i did not know about that either. i think a lot of these are kind of growing pains of the system, and i just want to chime in and say how great it is to sit on the bus and hear that repeated beeping as they get on the bus, and we could not do that without this, and in the last month, i'd think i have used my clipper card on board, on a munich, on caltrain, when i wrote to 04 on my bicycle and took a public transportation back. i have in-laws in marin. a lot of times, it is a ferry ride over or a bike ride. there is one that does not yet take a clipper, and i am looking at a gentleman whom i know what i am talking about. the key for the report. this is very good.

i am a huge fan of clipper, and i think that this is getting closer to a system that i experienced in hong kong, where there was one card that would take you anywhere. thank you for this report, because it is good to see how is -- has progressed. thank you. chairman nolan: director ramos? director ramos: everyone here thinks this is addressed, then it certainly does not need to come back. if this issue has been resolved, particularly with a fare collection, i am comfortable moving on and not expecting anything at this point. like i said, i thought it was addressed when you showed the chart that shared that debt, and that was my primary concern. i am looking forward to a communications strategy when we go to the boarding, and that

might be the best time to bring this up again. since mtc is here, i do regularly take transit system, and it is a real bomber to get on and then get on board, and then get on another system and have them tell me, "sorry, do not know what you are talking about pure " hopefully we can have this their scent. my last complaint is that that be and so loud sometimes, it really is hard on a person's years. i have heard from a few people that when they are just trying to take a casual, calm ride in, if there is any way we can turn it down area i have heard it turned it down before. it was very nice on the ears, and i thought maybe they were moving toward that, but i think it was a fluke.

chairman nolan: director heinicke? director heinicke: the complaints i get about clipper are none really, as people appreciate it. it took some convincing to get folks to do it, but now they seem pretty good about it. i would imagine also that if we were having root problems with registration on the system that we would see resulting complaints about tickets, and our proof of payment of buzzers would say that people are claiming over and over again, and to my knowledge, we are not seeing that. but the problems that you described are very real as part of the implementations system, so i am glad it is going well, and i do not know that we need

to talk about it on that level. the one issue i have is that we at 330,000 daily-week day clipper boardings. am i remembering right that we have 700,000 boardings total? do we anticipate that 330,000 number going up significantly? and i guess i am a this point a little surprised that your than half of our boardings are clipper boardings, and i am just wondering why is that? >> i believe that generally represents the best passes, so is the adults, the senior, and the young. that is a big chunk that has moved over. the cache bears on the clipper are still quite a bit less, and that is probably the most difficult, the people would pay cash because they are local and choose not to buy or because of the frequency with which -- with which they use munis were people coming from out of town.

there are a couple of other categories. our next biggest category is lifeline passes, which are think is on the order of 20,000 per month. we have been talking about the ability to transition lifeline pass holders over, but the passes are really kind of the low hanging fruit. and we have gotten our big categories already, so the next is really moving to, aside from lifeline, moving to cash bears, which is going to be much slower. >> right, and we have discussed that before, and i know you know my views. my view would be to move to a cashless system or as close to it as we can. i think the efficiency and the safety and the revenue, there are all sorts of reasons to do that, so our would just give you my reaction. i was surprised of the number after all of the average, it was still this low. i guess it is not an indication of the success of clipper.

it is an indication the i misunderstood how many cache bears where having on a daily basis, which is apparently a lot, so i would just reiterate i would as a policy matter favor doing whatever we can to move away from cash there's, and it is interesting to hear that even on a lot of people, you know, you are making more than just one trip or something like that are unwilling to load up a clipper card, and i wonder if one thing to look at there is a differential one-time affair for clipper versus actually throwing coins into the box, to give people incentive to do one-time hits with the clipper card. >> if i could, i think that financial incentives are something that we should look at. the indexing policy that the board put in place a number of years ago for the upcoming fiscal years, because of the weight indexing policy is structured will raise fast pass

theirs but not single-use theirs because of the way the formula works and because of rounding, some of the adult fast pass with bart will go to 72 to 74 to 76, and the adult fare will stay at two dollars, so single use and cash versus clipper, something that the board, that will be happy to bring for the board consideration, all the passes that i mentioned are already clipper, but for single use theirs, many of them are cash. one thing we could do is that if you tap your clipper card, it is $2. if you want to use cash, it is more. director: the reason i favored the indexing program was to

