you ask about solutions. another idea that has been talked about is the fact that a bunch of big corporations sued the city years back to change the city's business tax policies to benefit the 1% and to take money away from the budget to support the nonprofit agencies. if we can deal with that, it will plenty of money to fund the services that we need. thank you. supervisor chu: it looks like we have a number of seats that are open now. if you are in the overflow room and would like to join us here in chambers, come on over. the booklet we have plenty of space. -- it looks like we have plenty of space.

>> hello. as part of the community housing partnership. i was one of the first residencts, and now they have nine other buildings. tourism is the number one income for the city. and there are seniors, is out there. -- a homeless out there.

that is not a good idea medically or mentally. most seniors would not wish that upon you. i hope you do not wish upon us. i am one of the baby boomers. we are the largest generation this nation has ever had. most seniors a vote. come november, i will be seeing you at the polls. i hope you keep your mind together. thank you. [applause]

>> good afternoon, supervisors. i am a property manager for tenderloin housing clinic. in my organization, i am called a supportive housing manager because that is what i do. i managed a hotel in the mission district called the all star hotel. the first reason i am up here, i feel the budget should be looked back over again. my hotel is an aging hotel. what is happening right now is that we have these rental increases coming up. we have utilities going up every month. what we are having to do is pull money from different line items to compensate for these increases. therefore, i am not able to

make the necessary improvements and i would like to make within my hotel that can help beautify the place and make it feel more like a home for my tenants. we are working with homeless, formerly homeless, and it is very important that we make it so that they can understand that we are there to help them. the second reason, i am also a native san franciscan. i am a single mother of two children. i have not gotten an increase in three years. my rent keeps going up, insurance premiums keep going up, and i can just imagine -- going into a fourth year without any type of increase is going to be detrimental to our living in san francisco. please help us and consider

giving us the race. supervisor chu: thank you. >> members of the board, at thank you for hearing this long testimony. i'm bob bennett. i want to start by telling you, we have a bed of a problem. -- bedbug. that is odd because we do not have any beds. our staff goes out every day to tenderloin hotels, they work with the clients that have major disabilities, mental health and substance abuse, and physical disabilities. they come back to the office with bedbugs. these are staff who mostly come right out of school and they start immediately working with clients whose complexity it

dwarfs the complexity that their experience -- that very experienced staff at kaiser would have to deal with. they do it day after day. we are an old agency. we have many staff to have been with us more than 30 years. we have a retirement plan in 1992. it lasted a year. everybody has been around since 1992 has a little nest egg. nobody else does. we set out to five years ago with a gold of raising our staff salary so that they could afford to live in san francisco and send their kids to school and retire when they got to be 70. that is a pretty modest goal. we have made some progress towards that by cutting our administration dramatically by

raising the salaries in contrast to the staff and managers. we have increased our efficiency by about 20%. we are accomplishing more with fewer staff. every year, the progress we make as the nobel -- is eaten away by the cost of living. if you just give us a cost-of- living increase this year, you have not solved the problem. we need to be part of the structure, the cost-of-living increase needs to be built into the budget structure. when you do not have money to fund everything in the budget, you need to figure out where to cut. supervisor chu: thank you. >> i am a mental health consumer. if it weren't for the nonprofit organizations, i would not be

where i am today, which is working for a nonprofit organization. working with my peers, i think you see the health and wellness in this room. it is very hard for me to see this cutback. i am a consumer, i work with consumers. people are calling me at my job because their services have been cut. they cannot did what they need to keep healthy. i will rely on you to do the best that you can for all of us in the community and to help preserve this amount of love and kindness that we have for each other and our partnership in

helping one another. i was not prepared, i am not a prepared speaker. i want to thank everybody in this room. i hope they can continue to do this. thank you very much. supervisor chu: thank you. >> thank you for hosting today. i am the executive director of oaks children center. it is an organization that has been around for about 50 years. our mission is to serve some of the more troubled children in the community and keep them out of residential care. i think that benefits everybody. i think everything has been said more eloquently than i could. i do not have toys to give out to the staff that i talk to, but i usually have some range of excuses. i am tired of giving them.

