. i want to speak about the open house and what it has provided for me. and my partner. i have a disabled partner. open house has provided a tremendous opportunity for social interaction that we would never have had. myself and my partner, my partner is less able to interact in an open house. i intend dozens of open house activities including the man's drop in group, lunches, the discussion groups, every third tuesday. also offers opportunities for volunteer work. the really need support in

obtaining a person who can coordinate volunteer services. many of us seniors would love to do volunteer work and who do not know where to go. they do not have the resources now and they're overworked. i am able to volunteer in some activities including longtime involvement in the friendly visitor program which has changed my life personally. bimini lgbt seniors i have met as you now live very lonely, isolated lives and open house has helped them making contact and friends with other lgbt seniors. thank you very much for your

continued support. >> i am rick appleby, i am an intake officer. as part of my role there i co- chair the lgbt community partnership. i am glad to hear the partnership been mentioned. an unfunded -- we are an unfunded grassroots advocates that are dedicated to insuring services. we represent 163 different agencies including open house but many others that are interested in working together to help lgbt seniors. in the last few years we have posted monthly education meetings. we have had workshops on hiv and aging. we are planning a town hall on transgendered.

-- transgendered issues. we will address the issues more forcibly and we look forward to improved services and greater support. we agree with other presenters today on all the topics and especially want to highlight the stories of the seniors that we're hearing. some of the specific comments from the partnership. funding needs to be proportionally available to lgbt seniors as a large segment of the population. we have heard city government talk about the few funds that have been put out for seniors -- given with a large percentage of seniors are, that should be a larger portion. laurie spoke about lgbt issues and those go hand in hand with aging. as these efforts of the board move forward, i hope you'll take into consideration the benefits

, accommodation and services for people with disabilities. i was glad to hear we might enforce best practices in community organizations. up until now it has been voluntary. outreach efforts need to be culturally sensitive not just to lgbt communities but the whole variety of cultural diversity in the city. i have a little bit of information about the partnership if you like. thank you for your hard work. fifth >> i am the creator of the documentary you saw a clip of and it was an honor to be asked to you -- to showing today. it is used by governments and aging agencies in more than a dozen countries as well as the organization represented here

today. the film was made in boston. i live in the bay area. i'm a resident of san francisco. i often get the question, why did you not make the film here? because despite all the great work going on here, despite stories of abuse and insensitivity that we have heard today and are reported that we found, we also found a widespread disbelief among many lgbt older people who we spoke with who said it could never happen here. not in san francisco. when we showed the film in the bay area i am surprised about how many people come up like one woman who said, that is sad and i am glad i live here in san francisco where that could never happen. we all know that is not the case. we have been hearing about that all afternoon. many people in this room know that there are thousands of older lgbt people right now out

there that are underserved because they do not trust services. many of them are going back into the closet as we have heard because they depend or live with people who may not be accepting of them. it is an historic opportunity to create a city here starting today where my partner and i can say yes, we're growing older, and we're starting to need some help but it is ok. we live in a place where it will always be safe to release the ourselves and never hide our love for our lives. thank you. -- or our lives. supervisor wiener: next speaker. >> congratulations, madame delonte. -- olague. i would like to all of us consider not just what services

we can provide but what kind of structural changes can we support that removed the obstacles from the beginning. i recall when this board passed the act against eviction. 25% were in the castro. passing that legislation was one of the most successful ways of preventing homelessness in housing and stability for the lgbt community. we now have enough history behind us to know that for the first time in 10 years, hiv infection rates went down in san francisco because we address the homelessness rates of people with hiv and aids in san francisco. the overlay is that seniors with hiv and aids are the fastest- growing portion of the hiv community. we have people who are older who do not realize they are at risk

and they are acquiring hiv. there's a lot of us getting older. and it is a bell curve, a tidal wave that is right about to hit. i am very happy to have worked with others to ensure this moved to an affordable development. i am also 20% of the people we serve our seniors. and we are going to run out of money for our eviction prevention funds and are rent subsidy program is maxed out. where are also running out of funds for deposit assistance. halfway through or fiscal year. finally, i would like to talk to all of you about a piece of legislation that i am thinking about. called mode, which would create

employment opportunities for people on social security. that i think look at us as assets and not probable -- liabilities. as resources for our city. supervisor wiener: thank you. next speaker. >> i am with outlook theater project. i am humbled and honored to be here and to share this microphone with my forbearers. i am here to talk about how lucky and our legacy in doing intergenerational theater programming in the bay area. we started our project, it was called the senior project inspired approximately five years ago by an article that appeared in the chronicle. it was the article that was before -- around housing for lgbt seniors and our coal flounder is -- co founders were interested in how to

