i am with la voce latina. i am the mother three children, and i am relatively new to this. i really enjoyed because it is about putting forward information, the giggly about -- particularly about workshops. i have lived here for seven years, and this is an organization that focuses on the family. i am proud of the fact that this organization is involved in so many things and moving forward despite having few resources.

we need your support. because if this is appears, where will we go for information? the tenderloin is not just about drugs. it is about young people, about families. la voce latina needs to say in our barrio, the tenderloin. remember that our children are our future, which is why we focus our projects on them.

please keep us in mind. thank you. >> [speakin gspanish -- [speaking spanish] >> hello. i am a mother of the tenderloin. i have three children. i have a 15-year-old, a 17-year- old, and a 19-year-old, and i have lived in the tenderloin 16 years. i would like your support so you do not cut this program and that we have the funding we need. la voce has projects for our children. thank you.

supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker. >> i am a resident. i worked as a counselor at one of the city nonprofits, and as you can see, there has been a lot of nonprofit representation here, talking about getting our costs of doing business increase of 23%. a lot of folks testifying how we have had flat funding in the last few years. i vaguely remember the last time we got funding from the city, 56 years ago, i was working with the folks there as a counselor as well. i have a long history working in nonprofits. i used to work at jamestown in

an after-school program while i was a student at san francisco state. it was around the time when i first moved to san francisco, began learning of the san francisco, and getting to know people in the community, and the intertwined relationship between residents and clients of the programs. people who work the services, so i am here to promote and ask you all to increase the cost of doing business to the 3% that we are asking for. the cost of doing business, specifically, with the cost of living adjustment for the wages of the workers in those industries as well. while the 3% for the nonprofits is a needed increase, a cost-of- living adjustment like a wage increase, would also be a very much needed recommendation for all of you. i always have to represent for my co-workers folks to make from as little as $11 an hour or less to up to about $20 an hour.

that is the majority of my workers, and we need the recommendation to get the 3% increase to help us out. thank you very much. supervisor chu: thank you very much. next speaker. >> i am assuming that the board is being moved by the testimony you are hearing today about the pressures on our nonprofit workers, and i hope there is a growing realization that our community-based services are being balanced on the back of our non-profit workers. i assume the question you are debating in your minds is affordability. i just want to remind the board that you do have the means to deal with the non-profit cost of living. you probably have the means to deal with every program issue that has come before you today, and that is to reform the city's broken business tax. you have options in front of you with the resolutions that have already been introduced. if we return to the levels of

the business tax in 2001, when it was thrown out, we could fund all these programs before us today. that would be revenue neutral, to return to what it was. you also have the ability to put an escalator clause in the business tax. you have the ability to look at the exemptions that were granted $200 million corporations -- in some cases, billion-dollar corporations -- under the payroll tax. we were told these exemptions would not be necessary if we move to a gross receipts tax. i would ask you to look back at that commitment. the question before us is will we continue the tax holiday for the 1%, or fund a program for the 99%? quickly, as a paramedic, i must confess to getting lost many times late at night at laguna honda, showing up, looking for an emergency call, no one knowing where to go, and no one

even knowing what floor, as firefighters and myself will from ward to ward to try to figure out with the emergency was. i learned about 10 years ago, all i had to do with it up the phone to the operator, dial 0, and they would direct me to where i needed to go. i would ask you to refund that. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker. >> as our vice-president just noted, seiu 1021 is asking that the board of supervisors continue supporting, and thank many of you for co-sponsoring the form of the business track structure. the question was asked by some -- what should we do? where would the money go to for reforming the business tax structure? look around the room. these are the people that need the services pirie whether it is the non-profit cola, which is around $12 million -- frankly, let me just say for the record -- when the city negotiates with

