rationally. all that stuff is mixed in. as part of our homeless count this year we surveyed over 1,000 folks on the street and it was a robust survey so we hope to glean more about things like how long have people been on the street, where they came from, why are they not using shelter, have they used shelter in the past, to answer some of these questions. >> supervisor wiener: you know, i think it's -- and this is the frustration throughout the city because we have this -- you know, for decades now, really significant challenge around homelessness. and we spend -- it's $102 million for the programs u described. when you add dph and everything else in there it's significant higher. so we're spending a lot of money, and, you know, i'm a believer in having a policy in it budget discussions based on data. and where it's possible to have

that data, so we can make good policy decisions about how we're allocating our resources, and whether we're succeeding, and whether it's a good expenditure, is there a better way to expend it to address the challenge. and it seems like having more thorough data about what we just talked about in terms of why people are on the street versus in a shelter, or in housing, knowing what the breakdown is, and also data about the people who are currently housed, and why they're leaving would be important. because i compoa in working with various segments with our homeless provider network there are some really amazing people in city staff, and in nonprofits, and amazing organizations, who a lot of people who do tremendous work, but i think in terms of the broad structure it would be

really good to have a deeper understanding of that information, that data. >> you know i think we're on the same page, supervisor. one of the things i talk about is i think our system is really effective at solving the homeless problem on the individual level. we know how to do that. we know that supportive housing works. we know that we have great outcomes in supportive housing. we're a national model. but then we go bigger and systematically and you see we still have a couple thousand people on the street, we still have 260 families on the homeless family waiting list for shelter. answering those questions as to why, you know, how can we house or reunite someone with their family through homeward bound, over 14,000 people since 2004, yet you can argue you haven't seen appreciable improvement on the street. i would argue that we have but some argue that we don't. you know, those are the big questions. you know, influx of people,

influx more than outflow, you know, all urban centers, you know, claim to be sort of attracting the hoamsdz. homeland homeless. i think that's right. it's the urban areas. it is about getting smarter, about who is on the street, who's in need and why the system that's effective for so many thousands of people not effective for that person on the street. >> supervisor wiener: do we have estimates for how many people per year are arriving in san francisco and are immediately homeless? >> no, we don't. what we will have, from the survey, and we've done this every two years, is the percent of folks who either came to san francisco homeless, or became homeless while in san francisco. and then the length of time they've been here. so we can glean some information from that. i don't want to ballpark it because it can be a sensitive sort of issue. anywhere from 25 to 40%,

san francisco -- came to san francisco while homeless but that's self-reported and that's a pretty wide band. >> supervisor wiener: i would imagine there were people who were already homeless and came here and remained homeless. there are people came here wanting to make a life here and understimulated and became homeless. >> i think the homeward bound, which reunites folks with their families or someone who can take care of them in other cities, when you look at those numbers, and we're at 8,000 who have been reunited with friends or families since 2004 that suggests a lot of folks came here, you know -- and not unlike others. san francisco is a city of refuge for a lot of folks. poor, not poor, college grads, gay lesbian youth, immigrants. but we're not a nation state.

we're not going to close our borders. we need to be responsible. but that data does suggest that folks are coming here and it's not working out for them which is why we started the program when we did eight years ago. >> supervisor wiener: thank you. >> uh-huh. >> chair farrell: supervisor breed. >> supervisor breed: thank you. i just had a few questions about jobs now program, and wanted to know specifically what is happening to help deal with the transition of employment for jobs now. for example, people may take on the responsibility of someone, and the assistance to pay them through jobs now. but there comes a point where the jobs now support runs out, and then typically sometimes we've had situations where that person is laid off, and then they're collecting unemployment, or it just -- there's no

transition or no link to a maybe long-term job opportunity in maybe another field or something to that effect. just wanted to know a little bit more about how the jobs program is specifically connecting people to long-term job security. >> sure. so the goal of jobs now is to get someone immediately into employment and get income into their pocket. the secondary goal is to get someone who has a fairly -- typically a fairly limited work history or limited educational background, to get that experience. what we have found, and this is data from when we started the program in 2009, and we have a very large sample of over 5,000 placements that very often, in the private sector, once the subsidy ran out, if the employee was successful, the employer kept that employee on, over half. i'll get you the exact numbers,

