very quickly that for latinos as previous people have spoken to, we have -- we are a growing population and also in hiv, we clearly have a lot of market work to do. the rate of infection among lgbt latinos, particularly men [inaudible]. >> thank you very much. thank you. next speaker. good evening, [speaker not understood], board of supervisors. my name is jorge [speaker not understood]. today i'm coming to you a the board of supervisors to consider not to make cuts to hiv prevention and hiv direct services. in san francisco we have a variety of services that

integrate a system of care for people living with hiv and [speaker not understood]. once you cut one service, you are [speaker not understood]. so, you want to have a comprehensive service and continuum of care that is effective. we need to avoid cuts. now, in addition also i want to bring your attention to the latino community. i don't want to ask for [speaker not understood] cuts. i want to ask you to increase funding. the [speaker not understood] already have [speaker not understood] and they limit services for hiv services and care. and we see what [speaker not understood] says. latinos having hiv are more likely that incur the system of care in hiv through the emergency room. this is very expensive. so, if we want to reduce costs, we need to increase prevention and direct services and supportive services.

and also, latino -- the latino community, we have a very specific cultural need. many of the services that are available are invisible for us so we need more outreach and supportive services that are appropriate in culture and language. thank you. >> thanks. next speaker. i am brian [speaker not understood]. this is my second time here. i want to share i am a client from stone wall and it's very good, it's been very good. i go to meetings. i've been very -- [speaker not understood] has been good and everything. so, i am -- i don't have hiv, i beat the bullet, but i see now i'm still in the positive mind-set and i'm still strong and i just would ask you guys please not to cut any of the hiv foundation services and

nonprofits like aguiles as well. i'm becoming a client now and a member. i don't go through all the services, but i go to the groups and they're very well -- very warm and welcome and very, you know, i feel comfortable there. and i come from a family, i've been abused since i moved out 21. my family don't respect me and don't accept me at the time. i tend to build my own family here and i feel comfortable here. so, please don't cut them. thank you. >> next speaker. hi, my name is norma [speaker not understood]. i'm not only a client, but a volunteer at the san francisco aids foundation. i'm here to request that cuts be kept in place, economical ones.

if you continue funding what's already in place, it's a lot cheaper than having to deal with somebody that's already got -- that aids has already spread to and it's way more expensive to try to catch it before it happens. so, on economics alone, i urge you not to make those cuts, just for money sake. and just keep the money where it is, you know. it's already working. why ruin something that's already working? thank you. michael [speaker not understood]. i want to speak of gray panthers. i want to speak against the disastrous plan to reconfigure the health center by cutting yet another 23 beds out of it and by taking [speaker not understood] and basically converting it into housing. this is robbing -- this is not

just robbing peter to pay paul. it's robbing both peter and paul. what's described as residential is no substitute for supportive housing. we need more supportive housing without cutting into behavioral health beds. behavioral health beds have been cutback severely. this plan is also going to put another 34 people from the behavioral health center into laguna honda hospital. this is going to recreate this whole problem that we had a few years ago of assaults against patients and against staff. this whole plan of reconfiguring is disaster. there should not be any cuts in dph whatsoever.

we are being told over and over again how we're in the midst of a recovery. we have all these tech firms moving in, getting huge tax breaks. this is one of the richest cities in the world. and when we walk into city hall today, we saw the floor being converted into a fancy private property -- private party. this is all like a symbol of what's going on now. we cannot let this city become a playground for the rich. >> thank you. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. [speaker not understood]. the reason i'm here today is i'm a community member volunteer. me and my four kids go to [speaker not understood] and the city helping us.

[speaker not understood], they had mentioned some of this funding was being cut. some of the funding was being cut to some of the organizations. in the short term it means it's going to save the city money, but for the long term it's going to create more problems for the city. it means some of the people won't be able to seek treatment. if people are not able to seek treatment for the future, it means for the long term it will be more infection for the people in the city because some of the people will be [speaker not understood]. i just urge you please to not reduce some of the funding because some of the organizations servicing the people [speaker not understood]. i urge you please not reduce the funding. also at the same time you reduce the funding, some of the organizations where kids volunteer will be closed down.

