this will show it is not capable of being the small business commissioned it was chartered to be. cracks seeing no commissioner's comments, we didn't have public comment -- >> seeing no commissioner's comments, we have no public comment? >> public comment is opened. >> seeing none, thank you very much. much appreciated. public comment is closed, and back to you, chris. >> as with previous rounds, we will go in order of those nominated. commissioner kathleen dooley was nominated. on that motion. commissioner clyde: yes.

commissioner dooley: yes. >> unfortunately, you cannot of spain. you need reasons for it -- you cannot abstain. >> the motion fails, 3-3. commissioner o'brien was nominated. [calling votes] that motion failed, 3-3. >> the you say the rest of the meeting is adjourned or just this item? >> without being able to take a

formal action on this, we are required to close the meeting. if we are not able to continue this through a formal motion -- if we are not able to continue to the february meeting, the next step is to make a motion to close the meeting, but we still need a 4-3 vote on that. do we want to discuss it? >> of his time, commissioners can take additional nominations, or we would refer to robert's rules of order, and you need to either continue this on february 7 with four more commissioners,

or the only option is to close the meeting. if commissioner o'connor is no longer present, since this is a procedural motion, only a majority of commissioners currently president would be required to vote to close the meeting. >> we need a majority. >> you just stated we need a majority at this point, which is i believe what the city attorney advised us if we have five commissioners in attendance. goobacks right, and that assumee have a commissioner willing to put a motion before the board to

vote on whether to continue or not. perhaps we have two options. to continue we would need four votes. perhaps we would have to put that in motion. -- >> we would have to put that in motion. >> our attorney noted if there are five commissioners in attendance, we would need a majority to close the meeting. >> do we have a motion to continue? >> no. >> based on the legal advice, i now call this meeting to a close. >> unfortunately, we still need to go through the same sort of procedural steps. you can not so's you'd allow correlation -- you cannot just

unilaterally call the meeting to a close, so we need to have you call a motion and go through the steps and have a majority approves it. >> even with every commissioners if they moved to close, we can close the meeting? >> yes. >> thank you for staying behind to do that. >> i make a motion and we close the meeting. >> i second. >> any objections? seeing none, the meeting is now closed.

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 betwn 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 partnership in this, because it will have an immediate impact for families who are waiting for permanent housing and certainly permanent affordable housing that the housing authority provides. we do have some longer-term ideas as well with the housing authority, and henry alvarez is here to speak to them in more

detail. it has to do with, again, reopening the preference criteria on the waiting list and seeing if there is a way to prioritize further homeless families in the city system of care. supervisor avalos: ideally, since we253 families on the waiting list for more long-term housing -- >> for long-term shelter. >> for shelter, we're trying to pare down that list. right now we found 51 slots, but you're looking at more slots there could be available? >> it is not simply the waiting list for shelter, which is 253 families, it is also the families that are currently in a shelter. that is the universe we're trying to pare down to get into public housing. you over that more slots in the shelter system, and then of course, degrees them. about longer term plans, reopeningth