of maybe reevaluate the m-o-u a bit. i think it's time to sort of look closer at it and see what kind of, you know, tweaks we might be able to make, ways we might be able to strengthen it, and particularly at a time, you know, that the mayor is working hard to sort of bring the housing authority into the city family a little more and trying to, you know, open up better channels of communication that we may have had in the past with the agency, that it makes sense to see how, you know, maybe we could incorporate, you know, some more -- as commissioner walker, for instance, mentioned, some more communication about ongoing repair needs that may not have come to the agency directly through tenants, but sort of have a better sense from the department of, you know, generally what the common issues are, what maybe the patterns are, the response time, you know, issues such as that.

and then also kind of separate, being able to separate out a little what is related to major capital improvement needs. we know there are issues with that particularly related to funding. and other things are maybe really an issue of someone's not going out in a timely manner to go fix the issue at hand. and, so, it might be good to just be able to sort of track these things better, to have more of a conversation ongoing about these needs. one of the things that i think of when i hear, you know, rosemary's report on the number of complaints received, et cetera, is that i really think that they are under reported. i don't think that that's an accurate picture of the number of complaints that tenants actually have. nor are we necessarily capturing the fact -- i guess the time frame for getting the repairs responded to. so, we may know when people

initially call, you know. we're doing that within the department in term of the calls that you get. but what i'm saying is outside of those calls, we also don't have a sense of, you know, are these being taken care of in a way that maybe dbi would have a role in jumping in and trying to, you know, speed up the repair abatement, et cetera. and, so, i think there is a lot of confusion at the housing authority properties right now about how to report repairs. some people are still trying to go through 311 because that's what they were instructed to do awhile back. others are reporting directly to management. some people tell the repair guy. well, heout in the unit, try and get things fixed that way. others might call dbi. but there isn't necessarily a good sort of streamline process that tenants are aware of, anyway, of how to -- not just make your initial report, but then do the follow-up you may need to get the issue addressed. and then how to get dbi involved when the need arises.

and i've heard at least a few concerns from residents lately that they have called 311 and we're told to go back to the property manager, which just seems to be happening lately. but explain that while we have done that, we kind of done everything we feel like we we can and we want to report this to dbi. ~ and 311, you know, not necessarily channeling the calls to dbi into the proper inspectors there. so, just getting that whole systemic structure kind of a little more i think sured up. and then, you know, second part of it is really making sure that the residents also understand how to use all the systems that are in place to help them get their repair needs met. the truth is that the m-o-u is, you know, purposely sort of a softer agreement in terms of enforcement than what dbi generally does for private property owners. like i said, that was purposeful because the understanding was, you know,

this is a public agency that's trying to do its best to meet affordable housing needs in the community and, you know, we're all working together and we have joint goals and, you know, so, let's try and just resolve these issues together. and i feel like it's time to revisit that and think about, you know, honestly how dbi might be able to put a little more punch into it on cases where they really need to. or, again, maybe it's just a matter of having much more ongoing communication and, you know, a two way street on what the issues are around repairs. the last time we had this on the agenda it was pretty evident that there were folks at the housing authority who actually weren't all too aware of the nature of this m-o-u and weren't also necessarily aware of how it was supposed to work and then how it was working. and, so, just, you know, again, revisiting this all together, i think it's time.

i can it's been at least five years ~ i think. even for that very reason, the fact that it's been some time. and it was experimental. i don't think anything like this had been done before this. and, so, -- and so much has changed not only at the housing authority in general, but also in terms of the procedures internally for getting repairs met. when this was, i believe when this was created or at least shortly before that, there was still a repair crew where people called directly to report repairs. that's, for instance, no longer at the housing authority. so, a lot has changed and i think it just makes sense to, you know, look at this again. >> thank you for [speaker not understood]. i appreciate that. >> sure. >> have you expressed your views and your statement to us today with the new housing authority commission? >> no, not yet. they've been in a pretty short

while. so, yes, i definitely would like to do that. >> i would like to hear what they have to say first, of course. >> absolutely. >> commissioner walker? >> yeah, i would like to, from our perspective, maybe begin the conversation with the housing authority to revisit the m-o-u. maybe our director and their leadership with our housing division. i do agree that it's time to really look at that. so, maybe you can -- >> tom [speaker not understood], dbi. a couple weeks ago we attend a meeting with housing chief rosemary and deputy director dan hui. you know, we have a meeting with roughly 150 people in the room about the housing

