communities. i think there is some movement in the different departments bringing that conversation to the senior and disabled community. to the community. >> i should mention that the planning department has joined with the long term council in network group. one of the really interesting things about that is that it has attracted people that we do not normally come into contact with. we got a couple of architects interested in this issue. people from different parts of the city. yes, we need all of those people involved. " supervisor olague: i will save my comments for later, but i have become more familiar with seniors in public housing and how they have been exposed to those nuances.

i am sorry, supervisor chu? of supervisor chu: taking a look at the report earlier and the demographics of where seniors are living, there is a dark green in the district. we have talked about this before. i spoke to you about the different communities that have different structures. many seniors are living in their own homes and the services that we provide in things we might want to look at might be different from the other things. what are the plans for these hard to reach areas? traditionally, we have not had very large spaces. there are limited commercial spaces.

how do you anticipate facing the challenges, given that we have what circles around this over and over again and seem to be making no progress? >> community work popped up. over the years i have been here, one of the things that has been very clear to me is that every district needs to own retirement process. the sunset is one of those key areas where we have a lot of older adults and key services in their. we have day care, relatively close by. there are key providers very much dedicated to raising additional dollars on self-help for the elderly. the provider community has been

working hard on it. each district is very different. it is a lot of single-family homes with stairs up and down -- of course, stairs are up and down, but you know what i mean. the conclusion that the only way to deal with that that i have concerns about is to sit down with key players in the work group at the sunset might be one of those districts they look at. taking all the key players and people from the business community, those are key issues for them. park in iraq as buildings in -- part in iraq -- park and rec has buildings in there, as well as independent contractors and the business community.

if the work does not proceed along those lines, i think we will have to do it ourselves, because the issue is not -- the demographics are not changing in a way that make it less of an issue. supervisor chu: thank you. supervisor olague: now we will hear from [unintelligible] from meals on wheels.

>> good afternoon. just one minute, apologize for the technical difficulties. i do have a power play to put up. [whispering] perfect, ok. i think we're all -- no? it looks just perfect from here. oh, it is. ok, good. in the senior director of programs and operations at meals on wheels of san francisco. i am also a member of the task force and am also on the long-

term care coordinating council. good afternoon to you all. thank you so much for the opportunity. we have worked together for years and this is an amazing place to gather to hear updated reports. i am excited to tell you about the struggles seniors have been having around attrition. i look forward to doing a presentation on both groups or the long-term care coordinating council in july. as you have heard with the large baby boomer generation, demand for senior meles has risen substantially. they're likely to need services

well into the future. private fund-raising but continued to be required to meet these critical needs, putting our safety net at risk. 12%, 19,000 people, are living below the poverty line. 27% of our seniors are living below 150% of the poverty line. can you imagine? painful choices of rent, food, medications are amongst the san francisco seniors every day. defined as access for all people of all times, including worrying about food that will run out,

found it cheaper, rationing meals, which is what most seniors do every day, or skipping meals completely. that is the reality of our seniors who are living 150% of the poverty line or last. -- or less. food becomes that non-essential item, though it is the most essential, in choosing between fixed expenses, like rent, and buying food, as we know, is something they wilma worry about. to complicate matters, access to food can be a complicated process. is there a rush restore nearby? is the senior able to get to the store? to a pantry or meals site? is there a kitchen facility? there is lack of kitchen

facilities for so many seniors. meals on wheels, we do provide two per day, seven per week. most providers to not. the programs are really designed to be supplementary. most are often at capacity and people are waiting to come on the program through attrition. there is no entitlement program for nutrition at all for seniors. >this graph shows that there are over 700,000 meals that people are accessing. in the fiscal year we are doing over 1.2 million. we quickly want to point out the percentage at this fiscal year,

looking at about 11%. each year there are approximately 15,000 seniors going to these websites. there are over 2800 seniors accessing home delivery programs. organizations that serve meals are raising additional funds to support that need. it is not sustainable. it is just not keeping pace. for seniors living below the poverty line, most of the time they're able to access the food stamp program. for the seniors receiving ssi, just under the federal poverty

line, be cashed out of allowing people want ssi to allow for food stamps in the early 1970's. we have looked at those agents as opposed to the blind and disabled. it favors the folks who are blind and disabled and we have seen it continue to favor folks who are not agents. we would be looking at the average grant of $140. changing the policy without cashing out for that any longer is critical to what we need to do. the government has pushed back and said that unless we do it for everyone, it is an incredible advocacy issue for all of us. it would make a huge impact for those of us with utility needs. in order to avoid pre- institutional was asian, a network of community services must be in case. they are in place. i think we are at capacity and

