employment of the use and that sort of thing. the urban agriculture issue. will it be held in the department of the environment? where will that be? where will it be located? >> if i could answer, right now the city administrator's office is talking about the best place to house staff, said that decision has not been made, but that is something that i hope that the city administrator can make in short order. the idea was to get the department's shopping. >> -- supervisor wiener: dph be an obvious choice, i was just curious. supervisor mar: thank you so much to president chiu, and all

of the various urban farms and gardens that participated in this. i think that the seven overarching goals are important for the one-stop shop, july 1, 2013. the garden resource centers across the city are expanding efforts looking at surplus properties from different districts and places. by highlighting the different gardens and farms within the city. i know that the alliance has identified sites within each of our districts. i also know that the waiting list for the community garden in my district on 16th avenue near fulton has a huge waiting list. i think it is a good goal that residents seeking plots should not have to wait more than one year or access to apply their other efforts.

i am appreciative that the president appreciates the advocates from the alliance that they have made for funding in the position and incorporating as much as possible from different stakeholder groups. i would love to be added as a co-author as well to expand its of that san francisco is a leader in urban agriculture around the country. thank you. supervisor cohen: i also have one quick comment. i wanted to also comment on the fact that the haight-ashbury neighborhood council, the recycling center, they have a lot of relief -- there is a native plant peace to that project and plots that people are using to plant. i believe that they've worked collaborative lee with the farm over the last couple of years,

and it is a great way the different communities come together to change the information and work towards creating a sustainable city. i wanted to give a shout out to hank for their efforts in this also. >> thank you. colleagues, we have amendments before us. can we -- supervisor mar: colleagues, we have amendments before us. can they be adopted without objection? can they be moved forward without objection? thank you, thank you everyone. [applause] i know that i think as part of this year's budget process, but will have a conversation about funding for these urban agriculture programs. stay tuned, we will likely have conversations over the next few short weeks about this topic. thank you for being here. miss miller, please call item

no. 4. >> item #4. hearing regarding the needs and issues faced by the san francisco seniors living in single room occupancy. supervisor mar: in calling for this hearing, along with supervisor olague, this is an issue of dignity and respect for seniors who have difficulty living within the tesoro -- sro's in the city. now we have some data and clerestories, data for moving forward legislation that will hopefully improve the lives of some of our most vulnerable residents, seniors and people with disabilities living within these hotels. this will face increasing challenges as they age in place. the official san francisco policy is to support seniors to age in place, but there is no

comprehensive strategy for serving those who by choice or circumstance live in residential hotels. while relatively affordable and close to transit, that former housing provides a ton challenges the tenants. the city, according to our input, needs to develop much more creative strategies across departments to reduce the isolation and make the buildings safer and provide the elderly and disabled greater access to community resources. i wanted to applaud the senior action network. i know the supervisor olague was a former organizer with them. the collaborative and episcopal community services, the income support services consortium and others who have produced this great report that you all have in front of you on your desks has concrete recommendations that i am committing to help implement along with supervisor olague and others. i want to thank the group of

grass-roots housing organizations and others and look forward to hearing from the department and community members on this topic. i wanted to thank scott walton, from the human services agency, a knee from emergency management, and cheryl adams, for being here today. we have a number of representatives here today from city departments. i wanted to allow supervisor olague to make some remarks. >> thank you -- supervisor olague: thank you. as the supervisor mentioned, i think that this has been a positive process. the network and collaborative in the city, as well as chinatown and the community development center, we all came together and work hard on this report. we worked hard and surveyed individuals that live in the hotels and it was surprising

what we found. in some instances, i think there was even a sense that some seniors were not interested in leaving where they lived, but interested in seeing better conditions in the hotels where they resided. in chinatown i believe that the organizers located someone who was in their late 90's, close to 100, who had lived in the hotel for 40 years to 50 years and were very attached to that community. i think that we sometimes need to catch ourselves in these assumptions that we make about what we consider to be home. even though these situations need to be improved, definitely, and we need to do all that we can to make certain that the quality of life for individuals, seniors, people with disabilities that lived in some of these places, that the conditions are approved.

