a lot of the phenomenon was that they've you have the largest of ownership rate for many years. a lot of homeowners cashed in their chips and moved out of the city. the show's the number of african american homeowners in the city. they have declined much faster. 37% fewer. one of the major concerns from my department is isolation is a huge factor in terms of negative outcomes for low-income families and seniors as well, as i mentioned earlier. if families with resources moved away, who did not move? a lot of them are the families who did not have the resources to move away. not only are they struggling

with fewer resources, but those are aunts and uncles and grandparents who live in antioch, and they have less social support. isolation is the second biggest factor after poverty for child abuse in the city. if you think about any negative outcome, youth violence, school dropouts, whatever, it is always aggravated when a neighborhood or community is homogenous in poverty. when there is only low-income people who live there. when it is not a healthy, diverse community. this is a very acute pressure for low-income families in san francisco. this is income standards for families. the show's the top level -- this shows what the top level is. the next is the federal poverty

level for family of three. the next one comes from a study done by the center for community economic development. it shows what it would cost to for that same family unit to have a no-frills lifestyle in san francisco. the yellow bar is the median income for single parents with two kids in san francisco. you have the average of almost 100,004 -- 100,000 for a family. it is nothing but destitution. i want to point out in the governor's budget, the cuts to this amount being opposed -- proposed, the proposal by the governor is that there be two years lifetime for families. that if a parent wants to take

time out to go to school, the parent is in a domestic violence situation, the clock still takes. currently they can have an exemption and stopped the clock while they stabilize their lives. the proposal is to remove even more threads to the safety net. >> a large part of a question in gauging how we're doing compared to other cities. do you have that data as well? isolation -- how we are doing vis-a-vis other cities is important to look at. >> of course. the specific question you're asking we do not have, but we can do. we have done other comparisons with other counties in terms of public benefit and household types. we can look at families -- family households by income

level. i work with bryan chu to do that. >> we will follow-up as well. thank you for being here. we appreciate it. we have a few more speakers. thank you, everyone, for bearing with us. next we have the director of coleman advocates. ms. walker. thank you for being here. thanks for sticking around. >> thank you for the opportunity to present this afternoon. supervisor elsbernd: or evening, almost. >> we have two members who wanted to speak and share their stories. one had to leave. veronica garcia will sheer horror -- will share her story. >> good afternoon. my name is brought a garcia. i am a part of coleman advocates

and the organizing effort under students making a change. i am a native of san francisco. i am a single mother of two children who are 7 and 10 years old. i am a full-time student at city college. i also work part-time making $12 an hour. i am a caretaker for my mother who needs a heart transplant. i am an example of the families that are struggling to survive in san francisco. an example of this is i am currently living with my parents because i cannot afford to live on my down in san francisco, $12 salary. my home has eight people living in it which is multigenerational, now. i share a room with my two daughters which can imagine is pretty crowded. and because we do not have space, they have to do their homework on the bed which is where i also do my homework. another example is the fact that the cost of rent is ridiculously

high. the waiting lists for affordable housing or ridiculously long. even though i qualify for for housing, i have not been able to obtain it. moreover, what one can be paid for a job does not suffice the income needed to live in the city. as much as i am -- i love san francisco i am forced to look for other cities to move to. despite my hardship, i am committed to give more opportunity to my family. this should not mean i should be forced out of my city to make that happen. so i'm going to read. good afternoon, my name is evelyn. i have been a member of coleman families while being active in the affordable housing and education campaign. since birth, at been raising my grandson while his mother finishes school. i became all too well known about the challenges that

children face, especially african-american boys who, every day -- who face every day in schools and in some neighborhoods within the city. wanting a better future for my grandson, i became aware of the schools where he would obtain his education. as a parent and a grandparent, i wanted more for him since his mother struggles in school due to lack of support she received in public education during her fault -- third and fourth grade -- during her middle and high school years. most of our kids are overlooked in and passed on as not being able to go on and succeed in a four-year college and those who do struggle to catch up with their students because they did not receive the educational corp. to perform level needed to succeed when obtaining a degree. realizing this, i am fighting the school -- finding a school for him so he can achieve his goals in life, securing the