address this issue. we partnered with lavender seniors and older people from the east bay. we interviewed people with strong ties and roots in san francisco. one of the things we kept hearing over the course of workshops was that an increase in isolated that lgbtqia seniors felt. also as a result of hearing our stories we created a partnership with lyric in order to start doing some of the work with young people. rebecca and of friday of other people have been doing services outside of all look and we want to do focusing on elders. as we listened, we realize these issues are not divorced from one another. what we need in addition to all

the housing, we also need intentional intergenerational programming that builds the conversation and dialogue among and between the friday of cultures and generations represented. we will lose our history and we will lose that story and the movement we have had moving forward. i want to end -- encourage more intention around intergenerational programming or other programs that already exist. supervisor wiener: thank you. how is retirement? >> it is great. i recommend it highly. i am retired from the human rights commission where i served for 22 years. senior manager of the lgbt and housing division. and i was the organizer of the public hearing that was mentioned with the commission on aging around the senior issues

and the recommendations that we brought forth. i want to recommend the creation of a task force. that might start with the implementation of the recommendations in the report. they're quite excellent. we heard from a cross-section of the community and it is a great place for the task force to start. i also want to mention myself as a senior. i moved here in 1965. i am 65 years old. i want to say that i love getting older. i am proud of it. i love being an old guy. one of the reasons i love it because my generation died. hundreds of our friends and acquaintances, including myself personally lost so many people that were our support system. so many elders rely on their family and their circle of friends for their support. so many of us lost virtually all

of our friends and the support systems are no longer there. we really need the support of our city and our community based organizations i love the training that -- the couple -- cultural competency trainers -- training. i want to stress they trainings will not do any good if the services are not there. i want to stress that we need to protect the services for our seniors. these are hard budget times but we need to be strong and make sure san francisco is not the city just for rich people to live in but all people can live in san francisco as healthy and contributing old folks in san francisco. thank you. >> i am 58.

i am a long-term aids survivor. i was living in san francisco and going to san francisco state at the nadir of the aids epidemic. i lived in one apartment where i am the sole person still alive out of the five people that lived in that department. today's "reporter," page 3, one says we were the guinea pig population. my case, i was disability retired in the 1990's i did not contribute much into the social security system. i am on private long-term disability insurance. i worked for a major hospital and another city for a long time and move back here. and so when i get to be age 65, my long term disability stipend which is modest, a couple thousand, middle-class, will go way and i will be on ssi-like

income of a few hundred dollars a month. i am not unique. there are hundreds of not thousands of people like myself and it is not being talked about. i hope that can start getting into the discussion. i wish i had more time. i have met lgbt seniors committee dealing with hiv and aids living in their cars and homeless shelters, couch surfing, living in sro's. some of them are dealing with dementia, hiv related or not and giving the loss of their partners and espouses. i have personal experience. i am grateful to scott and the supervisor campos and supervisor delonte -- olague. the need is great for more services. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.

kraska afternoon. -- good afternoon. i am 84 and a member of the senior leaders group of open house. previously i volunteered as a board member from both operation concerns and believe services for our community. when new leaf was forced to close due to lack of funding, i became concerned about what would happen, what would become of our senior program in san francisco? i am happy to report that with funds from the department of aging, open house is doing a spectacular job trying their best to continue aging services. i have taken part in an benefited from a griff group, an ongoing aging support group, nutrition sharing and various locations in the city. of special importance and in need of more funding is the housing referral program.

this is essential to our more frail, often isolated seniors. and deserving of increased funding and recognition. members of our community live alone. having to keep their minority status a closely guarded secret. in the existing lawn chair -- long term care facilities. they're not-we're not enjodeserg of such injustice. i recommend we protect our seniors at the most quotable time of our lives, old age. please consider an increasing funding. >> good afternoon. i am 57. i am a psychotherapist in a

community mental health agency that provides services to the gay and lgbt community. i would like to talk briefly about the mental health needs which are too often neglected in our community. health has about medical and mental health issues and there are unique mental health issues that our community faces. those of us that live -- lived through the devastation of the 1980's are experiencing ptsd- like symptoms as we grow into older age. many of us have been forced to leave san francisco and increased isolation. many are talking about who will hear our stories? as many people have shown, many of our peers are gone and we do not have children. i facilitate a support group for men over 50 which frequently was full. with the change in funding i have had to limit my services to the hiv negative men although we

have committed to provide services to everyone. they're more comfortable -- if you do not qualify for medi-cal and cannot afford private pay, there are virtually no services available to you. i would like to encourage the board to fund mental health services for the full range of people in the community. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am the director of the aids legal referral panel. i also served on the mayor's long-term clear coordinating council. -- care coordinating council. we have been around for 29 years. last year, i believe i am the same age as supervisor olague.