we really need to address the increase of that kind of senior surged embarrassing. each year, the demand for home delivery meals far exceeds the allocated funding for the program. we have heard about in home supportive services and 77% of those recipients were not able to perform this function. or they needed a lot of human help to prepare meals. meals on wheels partners with ihhs, another area where none of us are able to meet that need through hdm programs or ihhs. i want to quickly point out the estimate of missing meals and the department of about 18 services of 2006, which did a study out of which we were able to see that we were missing between 6,000,009 million meals annually. most are accessing one meal,

five days a week. you can see the meal or two meals that people are missing every day. if there is no access to cal fresh and there is a struggle to get supplementary free food, pantry sites, it is a critical issue for us. we do know that malnutrition and health medical outcomes are huge. we know that people are entering and reentering hospitals, simply due to lack of nutrition. we know that malnutrition and isolation in older adults brings medical and surgical complications, with the late recovery from trauma and increased length of hospital stays, as well as readmission rates. we are looking at and trying to address that transitioning in and out of hospitals and what a critical role nutrition can play in that.

given that the population is highly vulnerable to a hunger, those who put heavy demands on a strain service system, it is important to not only meet the needs today, but how can we continue to raise the funds and political will to meet that? the following trends will impact the future of security and hunger amongst the aging population. we have high crime, projected unemployment, large social security population, growing budget deficits at the local and state level, and urban populations with needs, and all around for food and transportation, health care and housing. we will put together a strain of publicly funded programs and community-based organizations. that is why we are all here

looking at it together. we need to prepare for the future by examining them and needs. i think we really need to commit to that. most important, we need to leverage the resources to the fullest potential. i think that the cal fresh opportunity is there for us. i think it takes a lot of research and now out and we have to do that. creative solutions that will meet rising demand. we have not been able to do that. we are always playing catch-up, struggling to meet that need, struggling to keep people healthy in san francisco. it is something that is really going to take all of us. today, i really appreciate hearing from you, to let people know what your struggles are, what is working and what is not working. thank you. supervisor olague: thank you. [applause]

we have one last speaker before public comments, which is kathy stensley of the elder economics security index. >> good morning, i am the director of the senior division of family service agency. we have been serving those in poverty for over 100 years. some of our programs have been around since the johnson war on poverty, which really helped to lift seniors out of dire poverty in this country. we are, again, concerned about the number of seniors falling into poverty today in san francisco. as you know, the federal poverty line is around $11,000 across the country. that does not even cover the basic needs in san francisco. the inside center in oakland and los angeles has developed an index in california to develop a more realistic poverty line, which we use in our center here

for older adults. to hear more on the specifics of the index, i would like to introduce jenny cheung mahia, who works at the center in los angeles. >> thank you, cathy. thank you to the supervisors. i will make my comments brief. i hope that my comments today can really complement and supplement the initial comments earlier today about the status of elder economic insecurity here in san francisco, taking a deeper dive in, and also for all the work that has been done so far in integrating the elder index into policy programs. since talking to them, with the insight network community for network development, we are a national research developing nonprofit agency in oakland, just across the bay, and an attorney and program manager

with our elder economic security projects. we have talked a bit through various comments about the federal poverty pop -- federal poverty guidelines. in this slide, it really sort of captures the key conversations that we are having today. what we would like to put out is that our organization is to put up help to the economically vulnerable in that community. economic security, first you have to actively measure it. this particular slide shows a comparison between the federal poverty guidelines and what is just over $11,000. unfortunately, that measure does not act -- accurately capture how much it costs an elderly individual to meet all their needs. until several years ago, we partnered with the ucla department of health poverty research to calculate a more representative measure of what

it takes to cover all of your basic needs. not just the cost of food, but health care, housing, and transportation. what you see is that here in san francisco it is closer to $27,000 per year for an older adult to meet basic needs. i wanted to reiterate something that dan covered in his, which is that this produces an eligibility gap. when you compare the federal poverty guidelines against the elder index, you are missing an entire population that falls between the gaps of these bars as to who is not making these ends meet. based on the analysis from several years ago, 61% of older adults here in the city and county of san francisco are not able to meet their basic needs. closer to 65,000 older adults. given the rise in recent years, compared to the decreases in