future. education is not an option but the key to being successful in my family. after searching for an affordable home and a landlocked -- a landlord to accept section a, i was forced to look across the bay. every part of my life was in the city. my doctor and school. the commute was very costly. we left home early in the morning even driving and returning late. when taking part -- bart, my grandson was sleeping and complaining of being tired. his health turned for the worst. we have to accept a home in hunters point area near the shipyard with assistance by section 8. i could not live in san francisco. it has been difficult finding a place we can afford and able to live on and i unsafe neighborhoods where he can play without worrying he would get shot or killed because he wanted to go outside to play or ride

his bike. since then we have found a better place to live. crime and safety is a big problem. i watch children walking to and from school witnessing gunshots and death each and every day. they go to school and try to learn. although some teachers and schools have tried to return to the classrooms are overcrowded and teachers are not trained to help. all the children fail. i know a child goes through their kindergarten years and on through third grade only once. when the school system fails to educate them, to build a jail for them when they reach a certain age says volumes to where their party lies and i feel that here at coleman, we've fight to make that change. there many parents and grandchildren -- grandparents raising children. -- there are many parents and grandparents raising children. all children are not being given the chance to get the right

access to even apply or necessary -- necessary knowledge of how to get the help they need to do better in school and stay at of our penal system. better yet, the more. i am working so our kids have the opportunity to enter into the job market and afford a home in the city they live in. thank you. >> thank you for those stories and sharing that. >> hello, supervisors. i appreciate this hearing and making the space to hear from the voices of parents who are struggling to survive and stay in san francisco. we handed out a report. in 2008,: released a report --

coleman released a report. in the report, we looked out the subsets by income. we looked at four different level incomes for families in san francisco and found we believe all children have the right to secure future in their own city and our findings say that is not the case for all children and in particular, for two-thirds of children looking at extremely poor, low-wage working, and middle income families. who in 2000 made up 66% of san francisco families. based on the 2000 census. we're talking about families making less than 120%. this is in 2008 before the recent census numbers. we have not done their across tabulations for the 2010 census numbers. based on what we're looking at

we can assume there is a lot of similar trends. we have found that middle-income families, defined as 80% to 120% of ssmi, are priced out of home ownership. we have had conversations about that in the last couple of hours. we want to make sure the stories and priorities and policies of the city are not only focused on middle income families but are focused on extremely poor and low-wage working families when we are deciding what policies we are putting in place to try to curb family flight. these are the families who are in overcrowded and substandard living conditions. if they're lucky, they get this -- they get subsidized housing. this is the distribution of families with and racial and ethnic groups.

when we're looking at those for your income groups, it was striking to find that -- those four income groups, it was striking to find the concentration by race. there is a concentration of black families with and the extremely poor income group. a concentration of latino families with and low-wage working and white families with an upper income and asian families with a middle-class income. these are the lines of race and class in san francisco. >> are you planning to update this for the 2010 census? >> we have not done across tabulations for race and income for the most recent. what i am referring to is 2010 census numbers. if you look at the second half of the page, the number of upper-income children have

increased by over 5000 in the last 20 years. other income groups of children have decreased significantly. this is based on the recent city economist report that was done for the housing hearing a couple of weeks ago. if you look at the chart at the bottom, some of these numbers we have talked about. i can skim over them. we're looking at an increase in terms of the child population. the child population is becoming increasingly young, white, and wealthy. i think that before closing this and passing on to our executive director, i wanted to draw attention to the last for the third page. this chart is looking at by race with the change in the child population has been. we heard from dan kelly at hsa,