our staff are well meaning, they entered the non-profit field not for the salary, but because they care. one of the tools we need to work with these children is the relationships. the relationship, if the stock keeps leaving because they cannot stay in the area, and we have high staff turnover, that inhibits our ability to treat the children we are working with. i do not have a bigger bargaining chip. i just want to make an appeal on the side of what is fair and what is decent. i would ask you to do that, thank you very much. >> good evening, and thank you. i am a residential counselor. i have come to ask for a 3% cost-of-living raise. it seems like every year, when

people ask us about our cost of living wage -- a raise, i have to tell them that we will go to city hall to fight. i am here primarily for that. 11 years ago, i watched a lot of these programs close. if it were not for the programs in san francisco, the residential programs, i would not be standing here today. one of the things they're willing to -- i would like to see a consistent cost of living increase in the budget. san francisco is one of the most expensive places in the country to live. we are way underpaid. there are a lot of things we cannot afford. that is a normal part of life in

san francisco. thank you very much. supervisor chu: thank you. >> hi. i will make this short and sweet. i have not had a raise, not just me, but 249 employees have not had a raise either. i have been around a long time. i need the extra cash to survive. i am a mother, too.

i have one daughter. when i go to work every day, that is not an easy job. you know, keep in mind about a raise. please be consistent, thank you. >> how are you doing? imax organizer -- i am an organizer. when i first got to san francisco, i was a recipient of a nonprofit organization. nonprofit workers are some of the hardest working, dependable people in the city. they deserve a raise. five years of no raises, that has proven how loyal they are. i believe they need more money. they worked so hard. they are my heroes. we should label them as super

heroes. they deserve a raise and a bonus for even working five years without a raise. please help the non-profit organization and workers. thank you. >> i have been a resident of san francisco for the past 20 years. i want to give you a briefcase of the work that we do. -- a brief case of the work that we do. when i first came to work for this organization, and the first week, i had to excuse myself to go to the restroom so that no one would see me cry. because of the touching work that people do there. i have incredible respect -- it is unbelievable. we house over 1800 individuals

who have been formally homeless. we provide a comprehensive network of services. we had a 97% housing retention rate. people like myself and my co- workers, the work that they do, it is extremely difficult, and that is why we have those rates. in the long term, much more efficient and save the city money. i want to give you a personal experience. i lived in the mission and i worked two jobs that i can pay rent. so that i can have a tiny studio. i am seriously -- after all this happened, i am looking at places or i can move and i am looking at oakland. my co-workers are all moving to the east bay. i should not have to do that. i cannot afford to live in my own home.

that is a tragedy. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. >> good evening. i am an employee of the nonprofit called family service agencies san francisco. i am the program director of the long-term care program. i testified before on the scarcity of the beds, on the need for integrated long-term care. today, i want to say two things. most nursing head trauma -- most nursing homes are short-term rehab. we collaborate so much with all of the nonprofits.

the nonprofits are carrying the weight for any individual transfers out of any nursing home. there are numerous mandates with not enough funding. we are the counterpart of the adult protective services. we get the reports of abuse if the person is institutionalized. we have 40 social workers. since 2008, the program has 2.6 fte. into thousand eight, the previous governor took away all the board dollars -- 2008, the previous governor took away all of our board dollars. there have been no salary increases for my office manager

since 2007. that is a long time ago. the demand for our services has not gone away. we cannot turn away services because we work on a demand model. it is imperative that we meet all the demand for services. otherwise, we get in trouble. we are accountable. i am asking for all the nonprofits to get a cost of doing business and a cost of living. supervisor chu: thank you. >> i work at family service agency of san francisco. thank you for listening and thank you for everyone who has spoken up. my agency, we are working with older adults with mental health disabilities. we have been serving -- i have

been there for six years. people's lives have been broken and their spirits have been broken, that they come back to life. we provide amazing groups and opportunities for them to express themselves and be part of a larger community. the people that work in our agencies do extremely large amounts of work and are not -- we are not getting paid for the work we are doing. it is difficult when we lose co- workers that are going for other jobs and leaving us, you know, the spirits are getting broken for not getting paid for the work we are doing. this is not right.

