taxpayers. they are being hosed. the system is broken but you are paying far more than a stable housing to take care of me. i thank you for the opportunity to say that. >> thank you.

>> hello, i am a resident at -- and i have been homeless for the last seven months. not to negate what anyone is saying about their issues, the value issues that people have with this system. i am personally having a pretty good experience. the city of san francisco offered occupy san francisco a school so that they could have some programs there and they turned it down.

75% of the people have some sort of disability. i would qualified medically and longer i stay in the system, i qualify more as mentally disabled as for the fact i am in the system. there are quite a few number of people that don't have to be there but are becoming debilitated by the system itself, not by the shelters. i don't think anyone is negating any one -- negating any thing in the system. as a director mentioned, this is an overtaxed, overburdened system. help us to find the real estate to get a place to live and to create the jobs of the future because there is manufacturing on a level that has not been seen in a hundred years. there are people buildings small

businesses that run on websites that need manufacturing. >> thank you. >> i would like to thank the board of supervisors for the opportunity to speak to you. i am outraged. you seem like well intentioned folk. there is the disparity and perspective so glaring from our stance. you have this system, the able- bodied and you have the broken body. the accounting box the grants so they get provided a bit. you cannot touch this check, so the broken bodies get jerked around. this is plainly evident. anyone who is advocating for

this is a cold hearted bastard it is said that an intelligent people are not imaginative. i hope that you are really bright. this is to imagine shelter access all the way to housing because housing is a human right. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, everyone. i am tony chase. i may substance-abuse specialist and our client base is about a thousand people and i am the only a substance-abuse specialist for the whole city, sheltered adult system. i work 40 hours a week. i have to do assessments, groups, notes, transport to and from the different shelters.

that gives us about 300 hours for the client base. for substance abuse, 40 hours. i don't believe that is enough, we lost people at the last july meeting and we need some help. i cannot do this by myself. i would love to but i'm not superman. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, everyone. i'm the director of senior services. this includes the senior center and the aging and his ability resource center. you heard many stories, many sad stories and we hear this daily, not just one at a time. i want you to know that the sheriff's office came at 5:00 to

bring a senior recently discharged from the hospital. this is really very difficult for us because we have to let them go to different shelters and they have to get in line for long amounts of time. there are are some solutions that were given to here and hopefully something will come out of it. the service providers and the seniors are willing to be part of that solution and if you could just make that possible, that would be really great. i have heard that there is a possibility of maybe getting 311 included in this solution that we are looking for so that maybe we will cut down the lines of the people who are here. >> thank you. >> i have read all the speaker cards, if you would like to speak, please line up. >> good afternoon, supervisors.

i want to keep it simple and make the point that i have not heard enough today and that is the idea of what do we do next. i know some of the advocates support of these points and we're asking for the work group to be formed said that we can plan and figured this out. with all of the talent, the ideas, the imagination that we have in this room, we could find a solution. i want to emphasize that the personal statements being made here, there are a lot of people that cannot be heard today who are serious every day and the program. i had people that leave the shelter and they go to the resource centers. hopefully there is no interruption. the last night of the shelter, they try to go line up at a time when they can get a chance of

getting another night in bed. we had a meeting with the program participants, both the shelter participants and the former participants to have been three different programs and they have echoed similar things to what we have heard today. there were a lot of spanish speakers in that group's. i want to put your comments forward and say that they echo those that were made here today and a lot of people that could not be here today are having difficulty and i fully support going through with the work group. there is the ideas come imagination, and the experience to find a real solution. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon is, of the rules committee. you can use your imagination with this.

