the impact on these families credit abilities so they will not be barred in the future from purchasing a home. but it is a very difficult situation unfortunately, many cases we are not able to work towards a loan modification. and short sales offer an alternative to foreclosure, but those families still have to move out. in most of those cases, families, we found, tend to find emergency housing, often with other relatives. they often have to move out of the city. sometimes moving to another state. it has been a very challenging time for them. so we're open to working with the city for solutions. we get requests every day, but we're limited in what we are able to do for our own program, but we're happy to work with the city if there are other efforts. supervisor avalos: thank you. >> good morning.

teresa from the mayor's office of housing. for our supportive housing pipeline, it is not only challenging to deal with for closures but also challenging to build affordable housing in san francisco. in our current pipeline, we have about 133 housing units that are slated for homeless families specifically. that is funded and support with the human services agency and our local operating subsidy program, which thankfully you guys are always willing to support through the budget process. of those 133 units, and none are necessarily -- they are in development now and are slated for opening starting in 2013 and 2014. so nothing that is immediately develop will -- available. most housing currently under construction is he there for seniors are the disabled, but we definitely have staff in the pipeline. today, we have at least 179 units targeted specifically for homeless families, families in some other affordable housing

developments, and that is funded through the human services agencies and our local operating subsidies program. those homeless families go to the human services agency access points. supervisor avalos: thank you. if there are no other persons to present -- >> we did have a couple folks from the school district if you had questions about the families in transition program, and we are available to answer any questions. we're also interested in hearing from families. supervisor avalos: i think that would be best if we can go to public comment. and then if you're still available for questions, i would be delighted to have them. so let's go ahead and open it up for public comment. i do not have cards, but if folks who would like to speak

and line up along the windows here, we will do two minutes per person. again, i want to thank a lot of the folks in the community, families who are homeless, and the coalition of homelessness for your advocacy in raising this issue, raising awareness of it, and being able to get a response in court in nation from the city, which is a great thing. also to get folks from the private sector as well, the benioff family. please come forward. two minutes per person. >> hello. because of the director programs for hamilton family center. first, i want to say i am very encouraged to here then is that the salesforce and hsa

collaboration. this funding will definitely be infused a need and fulfill a need in san francisco. we're currently looking at the decrease of homeless prevention rapid re-housing dollars that were infused into the city in september 2009, which allow us to serve approximately 128 families. since that time what rental subsidies in move-in support, we're currently in the process of ramping down from the funding, because that funding will end june 2012. so this infusion will definitely allow us to provide additional and continuing subsidies and move-in support for families. i also want to bring up the fact that there is a big shift happening in federal funding that we need to pay attention to.

the emergency solutions grant -- the emergency shelter grant is shifting to the emergency solutions brand, which will focus that money on prevention. yeah, at the same time, we continue to need a safety net in san francisco. hamilton family center provides a full circle, from emergency services to subsidies and move- in for homeless families and the eviction prevention. [bell rings] we need all of these services. having shelter while waiting to get into housing, as well as support to move families as rapidly as possible into housing. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> i am assistant program director at compass connecting point, which manages the waiting list for the long-term family shelters. i wanted to talk more about what we are seeing on our end. i know that you mentioned earlier, in june 2007, there

were 71 families on our waiting list for family shelter, and they could expect to wait approximately two months for placement. a family with a serious medical or mental health condition, could get a fast track and shelter within a week or two. today we have over 250 families on the waiting list, and they couldn't expect with over seven months for placement. a family with a serious medical or mental condition still has about two to three-month wait for placement. during the time that families are waiting for shelter, they are often staying from couch-to- count, parks, hotels, emergency overnight shelters, and more. it is not uncommon that we will see families who are staying, you know, 10 people in a 1- bedroom unit in the projects. families are staying in a variety of situations. they will stay with a relative one eye, hotel lanai, car one night, and more. a lot of families cannot sustain this. families often leave the state are moved back into an abusive

situation, lose custody of their children, or they drop off the radar and do not continue getting services, but they never achieve stability. one of the scary things right now that the overnight shelters are reaching capacity. the last resort shelters that we used to use the like providence, have recently had to turn families the way for the first time in history, which is pretty scary. [bell rings] supervisor avalos: your time is right there. >> ok. so the last point i just wanted to make is that, unlike other residential programs, compass connecting point does not have programming capacity. we will continue to serve in the family that is homeless and in need of shelter, but our budget does not increase at all. the case managers are working with triple caseloads, tripoli a lot of hot line calls. there is emergency services like diapers, bus tokens, and food. but we're definitely very grateful to have this opportunity to collaborate with