avoid arbitrary increases for pure financial budgeting reasons. i think there is a reasonable and legitimate exception to the indexing program if you are making a fair differential for transit policy reasons, which this would be, so i for one would not oppose looking at that sort of thing as we revisit fares the next time around. director bridges: i think another got to 90%, which is the best in the region. director: i know that director brinkman and i think i to eye on this. there is somebody up there with a quarter, slowing the whole thing down. i appreciate your report, but i'm surprised by the number and want to know what we can do to

get that number as close to 700,000 as we possibly can. director oka: it is my hope that paratransit's can be switched over to the clipper card also. i have been pushing with mtc since the beginning of time. we need one mechanism that works on everything, and, you know, i would love to see that before my time on this earth. i am not going to hold my breath, but we should be able to do that. chairman nolan: thank you very much. i thank you for bringing this to our attention, director ramos. secretay boomer: mr. chairman, no one has indicated an interest

of addressing you up to this point. >> good afternoon, director. first, i want to wish you a happy new year and a major happy new year from munich. with all of the stuff i learned from this today, i thought it was just like the old days, so i learned something, and that may improve your numbers. one little complaint that i have heard about, the student clipper cards, it is very difficult for people to add money to the student clipper cards. there should be a place where every mile or so on major routes where you can get off and just recharged on a monthly basis. it is easy in my neighborhood, but i never heard people who cannot do that and have to go downtown, and that is completely out of the way, so we should work on that. and i want to add my voice that we should sometime soon nubbers is still young get people to use

clipper card for every ride. the advantage is that when you have your small increases, they just go right into the clipper card, and of course, you've already started to speak that if you want people to use the clipper card 100%, then you may have to charge a premium for the cash there, and i do not think it is a problem, even for visitors, when they know they are staying at a hotel. you can seldom a clipper card, and they can go to the walgreens or something, and then you get zero cash. that should be the ultimate, so happy new year. banks are not. chairman nolan: -- thank you. chairman nolan: thank you. ms. boomer? secretay boomer:

>> the board voted unanimously to settle the cheah case and moved the murillo case to the next meeting. chairperson nolan: we are finished. >> and i win. >> it is the first time ever. >> that sets a precedent, you know. ok.

supervisor avalos: good morning, and welcome to the city operations and neighborhood services committee. my name is supervisor mar avalos, the chair. i am joined by supervisor elsbernd. we will be joined shortly by supervisor mar. the committee clerk is ms. gail johnson. >> all persons attending this meeting are requested to turn off all cell phones and pagers. if you submit copies of materials to the members of the committee, please submit an extra copy to the file. if you wish to hand in speaker cards, please put them in the container by the rail in front of you, to your left. supervisor avalos: ok, thank you. please call the first item. >> hearing on the city's response to the surge in

homelessness, and families and for various city agencies, including the her -- human services agency in the housing authority to outline the response to the crisis, including any plans to expand the rental subsidy programs, and he plans to address the loss in federal homeless prevention and rapid re-housing funds, any plans to increase, is prevention efforts, any plans to expedite the filling a vacant san francisco housing authority units, and moving homeless families into them, and ways we can protect households from for closure evictions. supervisor avalos: thank you, madam clerk. i call this hearing just last week, but it is an issue that has been on my mind for a number of months, especially with the advocacy of the coalition on homelessness, and a lot of the families are related to the coalition, and they work with a lot of homeless families. it was first brought to my

attention about our crisis in a sheltering in providing housing for families in san francisco probably at the end of september, beginning of october. in fact, while i was out in my extracurricular activities over the past seven months, at the interfaith breakfast in october, a lot of the focus was on homelessness in san francisco, and a lot of people who work at that time running for mayor expressed that a big part of the homeless population consists of families. that was also in contention that the mayor himself -- and as a city, we have a responsibility to ensure that we're supporting the least among us and the growing number of homeless families or families at risk of homelessness is something that the city cannot ignore. i do want to thank the coalition and the families connected with the coalition for coming forward, for telling