i am paying more attention to the senior issues. we noticed 50% of our clients were over 50 years of age and over 15% of our clients were over 60. the good news is people living with hiv and aids are living longer. as you know, the challenges they are facing are grave. housing is the single largest issue that our clients face. we know in order for people to manage this horrible disease, they need stable, affordable housing. there are many things that we can do in this community despite the loss of affordable housing funds. one thing is we can have an ongoing city conversation about how we use our limited affordable housing funds. the conversation is broken into lots of small groups. there used to be a concerted effort to combine all those conversations under the chads.

it would be great if supervisors can support that effort. we can put money into homelessness prevention and provide housing counseling and eviction prevention to keep people in their homes. supervisor wiener mentioned helping people age in place. the city used to have a housing modification fund. a small bit of money but it went along way toward enabling it renters to do modifications in their units so they could stay in their homes. it would be a great idea for the city to restart and it would not be a huge chunk of change. the other thing i want to second is a number of folks have talked about as people are getting older, they will agent of their long-term disability policies and they will see a precipitous drop in there and come. it is something we need to plan for. we need benefits counseling services in order to revise those folks. if you take a poll of everybody out here in the audience about

whether they want to land in a nursing home or whether they want to stay in their home, i would suggest that everybody wants to stay in their home. the only way that will happen is with affordable housing and community-based services. thank you. >> i will read up more names as the next speaker comes forward. -- read out more names as the next speaker comes forward. >> good afternoon. i am a program manager for the san francisco lgbt community center. i am here speaking for our executive director who had to step out to a meeting. we support any kind of movement that happens here under discussion as well as the task force and probably also a future plan to address the issue of lgbt elders. we have increased our services in partnership with open house

and provide social, community- based services as well as intergenerational programming. a lot of the services that are current in the city are stopgap measures. they are in median. we look forward to being proactive in long-term planning by addressing not only the issues but strategizing a way to look forward to serve lgbt seniors as we move into 20/20 and 2030. -- 2020 and 2030. there is a brain trust here. the would not be difficult to strategist something here. thank you. -- it would not be difficult to starter joe something here. -- strategizing something here. >> thank you. >> we need to do more of this.

we need to activate and communicate with our constituency about the creeping crisis. it is creeping up on us along with age. i am 71. i'm very happy to be as healthy as i am. someday i will not be able to claclimbed to levels of step ton upper floor apartment. i am stuck there because i cannot afford to move. the one has -- bill lumley has been rented ford $2,175 a month. -- the one below me has been rented for 2001 under 75 a month. i am looking forward to leaving for economic reasons. i am not the only one.

-- who live in their cars and maintain a great facade of being well dressed. but they live in their cars to stay here. i don't know what the supervisors could possibly do with a given city budget. i do not envy you. that is a struggle. but we need to do more than maintain the service level that is available through our existing agencies. as a psychotherapist, i was appalled when nearly went under. we need to do more than that. we need to do something like this. we need to issue a call to a crisis that is gradually sneaking up on us so that san francisco can make their response that we made to the hiv crisis. a generation ago. which was dramatic, unusual, and met the real needs.

thank you. >> i am a recent transplant to san francisco. i lived here two years. i'm one of those people who was relegated to one of the places that were less tolerating of gay people most of my life. i finally made it appear. i am on social security. i have become disabled and probably will need a double lung transplant within the next year. i have a social security. i have a relative i live with at this point. affordable housing does not seem to be possible. it is something i am going to need and affordable housing -- i have a relative. i am grateful for you all to -- for having this form and hopefully the rest of my years here will be as nice as i hope them to be.

thank you. >> good afternoon. i am legal director adtran senger lot center. -- transgendered law center. thank you for convening this hearing. we regularly hear from transgendered here -- seniors who face serious discrimination and exclusion from essential services. elders and people with disabilities in hospitals and long-term care facilities are sometimes forced to transition back to the gender assigned at birth because of staff or family members who are not fully informed of or not supportive of that person's gender identity or expression. some of the most damaging discrimination faced by elders is at the hands of medical providers. because of their despair -- experiences with discrimination, many elders avoid seeking treatment altogether which can

pose serious risks to their health. it is essential that providers treating trans elders receive training. the city of san francisco should mandate competency training for elders and provide meaningful outreach efforts. it is imperative the city committed to finding solutions to the crises that the elders are facing. thanks for bringing much- needed attention to this underserved segments of our community. >> i will read a few more names. marilyn hayward, dougles yep, and other speakers. >> i am a member of the health commission and an officer of the coalition of agencies several of the elderly.

since the beginning like many kids have a service agencies, we have been serving lgbt seniors and helping them maintain their health and independence. we learned how to make services appropriate. maximize consumer choice and a scheurer cultural compensate and make sure that client satisfaction measures are followed. maximizing consumer choice is important with food. the type of food, how you get it, how it is delivered. at the health department we designed help the san francisco so people could choose their own medical home. they could find out where they feel comfortable. i am the order of the ihss medical authority. the allow people to