suggest that you folks could have a better impact if you were more visible than just at these meetings. i will give you examples. we don't see or hear from members of the council individually when there's board of supervisors committee hearings. your names do not show up on the board of supervisors communication lists and they list emails as well as written letters, so there's a lack of visibility on an issue. it may not be a disability issue. it could be street repaving or a housing issue but your names are not out there. the disability community is large and growing because you have more people living longer with disability. we have more seniors aging into disability and yet we are not as powerful as let's say the bike constituency. there aren't

enough people active out there saying "we want this". saying "no" or asking "why or why not?" and i am suggesting you could help yourself and all of us by being much more visible, involved. even phone calls to your district supervisor. as i will tell you if you do that enough you will find out they don't respond. i have papered the supervisors, not just the official email but the staff by name, and as you will see maybe next week again they don't respond. there's another story i am involved in about the disabled and the supervisors do not respond. until more of you do it they will continue in that neglectful pattern. thank you. >> thank you. walter paulson.

>> good afternoon mayor's disability council. i want to thank ken stein for his great work. it's too bad he is stepping down. "when will we be loved? we have been pushed down. when will the disability be loved? when a find a new city job they want. it always breaks my heart into two. happens every time. i have made -- we have been made blue. we have been lied to. when will we be loved?" and "you're sweet like a disability bee but left

my heart in pain. all you left is a famous city song. why don't you bring better disability better along? it's the same disability old song with different item meanings since you have been gone. precious memories keep lingering on. why don't you bring it -- bring it good along? it's the same, same old city song but with a different meanings since you have been gone. precious memories gone. it's the same old song". thanks. >> thank you. james excuse me.

can you please say your last name? i didn't want to mess it up. >> that's okay. keonsine. thank you commissioners. it's hard to follow that up. i'm sorry. the reason i am here is not address any of these specific issues but to honor and recognize a very loved and respected colleague and coworker and i just wanted to do that to mention ken by name and then acknowledge the loss that we as a community for advocate are for and people with disabilities and seniors are losing. i really enjoyed working with ken and ken is the one who helped us -- helped me personally be conscious about a lot of things, around issues. i will send the email and i get a call. it's

ken. "james, listen you didn't make that visibly accessible. somebody who is blind didn't see that". so many times and i am telling you now when i send an e mate and control a select all and cut and put it in the text. it's simple. it's easy and it makes it easier for someone to read and it's little things like that ken helped me like that and they add up to a big thing. i want to share another thing and prior to my job here i was a discharge planner at a skilled nursing facility, a private one here in san francisco. i left -- let's just say i'm on the other side and doing advocacy improving medical rights but had a patient who was deaf and lived in sro and a couple other things going on and they didn't have a tty machine. i'm asking can we get a machine? no. we don't

have one. somewhere in the basement or something and i remembered mayor's office on disability and "ken, where can i get one?" he said "you know i have an old one in my desk. you can borrow it". and i did that it made a difference in getting that guy situated and keep in mind this is one guy at a city job and had an old tty and loaned me. this was a major for profit place that wouldn't kick down the $150 to buy one. you should at least have one. i will keep i in my desk. it's things like that lead to a lot of big changes. it's a loss to me for someone like me to call and get information and the history of the struggle that

people have been through and won so many ways and ken has been there on the front line scpis want to honor him and you're going to be missed ken and he's one of a kind and a community hero and that's all i wanted to say. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. yes he is. nancy cross. >> i am here to kind of give some idea of where i think we can make a difference in how things are implemented that come from this sector of the government. i think that it is not respected in the health department, public health department. the things that are necessary to really help people with disabilities and prevent disabilities, and [inaudible] the city in very expensive

ways. we have a public health director who is neither a md nor a scientist. he kowtows to the human services agency to support their grant program from tobacco taxes by paying no attention to chemical impacts for disability or people with disabilities. for instance, painting inside a building or maintaining the smoke ban shelters where people get sick from less cognitive ability and leading to cancer and asthma. they pay no attention to it. this is like a gas chamber in the city of san

francisco and maintained as a public shelter. and in the sro's everyone can smoke and no attention paid to the disability cause by breathing other people's smoke. no option to get smoke free housing at low cost under the auspices of the city. now, these things are provided for people that have money as tourists, 75% of the rooms reserved for dedicated non spoking in the hotels. it's not a matter whether you can smoke or not smoke and the predecessor didn't smoke or vice versa and 75% but not a single room in the city's sro's for the people coming out of the shelters. accommodate cigarette smoke and eventually so toxic themselves

they go in to the environment in those places to be sick and 20 years shorten their life span. now i think one place we can put our mind to is the capability of these matters of the public health department and draw attention to that -- to the mayor, and i would like to see everybody make their choices so that people with disabilities can come visit them in their apartments and not just for themselves, but so the accommodations have access for people with disabilities to come visit them and those people enjoy the associations. we have work to do. we have to be real smart about it, but we can do it, and i certainly value ken stein's help myself, personal help in what he did to protect me. goodbye. >> thank you very much. staff, is there any comment on the