their stories, difficult stories to tell about being marginally housed oregon difficulties dealing with education situations. there are numerous stores already in the san francisco chronicle and the examiner about family homelessness in san francisco, and people coming forward to tell the stories, it is very difficult. but those types of synergies between advocates telling their stories and media picking up on them are ways that we can actually shed light on our troubles and how we can come up with a response. i was very pleased to see, this morning, the story in "the chronicle" about a family making commitments to help families who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. i think those types of support that come from time to time are essential for us to be able to support struggling families and

to show the kind of city that we truly are. so we owe a great thanks to the efficacy effort for bringing this july, to the attention of city officials, and also to this family as well for their commitment to the families. i believe we have much more to do. as a city, not looking at -- and no, fixes in the last 18 months, we're looking at long-term, how we can put our services in place and how we can support struggling families. i know we are greatly challenged in doing that with our recession and the number of jobs out there for people, as well as our city revenues and programming, but i think that is the work we can do, working together, community, city, and private foundation folks to be able to come up with solutions that can really work. i am pleased to see the story that came out today.

i know we have folks from the mayor's office, as well as hsa and the housing authority who are here to explain some of the solutions we have currently. we will be asking questions about that. we'll also hear from advocates as well, about their experience, either being homeless or what solutions they can pose to us, as well as the city. first up, we have someone from -- what was it? from the mayor's office. >> thank you, supervisor avalos. good morning, supervisor elsbernd. i know we're waiting on supervisor mar. i appreciate hearing about the plight of homeless families in san francisco. i want to give you an overview of the situation as we see it and then type for the city departments to talk about our response to the supervisor -- superintendent garcia needs to leave a little early, so we may

start with the superintendent. in sentences go over the last 24 months, and nationwide, we have seen a marked increase in family homelessness. this is a difficult statistic to track, and i think you know that, largely because it is a difficult thing to talk about and a lot of the shame and things that may exist around that, but also sort of putting our hands around that and understanding the situation. the primary data point to use in san francisco is demand for a full-service shelter system. folks who have said they're absolutely homeless in the shelter. it includes families were living with family and friends throughout the bay area, family staying in one of our current overnight shelters, families who, within a few months, will be reaching the time limit in our full-service shelter system. families living in residential hotels in the city and around the bay area. and families staying in cars and on the streets but there are currently 79 families in the

city's full service system, and that is a long-term shelter where people have a room. there's food and service there. not the overnight shelter. in addition, there are 253 families on the waiting list waiting for shelter, an all-time high in san francisco. in 16 years, whenever see numbers that high. when we look to the national data with respect to homeless families, there is a few things we know. we know that they do not have higher levels of mental illness, substance abuse, or engagement what the child protective system when compared to other poor families. they simply have a housing problem. in its san francisco, the problem is related to a dearth of affordable housing, often coupled with lack of income. i want to make sure people understand that this is very different than a chronic thomas issue that we have dealt with in san francisco. supervisor avalos: i think the sure chronic lawlessness and families in the mix of people

who are chronically homeless is something that we have acknowledged. a few years ago, 71% -- 71 people were actually on the waiting list. now we have 253 people on the waiting list. i would call that a crisis. i think to deny whether is a crisis means we're not providing adequate response. i do like to see the response we're getting from the mayor's office and departments coming together. i think the response is because there is a crisis. i would like to see some acknowledgement that it is so big that we have to respond. because the crisis is not just the families that are in the crisis itself, but it is all of our systems of care. our education system, as well. teachers who are working with students who -- you know, imagine -- managing classrooms, and we have a lot of homeless kids. we have to make sure everyone gets the support they need. the homeless kids getting the work in being able to meet the demands of the classroom as well as any other student.

that is a huge part of our education system. other parts are in crisis as well that we need to be able to respond to. that is acknowledgement that and of economic together, that we have a crisis in the city that we can respond to, and we can make appropriate changes moving forward. >> supervisor, i absolutely do agree this is a crisis. we have an increase in homelessness with respective families. i was trying to explain the solutions we need to address this problem are very different than the sword of solutions with respect to chronically homeless. that is the only issue was trying to put other to talk about. we have been informed by the student -- school district as the fall enrollment, they're all over 2000 kids in the families in transition program. of this number, 982 self report as being in sro's, shelters, or other homeless situations. we estimate that the overlap between those kids in the school district and the family shelter