authority, how to be formed. there are only two points we get out from that, is they need help, they need money. right now up to this point, i'm trying to work with naomi because she was the head of the city administrator, with the mayor to see how to deal with that issue. it's not a simple issue. dbi alone cannot resolve it. right now the [speaker not understood] for dbi, we don't know [speaker not understood]. we need to work on it with all the city agencies. the way i hear is maybe we may start to help them to inspect some of the section 8 property, but right now we don't know that much yet until we, you know, well defined by the city administrator. >> it seems a if the protocol for complaint, filing

complaints about thing could be tightened up for consistency. if 311 is handling -- that it all ends up in the same place, would be helpful. so, right now it goes all different directions. so, i'm just saying it may be some of those things are very easy -- so we can keep track of it. i mean, i think sometimes it's a matter of just knowing what the issues are. ~ in one place. >> commissioner lee. >> well, i think we could help, help in some cases, but i think the first thing is to let the new housing authority commission recognize what the problem is. then maybe have them take the lead on how to resolve it. of course, dbi staff, we can help, but it's really up to that commission to figure out what they want to do. and then ask for our opinion. i think tom hui, director tom

hui and the staff would be very willing to work with the housing authority to get something done. i don't think we're there yet. i think the housing authority -- the new commission is still working, feeling its way around. i would like to have the opportunity to listen to all the complaints, all the concerns, and then try to think about what needs to be done. >> so, we can take this -- maybe you could ask to have a agenda item on your commission to have the same conversation. >> okay. >> so, i want to thank ms. short also for giving us insights. and, again, chief housing inspector boske, this report is also very helpful to us. i think one of the points raised again was the complaints are coming from a lot of different places. so, we could raise to the hoisting authority or to the city just to centralize 311, who are the complaints going to. that way we have a really -- a

more global picture of how many complaints we are actually getting and then the housing authority will know themselves how much they need to do, you know, whether things are getting abated. it shows on our part of the report they are getting abated. it seems like when it comes to us, there's probably a better chance that it will get abated maybe because we do go out there and issue or talk to them or issue an nov, whatever it is we do. but when it goes somewhere else, then we don't know what happens. so, that's one of the things. i think the only other thing we could do, while we want to give the housing authority time to get their commission -- their new commission together, the other thing is we should revisit the agenda. that's what we could do because we do have an m-o-u. we could keep on top of this. >> could you give us a copy of the m-o-u, the current m-o-u, and maybe we can, you know, look at it and make recommendations to them or -- >> absolutely. >> good.

>> and if i can address just some of the comments. the current m-o-u took about two years to get them to agree to -- it's a two-sided situation. so, took me two years to get them to sign what we have. and what did it really get us? well, it got us a process by which within a few days of the complaint coming to us, their general counsel was made aware of the complaint. so, that got a much faster response than we traditionally got. and as i said, it's a snapshot. it doesn't tell you all the complaints that are involved with the housing authority because, indeed, that's not dbi's mandate. but on those it came to us, we would help and try and track through and push through as quickly as possible. ~ and i have to say i can't commend the mayor enough for the leadership in reenvisioning the housing authority. so, this is the time to make the recommendations to. the director talked about the kickoff meeting he was at, myself, deputy director dan, sara short was there.

a whole host of stakeholders were at that -- invited to that meeting to give recommendations to the mayor by -- in a report for july so that he can move forward. so, now is the time to make the recommendations. and i can assure you, one of the recommendations i'm going to make is that the present housing authority under the leadership of barbara smith who was actually here before you, she is now the interim director, that she was here sara said at a previous presentation on the m-o-u before the bic previously. one of the recommendations is they look at our m. out. -o-u model and make sure there is a -- one point of entry. or if there is more than one point of entry, then everyone who takes in a complaint having to do with the housing authority does so with the same information and tracks it through in similar or parallel step. ~ so, that would be one thing, off the bat, that would be a recommendation i make so that they can track these so there is not confusion on the part of

the occupants either in section 8 or in the public housing of how they make a complaint, and how they can then retrieve information about that complaint. >> it also gives you a fuller picture of really what's going on. we see what we see and, you know, each one of these could be surrounded by similar problems which may have a different solution. >> the other recommendation that will be made a they ask for our expertise will be that better information -- and updated information be given to 311. if they become the point of contact other than dbi, on letting the tenants know and the tracking, what the process is and what the tracking will be, and that they take the appropriate information and maybe updated information and become more sophisticated [speaker not understood] the complaint. >> it's also really important to keep the tenant organizing, organizations involved because i think that that information about what will work better.