in some instances, as i mentioned, these folks consider these places their homes and we need to be sensitive to that. i think that the other side of it is that to the extent that we can continue working towards building affordable senior housing, we always have to keep that as one of our goals. many folks, we found, who wanted to relocate or leave it -- leave where they live cannot because the availability for affordable senior housing is not in place. i hope that we walk away today with some next steps. as i mentioned earlier that the press conference, there are now lots of conversations happening around seniors in this city. we will have one of the largest senior populations of any major city in california in the next 10 years. we want to be ahead of this topic. i am happy to be working with all of these groups to try to bring as much focus as we can

and as many resolutions around, and improvements around the issues that concern seniors. such as pedestrian safety, have the ability, or any of the rest of those issues. we are here to listen and hopefully move towards some next steps today. i want to especially thank the senior action network and caring for helping to put together this report. supervisor mar: thank you, supervisor olague. i have a number of speakers and cards from people in the community. i will be calling six different representatives. first, maria, from the department of aging and adult services. >> good afternoon. committee chairman, supervisors, my name is maria and in a program analyst with the department of aging and adult

services. i am here to give a brief introduction to today's hearing. supervisors, thank you very much for setting up today's follow-up hearing from the one from 2011. that hearing was affected in showcasing the tremendous work done by the senior action network, various collaborative is, and representatives from our city agencies, like the department of building inspection, service agency, and community nonprofit groups. as they work together to improve the quality of life for seniors and young adults living with disability. in particular the residents of the city's sro's. the cannabis upon which many residents and people living in them could paint their pictures of what it is like to live there. for the most part, we found

mainly grim scenes that were quite graphic in terms of the stories that were told about the poor conditions and lack of amenities that residents must endure. occasionally there was a bright splash of color indicating that many have hope that there is a real potential for improving conditions, and a river ray of light when some residents share that there is was really working for them and they felt that they were living with some level of dignity. we have now had several months to reflect and build up our resolve to change that which needs to be changed. not much has been accomplished towards this end, with a clear exception of the tireless day to day work that the sro's collaborative in the central city, the birth of that date -- the work that they do on a day- to-day basis with their

community partners, we all benefit from their precision in sharp advocacy. the fact that they work towards an powering up residence and the humanity that act " -- echoes through the hallways. of course, where would we be without the resilience and extremely patient residents themselves, who trust that the city will do right by them. at today's hearing, we are bringing together more of a blueprint of recommendations to help create living environments in which persons can age in place without fear for their personal security or saddling to live in an environment with serious health violations or without basic amenities that many others take for granted. for example, a phone jack. now i think we want to add community gardens to that list.

it is a goal of the sro working group to focus more on ideas and solutions at today's hearing. the group is very encouraged by the interest and support that you have afforded and want to actively engage in problem- solving the situation. the department of aging and adult services is happy to see that the limited funding we are able to give towards this effort bring forward an opportunity to make a difference. we applaud the collaboration between community partners. they have conducted a study amongst residents, tabulated findings, and crafted a comprehensive report that will help us all to focus on remedies for the many deficiencies that were outlined. that mission continues to be to coordinate services to older adults, adults with disabilities and their families, maximizing self-sufficiency,

health, and independence so that they can remain in the community for as long as possible. the mission remains, of whether someone is living in a well-to- do assisted living facility, a longtime family home, a modest studio apartment, or sro, the mission will not be fulfilled if those living within sro's are not given the highest quality of life possible. chairman, i wanted to thank you for pointing out that scott has been here, should you have questions and would like to hear from him. at the november hearing in did my remarks with a quote from an anonymous source that still applies. the test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough to those who have little.

there is a lot of work before us. thank you for your willing participation in partnership. this brings us closer to passing the test. supervisor mar: thank you. these of the department reps who are speaking. from the mayor's office, joanna. thank you for being here. >> can i have a lower microphone, please? thank you. thank you so much. good afternoon, supervisors. thank you, chairman, for allowing our office to come with a couple of brief comments. my name is joanna and and the deputy director for the mayor's office of disability. i would love to thank you for the opportunity to frame the

day's discussion in the context of disability rights issues in the city, and our city obligation to remain compliant. as many of you know, the mayor's office of disability deals with compliance issues and not so much service issues. let me begin by saying that sro 's is more than just a service issue, it is a civil rights issue. with over 8000 seniors and people with disabilities currently living in them, in approximately two-thirds of the survey sample, they reported some kind of disability. it is important to highlight the discrepancy between the number of physically acceptably units and the percentage of people that need them. of course, we know that the majority of these are old-style hotels that do not even meet minimum have the ability standards.

this is a major challenge. we are talking about really old construction with many barriers. we know that the city continues to work towards memorial projects online, such as the civic center and accessibility standards. we do not yet have enough. permanent housing is kind of far down the horizon. as long as the city is using these sro's to house people, we still have an obligation to provide access. let me take a minute to define for you what program access really is. it means that the percentage of usable units must be proportionate to the number of residents in need accessibility to function properly. whether we call these individuals seniors or people with disabilities, it is the matter that they stop and need basic features, such as gravel

bars, accessible elevators, wide doors, to safely use their environment. it is not simply enough to say that we have a percentage of 5% or 10% of the available rooms in the city accessible in usable. we must make sure that the supply meets the demand in order for the city to meet its civil rights obligation. therefore, we would like to recommend, in addition to the wonderful recommendations in the report, that these -- that they city -- that the city survey the existing stock based on features. it is important to know about people's perception of usability or access. to actually go along with a checklist and really be able to objectively assess what is out there and the availability.

