with the shelter monitoring committee from this report. we have provided them trainings at the shelters themselves and augmented it with augmented -- and augmented it would training's that hsa have provided. the requested information from us, which was a snapshot of who our staff shelter. with staff, that never changes. we have begun to talk to some of our providers and have learned that many of them seek a 45% turnover in staff in a year. that makes evaluating compliance in terms of the number of training and number of staff at any one time a very difficult methodology. so we need to explore that with them to see what better we can

learn from the training document. supervisor kim: can i just speak a little bit about the training? i feel like since we grant shelters funding to provide the service, we have to make training a priority. either that it be mandated before they get funding or what- not, it is the number one complaint that i hear, house staff treat our homeless clients when they come. i know you also have staff members that are formerly homeless and all of that, but i think there needs to be greater consistency. it is really hard to hear from so many homeless individuals about how they're treated in our shelter system, especially when we are the ones funding them. so if we can work more urgently to make the training practices consistent and mandated, i think that would be very much appreciated. supervisor kim: i will take that back to the housing and homeless division. we will discuss that. i will also provide you with the background data of the number of

trains that had occurred, so you get a sense of the volume of training that is happening. supervisor kim: are they mandated? >> standards of care is part of everybody's contract. we have to say that the challenge of cost is there. we had budgets prior to this to operate these shelters. when we had a standard of care, we did not get money to cover the cost of training, and more importantly, the cost of back filling behind a step that her away training or are over time to take training. so there is a cost-challenge for our providers as well, not to deny the importance of what you're saying in terms of this being a high priority. we have done some additional efforts. this past year we've trained all staff, for example, related to a settlement of lawsuits. we trained all shelter staff on access to the shelter system for persons with disabilities. based on what we have seen, we

have seen a drop in the complaint related to that issue. so we value the issue of training. it is a matter of fitting it into a budget that is already covering food and utilities. supervisor kim: it would be great to see what is possible given the budgets that we know we can do and can be consistent and mandated and what kind of wish list we could have. >> i will provide to you the training list, so you get a sense of the volume and diversity of the training that is being provided by both hsa, dph, and the contractors. supervisor kim: which is mandated and which are not? >> that is not on the current list. but i can explore how to mandate that. supervisor kim: you should know which ones are mandated, right? >> it is not that difficult, except a training program may cover some mandated issues and some in mandated issues. many use the manual, and that makes it easy to track. but when they do a training on

some aspect of the cultural diversity of the clients using the shelter, you know, then there's some question about where this falls in terms of mandated, not mandated. supervisor kim: hsa does not have mandated training, but it is each shelter? is that what you are saying? >> there is a list. supervisor kim: so there is a list that hsa mandates? >> yes. supervisor kim: it would be great to see that. >> i will provide that, no problem. supervisor kim: thank you. >> the other factor, briefly, and then i will see if you have questions, the other factor regarding the turn away report, and you asked about the date when comparing the number of people who did not get a reservation when they asked for it and the number of vacancies, again, that is a difficult methodology.

we figure vacancies at the end of each day. basically, at 6:30 p.m. -- 6:30 a.m. to 7:00 in the morning, we're -- at 6:30 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., we look to see which beds were not used. it could have been assigned or reassigned. that person may not have shown. the turn away reported taken in the afternoon when there may not be any reservations. there may be people who were told that point that we have no reservation right now. i am not saying this is not important formation, but it is difficult to compare 84 turn away and 64 vacant beds, because they're two very different times of the day. we are trying to look at what that means in terms of these reports, but we need to have some discussions with them on the methodology. i have not seen the full report that hsa, including our representative, has not seen