so, i just want to reinforce that. thank you. >> is it the sense that these 15 come to dbi after they have not been resolved within the existing housing authority system? >> it may or may not be. we don't always know. they can call us immediately. sometimes it's because of frustration and not having that situation clarified if we look at the whole housing authority. that's easy to understand. so, from that standpoint -- but they don't always tell us that. but as soon as we get it, we track it through. there is a very he specific time frame of us getting the information over to the housing authority. and like i say, because it was notified at a higher level at one time, that got a quicker response. the responses were more documented. so, that really is what we achieved with the m-o-u. it was experimental, as sara said. it took awhile to get them to

agree to it because they were sensitive to a whole plethora of issues that were on their plate at the time that i won't go into. so, in the future i would be more than happy to revisit that. obviously we're going to be looking to this department and other stakeholders to make recommendation and we will not be shy about that. the when we hear from you, we will pass that on. >> thank you. >> are there comments, commissioners? thanks again for that presentation. >> is there any public comment on item 5? no? good afternoon. i'm suzanne tucker with the civil grand jury. i actually just have three questions -- >> at the mic. thank you. three questions. i'll rattle them off and you can decide who will answer them. how is a life safety issue determined? and, for example, if a toilet

didn't work for a month, maybe that hits a life safety issue. my second is whether or not -- i know that rosemary's group is responsible for inspections of, you know, large housing, the housing. there is some kind of annual inspection, whether or not that applies to the san francisco housing authority, which might be a good idea because she's set up to do that. and lastly, i remember that the memorandum of understanding calls for the director of dbi and the director of the housing authority to have a meeting once a year. and i'd be really interested to find out what happened at the last meeting of what i assume would have been director alvarez, and whether it was tom or vivian bay or whoever because presumably they needed help then [speaker not understood] i'd be interested

to know what happened at that meeting. thank you. >> staff can get back to you with a response. >> unfortunately i only heard the last part of that. i don't know if there was a conversation or a meeting between the two parties. if so, the previous director never gave me any information about that. they did talk on occasion. i did -- >> that's an interesting question, though, about the routine inspections. i know that routine inspections are not part of our m-o-u, as i understand it. >> that is correct. >> at this juncture. >> that is correct. >> okay. and there's -- there is -- because -- it's because the hud and the housing authority have federal inspection authority over their projects. isn't that correct? john is shaking his head yes.

>> they do, but it's the opinion of the city attorney that they still have to comply with the housing code. they can be subject to routine inspections. it was the policy of the previous director not to do them because of staffing issues and the fact that there was no funding for that mandate at the time that we had very low staffing levels. we have done them historically in the past. we may do them in the future. that's a policy issue that would be at a level above me. >> and the life safety question is one, too, that's important because it may accelerate response [speaker not understood] -- >> it does already. >> at what point does a nonworking toilet become a life safety issue? >> it depends upon what the issue is with it. if it's just something that needs to be unclogged, that's not a life safety issue. >> do we -- >> if it doesn't work, the housing authority transfers that individual to another building because they can't get the toilet to work, then it

wouldn't be. but generally we find that they can come and they can deal with that issue. and it can get clogged up again. there is a whole host that happens. it's not a dynamic situation. usually -- excuse me. it is a dynamic situation. usually that's something that they unclog. if they respond to it, they deal with the issue. that's usually not a problem that we see. for us it's more of heat or generally in a building where they may be completely replacing a heat system. that's more problematic. toilet is not a good -- >> if something rises to a life safety issue, do we have more authority in these buildings or not? >> under the m-o-u, we would write a notice of violation. we would do the inspections and we would have a notice of violation. but what is our authority if they don't comply? we'd have to sue them. all the enforcement tools do not work.

so, of course, that is not something that the department wants to do because that takes resources away from the housing authority which already has, you know, a lack of resources. but in the end that would be the last resort if they couldn't comply or they refuse to comply. so, that's why -- that -- hence the m-o-u and having the opportunity to work with them and making recommendation how they operate in the future. >> thank you. very interesting. >> any other questions, commissioners, comments? thank you. >> item 6, update on notices of violation and process. >> deputy director pointed to me to go first on this so i shall do so. and i am speaking totally about the housing division.