i don't remember. i think it was in the 60% but let's call it over half were retained. they retained a full time job, not on the city's dime anymore. 88% of employees placed said it added value to the company. you can take any job training or job placement program in the city, whether it's nonprofit run or city run and you will never find a 50% placement rate. it's a very, very high placement rate number for folks with multiple barriers to employment. so it shows this is an effective strategy. we have a very large public sector to jobs now. so this is a public service trainees in rec and park, dpw, hssa and other city departments. the placements tend to be six months, some can last up to a year. we have been working with dhr to allow those placements to count for mqs for city employment

and met minimum qualifications. our staff is working with these clients. they're getting help with their résume, with soft skills, interview skills, things like that, they're connected with us. so we encourage folks to apply for, and get on lists for city employment, and at hssa. we've been able to hire a lot and getting former public assistance recipients working as case worgers in our system. city employment is not the answer to long-term employment. even though we're a very large employer what we do want is for people to get those job skills. you mentioned folks who don't get jobs, and there are certainly a lot, about you what they have after their placement is hopefully a solid reference. they certainly have a solid -- now a recent work history. they are now engaged in the unemployment system so they're getting a benefit higher than

what they get from the city and working to get a better job. so we're now engaged in a study, and i mentioned this last time i was here, with a national study with the department of human and health services and a think tank around employment training programs. i think there's eight sites across the country on the effectiveness of subsidized employment as a development strategy. i'm hoping it will say it has by far the best outcomes. and sort of betting on it we're continuing to expand it, not only getting them a permanent job but paying them now and incentivizing them, and being them in the job market while being played. stand alone job training don't do that. >> supervisor breed: what categories would you put it in the private or public? >> the private i mentioned, the 50% plus stickiness was private.

but we do have a large placement component for -- in the nonprofit sector as well. it's just we found it's more difficult to keep individuals on. >> supervisor breed: do you think that your case management support, in terms of job training, job support, résume building, and that component, has gotten better over the years, especially since you somewhat inherited the program initially, and had to act quickly to get things going, and now, it's at a point of stability, it seems, and things seem to be getting better? >> i think our employees at hsa have really stepped up to the plate to adapt to this new model. we had a welfare caseworkers who became business account representatives, a liaison between the private sector and our department helping place folks. folks doing -- performing

entirely new roles in context of subsidized employment and enjoying the work and enjoying the satisfaction of placing someone. we started this in 2009 it was a horrible labor market. it was a stimulus act, families coming in on public assistance competing with jobs with folks who had 10 years of job history. so they were excited and they've adapted well. and i think are really doing great work. talk about the governor's proposal, what that would go towards would be to expand placement in terms of subsidy but also expand the number of our workers. we got to allow someone to continue to work with folks we can't have case loads of 50, 60, 70, 80 people. they can't provide good service. if we keep them lower we see nice outcomes for families and even better using funds that aren't city and county dollars but are state dollars. >> supervisor breed: just one

more question about the cal fresh. is there a fraud division that helps to deal with issues of fraud around these particular benefits? is. >> yeah. hssa has an investigative division that deals with welfare fraud, deals with internal employee fraud. we're required by the feds to have what they call quality control but part of quality control is not only benefits accuracy, computing the right amount that someone is eligible for but also to investigate welfare fraud, yeah. >> supervisor breed: thank you. >> chair farrell: thank you. colleagues, any other questions? okay. thank you very much, mr. rohr, for your time today. at this point, i'd like to open it up to public comment, if there are any members of the public who wish to comment on this item, please step forward. >> my name is vera hale. i'm a member of the advisory