it is important, helping us to identify areas where there are minimum in easy fixes, making those units so much more efficient. the tenants in those units,, they must have an overall prioritization strategy for placing seniors with disabilities in units based on specific needs. the report in front of you talked about prioritizing people with disabilities and seniors and being put in lower floors of ground level units. really, we need to take a close look at our existing stock, needs, and be able to match them up with the accessibility situation. just because someone might be aging it does not necessarily oppose -- it does not

necessarily oppose the limitation on their physical mobility or their need for a bigger bathroom. but by simply installing a grab bar, it may. you have heard it before. mark -- multiple agencies and departments are involved, but there is not a coordinated strategy. this is what we are advocating, from the perspective of transitional plants, essentially, for access. also, this recommendation comes from our own experience, where the city has taken the procedure office with complaints that we oversee and try to resolve in collaboration with the department, coming from city- funded programs. i understand of the majority is private, but right now we will not address those. our record for the past three years indicates that the

majority of complaints involved excessive of the features, like elevators and indoors. also, most importantly, accommodations requests that were not responded to in a timely manner. typical requests involved being wooed to a unit that better accommodates an individual's ability or in real modifications. units with better ventilation, a wider door opening, etc. we have been told about folks that have to part with their scooter outside those units because they do not have the. when they're asked to be put on a transfer list, they often wait in line for many months and years to be able to be moved to a proper unit. again, another way of not having a coordinated approach to the issue.

in response to what seems to be a lack of awareness around legal awareness for operators, today we embark in a private project in 2008, 2009, collaborating with the legal reserve panel. we provided training under the requirements of the fair housing amendments act to over 500 individual providers, staff, and 150 tenants. there was one component to that project that also involved and announced visit remounts the five months after training. the goal was to understand the experience in making their housing amendments act requests. in other words, those we have received the most complaints from. the mentoring project showed a dramatic improvement in properties that have received training.

big surprise. 90% of previously monitored properties score higher than last year. there was also a high correlation between attendance in training and above-average monitoring scores. at the time of the monitoring, 92% of the properties had a acceptable obligation procedures, which was a huge development. therefore, the final recommendation would be to mandate that in addition to all of the extra 6's, we mandate frequent trainings, especially around the concept of risk -- concept of reasonable accommodation in the modification, i was told to get

a request for accommodation, but more like an in telling mandated a quest -- request. in closing, thank you for considering the time to consider this issue. at the same time colleagues, we look forward to see it -- -- supervisor mar: the new one in the audience is very excited. please be patient. we have about 50 people who signed up. the last speaker will introduce the author of the report. i wanted to thank jessica laymen, up from the senior

action network, and karen bass or putting effort into the report as well. >> thank you. is the overhead working? srsupervisor mar: there it goes. >> thank you for the opportunity of addressing the subject of seniors in sro hotels. it has been important to our society for quite some time. 30 years ago, they work -- an article was run in which they were called he lists hotels. supervisor lenny passed emergency legislation. they were written by warren in cold. despite the good intentions,

this is our apartment, in terms of housing code violations. in the late 1990's, a rash of fires on of -- in sro's came along. two years ago, the board of supervisors along with the health department asked our department to work more collaborative meet and assume more funding. this decision has been fruitful. working together closely, housing inspection services has found an additional 250,000, 75% have been corrected.

>> i believe that we have copies of this -- of this for each member of the community. -- kennedy. the violations we had found, since we have proved them, 222 hours and you can see the rest of his sinks', sanitations, sysop -- locks, windows, etc. the current outreach program encourages tenants and landlords to work together, utilizing the san francisco partner association.

we much prefer when tenants and landlords can work it out themselves without involving us. we also have tommy, who has done outreach to the senior survival school for many years now. the chief inspector has worked diligently to help those who drafted this report. she could not be here today, so i would like to introduce the s -- sro collaborative. >> i wanted to thank rosemary for her great work. thank you. plaskett -- good afternoon. i am here to talk a bit how we got to these recommendations basically, the last hearing we had here, we spent a lot of time

talking about the findings of the survey. we look at those results and set ups a series of meetings with different tenants and tried to give at the roots of what could be in the solution. and it would be a while to get the details figured out. some of them we will try to implement some other day. it fairer -- is it clearer in caesar? we will come back to it later. certainly, the things i want to draw an --