bridge line? there is no comment on the bridge line. thank you. okay. we're going to go to agenda item number six and the council has seen the importance of stable housing for people -- am i right? >> [inaudible] >> okay. i'm sorry. for people with disabilities. housing living independently within the community and spending your life in an institution, so our next agenda team is the last one in this series of this meeting on supportive housing and opportunity for peoples with disabilities among others. we

are happy to welcome bevan dufty who is the director of the mayor's office on hope which stands for housing opportunity, partnerships, and engagement. thank you and mr. dufty is here. yes. he's passing out some information but he will be right up to the mic. thank you very much. it's a pleasure. hey. >> hi everyone. thank you for welcome being me. i am bevan dufty and i am in charge of the housing opportunity, partnerships, and engagement and when i sat with mayor lee and maybe a week ago i said at 57

-- soon to be 58 i was too young to be the director of losing so i asked him for something more inspirational. when you say that it's not portraying winning the hearts in the task. i think that all of you are familiar with individuals who have been helped but most members of our city engage with people or see people who are not succeeding and not engaged with services or we're not getting where we want to go, so i want to take that approach and i am excited to be here because i think we have a shared passion about individuals who sometimes are falling outside of the system or sometimes the homeless system is not meeting their needs so one of the things we did was partner with supervisor zane kim, the coalition on homeless and other groups and we had a shelter

access workgroup. five nights at week people line up at glide for a handful of beds that are distributed at seven in the morning and we have a line based system and not ebility seablght to people with disabilities and many lost a job because they had to get in line to a bed or go to work. supervisor kim secured -- >> i'm sorry to interrupt. everything you're telling us is extremely important but you're speaking a little faster than the captioner can keep pace with. >> i'm sorry . that's my new york upbringing. well, if i don't -- generally i'm respective. i didn't see a timer there so i will sloaz down if that is okay. supervisor

kim authored this and i think it's powerful because our office met with the coalition and met with advocacy groups and with city departments and we added a million dollars to the shelter system. this was the first time in years the mayor didn't submit a budget with cuts to this agency and credit to the mayor and the good times coming economically to the city and more slowly that we would like and in addition to that adding a million dollars to the shelter system was will absolutely essential because we have lost a lot of the case management. we lost those positions able to help people become independent, have access to permanent housing and we had difficulties with basic functions of safety and cleanliness in the shelters so this was a big improvement and we also got a million dollars to go to our resource centers. those are the entry points, the

mission entry point, glide, and the council and the bay view. these are critical junctures where people have access to showers and food and other basic necessities of life and to make shelter reservations so the last million dollars of the $3 million was directed to the federal government's approach for rapid housing and not put them in shelters if we can avoid it and it's relevant to the people you serve and advocate for and people with disabilities have difficulties and wind up homeless and they don't know where to go. some of the things we have done we established that you can make a reservation with the shelter on 311 and that will be on line in the next month. if people want to access the line they can but if they want to use the 311 system they can do that. moreover people told

us even if they didn't have a shelter bed at that point if they could have certainty when the bed would be available and not say you didn't succeed but in three weeks you will have a shelter bed. for people in the system to have the certainty and get the affairs in order and stay with a friend for two weeks and we will be accessing the 90 day bed and i will divurj for a minute and one of the things we have been successful is the life line program. it's a important program and has 2.1 million participants in california and we contribute any phone service towards that life line account but it's defined in california as a land line, wire line system and i have felt that's incredibly discriminatory for people that are homeless and not have access for it. there is

just no way and we have been advocating and going with jennifer from the coalition and others from hospital house and low and behold after two years from holding up a application from a provider and assurance operating in 46 other states and they have allowed two providers coming into california, nexus and assurance, and provide access to individuals to the fcc life line, so that means they will qualify individuals to apply for the federal life line benefit and then individuals will receive a phone that they don't have to pay anything for it. their benefit covers it and every month they get 250 free minutes and 250 free texts and if you exhaust those you have the right to pay $5 to get additional 250 free minutes and 250 free texts. you don't a cure a bill. if the minutes

stop and if you don't add minutes the phone banks them at the first of the next month so we're not putting people in debt and if you lose the phone you're eligible to have one phone replaced a year with no questions asked so we're very excited about this, and this will be happening in march and april and these companies are grateful for the advocacy of the mayor's office they are actually starting in san francisco, so i would welcome people to contact me and let me know of places we can come and have presentations. these companies are considering getting mobile vans so they can go to housing developments and other locations to enable people to sign up, but i see this as absolutely essential. first of all isn't great we can send a text message and let them know where the shelter bed is or where the closest resource is and to contact them for a

