programs, which the contracts that will start in july. and then the third is we want families to apply for san francisco's cal works program. it's statewide and the benefit levels are the same statewide. what's different is the set of services that each county provides to families and we have the most robust compared to other counties. so if owe're on our county, it would be they transfer their case to san francisco. it's done electronically, but it allows them to get engaged in our services here. a change that we made to initially rolling this out is families where every family member is undocumented so they're not

required to apply for cal works. we would not require them to apply. it's something that would be a waste of their time and something we don't want them to do, however, we do have a number of families where the parents are undocumented, but the parents are citizens. they are eligible for cal works, they're eligible for grants on behalf of their children and for food stamps and med-cal. >> i appreciate the intent behind this modification that you don't require undocumented families to apply for it because it requires reporting the information to the federal

government or at least there's no guarantee that the information won't... >> we can talk about that. >> but to the extent that you're exempting undocumented families [inaudible] because at some point i would imagine that the issue of the persons immigration status would have to necessarily come up in that discussion and the ordinance specifically says that one of the things it's prohibiting is requesting information about a person's immigration status. how does that work. >> just to clarify, if you're 100 percent undocumented family, you're not required to apply. /stkpwh so say >> so say the family doesn't apply for cal works aren't they going to ask why?

>> they're not applying to cal works. >> i know, but the -- >> it's not our employee. the access to the system is through a non profit. >> so will the non profit ask the person -- >> as a requirement to get on the list now, families have to provide birth certificates which will indicate where the child was born. if it's undocumented family they'll tell the family when they're working with them -- >> so how will they know they're undocumented? will they ask? >> we haven't worked through that, but we will know if a child is not born here then they may not be documented.

>> my issue is accepting undocument [inaudible] is the policy, i don't see how you impolicemen that without violating the section of the [inaudible] ordinance that says that you actually are not supposed to ask information about immigration status. >> well, we ask about that status in all of our programs. >> well, you're probably in violation of the ordinance if that's the case. >> well, we don't report to ins. we're prohibited from reporting toins. >> it says use of city funds prohibited and it says in subsection c -- i'm going to quote this verbatim, "requesting information about or disseminating information

about immigration of any individual." so each item in itself would constitute a violation. >> i don't want to get into a legal debate with a lawyer and we don't have a city attorney here, but reading one section of that ordinance, there might be other sections that say, you know, there might be exceptions around eligible for federal programs or state programs where the state, for example, in order to get under med-cal, families per federal law and state law have to provide proof of residence. so that's a federal law, which would trump the local law. >> did you get an opinion from the city attorney that requesting information about their immigration status in this case would not be in violation of the sanctuary ordinance? >> no. >> okay, continue please.

>> i was talking about undocumented parents of children where the parents are receiving cash assistance on behalf of their children and the children are on medical. we have -- i'll put it up here since we're on issue. we've been working with [inaudible] economic development agency non profit on trying to make it clear to our immigrant families for what they might be eligible for and what they might not be eligible for. this is on our website now and it's been on for a couple years. question number two is will my immigration status be reported to ins and the answer is no,

immigration status is confirmed, but only to check [inaudible] deport you unless there's a criminal violation. san francisco city of refuge ordinance prohibits this. >> supervisor yee. >> let me back up on this so i can understand. part of wanting to change the systems to make sure that prior orty goes to the lowest income, priority goes to residents of san francisco, i have questions about that, but if -- beyond

that, if you're trying to get information on the residency piece of it, it's applying for part cal works part of the residence, or is this an additional requirement. >> one of the way is a family applying for cal works. that would establish residency. >> the main thing is we're trying to establish residency. >> yes, we're trying to prioritize the system for residents of san francisco. >> one way would be to see if they're? school in san francisco. in that particular

of the families that have school age children -- the problem become the families that don't have school age children and have children that are from zero to 5; is that correct? >> yes. since we're talking abthis i put up the residency verification process. there are many ways to verify their residency. application to or reseep of cal works benefits in san francisco, employment in san francisco, or school or preschool attendance in san francisco, and this fourth one is a clarification of families who are in our emergency shelter system which i mentioned earlier. families that i [inaudible] would be

