we have it allocated for this purpose and what i have done is hsa is the lead agency for the mass care and shelter for the larger disaster i would like to pull together all of the partner and work on the smaller events, to train our staff for a larger event. and so, the red cross is always there, and reach out to whatever appropriate city agency. or non-profit group would be able to assist us for that particular event. they have the right for refusal and so when it is ready to be reoccupied those folks can get back in those units and it is especially important for

tenants that are coming out of rent controlled units that have been there for many years, and they are paying very low rents and they are not able to compete in this current market. and the good samaritan law has been helpful for us to refer clients to. and one of the challenges that we see, is that the population, that i most concerned about, coming out of the rent controlled units after many years and they are not able to kind of get great matches and this is the land lords that are coming forward because the rents are so low. we last january had a large

fire in supervisor campos's district cap street and we were able to place the tenants that are coming out of a studio after 32 years, paying, $406 a month in rent, using the good samaritan, but, i had to do a subsidy for that program. so, the other thing about the good samaritan, law is that it works really well for people what are in traditional leases and a lot of the folks that we see are double or tripled up and you might have four or five people living in a studio, and when we are trying to find housing, for somebody in that situation, it is, fairly difficult. and so, our goal is to provide immediate short term stabilization and work with people to link them up to service and housing that is appropriate for their need and we worked very closely with the red cross and we try to provide

housing search assistance, but, this population does not have a priority standing, the only priority that this place fire tenants have, is that they are already on the waiting list for the housing authority, and then they can move up to the top of that waiting list. and so, we have had maybe 5 or 6 people, in the past year or so, that fell into that classification. and then, we would like to provide the subsidies, for the people to keep them in housing, unfortunately i have a lack of funding to do that.

we are dealing with the apartment fires and we don't have a unit, it could have multiple families in it, or a lot of individuals or mixture of families and individuals, so i, i was able to, you know, say that 128 individuals came to us, but i am not able to tell you exactly how many of those came from families or roommates or people that were sort of couch surfing but we do keep a special eye with the families with children and the seniors and people with disabilities and especially, the people that are newly arrived immigrants or mono lingual residents, and we want to make sure that we are serving their needs, immediately. and so, when there is a fire, and i am notified in the red cross is responding, i always make sure that we are tracking, what the tenant population language needs are, because i have emergency translaters that i can call to get folks out in

the field, sooner than later. and in fact, these numbers only represent the tenants that come forward voluntarily, if you do not want to work with myself, or the red cross, or you have resources to take care of your own needs, and then you are free to do that. >> how many people were displaced in the mission fire? >> well, i would say that 45, approximately. >> that is always a third of the 128 that are on this list. >> right. >> and last year was a particular difficult year for us, and because right before that, we had a large fire on broad street.

>> the two projects melded together, if you will. >> and i know that there were a number of china town north beach fires in that year too that were multiple unit buildings, too. yes. >> and so we don't, at hsa, we don't have budget or staff allocated for this. this is sort of a program that i have inherited and i have been doing it to the best of my ability and i am a one department family. we spent $67,000 last calendar years on hotel stays and my normal budget is 25,000 and in a less severe year. but i believe that in december of last year, i in one month, i more than doubled my yearly budget. because of the nature of the tenants that we serve, cases are dealt with in the case by

case basis and it depends on the immediate need of the client at the time. and, what it always comes down to is finding affordable housing, here in san francisco for people displaced from rent controlled units after a long time. and san francisco is very generous, and there are a lot of programs to get people the things that they need to recover, where we are having a hard time finding affordable housing. and then, there is always the question about the equitable of the people providing services when there are a whole lot of other people in san francisco that are in need of the same services. so, some of the potential so solutions that we have been thinking about, we were very successful with the sro task

force and in getting sro's sprinklered and it has made a drastic reduction in the response to the sro fires, possibly, looking at some buildings and maybe going to see about getting the certain buildings sprinklered and i know that park merecd when you rent a unit there, they have already figured the cost of the renter's insurance into your rent and so if we could maybe expand that. dedicated resource for case management, would be excellent. >> and then, we always work with dbi, about getting the permitting process sped up if we could do something more normalized with that and do a better job of reaching out to

the property owners. >> it is rare that there is a fire and the red cross will say don't worry everybody has insurance. >> and i was lucky in 2009. we had renter's insurance, but i incurred how rare that was among people when they were discussing that with the red cross. >> as a matter of fact in the cap street fire there were tenants that had renter's insurance and they took care of themselves. >> but i was not lucky that the land lords did an eviction on it us and we could not move back in and that was a challenge for my family.

