you i just don't see the rats. how can you not be a senior or disabled and they put you in a senior disabled building. i know some legal issues and things, but i wanted to see that. how could you not be a disabled person, but they put you in the senior disabled. >> i seem sure that someone from the agency will follow up with you. next speaker. >> i'm here to talk about what we feel the important, that is affordability, keeping our housing safe, with good management and provide resident empowerment and training. we

are formulating a san francisco housing authority tenants ewe you know. we have sign in sheets here. please sign up. we are asking for san francisco housing authority tenants, also section eight tenants, senior disabled and also people in sro. everyone who the housing authority is over we want to put in into our tenant's ewe you know and with power there are people. please sign up with me at the back of the room. i want to talk about what this union will do. better services, better communication, fair and just elections, accountability and transparency. thank you. >> thank you. i'll read more names. maria, [inaudible].

>> when everybody says that i think my father's standing behind me. enough about what's been wrong, which is great. folks need to hear it. i'm here to speak in support of two things. the million dollars -- i would ask folks if you need to have a conversation so you can take it outside so we can hear folks. >> at least until i'm finished. the million dollars for resident organizing and empowerment, not like what i think has been found to be illegal like the housing authority has done in the past. in you make a bid you get to rebid and get it. [inaudible] and holly court residents get to own and manage those two developments. why is it that everyone praises the [inaudible] neighborhood

center, holly courts and [inaudible]. why is holly courts the only completely safe family development in town. it's because of people like frank and karen. holly courts -- they need a bus just to take all their people to a hearing. it's like people like [inaudible] from the neighborhood center. we have 650 members, we've worked with those two developments since we were founded in 1978. we're not one of the big six and in this town because we're multiethnic organization the past commission president called us white. well, we're multiethnic. we also have a lot of homeowners like myself that have actively working with residents of public housing. we're not the biggest or in the worst shape and there's a reason for that. please help /sorg organizations like the neighborhood center who don't

get funded. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> my name is [inaudible] i work closely with both holly court and [inaudible]. we have formed a public housing working group to have a platform for residents to advocate for changes in the community so in the room we have ffpd, we have campos' office there, we have residents neighbors, everybody with shared responsibility, which is needed. we can only do so much. the residents are sick and tired of being sick and tired. the lack of follow through on accountability of the san francisco housing authority -- their safety and quality of life is being compromised. we're hopeful for the [inaudible] but it can

/tpot be upon the back of tenants. we need to include in every possible way residents' voices and input which is why we support campos' budget [inaudible] so important among other things. in addition, we need to include community based organizations that already have an established relationship with the residents and a history of trust and collaboration. thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. i have a few more cards -- phil, rene, [inaudible], carmen and [inaudible] i'm sorry, it's hard to read. >> i'm the sergeant at arm of

the [inaudible] resident council and i'd like to go back to what was said before about the shooting murder we had a couple yores ago. we also done had, like, three or four maybe five or six more crime that just happened around the crime that don't get reported and stuff like that and a lot of people tell me oh, they run into the complex and they come out the other end and they gone. that's another reason why we pushing for the gate to be closing. i'd like to thank miss barbara smith for coming out, going with us around on a walk. i'd like to thank mr. torres for coming out, visiting with us. that's the only way people get to know what we need and stuff. i also like to push tenant participation. when i move into housing at 85 -- excuse me -- holly court in 85 -- i been in housing 39 years,

tenant could go sign out for the [inaudible] that they need to use. if i had the two, i could do this myself. tenant used to do their own backyard. tidy up around their own, outside and all of this, and stuff. tenants do want to participate, they just don't have the tools to use it. even if they could be trained for a couple hours it wouldn't take that long but it will save a lot of money and maintenance a lot of time because we don't have enough maintenance, but we can help and i thank you for letting me have this time. >> thank you. next speaker. >> my name is [inaudible]. i'm an attorney as the eviction defense collaborative and we are the main place where everyone in the city goes to

get answers when they get sued for [inaudible]. and we are very concerned about the plan -- the ideas that the housing authority has to make up budget shortfalls bypassing costs on to tenants such as late fees, main /tphapbs costs and other things like that. we are talking about an agency that has not been doing their job in maintaining the premises. we hear over and over again how mold is so bad that people are getting sick, that sewage backing up in sinks, roaches on baby's cribs, this is not habitable conditions and for housing authority to pass their costs on in a crisis to the people who are the most venerable, least able to be pay, who will be evicted when they don't pay these fees is completely inappropriate when