so, what we're here to talk about today is the number of open cases that the housing division has. and what you have is a table that you've received which shows you in previous presentations that we have made to you what the historical results have been. so, the the last time we met on this issue was october of last year. and the number of open cases that we had from the period of the first of january 1995 through march 28, 2011, was 3,359. and that time period was because that was the time

period when we first came before you with the first report, which is not included in this table. today that number, that number for that same period has dropped down to 2,197. now, let me -- keep in mind that that is for that particular time frame. the last column tells you from march of 2011 to the present what additional cases we have that are still open, which is 1,845. that means currently right now i have 4,042 open cases. now, that 1,845 is a number of open cases i have and these have come in in the last two years. keep in mind that i take in about 5,000 new complaints a year. so, we're talking about a 24-month period when i took in about 10,000 new complaints and

i'm only carrying that. what we're saying is we've been able to go back, look at this backlog which we've been dealing with since january of last year, and still not create a significant backlog on the cases that are coming in. and what we've been -- even with the staffing shortages that we got as far as the number of inspectors, be able to address the complaints that are coming in substantially within the time frames of the performance measures we have. it's been difficult. we have managed to do that and also sent cases to director's hearing, continued our billing and what we do to be able to address this in a very creative way on a weekly or bi-weekly basis we are looking at what the inventory cases are. we are also looking at the inventory by how many properties have three or more

open code enforcement cases that are of housing origin to see whether or not those cases should be referred, if they're ripe for referral to the litigation committee, and what's going on with those particular cases. we also have to constantly make staffing adjustments to deal with the open inventory, new incoming complaints, city enforcement task force inspection, city attorney referrals, and issues having to do with the rainy season, additional heat complaints, leaking fixture complaints, roof leak complaints because of the rainy season, and still be able to maintain the number of cases we're sending to director sterling and bill. and we also try and do some proactive things to try to minimize some of the increase, heat complaints, et cetera, during the winter months by doing heat sweeps indoor buildings, encouraging property owners to make sure they are adhering to what the

requirements are for central [speaker not understood] or central system in the winter months. we also right now, of the total number of about 15, 16 field inspectors i have, at least sick are doubled up and dealing with one or more covering one or more districts which would traditionally be handled by a single inspector. so, juggling all these thing, trying to keep up with everything. meanwhile going through and dealing with the backlog. now, the other thing we're dealing with as far as the 2,197, is we're currently doing a hand tally so we can get a better understanding of what these are between routines and complaints, determine whether or not [speaker not understood] whether we got in. the current complaint tracking system can't really give us that data easily so having to go case by case and somewhat assess that so we have a better analysis of what we're actually dealing with. as you can see, we've reduced these numbers substantially. everything else that's on our

plate. this is new legislation. >> this is just the housing division? >> this is just housing. and the deputy director will, i think, talk about the code enforcement division. >> so, you talked about the inspector's load. can you talk about are we planning to add folk either to the housing division or as code enforcement inspectors to help with this? >> thank you for raising that issue, commissioner. i was remiss in not indicating that the 62 70 housing inspector announcement went out about two or three weeks ago. it closed i believe -- >> last friday. >> last friday. and, so, we are now in the process of attempting to fill the vacancies. and that will help -- >> how many? >> it's approximately -- >> minimum 7 or more. >> which would be very helpful if we can fill those. ~ because we're going to have to train those individuals. but that will help because we're doubling and tripling up in certain districts given the

makeup of that particular profile of that -- >> and that's just housing -- >> just housing, yeah, the housing classification. >> so, even though the complaints start in housing, sometimes when it move over to code enforcement, does it involve the building inspectors? because if they have to pull permits to do repair and stuff like that, is there a transition, or does the nov stay with housing? >> the code enforcement process is such that a case that originates in the housing division for violations of the housing code in which a notice of violation is issued stays within that particular division from beginning to end. however, to cure and make the necessary repairs, a building permit's plumbing or electrical permit may be required and that would be handled by the electrical plumbing and building divisions. this code enforcement process is different than a plumbing, electrical, or building inspector writing a notice or

notice of violation. when they do not get compliance, they then send the case to the code enforcement section which then takes that case through from director's hearing to abatement. so, there is that difference. the housing division keeps the cases from beginning to end because of the specialization and dealing with -- of those cases and because of the experience of the department and the commission has had over the years including other issues that have come up that really require the housing division to take those cases from beginning to end for consistency [inaudible]. >> commissioner lee? row mary. >> i have a question about the data. once the number of first novs from january to march of this year is 195, right? and then the number of second novs issued from january to march of this year was 19.

does that mean 176 responses were received for -- >> i think you may be looking at something else. that report is not for housing. that's going to be -- deputy director [speaker not understood] is going to talk about that with respect to code enforcement section. we don't write two notices, we only write one. so, that is his analysis of what the code enforcement section is dealing with. >> okay. thank you. >> good morning, commissioners. daniel lowery, deputy director, [speaker not understood] services. notice of violation are official citations to document conditions in situations that do not comply with the san francisco building plumbing, electrical, mechanical and housing codes.