[singing] lay, lady, lay stay in your big shelter beds your hands are dirty but the city budget is clean you know the shelter is the best thing you have ever seen late, lady, lay lay across your big shelter beds stay, lady, stay stay because the night is still ahead bring the money ahead time to get on your market and go now got a shelter dream and you just know now, you will make your

shelter dreams come true there is nothing that we will try never heard the word impossible this time, there is no stopping us and we will shelter the good way, the best way make our shelter dreams come true in this city by the bay and the ocean blue >> thank you. >> clearly there is a problem with the shelter system. the seniors and disabled, they are the most vulnerable.

they really and truly are. they are always out on the streets. it is ridiculous that we see them out there. it is absurd that as taxpayers, it is overwhelming how powerless they feel at most times. we have a lot of people complaining about homeless, a lot of tourist are complaining about the homeless. i want to know why this system is set up the way that it is. they need for-six months to get housing. i am wondering why the system is the way that it is and why it cannot be changed. we have neighbors coming complain of the homeless and we need to move beyond these lines and have been accessible system. we need one that is fair,

humane, and equitable parent to we don't want people paying rent for shelter beds and being cast aside. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am a former shelter resident, i am a former member of the shelter monitoring committee. the contracts between the shelter providers should be based on bed occupancy, not bed

availability. what i mean by that is that you are paying shelter providers the same amount of money if they have 50% vacancy or 5% vacancy. there is no incentive to have full occupancy. there is no incentive to have easy access to the shelters. secondly, i heard the statistics today, you have 3% vacancy and 99% full occupancy. the problem regarding the vacancy rates is that these are imported by shelter providers with no verification. as we speak today, we have no clue as to the vacancy rates of shelters. there will have to be verification by the agency's

parent of -- by the agencies. this is complicated by the design. this should be like hotel reservations. >> thank you. is there any other public comment on item number one?

>> it seems like the local homeless coordinating board and the shelter monitoring committee, this really feels like they have ignored this document. the other thing is the problem that i am having, the service providers and the special interests have blocked and ignored the people with the most innovative ideas to make this system better. this says shelter reform. we got a lot of problems. you are talking about an axis, the abuse of people. in this report, it talks about people getting jobs.

they worked very hard to put this together and this is being ignored. i feel like we are continuously spinning our wheels. i guess i am very frustrated because it is like we're doing the same thing over and over and not getting anywhere. i guess i'm very frustrated. this so much wrong and the special interest and the service providers are running everything. >> thank you. is it any other public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed.

i would like to thank you for coming out and telling us about your experiences and stories and your discussions on what we can do to improve the system that we have. there are many things about this system that we have and what we can improve on. i am happy to support this idea of a working group because we need to figure out how to better integrate our department and the services that we provide. i know a lot of folks came out today. we had over 53 speaker cards.

i know a lot of people had to leave. i will go to the questions and comics by colleagues after this presentation. -- and comments by colleagues after this presentation. >> these were hard wrenching. these were on point. i am happy that the people took the time to speak to you about them. to respect everybody's time, i will follow-up. i will close this out pretty

quickly. i will make one comment in passing. when we were sitting there at the beginning of this, said to you we're not here to get anyone's job and i want to emphasize that. this is a plea to get together with a to say -- hsa and other supervisors and agencies and to figure out how to fix this. we know the system is broken but this is something that is not irreparable. we can make this better if we work together. i want to emphasize that the reason why we're here is to work together with you and to fix this and you too, mr. dufty. we are urging the shelter committee along with local homeless coordinating board with assistance from the mayor's office of hope to form a working group to embrace the following

principles. accessible to non-english speakers. equitable to all shelter seekers while preserving culturally targeted programs. one that does not require waiting in line. let me say that in -- again. one that does not require waiting in line. one does not require walking long distances or traveling to multiple sites. easy and simple to understand, clearly stated rules. one that has no unnecessary barriers. accessible 24 hours, while vacant beds assists -- exist. one that maintains a currently if -- current link the state. if we go through these, all these are applicable to the stories we heard today. this is a blueprint on how these stories will not reoccur. so with your help, let's fix

this system. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you, mr. may. supervisor campos. supervisor campos: thank you, madam chair. and want to thank the members of the audience and all the residents who have experienced the shelter system for sharing their stories. it is not easy to talk about one's own personal experiences that way. it takes a good deal of courage to do that. i want to thank you all for being here, for your patience. and again, thinking the staff for the work -- thanking the staff for the work they do. if i may, i am trying to understand why we have this two- tier system wher eyou ha -- where you have some separate