some of these services will close down. we we won't be able to volunteer no more. i urge you not to close it and leave the services open and the services are one available for the people of the city. thank you. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is perry lang and i'm the executive director of the black coalition on aids rafiki wellness. first, i want to acknowledge the support and hard work of director garcia. but i also want to be clear, bca's hiv prevention dollars were cut sometime ago, and they were never backfilled. yet we have managed through grace and community support to continue providing hiv services to our population. those folks coming through our doors. but i am here now because at

this juncture these cuts threaten to derail, if you would, our 11-bed transitional house called the brandy morehouse in the western addition. they're only a few dollars when you compare them to others, but these are important dollars to an agency like ours that has been managing on very few dollars our transitional house in the western addition that is set aside for hiv positive, homeless, mentally challenged adults. we would love to keep this program alive and we need your help. there has been a steady erosion of funds and we need this board to do the socially just thing and to begin to stop this erosion. bca, rafiki wellness, it's one of the few organizations in the black community dedicated to fighting hiv/aids. we need your support to continue doing this work. thank you. >> thanks.

next speaker. members of the board of supervisors, ray harte. i think if there's one area san francisco can take extreme pride, throughout the hiv crisis it has been at the forefront of establishing treatment methods and just everything that needed to be done to take care of people. and i do not think we have anything ever to be ashamed of in that area. i know that cuts are hard to deal with, but i also know that each and every year i've seen cuts come out and then be backfilled and handled in some other way. and i trust that that will continue now. i want to talk about a group that has not spoken already and the folks who have fallen primarily in two categories. one are health care providers. and i can't imagine being someone who went into the health care profession and being in a situation where you

have someone who you know needs the care and yet you have to say to them, i can't help you, and i don't know anybody else who can. that has to be one of the most morally, you know, devastating things for anybody who goes into the health care field and fighting these cuts and replacing the money. it helps them as well as the patients they serve. and the second is all of the family members and friends of people who have hiv and/or aids. who don't have the skills, don't have the financial resources, can't put this person on their insurance, whatever it is, but this is someone they care for, someone they love, someone they see suffering and they want to help, but just can't do it. so, when these programs are cut, it isn't just the individual person whose health is impacted or anything else. it's all of their family members and friends who have to

then deal with the unenviable position of being there and saying, you know, god, i wish there was something i could do, but this just isn't. >> next speaker. hello. [speaker not understood] 250. it's quite an experience to be a part of this history. i'm an lgbt archivist from tokyo currently living in hawaii and here in san francisco. this is a stunning part of history. i think hiv finds us regardless of who we are. hiv doesn't discriminate us and neither does mental health. so, i think -- i find it astonishing that i'm here. one thing i want to bring in here i think a lot of agencies are heavily dependent on federal and state funding. i think this country has an art

and discipline in philanthropy where we could go directly to private sectors and i don't see a lot of that happening. and i know that we have [speaker not understood] from our round here in california, maybe jane wells from global philanthropy forum who could tip us here and there. they are beautiful match makers of philanthropy and i go to their seminars and conferences and i see it happening. so, a few million there, here and there, i think if the public sector is lacking that, i think there is a way to do even better instead of a budget cut. i am also watching how south africa is dealing with hiv and lgbt abuse and lack of support system in their country. they are bringing tourism in and the tourists are bringing the checks in. cecilia chung is probably on her way there very soon. i would think there are quite a

few other ways than just be finger pointing at public figures and our taxpayers to fill in the gap. thank you. >> thanks. next speaker. hello, supervisors, debby lerman from [speaker not understood]. this board has been a strong supporter of that in the past and we appreciate that and thank the mayor for doing part of the job and urge this board to redirect resources to do the rest. secondly, we haven't talked much about the department of public health rfp today. you'll see in this year's budget an $8.8 million cut in year two to health services and please be aware that is actually almost an $18 million cut once it is annualized. that is an unprecedented amount. and at this point largely

undefined. and while we acknowledge the difficult challenges in the department of public health, the cities will need to rely on these same nonprofits to ensure successful implementation of the affordable care act requirements. and this budget reduction comes at a time when the economy is rebounding. we've had millions of dollars more come in than in past years and we need to fully determine the needs and costs of the affordable care act before we can determine that we can afford these kinds of cuts. it is absolutely crucial that these kinds of policy considerations take precedence over budget reductions that might prove not only unnecessary, but extremely unwise. should this board elect not to restore the cuts, we hope that there will be a fully open, strong, public city-wide dialogue as the rfp is being developed. we hope you will remain engaged. i also want to note the