community partners. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. please come forward, next speaker. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is lee. my family lives in an sro unit. [speaking foreign language] i am here to call for your help on the situation homeless families are facing. we now have over 2,000 students

in public schools that are homeless kids. i have>> i have a son who is ind grade now. when he comes home, he has. it is even hard for him to move around in the room. >> [speaking foreign language. ] >> it is difficult to find opportunities, even for affordable housing. >> [speaking foreign language. ] >> i hope that the city will provide better housing for our children.

>> [speaking foreign language] >> we are concerned about families on the street that are homeless. we ask for your help. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you. >> [speaking foreign language] >> supervisors, i am one of the worker organizers for the foundation. i did collaborative. >> [speaking foreign language] >> i'd like to share with you what the families are telling me. because i do home visits all the time, they tell me that there are [unintelligible] on the rental subsidies. >> [speaking foreign language]

>> about the limit of years on the rental subsidy, although we said there was a possibility of extending it to five years, most of the families are out within a couple of years. >> [speaking foreign language] >> one of the hurdles for families in rentals such as these is that they would need to raise their monthly income at least $500. in this time, when families are getting really tough times

holding on to jobs, much less getting a raise on the job, things like that -- a lot of them feared that they could not raise -- meet the requirement to raise their income. so, they are not applying, even though they really wanted to move up. >> [speaking foreign language] >> this limited number of slots for families on the rental subsidy, some of the families might get to a point where they can use the rental subsidy. but all applications have been closed at that time. >> [speaking foreign language] >> i urge the city and

supervisors to look at the soup -- situation and improve the much needed housing that our families need. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello, good morning. my name is deborah. i am here as a resident of san francisco. my day job is the medical director of the homeless families program run by the san francisco department of public health. i also work with and for the national health care for the homeless. i do a lot of work with the homeless nationally and in affirmative front care. i wanted to say thank you to you and all of the incredible people in the city, public and private, nonprofit working currently on this issue. your work is outstanding. being poor and a vulnerable,

for a family it is devastating, medically and emotionally. for homeless families, it is exponential. the demographics between -- i have children, so i am used to it -- so, the demographics between homeless adults and families is very different. unfortunately, we are doing is building more work for the future. -- unfortunately, what we are doing is building more work for the future. sorry, i am nervous right now, my brain is not functioning as well as it could. if you were getting hit by a bus coming toward you, your brain would shut off. you would not be able to memorize the gettysburg address or remember what you had for breakfast. the 2000 children facing

homelessness, and countless more out there unable to function in schools because of the level of stress for families -- i want to just say that a long-term effects, there are studies about increased chances for heart disease and substance abuse. if you would like that data, i can provide it to you. the other issue is that in san francisco, chronic homeless adults, we have great programming and we are ahead of the nation. we do not have that parallel system for homeless families. if they follow -- if they fall through the gap in this system, there is not a lot of stabilization to get help first. that is what everyone here is working toward. i had a family, recently, that left with type 1 diabetes. she was out in her car, and it got stolen.

cbs got involved. there are lots of families like that, where we do not have anyone between the gaps and the resources we are offering. i would like to look at parallel processes for the families. >> hello, my name is kate. i am here as a san francisco resident. my day job is with the san francisco department of public health. i wanted to paint a picture of what we do every week. i sit with kids at the connecting point. once a week to shelter directors and i meet, going over the priority list. it has doubled into the 50's. usually it is in the 20's. you get on the priority list because of physical and mental health issues.

we are seeing sicker and sicker families on both sides. we have to -- we listen to the stories and they are really, really compelling. newborns. kids with immune problems. kids in wheelchairs, sometimes. parents in wheelchairs. people who are postoperative period high-risk pregnancies. and they go through the list and at the end of the session, we say -- how many rooms are available? sometimes it is zero. usually it is one or two. on a good day, we will have four. it is a difficult task. the other thing that i wanted to mention was that we only have two homerooms in the entire city for medical respite. if there is an outbreak of influenza in the shelter -- [tone] we have no where to put people.