treatment provided to folks who are enrolled in the c.a.p. program and those who are not. if you could explain the reasoning and what is the policy rationale. >> this is the beginning of the implementation of care, not cash, where it was voted on by the voters of san francisco that instead of providing a general assistance cash award monthly to what was then known as the general assistance clients, we implemented something called care, not cash where shelter beds would be in place of a cash grant, but food, two meals a day would be provided to our clients and $59

a month. that was a way of taking that grant and putting it into housing. the impetus of that was to house people instead of providing emergency shelter beds. we had a number of master lease esther rose -- sro's and we started the cash grant toward subsisubsidizing their rent. supervisor campos: does that require one-third of the bed beside for c.a.p. recipients? >> i will let the city attorney speak on whether it is one- third. it happens to be that one-third of the clients in the shelter

sister -- system are getting the c.a.p. going to shelters. supervisor campos: maybe if we could hear from the city attorney as to what is actually required by what the voters passed? supervisor kim>> proposition 9 t specify on its face that there be a specific set aside. this is a matter of how the department implements that mandate of care, not cash for proposition n which is a voter- adopted measure. it provides that rather than cash payments, that the city provide in kind services or services in lieu of the cash payment. it is a matter of how the piece is implemented based on the demand and needs of the people who would receive that payment. >> i am trying to understand what the level of flexibility is

in terms of whether people agree with it or not, there is a mandate from the voters. i am trying to understand what the flexibility is and what the system looks like. >> the level of flexibility comes when a bed that has been reserved for of c.a.p. -- a c.a.p. client is not used, it is released back into the system. " we periodically do depending on the number of people who are on c.a.p., or the number of people who are trying to get on c.a.p., it has to be a time when eligibility is determined, presumptive eligibility pending. we offer them a shelter bed while they are waiting to get on the c.a.p. benefit. once they're on the c.a.p. benefit, the legislation mandates abed be available. if it is not, they are entitled

to the cash award. supervisor campos: if either situation, where a bed is available or given to a c.a.p. recipient, or if the bed is not used? >> that is correct. as long as the first date is given to them, they go in and check in and utilize that bad. it is their bed during the time it takes for them to go back to reid determine their eligibility. i mentioned could be anywhere from 30 to 40 days. supervisor campos: you could have a situation where there is a shortage of beds for non- c.a.p. recipients, bids assigned to them are not being used. is that what you're saying? >> no. supervisor campos: once the bed is given to them, it is there is whether they use it or not. >> as long as the use if the first night.

-- they use it the first time. that is their bed, the eligibility. definitely check in. they have to check in like everybody else does. that is correct. supervisor campos: the question for me, is there a way that you can still meet your obligations under the care, not cash but still free up more beds that could be used for the rest of the population? >> and free of those beds for the resource center? -- up those beds for the resource center? for one night bases or 30 or 49 basis? i do not think i could answer that question. i would have to take that question back to the actual program that implements it. i am quite sure there is room for discussion around the question. supervisor campos: i think that is what i am trying to get out. obviously, there are different

needs people have on care, not cash. initially, i was not supportive of it. it was what the voters passed. we have to respect the will of the voters. i am trying to understand if the system we have in place has to look exactly how it looks, and how -- what the level of flexibility within the confines of what the law requires is, what that reflects a -- one that flexibility is. that is what i am trying to understand. one thing that has been mentioned is there is this ordinance that was passed by supervisor -- and it was passed in 2003. supervisor daly. one of the things it says, i'm wondering if the city attorney can provide some clarity of where this ordinance fits relative to care, not cash. it says that no displacement of any individual using an

emergency shelter bed shall be based on that individual's a lack of or source of income, nor shall there be any party or set aside of emergency shelter based on income. -- prioritization or set aside a of emergency shelter based on income. >> care, not cash was adopted by the voters whereas this ordinance was adopted by the board of supervisors and when legislature -- legislation is adopted, it is a lot of greater dignity, entitled more weight because it is adopted by the voters then something that the board of supervisors adopt. in implementing both care, not cash, and the ordinance you are speaking of, if in implementing, there turned out to be a conflict, e