invisible budget cut at the last [speaker not understood] cost of doing business increase, and we would like to propose that this dph rfp reverse a city policy no particular reason why nonprofits are not allowed to put escalators into [speaker not understood] contracts. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. hi, good afternoon, jennifer freed enback, director of the coalition on homelessness. i want to thank you for all of your listening and patiently hearing all the comments from the public. i think it's been really moving in a space where i think a lot of us is thinking the budget is not having that many cuts this year and we can see from the testimony that there is really dramatic reductions and that they would have very substantive impact on people's lives. i wanted to talk a little about the context with which these

reductions are being made and for the department of public health. and we have a situation last year where it was reported the five years previous that the department of public health, by the cfo at that time, that there had been over $90 million in reductions to the department of public health and of those over 70 million in five years were direct services. when we had broken down these reductions, we found that about half of them were in behavioral health. so, substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment, and as well as an hiv/aids. about half in primary care. i think all of us who are working in the community and working in impoverished community see what direct impact those reductions have had. we see increased a queuity levels in folks, we see much larger proportions of people who ~ are in severe crises for extended period of time. acuity. and all of this ends up circling back around to the

department of public health and costing a lot of resources for the city. ~ i wanted to also weigh in on the rfp which i think in terms of policy, in terms of doing budgeting, is really not a good way at all to make reductions because, of course, what will happen is all the contracts for mental health substance abuse, hiv/aids for the entire city will go out to bid, and -- but the amount, the pot will be eventually 17 million plus less. and we won't know what [inaudible]. >> thanks. next speaker. hello, my name is edmond larry and i want you to see this picture. i couldn't think of his name. rock hudson, but i know rock hudson was the first person to die of aids and then the first black person was arthur ashe

when the usa forced him to come out about his status. and when i hear the reports here about what's all been affected here, it makes me feel my living two or three years through this here surviving is not worth it, but i know it is worth it. and i know san francisco where i stay in the first aids hotel ambassador hotel, everything i have to fight, we fight in that hotel. we have been forgotten. and i know we like sour dough bread in san francisco, we found how to fight and win over hiv and aids. and it should be on our minds that this is where we should lead. this is our beacon light call. and i didn't think this what going to be -- i came to talk about me going to court. i'm fighting bullies in the hotel, you know, right now on tuesday. but just to hear -- you give

our future and our lives, you're making me nothing because the last board that was here who voted for medical marijuana out of here, the last board tom ammiano, they did the work. willie brown and the mayor did the work. he set up the bca when i was in rafiki house. i know what's not only should the money be put there, but we should make sure that hiv is wrapped around and works well in this country because we have russians, we have chinese, we have middle eastern, we have more than just black, white, asian pacific who has hiv in this country. and we know today sexual [speaker not understood] and rape [speaker not understood] no to me even if you're in the military. and i call upon you all to do the right thing for america. [inaudible]. >> thank you. next speaker. hi, supervisors. my name is collene, i work at

st. anthony's. i want to start off by talking about how grateful we are that we're coming in to the board's part of the budget season with some really great restorations to potential cuts to department of public health. and this is my eighth year doing this work and the shortest line i've ever seen at a bielenson hearing is a testament to the fact that we have started off on the right foot with the mayor's budget that, you know, that recognizes the need for substance abuse and mental health treatment services in this city and recognizes there is a public health need. at the same time, we've been reducing behavioral health services over the years and we've seen about a $70 million reduction to community-based mental health behavioral health services. and that has meant that we're starting with a playing field that has been sort of a big

hole cut out of it. we're not starting with a level place. and, so, because we're starting in this -- with this sort of huge divot, it makes it even more important for us to say we need to go all the way in terms of making sure that we're not adding to that hole, cutting deeper. but that we are able to start backfilling where the federal government and the state government has pulled out and that we're able to start rebuilding so that when people come into my workplace and need help with mental health treatment, we don't have to say, well, you know, it's maybe about a three-month wait for an appointment, or in the haight where i also work where we're not seeing the evidence of cuts on the street with people who are suffering and going through trauma and leaving that out on the street because the services aren't there for them. so, thank you. bye.