it is a very different picture for homeless adults. we do not have the resources. thank you. supervisor avalos: has that changed, over the years? has there been a reduced number? >> it is a larger number of people. people are sicker. it is the numbers. with the same resources. so, the resources were not adequate before. now, you know, we sat around -- i am a mother of an ill child and i cannot imagine not having a roof over my head. we have to make really difficult decisions. it is unbelievable. in a city like this, where there is so much money. supervisor avalos: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning, supervisors. thank you for holding this hearing. in the political director of united educators of san francisco.

made a job for 25 years has been classroom teacher. last week we passed a resolution to get the teachers and professionals of san francisco involved in every way possible to solve this problem. when we throw around the figure -- 2000, 2100 children, showing up to our schools homeless, that means that virtually every single classroom in this district has at least one homeless student. educators know that poverty is the number one indicator of problems with our students. student failure, students being left behind, students not graduating, students not showing up for school. they are so traumatized, as previous speakers alluded to, they cannot get engaged with their lesson. we imagine that there are homeless students, and the

studies are out there, that the problem is geometrically multiplied. they will not be able to do their history lesson, certainly not be able to take up the challenge in subjects like geometry and physics, let alone learning to count to 10. so, we are very glad that you are holding the hearing. all of these folks from the community, we want everyone to know that the teachers and professionals of san francisco are joining in this effort. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you. >> [speaking foreign language] >> good morning, my name is theresa. >> [speaking foreign language] supervisor avalos: you want to pull the microphone closer to

you for the translation? >> working as a supporter for the homeless and housing. she thought it was very important. >> [speaking foreign language] >> we know that there are a lot of things that are open for people. she stayed in a shelter for one and half years. >> [speaking foreign language]

>> she said that four years ago, her children had academic problems. she said that for an adult is ok, we are strong. we can support that. but children are different. they have really bad trauma, a lot, being homeless. >> [speaking foreign language]

>> she says that the only thing that we act -- that we ask is for those units to be given to the homeless people. she thinks the city will be looking better with less people on the streets, sleeping in the streets. i think that they deserve to have a place that is decent. >> [speaking foreign language] >> thank you. >> hello, good morning.

jennifer from the coalition on homelessness. i think that all of us here today think it is a wonderful thing to see how things have changed over the last several weeks. we went from a situation where we had an action plan laid out by homeless families who had no response from the city to a " in the paper claiming a huge rise -- quote in the paper claiming that this huge rise in homeless families was not a crisis, to what was indeed, as we can agree on now, a crisis. this is a testament to the homeless families standing up with courage, side by side with service providers, making sure that the media embraces their voices and here's the tragic stories of the families in san francisco today. has led to this huge outpouring where families have been joined by teachers, nurses, private

citizens and donors to really address this response. that is what i think, at least we believe, the embracing of this fundamental right to housing is. we would like to see, as we step forward, an engagement directly with homeless families and service providers to figure out the best way to respond to this. we would like to see an inclusion of every family in crisis. not just families with school- age children, although it is important -- due to the educational impact. [tone] we also want to make sure that the impact on how -- newborns and homeless children, 0-5, is addressed. we would like to see a list of the families living in hotels, who for some reason are not on the list for shelter -- families living in cars, these situations that we cannot comprehensively

addressed until we meet that time -- [tone] when there are not men, women, and children living on the streets of san francisco. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. hello. excuse me for being emotional because of my condition. my name is and that,sa and i -- is annette. in nine months pregnant. i have been waiting on the housing list for three years. i finally get my -- what did you call that? appointment. they say that i will get a unit in six weeks to eight weeks. then they give you the run around with paperwork. then they say that i am ineligible because of a misdemeanor charge.

now, i go to legal aid and they changed their tune. they did not -- now they say that they did not say that i wasn't eligible. it has been six months, waiting for unit. i have been in a shelter. in this shelter, there are more and more families and no beds. it is sad. they do not have enough for the families who are homeless. a lot more pregnant women have become homeless. and i think it is because of the same problem that i thought would happen. i hear stories about this city worker giving them problems getting their housing units. [tone] i think it would be good that

maybe by the next holiday, a lot of us have houses. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you. next speaker, please. [applause] i appreciate your coming and telling your story. i know it is very hard. it is important that we know. >> [speaking foreign language]

>> hello, my daughter and i lived in a shelter. we are asking for a house. a better place to live. we are demanding a solution to this problem. actually, today my husband left us. we are alone in these shelters. >> [speaking foreign language] >> the separation between my husband and i is due to economic problems. when we arrived at this country, we had no job. >> [speaking foreign language]