system that exists under hsa is about 200 families. our goal is to get those 200 families into housing right away. you'll hear about a program from the housing authority and hsa. you read this morning about how we want to address that population. i want to clearly state that this program is a direct result of a new public-private partnership between the salesforce foundation and this collaboration between housing authority, human services agency, school districts, and others. merely talks about bringing the private sector in to address critical problems in the city. i want to talk about the school district numbers. i will be working with the school district to better understand what is going on there, the discrepancy between the numbers at the school district in the numbers that exist at hsa. i want to understand why there is a difference in those numbers. more importantly, i want to

build a bridge between those kids at the school district in the homeless system of care, a better understanding of how to serve them and get them the help they need. not all are homeless. we want to make sure that they are all aware of the homeless system of care. this is absolutely a big problem in the city, the increase in family homelessness. it is ending we have seen nationwide that is happening, largely a result of this economy and of course the affordable housing problem in san francisco. we will have representatives speaking today. carlos garcia is here, superintendent. henry alvarez from the housing authority will be speaking. trent from the human services agency. you talk about foreclosures and other things. teresa and brian are here from the mayor's office of housing and community development. i want to pause there and answer any questions you may have an end to presentations about our response to this problem about supervisor avalos: -- about this problem. supervisor avalos: let's just go

right into the response and get this underway. thank you. this hearing was called pretty quickly, mostly because we are going to be in the hour sessions tomorrow -- ending our sessions tomorrow, and want to make sure we have a response and can have the city come together to decide how to respond. i really appreciate you all being here with such short notice. >> you're very welcome. i am going to bring a superintendent garcia, because he will have to leave early. >> thank you, and good morning. first of all, i just wanted to come in and lend my support to having a meeting like this. i agree, this is a crisis. you know, we deal with it, and so does your wife, i think, on a daily basis, because our kids before us are going through some tough times right now, especially during the holiday season. i really wanted to thank all the different agencies, all the

different groups that have pitched in to say, you know, this is important, and also our donor, the generous donation from that family. it is something that is great. in makes you believe that their resolutions in the city if we just get everybody in the same room. so happy that we have our folks here, because it to work together, i'd think this is the only way we can solve a problem like this. when we look at those statistics, we have been following them for years, those numbers keep growing. we need to do something. we cannot afford it -- our city cannot afford to have over two thousand homeless children. those children deserve a home. here we are trying to figure how we're going to do that. i think it is valuable that everybody is stepping up. if we have a good discussion and if we could use and to impact those lives, i think it will mean not only a lot to this city, but it makes us stand up

as a community to say that we do truly care about all our kids in san francisco, and we walk the talk. on behalf of the school district, and wanted thank you supervisors for putting something like this together. even if it is on short notice, we are here, ok? thank you very much. >> supervisors, good morning, director of the human services agency here. i want to talk more specifically about the program expansion that we are undertaking and how the city, over the last the less well, months, but have certainly come together over the last couple of weeks, has developed a plan to respond to the crisis that you, supervisor, have helped bring to everyone's attention, as well as our partners in the advocacy community. in the short term, it is a two- prong approach, one that involves the housing authority

working in partnership with the human services agency and our number of the partners. the second approach is an expansion of our rental assistance programs that are also in ministered by our nonprofit partners. in the first, the housing authority partnership, we have long been working with the housing authority to give preference points and provide priorities for families who are in a homeless shelter system, priority for public housing units. what that means is that if the family has applied and they are on the waiting list, they get a certain amount of points that moves that family of on the waiting list to get into a vacant public housing units. over the last week, 10 days, we have been coleen the waiting list for public housing, along with the waiting list for shelter, as well as the 79 families were in shelter currently, it is who meets that criteria, who is on the waiting list. i got some numbers yesterday, sunday, and we're going to be

referring 51 families to the housing authority for processing for beckham public housing units tomorrow -- for vacant public housing units to market a 37 of those families are from the waiting list for shelter. 13 are from families who are currently in shelter, and there's one family in the transitional housing program. supervisor avalos: all those 51 families, were they already on the hsa waiting list? >> they are on the public housing waiting list. 37 are on the shelter -- supervisor avalos: housing authority and public housing? >> correct. for the initial processing, those with families process, and we will continue to work with the housing authority as a new families come into the system to make that priority. really appreciate the housing authority and henry alvarez's