good afternoon, supervisors, david elliott lewis, co-chair of the city's mental health board. in addition to being co-chair of the board, i'm also a writer, photographer, and i sit on other boards. and community housing partnership, i do community organizing. i'm also a consumer. i'm also someone who has used the city's mental health services. in fact, if those services weren't there for me when i needed them, i wouldn't be here today to even be able to talk to you. i wouldn't have been able to get onto any boards or commissions. i wouldn't have been able to do the kind of community work i do. i would have been sitting in a deep, dark depression, homeless, not functioning, self-indulgent, no good to myself or anyone else. but some kind of spark of life came to me during those dark days and i walked into a

community clinic and i asked for help, and i got help. and through a very long, slow process of recovery, i was able to pull myself out of the darkness and get to the point where i could actually give back to the community. and as you have heard from so many of the speakers today, so many people have been helped by these community services. and i know they're threatened and i know that they're going to be threatened in the years to come with possible cutbacks. and i know you're under a lot of pressure with the budget, but still i hope you will hear the pain and suffering that is out there, the pain and suffering i have overcome years back, but the pain and suffering that's very real and for people who live day to day, hour to hour, even minute to minute, just trying to survive. i hope you will hear that and i hope you consider that and not cut programs or services at any level for mental health and for physical and medical health.

thank you for your time. >> thank you. next speaker. good evening, everyone. my name is jaime hernandez. i'm a member of aguiles. i'm a client and i'm here to support the organization because it's done great things for myself and i see all the wonderful things they do for the community, for the gay and latino men in san francisco. thank you. >> let me ask, are there any other members of the public that wish to speak in public comment at this bielenson hearing? seeing none, let me ask, colleagues, do you have any questions of the department of public health as we close this hearing? and let me ask director garcia, do you have any final comments you'd like to make? >> i wanted to clarify a little bit what you heard today, particularly around the behavioral health center. we are closing the skilled nursing facility because we

have a larger scale nursing facility. but of the 34 beds there are only 12 individuals who need laguna honda's admission policy that will be going to -- it's a lateral move. we also have individuals in the mental health rehab and the adult residential skill facility. those are the three level of care. and one of the important things we've been looking at this facility, it's about $19 million with only about $2 million of revenue. so, we feel that we need to reorganize this facility to ensure we increase the types of services that would be there. there will be a psych respite along with the adult residential care facility and we've been measuring what our clients need. but i want to just clarify the issue, these are lateral movements to laguna honda and of the 34 individuals that are at the skilled nursing facility, only 12 need the laguna honda admission policy. so, just to clarify that. thank you. >> thank you. all right. at this time, colleague, unless there are any final comments or questions, we will close this

bielenson hearing. without objection, this hearing has been heard and filed. [gavel] >> thank you, ladies and gentlemen. madam clerk, why don't we go to general public comment. >> at this time the public may address the board generally for up to two minutes on those item within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board including items on the immediate adoption calendar. please note that public comment is not allowed on those items which have already been subject to public comment by a board committee. pursuant to board rule 2 had the 22, please direct your remarks to the board as a whole and not to individual supervisors nor to the audience. ~ 2.22. speakers using assistance will be allowed twice the amount of time. if you need to display a document, please state so and return to live coverage of the meeting. >> let's go to our first speaker. [speaker not understood]. don't give money to the friends of the library or accept fund

from the friends of the library. [speaker not understood]. when these goings privatized the benefit to the community is the first casualty. the library preservation fund guarantees library funding with a fixed percentage of the general fund plus a property tax set aside and requires the library to set level values for the next five years by july 1st. the library has proposed to eliminate every evening hour in every branch between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. so no branch is open after 8 o'clock. the library administration has concealed that elimination of evening hours and even the library commission would not have heard it if well known library activists had not brought it to their attention. system wide 18 bran etches enjoy 42 open hours until 9:00 p.m. all 42 of them will be cut. even though the decision will be made this week, the community process mandated by the library preservation fund

was completed between september 13 and october 30 of last year. with not one word mentioned about eliminating evening hours. when the motive was not to remove public library service, the library did a genuine survey back in 2004. we know that city-wide san franciscans prefer evening howard to a morning hour by 52% in many branches where evening are cut preference is greater. ~ hours eureka valley prefers evening hours, but is losing 2 hours. the noe valley prefers evenings by 231% but is losing four hours. the board of supervisors voted for your own [speaker not understood] destroying democracy is what they get for their money, the lies cost more than the money. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker.

[speaker not understood] san francisco open government. the item on the overhead i would like to remain on the screen until i remove it from the overhead projector. what has it been, a month, two at most since members of this board of supervisors raised a cry about district attorney having $26,000 of office furniture. all sorts of issues and an hour long discussion especially about accepting the gift retroactively. then surprise, surprise, last week you approved retroactively $750,000 from the friends of the san francisco public library to the library. that's more than 28 times the amount accepted by the district attorney, and it was done with not one damn word of discussion. what choice did you have? the money