they haven't been doing their job. there are now 50 on going cases that are in court. we ask that the housing authority dismiss these actions and that they allow us and the housing rights committee and their legal aid to handle this in a more cost effective way to figure out a way for these folks to pay their back rent and maintain their housing while the housing gets their stuff in order. >> thank you. my name's erin, i'm an attorney with the homeless advocacy housing project. we receive referrals for some of the most difficult eviction cases and otherwise. half of our clients are families with children, the other half a disabled adults. i won't repeat all the habit

ability problems. you've heard them all day. what's the point when you impose fee when they can't pay them anyways. how big of a source of revenue can that possibly be? these are the most venerable members of the community and it's not their fault that the housing is in such bad condition. we are strongly against that proposal. for whatever moments i have left, i'll give one example of a mold case that i recently worked on. a husband and wife, two small children and the wife is pregnant. there's mold all of the baby's crib and things. the family got evicted for non payment of rent for three months and the mold had been

there for six months. >> thank you. next speaker. >> [inaudible]. >> good afternoon commissioners, her name is maria ramos and she lives in sunnyville. hold on a minute. come on folks, we're almost there. i wanna make sure everyone has an opportunity to give public congressmen. comment. >> thank you for opening up this hearing to hear the complaints and issues that are going on in our neighborhood.

just like the other tenants she's also speaking on the maintenance issues and safety issues in the property. she has also heard from other tenants and people that the heating systems in the units have been an issue and there are been no responses to the complaints regarding the non working heating. >> other issues of concern are

the plumbing issues. mr. there's back up plumbing in the maintenance is not responding and their response is that there is only one plumbing worker for the property and that is of great concern. another issue is the peeling paint coming off the walls and a lot of the housing paint has led and has a direct effect on

the community. another thing she would like to see is the police department pay attention to the crime committed in the neighborhood and to give it more attention than they do right now. there was a family whose unit burnt down and they only transferred them to

another unit and there was another unit [inaudible] to a better situation. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, good morning. my name is [inaudible] i'm an organizer with power. we work with black and latino families. housing has office been a central issue for our members. public housing is often the only option that low income people have. it is also a way that people are able to stabilize their lives and avoid ending up in cycles of entering in and out of shelters an being holeless so we're appreciative this hearing has been called. a lot of our members live in

various places and members ask us if we can help organize walk throughs through their housing projects. joanne had asked us a couple days ago if we could have some people come /phraou and see the conditions that our residents are living in and they themselves feel like they're having health challenges in their homes because of mold, but they also feel the shower head is not working, there's nobody to call to ask for help and she has children in that. we all know how toxic mold can be for families. a lot of our members are on wait lists looking for housing, hoping to be able to be stay in the bay view and then they see that there are vacant lots, vacant units, over 100 vacant units next door. that's difficult to see. friends are on wait lists,

can't get housing and then there's the empty buildings. we're asking you to investigate these issues and support the residents and push to have some of these other buildings habitable that for people that are on these wait lists. >> we are really greatful that this audit's been conducted and this hearing's happening. for us part of it is hooking at our housing element and the crisis that we know exists around affordable housing, that when we talk about questions of displacement of families, public housing is central to what really stabilizes. that's what we found in our organizing and we were part of a national report in 2009 that public housing is a critical thing for us to invest in. when people

talk about affordable housing, what our communities associate with affordable housing is one-third of your income, but pub hick housing is one of the only real resources that's providing that and that's what stabilizes or families. we haven't actually expanded public housing in over 30 years. to have so many vacant units and to have 48 percent of these units have been vacant for more than six months -- we see that on a regular basis. one story i'll share that was one of our members, emma harris. from 1998 to 20308 she was living in an sro with a shared bathroom and she basically contracted diabetes over this period of time because she had no kitchen. she had no way to access fresh

food. she's finally got into public housing and it made a huge impact on her health, but that's the kind of thing if we deal with this problem, we could improve the health of thousands of our families and this is what we're committed to working with you on. thank you. the supervisors will be crucial in making this happen so we want to be a part of this fight that happens from here. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> hello. hi, my name is layla. i'm sure you call my name. >> go ahead. >> i'm here for myself. i've been on a waiting list four years, but i'm still waiting for the housing. i never been in housing, living housing, but i need help now 'cause i'm not working no more. so the -- the apartments i'm living right now -- i can't afford it no more so

i'm here. please, i need help, i need apartment. i don't wan homeless, i don't wanna live on street. i been on waiting list four years now. i need help please. that's what i'm here for. >> thank you. normally the way it works, we hear what you you have to say, but i know someone from the agency will follow up with you. >> thank you so much. god bless. >> next speaker please. >> good afternoon commissioners, my name's carmen