we want to continue doing the jobs that we love to do, that we are trained to do, and that you need us to do. we are serving the community and we are asking you to do the right thing, to give us fair increases i do not want to live in fear of being one paycheck away -- i was part of a documentary that the national council of aging put out to let people know that we are one paycheck away from losing our jobs. thank you. >> i and the senior division director at the family service agency. in my division, we serve

thousands of low-income seniors who have severe mental health issues and need health care services and case management to remain in the community. they volunteer in schools, at senior centers. with no cost-of-living increases for the past five years, we are reaching a crisis situation. my budget does not allow me to higher, but to stretch and stretched summer. this is not taking into consideration the aging population. as a know, san francisco has a higher percentage of older adults. we need more workers in the nonprofit sector, not less, to meet its growing needs. otherwise, we will be sending -- spending more as tax payers for hospitalizations and institutions. health care reform is about keeping people out of hospital. speaking as a city resident, we

need leaders who will support our safety net and allocate our taxpayer money wisely. it makes economic sense to support non-profit sector. flat spending is in other budget cut for us. we are paying attention. thank you for having this hearing. supervisor chu: thank you. >> thank you, supervisors. i am with planning for elders on the senior action network. i want to mention a personal thing that happened. we are city contractors. recently, because of the tech boom, or landlord salt $and wanted to raise the rent. -- our landlord saw dollar signs and wanted to raise our rent. that is one of the expenses we

are dealing with. health insurance is going up 12%. nonprofits are basically getting squeezed. small businesses are getting squeezed. these tech companies, these corporations exploiting tax loopholes, they are getting off scot-free. they are all doing well. we have seniors whose teeth are held together by super glue. the nonprofit service community and the advocacy community provide a very valuable service, ok? that deserves to be sustained. it deserves to be reinforced. it is a challenge, you know. flat funding is a service cut. that is going to be another $1,500 per month that he will have to pay.

we can keep our health premiums for the organization flat if we go to $50 for the organization last if we go to $50 copays per person. that is what these organizations are faced with. meanwhile, the revenue is out there. we'd just have to get it. sustained the safety net. make the corporations pay their fair share, you know? it is not fair for us to shoulder all of it. thank you. commissioner chu: thank you. >> thank you for this opportunity to come in on the impact of flat funding for nonprofit organizations to provide health and social services. although the foundation does not receive city funding, we have seen the impact the flat funding has had on our community partners.

over the past four years, let funding and budget cuts have led to cuts in services for the most vulnerable people. flat funding and service cuts have come at a time when other costs, such as the cost of food and fuel has risen. many nonprofit organizations have tried to increase their fund-raising efforts from individuals and foundations. foundations have suffered as a result of the economic downturn. there is more competition for philanthropic dollars than ever before. the private sector does not have the capacity tobacco funding. our community count on a nonprofit organizations to do the work we know how to do best, providing services in community- based settings. taken together, funding cuts, flat funding, increases of translated to a reduction of services at the same time more

people are in need of help. our demands are up by a least 10%. we have seen a greater level of acuity among the people we serve and the lack of basic services available to help them. people are forced to wait until their problems reach emergency level before help as available. the effects are felt across sectors and the neighborhoods. we strive to work toward a day when a community is abundant researches are made available according toile. we see a future filled with hope. san francisco is blessed with abundant, not limited by scarcity. thanks. commissioner chu: thank you. i have one final speaker card. >> thank you, supervisors. my name is robert. i'm a janitor. i am the chapter chair. i represent 200 people.

i am here to advocate for a raise. there have been almost four years. i just want to say -- >> good afternoon, board of supervisors. thanks for having us here today. we provide a critical service to the most vulnerable san francisco in. we help 100 or more people per day. we can show a paper record, how many people use our service every day, every month. we need to contract to meet the rising cost of living.

nonprofit organizations have not had increase from the city in five years. meanwhile, -- we ask you to consider priorities. many nonprofit workers, like myself, are one paycheck away from homelessness. make sure you increase the non- profit organization to stay in the budget. it is the only way we can continue providing the critical service the city so desperately needs. thank you. commissioner chu: thank you. >> good afternoon, budget and finance committee. i am a tenant organizer porto mission hotel -- for the mission hotel. want to make a couple of points about the flat year-to-year budgeting. one thing, i'm sure you know this, in general, like, right

now, people are becoming homeless. that is one of the major changes that would negatively affect this impact and make this impact that we are hearing right now. it is negative. in the beginning, it was a positive thing. $15 for maintenance, from tucson -- from 2007 until now, five years have passed. san francisco's minimum wage was about $7. it just hit $10. that is over five years. if they have been at this stagnant wage, i guess it is time. it is an obvious thing. for my personal thing, i am on a stipend-type thing. i deal with the city. when i look forward to