sources of income, we can unfortunately only imagine that that number is bigger today that it was before. the federal poverty guidelines pines 9% falling below. there is a huge differential there. this backslide compares, again, the importance of programs for social security and ssi, and why those programs need to be preserved. if anything, and we would need additional resources to make up for that difference between what an older adult needs compared to what they have. as we know, many older adults are living on fixed income, whether it be social security or a combination of ssi and social security, and even that is not enough to make the gap. they are cutting medications in half, skipping meals, not going to the doctors. making critical and difficult

choices. lastly, i just wanted to end and highlight a couple of ways that the elder index has been used in san francisco and across the state, as well as the nation, because we know the federal poverty guidelines need to be used at the national level. it starts at the ground floor here, locally. from a policy standpoint, the index was approved by the board of supervisors as an eligibility criteria within the fund, back in 2009 as the eligibility determinant. whereas the program was within 300% of the guidelines, they were able to pass a resolution approving the use of the index in the criteria, and it is really important to change that framework as a way in which we look at elder economic insecurity. san francisco passed a

resolution in the past, setting a more realistic measure for families. i would also like to point out, as kathy will speak to more in a moment, the family services agency here has used the index as part of their management model, where a region where they are looking at providing a case management for older adults along with the funding for case management services for older adults. i wanted to complement san francisco for being a leader in this issue of building economic security, and we wanted to offer the index as a tool that can continue to be used by the various departments, working with the supervisors in the various different departments and nonprofit organizations within the cities and counties. so, thank you. >> thank you. >> i know that people are getting hungry. we will hold off any more details about that, but i would

prefer to hear the stories from folks around how this impacts them. supervisor olague: so, i will go ahead and start reading cards. speakers will be limited to two minutes. i would ask that if there are individuals in the audience who have certain needs and have to speak, now, if you could start lining up for the microphone. i know that several of you are in the audience and have certain physical challenges. and then i will start reading of. i do not know how we should go about this. if you could line up on that site?

ok. >> [inaudible] thank you. let me know when to start. oh, where is the time? oh, it comes with you? good, ok. all right, my name is robert sloan. i am 57 years old, disabled. in may trans man. i lived in and sro, i get about $900 per month.

by food budget is $900 per month, if you can imagine that. i am happier here than anywhere else on the planet. i do not think that i could survive anywhere else but here. san francisco is the city were the first human being looked me in the night and called me sir, the first city where i was welcome to the human race. i love this city. i want to be an asset to it. if i had enough food, rent, and city housing, i could become self-employed again. half of the other budget would be going into my business. i do not want to retire, i want to deretire but i cannot support by business when 75% of my business goes to the rent in the sro. in stock, staying retired, and i do not want to do that.

i want to become a taxpayer. what i need is to get out of the gap between elderly and disabled. i am on social security, but i cannot get sro said housing until i am 62. i do not make $1,500 per month to get into rental apartments. i do not need an apartment, i would be happy with the as sarraute, but i need a place that i can afford to live -- with the sro, but i need a place that i can afford to live. there are a lot of people like me out there. that is what i wanted to share. thank you for having me. supervisor olague: thank you. [applause] >> good morning, my name is [unintelligible] and in a 62-year-old man living

along the six st. quarter -- and i am a 62-year-old man living along the sixth street corridor. i want to know why the muni cannot make ramps all along market street, so that people can get off and on. on sixth street, there is a ramp on one side, but if you go the other direction, there is no ramp. it seems like something that could be addressed. also, sixth and mission, there are no kiosks. there seems to be a kiosk all along mission street in the downtown area, except at 63. that is another issue that could be address. -- addressed. also at the same location, it seems that when the light turns red, people seem to have the

idea that two or three cars are ok to go through the red lights. if cameras were installed, i believe that would put a cost on that particular issue -- caboshed -- kibosh on that particular issue. i am a recipient of the iss it, and it would be a shame if they cut more out of the budget. i believe i it -- i know the state is having problems, but that would be a bad thing to have to do that. thank you for your time. >> thank you. -- supervisor olague: thank you. next speaker? >> hello. my name is george demoore, i am 75 years old. i live at ninth and mission, in

a hotel. i am here to urge you to increase funding. [unintelligible] does a great job for the community and looks after us seniors medically as well. seniors, nurse's aides, in to check about -- our blood pressure and help us in that factor. but lies, increase their funding, do not cut it. you would be doing a great disservice -- disservice to the city. it is a great city. i have lived here a onetime. but believe me, you guys are slipping in your job -- i have lived here a long time. but believe me, you guys are slipping in your job. thank you. [applause] supervisor olague: if we could save the