yet. supervisor kim: what would be helpful is that you could address the discrepancies prior to the report being presented to the rules committee. the report has been out. so if you had questions on the methodology, that you had actually asked those questions to a committee member to find out how they did their data collection. so when you come to us, they're actually some answers instead of we do not know how they did it. >> i know what the issues are, but we have not had a chance to meet with them to figure out how to adjust accordingly. supervisor kim: ok. the one good thing is that in july, we discover that we do know the number of beds ago vacant every night. our data system is available to collect that information. we did get that information in july. it would be great to get a continuation of the number of beds. because that was the issue that brought about the discussion in july, how many beds they did that night given the number of people that request reservations. i am curious as to why we cannot follow the number of clients

getting reservations when it is all within the computer system. everyone has to sign up via computer and a resource center. it is not clear to me why we cannot figure out how to do that. >> individuals have to changes in the record system. but we do not track -- we cannot track requests in that system. that only tracks and actual reservation. so a person approach of the reservations station and requests any shelter bed or maybe a particular shelter, there is nothing in our data base that lets us know that this person requested this at 2:00. we only know of the reservation was made and that is what holds the bed for the person until check-in, a curfew, or their late past. our system is not set up to track the requests said that through the day. supervisor kim: if i was to come into a drop-in center and put

myself on a waiting list, i am not put in electronically? pippen me in manually, like on paper? >> he to decide to various systems of the signing people up or waiting for reservations to take people in order, but that is not part of our electronic system. our electronic system will record of somebody gets a reservation and then they do not show. curfew is 7:00 in the person has not shown up in the bed is released then at 8:00, it will show that that person had a reservation and was cancelled at no show. but it will not show when they request reservations. that is the challenge of interpreting the turn away counts to the daily evidence the report, which we do produce every day. we turn out how many vacancies are in the system. we also track -- you know, we have when the weather is appropriate, we have a cold

leather protocol that will allow shelters to take people in, even if they have not gone through the reservation cycle. that may also alter those vacancies, but that is not known at this time of year. supervisor kim: thank you. >> any other questions for hsa? supervisor kim: i know you said we do not have an unlimited number of tokens, but i still get complaints that their tokens on-site, but for what ever reason, they cannot be given out. they're locked in the room and not every staff member has a key. i hear this complete frequently. >> i have not heard that complaint, and we do have a complaint reporting process for shelters to report what they're hearing. the shelter monitor committee also reports to us. i have not heard the complaint that there are tokens on sites that are not accessible. supervisor kim: it was in a previous shelter monitoring committee report, the last one. >> i will follow-up on that. i will say that people request

tokens to go to and from a job, and because of our limited resources of tokens, that is not an approved part of our to urban policy. whereas, if they're doing a job search our medical appointments are getting to and from shelters, we basically get 1000 tokens of months, and we have over 1000 adult shelter beds in the system. so one day could take every token we have. so we established a token policy, which i can also share with your committee. supervisor kim: that would be great. >> not to say people should not get tokens if they need them, but to prioritize them to the most important needs, which is transportation to and from shelter, medical appointments, and job search. supervisor kim: thank you very much. >> i will follow up on getting those items to you. supervisor kim: thank you. i believe we have someone from dph here as well. >> good afternoon, supervisors.

my name is david, and i am the dph representative on the committee since 2005. i believe the question was specifically around staffing. dph does provide staff to the committee. their two steps aside to the shelter monitoring committee. once that has been on disability for the last couple of months. she is actually expected back on november 1. at this point, we are expecting her back. the second staff person, you may have seen present before to this committee in the past, just had a recent episode where she has been out for approximately the last week and a half. but we're expecting her back on monday. there is not a huge gap -- obviously, the loss of the second staff has put a lot more challenge on having a single

staff. but there has been staffing there. i also want to know that the department has been trying to support the committee, specifically related to the spanish language capability. because the one staff that has been out for several months was spanish-speaking. the committee has utilize, through our cultural competence section, accessing a spanish- language person to go out to provide translation on inspections of their regular committee. so they have used staff for that, and we continue to do that, even though it would be very helpful to have language capacity with in committee members. so that is something that the department has supported. supervisor kim:>> just a quick o meet many clients of the shelter that are spanish speakers. is this language group that you find? >> my primary understanding is that they have