and i'm representing the coalition on homelessness and i'm here to talk about families that are homeless. she said thank god that right now i'm housed, but i go to outreach and i visit the families in shelter and i think about how they need housing right now. so today i'm here to let you guys know there's so many families in need in shelter and

we should be opening up the wait list for section eight so other people can be housed just like i am. she said that to see families living in shelter in the streets or in the cars is really sad and that if you guys were to help open up the

section eight wait list god will bless you all and it's really an injustice to an unfair and really sad to see that. so thank you. >> thank you very much and thank you for translating. >> my name was called as well. my name's [inaudible] and i'm with the families collaborative. i want to talk about the wait listing being hope and how they should be really -- the list needs to be purged so that other people have the opportunity to get on that list and be housed. they need to push those vacant units to be open to families so we can get people off the wait list or shelters. we need to give other young families to be on those lists and get help as well. an s ro family that we're working with right now

currently has a 1-year-old and a 5-year-old and she's been on the wait list for a while. her number's been going up from 64 back down to 70 or 80. we've been working with them trying to put in contracts saying that the children have health conditions because of the sro conditions with mold, broken windows and her son has severe asthma health issues and we haven't been able to get anybody to cooperate with us. i think that's an issue as well. another thing i heard is from people who actually live at the housing projects is that there's a language capacity that is not there for spanish speakers especially so there's a lot of barriers for those people to get help when there are issues with their rent or issues with the units. i had a letter to read from another family who didn't come, but i

don't think i have time so i'd like to just turn it in to you. >> yes. >> so thank you very much and thank you for the translation. next speaker please. >> first i want to say hats of for putting together this hearing. first i'm gonna tell you my story and i'm gonna tell you what i believe. a couple of years ago i came up on the housing waiting list and i got all the paperwork together, all the money orders and everything that i needed to bring to 'em. i go over to one of the housing projects and the manager immediately told me you got everything? you ready to go is you ready to pay? i said yeah. she said as soon as you pay i'm gonna take the boards off.

i said i'm not ready right now. i explain this story over here at the housing authority office and she told me you'll get a letter from me and i should call her back. so we played phone tag for about a week and then she sent me a letter and it said that i wasn't gonna be accepted because i had committed fraud. and what they meant by fraud was that when i got on the list i was homeless, but when my unit offer came up i wasn't homeless no more. housing authority -- if you know the system, they make you stay up to date with 'em with contacts so they knew before they even called me to go to that appointment that i was living in an sro, which is where i am now. here's what i believe. i grew up in the projects all my life and i heard 'em talk about, you know, there's 3000 work orders that's

outstanding. all my life living in the projects work orders has always been outstanding. i wanted her to put a year on it. is that accumulated over 10, 15 years? further more [inaudible] 1.5 million reasons to treat low income families -- >> we wan to make sure we give everyone the same amount of time. we have to be fair. thank you. thank you, next speaker. >> i've been working with the coalition on homelessness for the last -- over a year working with families who have been fortunate enough to get

vouchers -- subsidy vouchers. in this audit, i do appreciate that there has been a number of step taken to solve the crisis within the housing authority, however the real crisis -- this is a drop in the bucket of the real crisis, which is the lack of real and safe affordable housing. in our effort to find housing, we find that it's impossible to find any private housing with subsidies or without. the counselors are telling clients to go somewhere else. go to east bay, go to richmond, go somewhere else. i also know that the human services /aeu agency is saying

that their list for shelters have within them people that don't really live here. they live somewhere else so they've tightened the eligibility requirements and believe that these people should go back to where they come from. so my concern is, of all the issues to address the crisis, we have heard for over a year that the list has to be purged, but it has not been -- the waiting list. the 26 thousand i believe is probably more like 40 thousand. so we hope this will be addressed along with the other places, issues in the housing authority. but i know that you work very hard, all of you up here, to provide more housing and more jobs for people in this city. however, the real crisis is to provide housing for all of san

francisco's residents and i appreciate your efforts to do that /aeu and i thank you for this today. >> thank you. nec speaker. >> i was actually on the waiting list all my time through high school but our [inaudible] to get people out to this meeting of folks who would come in the office with issues and it was amazing how many people came and said they were scared to come out and talk about management at their unit or development because this were afraid of retaliation. one tenant who was a little shy gave me to read. i'm reading this for her. >> was this tenant afraid to come as well? >> she said to say she