city workers and makes a cost- of-living increase of about 3% for the next two years, frankly, they deserve the same. these folks are doing the work of the city, just like city workers, and for us to give a cola of 3% to city workers, we should be giving the same 3% to nonprofit workers for doing the exact same work, and it is just a question of parity. if you are saying non-profit workers in your mind are less workers and city workers when they are doing the exact same work, we need to be intellectually honest about that. that is why i would say 3% is the amount we should be giving them, just like we are giving, honestly, some people who even work for you. it is the right thing to do, so i want to urge you all to not consider non-profit workers less worthy than city workers. finally, i just want to say around reforming the business tax structure, i understand it

is inside politics, but at the end of the day, we did a poll, and they showed 72% of the voters were willing, when we argue back and forth, to support recruiting the amount of money we lost in 2001. that argument holds 72%. you can go back and forth on whether one person like this or not. at the end of the day, they want it, so support the voters and inform the business structure. supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker please. >> thank you guys for your time. we appreciate it. i know this is a difficult day for you guys as much as it is for us, who have been here for hours waiting to have a couple of minutes. i work for connor house. i am in nonprofit work. i have been your for five years, and we have not had a raise. i have three children who live in various districts that a

couple of you represent. i spend money in this community. a 3% raise is not a whole lot. city workers are getting it. we do a lot of the same work. i get clients' right off the streets who are high users in our system here. i house them. sometimes i am the only gate keeper they have to keep them out of general hospital, to keep them getting their medications or whatever. i just would like to -- you know, for you guys to please consider the 3% on seiu. there are a lot of people watching this right now, my co- workers as well as my children. please keep that in mind. it is not a lot of money. if you could just see it in the budget to please keep us with you and think about that. we would really appreciate it. other things i do within my agency is ice for clients -- escort clients to appointments

left town. it keeps them from using county resources, it is a vital thing we do, services we provide. my agency also provides support of housing and other services as well. we have a computer system now clients can come in and use computers, he taught how access things online as well as things in the community. thank you for your time. supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, budget and finance committee. my name is walter james. i am an organizer at the mission hotel. i am here to speak on behalf of la voce latina. the reason is since the beginning, when i got help from them through networking and getting jobs when bobby lopez was the organizer, now, they have a crystal, and the beauty of it is she is a very strong woman in organizing. she networks with the willing of

the hispanic base, and she is doing very well with them. she was telling me a story about how san francisco -- in arizona, everything you get you have to fight for it. she pointed that out to me. i am saying you guys should restore their funding because the worker you have there right now is a very strong worker. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am with seiu 1021. i am a non-profit union representative, and i want to thank the supervisors who supported us and the cost of doing business. we appreciate the 1%, but after five years of funding, we really do need a 3% for numerous reasons. one is that the health care costs has skyrocketed. i have two nonprofits that i represent here in health care costs have gone up 20% this

year, which is very significant, and just the cost of living alone has gone significantly up. gas is up 14%. we really need this for our folks. our workers are not highly paid, and they are really struggling, and this means a lot to workers. it means a lot to nonprofits. it means a lot to the services to allow for people to continue doing the work that they love, and to get deserving pay for the work that they do and not have to leave for another job because they cannot afford to feed their family and cannot afford to make those choices between what they love and being able to survive. i also want to say the -- that we want you to support progress of revenue, and la voce latina is an extremely important program in the tenderloin. please support them. also, please support la raza

funding as well. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is emily mills. i am a non-profit worker and a member of seiu 1021. i represent a staff of people who serve some of the most vulnerable san franciscans, bringing 100 years of experience in providing clinical -- clinically sound, culturally sensitive treatment. the flat wage of the past five years combined with the rising cost of living means we struggle to support ourselves and our families while providing these services that contribute to san francisco's reputation as a refuge city. i am year to encourage you to support the 3% cost of doing business increase that is before you here and in any other industry, experience, dedication, excellence are rewarded. in hours, it is taken for granted. i respectfully respect your support, and i thank you for

your time this morning. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am from chinese newcomer service center. i am responsible for the service for the community. today, i would like to take this opportunity to let you know that we have the capacity to serve our committee, and it is a very important non-profit organization for the chinese community. let me focus on my programs. with this program, we have the committee to reclaim 14 $7 billion that was stolen from the federal government and state. moreover, i would imagine cnse

is the only site that is open year round and provides free tax help in chinatown and financial district. without our support from the city and county, we cannot continue this needed service, and our committee will have a hard time in chinatown and the financial district area. second, i would like to mention my experience. before i was hired last year, i worked for six years. during the six years, i found my education goals, which is obtained a degree in accounting, and to be a tax profession in the future. i strongly believe and to provide the gate where the opportunity for all students in our system to plan for the future appeared in other words, they not just help clients, but also train the youth in our committee.