council to the department of aging. and every year, i come up here about cuts, and it's such a joy to be here and to be able to talk about what the needs of the people are, and what some of the things we think are coming in the future. i want to mention three things. one is the difference between -- one difference between calworks and medi-cal. cal fresh -- not calworks, cal fresh, has no asset limit. and this means that people will be able to apply, regardless of whether they have excess money in the bank or not. medi-cal will still, unless the state changes it, have an asset limit of $2,000 for one person, and $3,000 for a couple. and that's going to make it harder to ever get everything going easily back and forth. but one of the things that we

found, anne hinton held a hearing in hunters point and one of the things we found was that people were so concerned about having to pay a share of costs for their medi-cal, and for the in-home supportive services, ihss. a lot of people have shared costs of $500. and they ask that we do something about restoring share of cost program. the county used to have one that would let people pay -- county would pay a portion. so if they had high represent or high medical -- rent or high medical expenses then they didn't have to pay the 900. the county doesn't break down the budget that way. so we wanted to restore that. and we still do. and i'm working with senior disability action on that. and we're interested and hopefully we'll bring something to you in the coming months.

just one item, homeless seniors are not hopeless. and but they can't get in shelters because they move slowly, they don't want the top bunk, simple things that elderly take for granted. but other makes it very difficult for them to get through the shelter system. so we've been trying some of us to make it easier so seniors -- the big problem is the rents at the sro. >> chair farrell: if i could ask you to rap up please. thank you very much. >> the sros have gotten too high. when we had a homeless program at north of market, senior services, 80% were placed permanently. but no more. because the rents are exorbitant. >> chair farrell: thank you very much. any other members of the public wish to comment? >> i'm teresa, i've been up here a couple of times. i work for hsa. i worked in the play room.

i was under the classification of 3280. when they were bumped out, we were bumped out of our positions. we also had 9910s with their hiring now to be trained, and they stayed in the play rooms, and four of us were bumped out of our positions. we had another classification that came, that they gave us. we applied for the jobs. but i, and another person were the only one that was called for those positions. i'm hearing that they're hiring these people, and bringing in 9910s, and here, i've been out of work for five years. and i understood the city and county of san francisco should, or should have tried to place me in another position, which they didn't even do that. so i'm just saying, i don't understand what all this -- they're saying they're trying to do, when i've been out of work, and i'm sure there's others. and the overload of -- i've been

out into the offices for the union, and talked to the people that are working there. and they're saying they're overloaded, weigh overloaded. they have stacks of people's folders on their desk they can't even get to. and lo the of them are saying they just can't handle it, why is this going on. i'm helping -- i'm not even getting paid what i'm doing. i'll wrap it up. i'm helping these people keep 245eur jobs and get had a they need for their jobs. but i don't understand why i wasn't hired back. thank you. >> chair farrell: thank you very much. any other members of the public wish to comment on this item? all right. seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues again this is a first hearing for hsa to come forward so we can preview the budget for next year. thank you mr. rohr and ms. hinton and cfo for being here. if we could continue this item to the call of the chair.

do so without opposition. so moved. mr. clerk, do we have any other items? >> the clerk: that completes the agenda. >> chair farrell: we are adjourned. good evening, everybody. if i can have everybody's attention for a few minutes. we

would like to welcome you to the reopening of our visitor information center here in san francisco. it's a real great occasion for us. we enjoy seeing it today than the way it was before. many visitors especially international visitors get off the bus at the airport and come here as their very first stop looking for information from san francisco. we get over 400,000 people to come here to learn about what to do in san francisco. i think the changes which i'm going to talk about in san francisco. it's brought the feeling of the city in san francisco and the region into the building and it's a positive experience for us and the visitors and the

volunteers who spend so much time here. so i would like to crews right now the mayor who has been a great partner with the hospital industry. in fact this whole project without the city of san francisco could not have done with without the help to make the plaza better and the visitor center a better experience and will work to make it more welcoming. i would like to introduce mayor lee, a tremendous ambassador to what we are all about. let's give him a round of applause for that leadership. thank you for not only what you do for the