considered residents intend to reside and then residence at any of the following in san francisco. we have families exiting rented dwellings, staying with friends or families. so the issue around school age kids -- it's simply another way a family could demonstrate residency if they happen to have a school age child. my child attends this school, fine, you're done. this is not meant to preclude families with very young children from the system. that would be silly. >> i'm still trying to get clarification. their intent about this is to show residency or intent of residency 'cause i'm trying to figure out if we really need to go down a path of applying for cal works as a

proof of residency. are these separate issues or related? >> there's an overlap there. one of the pieces of the changes to get on the list is to apply to cal works. we want families to apply to the public benefit program that will most support them and move them out of poverty. to have families not on cal works is doing a disservice to their children and themselves. they may not understand how to apply to it or a whole host of reasons they're not on there so we want to break down those barriers to getting on to a very robust support system. we've talked with [inaudible] staff about out stationing our staff at their offices to have families be able to /aeu /pwhraoeu right on site. we have a web application where you can apply

for benefits. you can apply over the phone. so over the last 18 months to two years, we've tried to make it much easier to get on the public benefits system in san francisco. >> let me finish up with the residency piece in regards to having those alternatives, that's great that they're in child care for instance. i would ask you to explore, maybe be a little bit more flexible for those families that actually apply for child care and not got into child care 'cause we know there's a waiting list and i would hope that would be [inaudible] intent. in regards to the

applying for c al works, has the department found that there's really a high percentage of people that are not applying for whatever reasons? >> i don't think it's a high percentage, but the last look at this -- it was probably a year ago. it was probably 20, 25 percent are not on cal works. the other sort of piece of that is they might be on cal works in another jurisdiction or county and they wan to be in san francisco. we would transfer that case from /twha*fr county they're in to ours so they could be case managed throw through our system if they intend to reside in san francisco. >> you're saying also generally

that san francisco has better benefits. >> the cash benefits are standardized, but we have a much more progressive approach for families looking for self sufficiency. >> do you think for them to understand that they would have better benefits, they could voluntarily switch over? >> again, a family who had an intent to reside here you would think would want to have that case moved over to us if they happen to be on public benefits in another county. if they're not on anything else, we would talk through the range of things we offer. in addition, partnering with meta and others

to talk through what we can offer and demystify what can be a complex process. >> if it seems like people can be condensed if they get the right information, and we're not making it mandatory, but if they're going to benefit [inaudible] certain people that may not -- for whatever reasons this where -- are there reasons why the family would not want to enter the system, my guess is that we're not doing any service because they're still going toe have the same fear and not only would they not apply for cal works, they will opt not to even deal with the

shelters. my theory is that these families with kids could be on the streets so it's something i'm concerned about. >> thank you. >> supervisor kim, did you have a question? >> since we're in the question portion -- >> do you want to finish your presentation. >> whatever you'd like to do. i'm flexible. >> i wanted to hone in on supervisor yee's point. i'm glad we have a really robust

do we really need to legislate for the 3 percent. if the -- of the 270 families that were on the list, if only 4 families were abusing the list -- do we change an entire system for all of these families for these smaller number of families. everyday in our office we deal with our lowest income residents. people come into our office everyday. i'm in the neighborhood, i visit our centers and what i hear overwhelmingly is how difficult the system is for folks and how it's a full-time job to go through our shelter process and how it's even difficult to look for employment or get services they need because they're

constantly running around to get documents that prove a variety of things. i want to make the system easier, not harder, /es it's not unlike all the other programs [inaudible] we do set an income threshold to make sure the neediest are getting served and one family jumping ahead of that family might mean one family has to wait [inaudible]. it's not that difficult to do an income verification. >> i will challenge you on how hard it is -- obstacles that

folks have to go through, but even just going to a school to get that document, even for someone like me going to one of our schools -- it's hard sometimes getting a document from sfufc. i'm not saying that's good or bad or something we need to fix, but i know how challenging it is. i'm pushing back because i think if it is one family out of 270 or even four families out of 270, i don't think putting the burden on 266 families to prove income is necessary just because i wouldn't be on this list if i wasn't truly, truly needing emergency shelter. the same goes with the san francisco residency. i think the question that supervisor yee was trying to get as is the goal to get more families on cal works or is the goal for them to prove residency?