i hope you can consider funding to china's newcomers sell we can continue to serve the committee. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am a new chinese immigrant, and also a worker at chinese newcomer center. they helped me learn to live in san francisco. in the daily lives, they support me physically and mentally in life. everyone, scotia to continue my education. the hell with my homework. they provide me with job opportunities and teach me how to protect our rights. although i am not good at english, i appreciate the services they provide in chinese so i break through the language barrier. if you cut the chinese new, budget, our community will lose

a vital service, and we will lose one of the great organizations that provide service of chinese immigrants and non-english speakers. i asked the city and supervisor to please continue to support the chinese newcomer, so newcomers can continue to serve our community. i am proud to be part of the chinese newcomer family. many thanks. supervisor chu: thank you very much. next speaker. any others? >> good afternoon. i am a longtime resident in district 10 with the highest percentage of our population are new asian immigrants. i am here to support two campaigns -- chinese for affirmative action, advancing language access and cultural competency, and also, to support the universal tarragon

project in visitation valley. although one-third of san francisco citizens are immigrants and many non english- speaking, less than 0.1% of the city's budget is spent on language access. speaking on behalf of tens of thousands of new immigrants, we support the campaign to create and implement a community-based language access coalition to provide independent oversight and outreach, two, develop and innovation fund for community advocates to partner with specific departments to address department or service-specific barriers, and 3, to invest in multi-racial community building in neighborhoods of dramatic demographic changes, such as in district 10. we trust that the chinese newcomer service center and the asian pacific american community center are the most appropriate cbo's to serve us.

for over 10 years, our dedicated residents have been attending community meetings to lobby for support of funds to rebuild the project in visitation valley. unfortunately, with the demise of the redevelopment agency, they now need your support to hire staff and continue to help upc with efforts to help locate funding outside of the regular agencies, and help to revitalize our population. we are counting on you for all your support. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. any other speakers from this group? >> good afternoon, everyone. thank you in advance for carefully considering what i am about to say. i am not only a volunteer of chinese newcomer service center but a strong supporter as well. as a volunteer, i help

immigrants including elderly translate important letters and documents. i also help them fill in java applications. the work that chinese newcomer service center does is larger than you can all imagine. they provide access to courier opportunities, valuable information, and job training to will resourced immigrants. not only do the benefits benefit from this program, but their families as well. as a chinese-american with the immigrant parents, i very much understand the struggles they face to drive in the united states. i am grateful for programs like the chinese newcomer center, its hard-working staff, dedicated volunteers, and enthusiastic supporters, so i strongly urge the board to keep our organization. thank you, and please have a nice day. supervisor chu: thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am the chair of the chinese newcomer service center. our center provides vital

services to all new immigrants when they first come to this country, but they continue to return for tax services, for citizenship information, and we provide services to hundreds of people every year. if not thousands. in this increasing digital and electronically connected world, chinese newcomer service center is the only access for many of our seniors in chinatown to outside information. we must restore the funding to the organization. look at today with all the seniors. they hardly venture outside chinatown, but they took a risk to come to you today to city hall, and it might be the first trip to city hall for many of them, so i hope that you will restore funding to our organization for simply one message -- you cannot send the wrong message to chinatown, that you are abandoning the chinese community, that you are abandoning the chinese modeling

will population in chinatown. i hope you will continue to fund our organization and allow us to provide such vital services to our population. thank you very much. [applause] supervisor chu: thank you. can i ask folks to hold their applause? thank you. >> good afternoon, board of supervisors. i am the executive director of chinese newcomer service center. thank you guys very much for listening to our needs as well as the community needs. i certainly hope you guys have funding for all these great organizations. i just want to make that point. the second point i want to make is very simple. we have zero funding recommended for chinese newcomers next fiscal year. what does that mean? the impact is that this fiscal year, we place about 200 people in jobs, and i may have to close my door, and that is the reality. all these people standing behind me are all volunteers, and i hope you guys can help support our organization by restoring