very similar to what he is saying. every racial group has decreased except for white and mixed-race children. most shockingly, the african- american population especially because of their lower numbers in san francisco. we would argue the city's policies and practices have contributed to this trend. coleman fought for the children's fund. we believe in open space in parks. those things will not be the defining factor for what keeps the family in san francisco if they are struggling to survive. when we're looking at economic policies, we have to consider families and extremely poor, low-wage working, and middle income families when we're making those decisions. thank you. supervisor farrell: thank you. >> i want to talk about key priorities. and key recommendations that we're hoping that will be

considered here. move children out of poverty with a priority of the needs of 45,000 children growing up and 20,000 extremely poor and low- wage working families, part i is those first. invest in affordable. focus the vast majority of limited housing resources on building a four -- permanently affordable housing. invest in a secure future for 100,000 children with the priority being build affordable family housing, prioritizing poor and low wage working families below 80% sfmi. prepare all sfusd children for college and living wage work. invest in a stronger safety net for families and create concrete pads out of poverty and create

jobs. as chelsea stated, it is important to note that while there has been economic development policy initiatives, it is not focused on families and children in the city. when there has been policies focused on that, it has been targeted toward middle income families and not poor and low- income families. it is important to know that we need to figure out how to take into account all families, especially these poor and low- income households who are cleaners, who are folks that are in our hotel rooms, they are drivers to the buses, they take care of our children in the child care system. there cashier's and waiters. we highlight the tourism here, we need to figure out how to make these individuals for working hard every day,

sometimes to jobs, to be able to live here and drive. we're interested in the mayor's job priorities. we will be advocating for job policy opportunities to include job access before -- for low- income families including youth. while unemployment is improving for some, it is not necessarily for the black or latino communities. the unemployment rate has hovered around 20% for blacks and 14% for the latino community. we support solutions for today and tomorrow. there is a lot of talk about the high-tech industry jobs. even involving young people in those. what are the pathways to make sure that low-income and working families children and youth can get into those jobs, whether today or tomorrow? summer jobs are available often but they tell black and latino children and teenagers they are not qualified. there is no plan to help them get qualified for the upcoming

next year. finally, we focus on education. it is a social justice issue. there has been talk about education, affordable housing, and jobs. we do not think that one is better than the other. the focus the city needs to figure out of court -- a better relationship with the board of ed and make sure our children are qualified to go into college. veronica talked about, she is at cities college -- city college. it takes longer to get out. in closing, we hope this is not a one time opportunity to hear what the statistics are going on in san francisco but figuring out real, true policy solutions that can move and include the voices of communities of color that are most impacted. as someone who is new to the city, i am concerned on a regular basis, especially around the black families and if there will be any black families for

my organization to organize in 10 years. thank you. supervisor farrell: thank you for coming and speaking for the stories. especially thank you for your time today. we appreciate it. moving along, we have to folks left. -- two folks left. andrew, thanks for coming. supervisor dufty, we will do shortly. >> thank you. i am the director and co-founder of the san francisco families support network. the network is a membership based organization made up of the various stakeholders in the family support field. those include public departments, public foundations, and community-based organizations focused on supporting san francisco's families. our mission is to work collectively to achieve quality

programs, coordination of resources, and policies that support all san francisco families. our vision is san francisco made by brand by healthy, strong, and the first family supported by accessible, well coordinated, high-quality resources and services and by policies that value and promote their well- being. we could not be happening -- happy -- more happy about the fact you have called this hearing and we thank you for doing that. we as a family support network for all about coordination and collaboration. it has been said that san francisco does not so much a lack resources as it lacks coordination. hence, the need to work together and come together. which is where you found today. especially thinking before supervisors who were here today. -- thanking the four supervisors who were here today. all of you have records of supporting families which is key

to the success of these initiatives. we want to thank kathrin stephanie -- katherine stephanie. we are covering some points here. why families believe and what the network is doing. and talk about the success workgroup and talk about what remains to be done collectively. in terms of white families live, -- why families leave, the issue of family flight has been going on since the 1960's. families told us through city surveys, especially the ones conducted every two years. there are three main issues. the cost of living, the cost of housing, and the perceived quality of the public schools. those are the three top schools repeatedly mentioned by families.