appointment or whatever it is and we are extremely proud of that and that is obviously important to your clients because anyone participating in any major benefit socal fresh, section eight, public housing, tannive, ssi, all of this are eligible and ooze r as you know we have more than 40,000 individuals living on ss i in san francisco and some of the individuals most difficult to house are those getting ssi and getting $850 a month and just enough you're not on the street but not enough if you can't get into a good housing provider. you're between those two zones and we are very, very sensitive about that issue. i would like to talk for a moment about the work with veterans because that has been an enormous area and one thing we're committed to is

demonstrating success because there is a certain element you encounter and homelessness is always going to be here and why put more resources because it's not going to change? the federal government for over three years have been involved in vasr, va supportive housing and like section eight and provided to veterans and in san francisco we have done a good job at locating chronically homeless veterans and a year ago from the time of with processing and moving was many days and there were veterans applied 100 times and rejected 100 times and we are

living in a city that obviously has strong forces with individuals, a lot of young people are coming to work in the tech industry, but they're making good money and have 750 credit scores and a veteran coming out of homelessness is not going to compete successfully so we are done work in championing veterans and i want to say in the chinese american communities they are respectful of veterans and open to renting to people but we realize we have to be aggressive so you have seen veterans commons open in the last two months and housing for chronically homeless veterans and we're excited at a building at 21st and mission which i know the director knows where majoule used to be located and we are able to rent all units for

efficiency apartments for veterans. veteran homelessness has reduced by 16% in the last year in san francisco and we believe we will gain ground. as you know 15 to 20% of the homeless population are veterans. and one out of four african-american veterans are homeless in the united states so these are telling numbers but we are gaining ground between the va and hud and the city and the public housing agency in order to make a difference. i can't talk about homelessness without talking about the fact in order to have an impact on homelessness we need one of the best housing agencies in the country and the fact that you see a lot of press attention and a lot of attention from our mayor. i went yesterday to the first meeting of the housing authority commission with the commissioners on it and it was inspiring for me to see a group

of individuals, people that worked in government for their careers and human resources and purchasing, neighborhood services, a district attorney and people that were respectful of the people that came before them, and open to ways that they have practices similar to others. they are successful agency in seattle and oakland and san mateo and we have a section eight waiting list closed for 11 years. we have a conventional housing list that serves seniors and families and that list has been closed since 2008 and this is -- we have a system that's designed to be so open. there are so many access points and you funnel down to where you're literally threading a needle so right now our family homeless list connecting point that maintains is over 263

families. over 91 families have been on the list for six months or longer. i have been out spoken on the issue and i believe we are a city with creativity and commitment and as you know many individuals that live in senior and disabled housing face challenges and one of the things i am very aware of there are individuals placed in steern and disabled housing that have very serious disabilities that -- substance abuse issues, issues of r violence and i experience as a supervisor issues would come up with people that were selling, allowing to use in the building and, a threatening situation in the building and where it should be calm and an oasis in the city. after doing this work i came

with a notion that we really need to have a process that is a therapeutic housing core because we need to recognize that the current judicial approach to housing issues very much puts people on stipulating payment plans very much creates a dynamic if you go after a situation like this you're basically rendering someone with severe disabilities with homelessness and we know housing is a precious commodity and security. we need to create a process where the judge has different tools. we recognize in drug court and behavioral court and in the housing situation there is is a tendency to spend more on lawyers instead of spending on the family, the individual, to help them address the issues that they have so they can live safely for

themselves and the people that they live around and i think this is a very important change. just this past year i interacted with families that were erks victed from the steve garvey housing and they're not able to stay in san francisco and if you have a record it's one of the biggest barriers you face in san francisco and i think we can do much better so i think the last two things i want to reflect upon -- three things. one is we have haven't achieved everything and i have been willing to put ideas out there, to court controversy because frankly we need to talk about these issues, and there is a way with the people that did this work being an elected official or politician you don't see homelessness as a winner. there will always be people that are homeless and the tendency is to stay away. i to cut a ribbon

and we won the war so to speak and that's not what this issue is because the status quo as much as that there is a lot that is good the status quo is not acceptable and we need different ideas. wonderful opportunities for -- fidos and our animal control was having -- over 500 small dogs came into animal control over the previous year. i call it the paris hilton effect and people saw celebrities with small dogs and a small dog takes more time than a child and we didn't know what to do and with rebecca katz who is an outstanding government leader we talked about bringing the two situations together. how do the individuals that

come out of homelessness and receiving ssi and living in the richardson or supportive housing that generating a modest amount of income is really important and can really help to stabilize them and to have a sense of purpose and that these dogs are being killed because they have minor behavioral issues or ear infection and just the volume. animal care was not able to get the troubled dogs to the point of adoption and we started wolf and did a pilot programs with eight individuals in supportive housing who went through a job readiness program and had a gold star from the building manager and identified four dog and i want to commend animal control and 36% of dogs that go to a shelter come out alive. that is a very stark number. in san francisco it's 85% so i