$75,000 to our organization, and that is just one simple request. i hope that it is well-turned and followed through on. thank you very much. supervisor chu: any other speakers from this group? thank you very much for your presentation and your testimony. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am so honored to be the executive director of the san francisco domestic violence consortium. we stand with our 17 members and our 23 contractors with the city through the department on the status of women to not only thank the mayor and budget chair for reinstating the proposed cuts, and the 1% cost of doing business, but we also want to thank supervisors avalos for his leadership and his efforts in

trying to have an augmentation to all of the contracts. we appreciate it. in these days, it has been feeling like a victory, even when we keep our funding, but like everybody has said today, the funding stays flat. keeping and said, language taxes, legal services, crisis line services continue to go up, so we are here today to not only thank you for the efforts so far and thank you for supervisor:'s leadership. we want to do everything we can to try to keep this community strong. as you know, our domestic violence homicide rates are down 85%. that is not an accident. it is because of the efforts of our collaboration with you all, with the city hall, in keeping language access, integration services, and other services that benefit battered women,

battered partners and their children. thank you so much. supervisor chu: thank you. >> good afternoon. my original speech said good morning. thank you for this time that you are giving to all of us. i work at the arab cultural and community center as a social services coordinator. i want to take this time to thank the mayor and supervisors that have worked hard to restore our current level of funding, and specifically to supervisor avalos for his request of $250,000 augmentation request to the violence against women contracts, and i urge the budget committee to approve this request that will have a direct impact on the lives of women in san francisco that are survivors of domestic violence. when we invest in the of our men and survival of women, we are also investing in the betterment of their children, which reduces future cycles of violence, so thank you so much. supervisor chu: thank you.

that speaker. >> good morning. i am the director of asian women's shelter. yesterday, on my crisis line ship, i made 14 calls in rapid succession on behalf of a woman seeking safety for herself and her unborn child. and all the violence against women programs were so overcapacity because of the-knee that israel in san francisco and, of course, across the country. i am here today to thank you all, and especially john avalo'' office for the proposal of building in the $250,000 to the san francisco proposal when contract here this comes during a year of unprecedented an almost unimaginable cuts from the federal government for work to end violence against women and violence against and when lgbtq communities. your story here to offer you the peace of mind an increase in sleep that comes with knowing the san francisco violence against women is movement, including asian against women's

shelter, is there for a family when they have nowhere else to go, with individual and family lives are at risk, when no one else speaks their language, when they have no peace of mind and no experience of a safe night's sleep. we are here, and we are using every dollar to support underserved infants, children, youth, adults, seniors on their path to escape violence, build a new life, teach peace and respect, and create heavier families and safer communities in san francisco. i also want you to know that every dollar of that $250,000 for violence against women contract is critical, and it is critical right now, and it is critical for that pregnant woman that i worked with yesterday on our crisis line. i want to assure you of our unwavering commitment to the brave communities that we work with and through our partnership with you and with the city, and we thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. the speaker.

>> good afternoon. i am also speaking on behalf of the asian women's shelter. i just want to say very briefly that as the grant writer, i feel every day the pressure of rising need and dwindling funds. i am motivated by several factors. one being the success that i see in families rebuilding their lives through our services. second, through the efforts of my colleagues, and i sat next to orchid when she made those calls yesterday, being told over and over and over that there was no room. also, i wanted to mention the very strong collaboration and partnership in the community, so i would also like to thank the mayor's office and the supervisors and particularly supervisor avalos for the maintenance of the funding for this year and for the recommendation for augmentation of $250,000 for the vaw funding. than