residents, but the visitors as well. >> thank you, you and the board have been just fabulous. you know san francisco i get to talk about everywhere i go whether it's ireland, paris or washington, d.c. and pretty soon i have to go to baltimore. what a downer. and eat their crab. [ laughter ] anyway, it's all in great gist that i say to you that again this is a 16 million person visit every year to san francisco. just millions and millions of dollars are spent by our visitors in this city. so we have to keep it beautiful, we have to keep it updated and informative. we have great partners that have known over many decades that this is the heart of our

business, tourism, the hotels, some of the greatest hotels in the world are here in san francisco and they will be welcoming all the people that come from 55 days of sailing. event after event find it's way to san francisco, the bay area because they know we know how to host this. i want to welcome bob from our chamber of commerce because he's learning very quickly how wonderful this place is. [ applause ] and how we do things and how we do things successfully is to identify or challenge and get really bright creative minds like joe, and you start working with union square and you discover and help everybody be successful and you find john, who gets this going. you get

all of these discoveries like people in the city like john, who has been there year after year operateing the whole convention visitor center and you start to putting things together and more each year things get better and better. when you see success, there is so many examples of our success in working together and cooperating together that you get a whole hotel group of owners together and they are paying for an expansion of the convention center. that's going to make us world class competitors with places because of the size. so they know how to get things done and know that our city is much acknowledging that this is the most important employment center, the tourism center for the city, it continues to be, we have natural beauty but we

also have beauty because we all work together to get that great experience going and for this center to be refurbished, technology wise, space wise and adding things like made in san francisco. i have to say that because for me i got to talk about san francisco in ireland, in paris, i'm going to talk about it beginning tomorrow night the day after when i arrive in beijing that we are really on our way to kind of manufacturing beautiful wonderful things that people can take with them that they are looking for all the time. i got those inquiries. what are you making in san francisco, the middle class in china, they have money to spend, they are investing all over the world. i want them to invest here along with the other 400,000 visitors that come through here and take

the advantage of the exposure and what everybody associated with the movement here. we can have more of the products, more of the accessories, more of the things that they want to have as memories, but also make on going connections with us. i want to thank all the volunteers that are working here because, you know, you do it for the love of the city. if the visitors who speak multiple different languages walk in and they don't get a smile from a volunteer, earning a lot of money, they are not going to spend money and not feel appreciated. we all know in this industry, it's not just the smile we care about, this is why we need to invest in looking at this future of the holiday plaza, working with

webcor, we are working to try to redesign even better i improvements here and you see the space in the highest level of appreciation for the city. i want to emphasize it would not happen without everybody reaching out to each other, with n the city, stake holders, in our small businesses, the hotels and successful areas of our city and say let's work together for an even more improved vision of what we can do for our visitors. that is going to enhance everything, that is what turns one visit into 5 visits with the same person. it turns someone who comes by themselves and then they bring their families or they meet up with friends here

in san francisco. and this is what it's all about. this is what i care about and i know that i will continue to try to do the things that the mayor's office that support this effort, talking about it, quoting the statistics to the supervisors and they know that visitors is at the heart and all the way to market street. pretty soon, i'm not supposed to announce these things, but i would like to announce things that are not finalized yet because they get people excited about what else people want to do. market street is going to get free wifi by the end of this year. i assure you of that. because the companies of at&t are saying gosh, look at what we are doing on market street. let's get free wifi going on the plazas and all the

way so that we honor people's investment and honor all of the work they are doing to recreate and reestablish market street greatest street in san francisco and then we'll work on many of the other corridors that also want our attention and as joe has done with travel to reignite for all the people to visit and experience and do different things. this year is going to be incredible year. the exploratorium opens next month, the america's cup, the giants are back for another great season and then you have in addition to all of that you have the latest, the bay lights. the incredible innovative [spelling?] spirit that it causes. how can you do

that, to put led lights and you get incredible mastery of technology to go with art. these are the things we do to celebrate. i love this city more and more even though we are working our toe nails down to make it better, you turn and see it's really worth it because everyone loves this city and you know we all appreciate it. thank you for working together, thank you for going beyond the boundaries and thank you for reaching out to each other and asking for help and solutions. so that we don't take the person on the sidewalk and say we have a problem and we have a problem. we do something about it. we are working with everybody to make things better. we have