supervisor farrell: do you have those surveys done after -- year after year? >> we have so many that have been conducted recently -- frequently. you have heard organizations that have conducted data. we do not lack for services -- for sources or information. the issue of why so many families exit at age 5, at age five is when people are entering that schools or -- and they do not get their choices or they are uncomfortable and they leave. also housing. when your child is 5 years old, you need another bedroom by now. maybe you started to have another child at this point. your family is growing. that is where the housing becomes a squeeze which is why families leave around age five.

those are the main reasons why 5 seems to be the tipping point. in terms of what the san francisco met -- network and its membership is doing, we are and network of 61 different members. the majority of them are family support programs. family support programs support families. as because -- as basic as that is, it is fundamental to families succeeding. two of the most important roles, being a parent or partner or spouse, we received no training for whatsoever. maybe we are fortunate we had good role models. many of us were not. where do we find that support? especially if we are away from our extended families and striking out in a new city. how do we find that? family support programs are poised to help. that is why they are here. those most commonly are family resource centers of which there are 24. there are other programs that

support families in critical, meaningful ways. such as parents for public schools, which supports parents to have an active role in their children's education. we know empirically through data, national data, when parents are involved in schools, children and families do better. children, families, schools do better when parents are involved. another point to mention is that given that san francisco is a city of immigrants, many family support programs act as extended family for the families they are working with. for families who have now extended family here. they played a key role in bridging that gap and supporting families to be healthy and strong. the second point to mention in terms of what the support network is doing is our policy platform on promoting family economic success. all this can be found at our website at sfsfsn.org

the policy platform focuses on this key area of promoting family economics assess. as we -- family economic success. there was a gap in ones focused on the economic success. that is where our network came up with this policy platform which looks that supporting families economically through unit family support, two generations strategy. we're talking about supporting the parents to obtain the education and skills they need for jobs that provide living wages to support themselves and their families as well as we're talking about supporting the children to be well prepared for future of learning and learning. that is what -- why our policy platform is very broad, including school readiness to supporting the improvement of english as a second language education for the many immigrant families in the city for whom

esl is critical in obtaining jobs that can provide living wages for themselves and their families. this policy platform which was developed five years ago, hard to believe already, is not a document that lives on the shelves. it is actively implemented on a daily basis by the many stakeholders in the city who work on these issues. every year, we hold a forum in may. it will be a morning of may 18. save the day, which is the annual san francisco family's economic success forum that highlights and recognizes and awards the many people who have moved pieces of the platform forward in the previous year and highlights the pieces we plan to move in the coming year. that is the way to keep this alive. economic issues are not going away for families. we have worked on these issues before the economic downturn when the situation became more serious. another entity to mention, give

credit for, and highlight their work is the work of the san francisco family economic success worker. this is a unique collaboration of public agencies, private funders, and nonprofits committed to improving the economic well-being of families. the san francisco families support network is pleased to co-chair this with the office of financial empowerment. it is a public-private partnership that is working on advancing these issues around family economic success. this is no one department or organization's responsibility or band with a long period is a collective, collaborative effort that makes the difference. one of the products to highlight is the work we have done around promoting and identifying what are the various kinds of benefits and services that many families qualify for, that they did not know the qualified for. we have identified 14 of those and created an entire site certification program that aims to get different sites across

the city prepared and certified with being able to provide family support and access -- in accessing these benefits. everything from child care to healthcare, food stamps, park and rec scholarships. helping getting fat information in family's hands. we have trained 700 direct service staff on how to help families access these benefits. if you think about the impact of 700 staff working with thousands of families, this is critical. why does this matter? in terms of economic downturn, in terms of -- times of downturn, family stress increases. when family stress increases, rates of child abuse and neglect and domestic violence increased also. this is data that is clear and have been recorded time after time. family support programs were already prepared to help families address the challenges already prepared to help families address the challenges