because this is residency or intent to reside, i can say i have that intent. i don't think that's a hard statement for me to make if i truly did not live here. but if it is that we're trying to get cal works then let's make that intention. >> it's both. >> i have a survey in front of me that says of the 152 families that were surveyed this month, only... >> 35 percent lived in another county. >> only four families reported that -- sorry. i want to make sure i'm getting this right. do you have this survey as well? >> it's actually higher. it's

about 35 percent from somewhere else in california or another state. the survey we did last year was 50 percent. >> how did you do the survey? >> it was through compass of their families on the list. >> do you know what percentage of these families previously resided in san francisco. i think that's a huge issue. the city is very expensive to live in so there will be a lot of families displaced, moved to other counties and come back within a year, two years so i would consider them san francisco residents. >> we're not trying to exclude families who used to live here or want to live here. we don't want families using our rich resources to displace other families who, as you said,

maybe used to live here and got displaced or evicted because of the high housing cost from getting on the list. again, it's residency requirements are not new to this -- to our world. healthy san francisco which is a very robust health system for san francisco residents -- there is a residency requirement. i don't think the san francisco taxpayer dollars should be subsidizing families who may be living elsewhere to get housing. i feel for that family, i wish we could help them, but we're not funded to do so. and i truly believe that a family who may have been displaced from the bay view who wants to come back can't because other families are on the list. i don't think that's fair. >> i get that. one of the questions -- the 35 percent

that said they're not san francisco residents, are those families that never resided in san francisco? >> we didn't do the survey, so i don't know. >> i imagine that number would come down dramatically if we were to ask that question. >> i think so. >> yeah. so the second thing i'll say is this. i'll say two things. one, i know a lot of families come to san francisco for numerous reasons of which you talked about. i was shocked at the number of lgtb individuals that fleed their communities because they weren't accepted there so san francisco was a place they'd feel welcome. i don't think it would be the policy of san francisco to say well, since you are not a san francisco resident, we can't help you, right? >> right. which is not this policy, just to be clear. >> so the second thing is if i

was -- my family was homeless i would do everything in my means to get my family housed and i don't think anyone in this room, taxpayers or not, would not understand that. i would put myself on every single list possible if i had the wherewithal to. >> i absolutely agree. it's important that when you say homeless, we're talking about a broad definition. it's very rare, less than 5 percent of our families who are homeless are on the street. they're staying with friends or family, they might be at risk in eviction, they might be in transitional housing about to exit, they might be in shelter about to exit. so you're not necessarily talking about families whose children are on the street. there are some, but the vast majority have a roof over their head, however

temporary it may be. the single adult homeless is much different than family dynamic. the family homelessness is really car rackerized by -- it's income is the prime -- we don't see that as prevalent among the families so i don't want the committee and public to think we're shutting out families and kids who are freezing on the street because that's really not the dynamic we see among family homelessness. >> i would love to hear from compass as well because i know they're the ones that interface with our families and i know we had some questions about how we ask about documentation. >> i want to give director rory

and opportunity to finish the presentation so thank you for putting up with us. >> that's what it's all about. so implementation plan -- i'll go through real quick with this. i wanted to respond to one of your comments is that if we finds this income verification requirement is so onerous and it effects so few people, then we change. that's the benefit of policy, not law. similarly with the cal works issue. this is stuff we need to work through. i said this to the providers last week. there will be exceptions everywhere -- a family fleeing domestic spry violence,

families with severe mental illness. there are gray areas if all this we have a target implementation date of august 1 and then the existing waiting list will be closed and a new one established with this criteria. it is important to know that families on the list prior to august 1 would be grandfathered in. we won't go ask for these new requirements. we will partner with community based organizations to help around the immigrant population, see if there's ways we can get them to apply for benefits they're entitled to and -- as much as possible, decrease their fear and explain to them