>> yeah. >> do you know the general cost of renter's insurance. >> it is under $200 a year, i believe. >> okay. >> and so it is, and it is very affordable. and which is one of the frustrating things, when you are talking to tenants >> because the tenants assume that the building owners insurance policy is going to cover their losses. >> and i just wanted to say that since you repeated it several times that there is no city funding allocated for what you are doing and the cost of hotel vouchers has gone up like threefold of what your budget in the previous years? >> yes. >> and you said that the good samaritan law has been helping some, but for the lowest income and the most vulnerable people and it is really not as helpful.

and what could we do and i know that janan, from the department are here but what could do to strengthen the law? >> that is an interesting challenge because what i have found is that the people that fall into that category are not living in building and we don't have an existing lease, they are not a family or a group of people that are always stable in their relationships. we find that a lot of people that are, you know, day laborers, or people that are you know, students, people that are living more marginally than other folks and so if i was able to get an offer from a property owner and says that

there is a studio or a one bedroom that is available for 800 a month. matching that because the tenant and they may be doubled up and i am not able to say, well, you know, there are nine people living in the studio, and we refer them on to another landlord. >> next is dan laury and he is the deposit director and we also have the manager of public affairs as well. >> dbi inspects the fire damaged building, and the larger buildings we will get a call from the san francisco fire department and a lot of the smaller buildings were not called out on the larger fires that were call out. and we worked with the fire department, and to process the

notification. and to assist on the call. and we have emergency response service, and we have a group of inspecters around 24-hour call that could be called out at any time of the evening or any time during the day to respond to the fire. we post the buildings with the violation, and to the fire is extensive and the engineering and we have to issue that with the notice of violation and we try to interact with the people to encourage them to get a permit. we initiate the code in the process if we don't get the compliance and the notice of violation and we give it a time frame on the extent of the damage, and if the fire is

extensive and requires engineering, and the time and compliance for the notice of violation. we try to work with the owner, to obtain the permit. if we know that it is a fire we go out of our way to help them through the process and thep them with any information with any information that they need to obtain a permit. >> we assist in the contract. if there is structural damage to the building it is more complicated and we work with the owners to tell them what they need and how to process

the permit. it is a challenge to bring the building back on the fire damage. if they do not comply on the notice of violation, the case is set for administration hearing, >> could i ask that what could be done to merge and expedite to bring a building back up to ha bit able conditions more quickly and i know that as some

buildings burn down, sometimes, the owners will wait for a long period of time and then people will leave the city or find other permanent residence, but what could we do to speed that process up? >> we try to encourage the owners to get a permit right away. we see a lot of problem with the insurance company when there is a fire. a lot of times that it may be the insurance company to work out a evaluation and to get some type of a payment so that they could start that process. and a lot of times we see a permit being issued but no work being done, just the financial impact. we try to help them through, recently on the ocean avenue, we had the task force and we worked with the owners and we try to get the buildings on-line as soon as possible. and that was also the case in the..., fire and if you look

closely at these job sites and we try to work with the owners and the architect to get a permit as soon as possible to start the work. >> so for yesterday's fire which i understand started at the enter snet archive on clement street, the department of building inspection will go in with the owners and the business and the non-profit that is there and will you work with them to help to identify more quickly they could... >> yes, we will. >> yes, if we have contact information, and the owners really do call us and they work with them, and any which way that we can to help them process. >> and for a restaurant like the cafe on clement and 12th i know that the main damage does not seem to be in the restaurant but the smoke damage and that is a health issue and not a building inspection issue, i am just curious. so it just started in an internet archive and it is a

former church and spread to a mixed use building that has a restaurant below, but you work with all of the different building owners, and businesses to try to get them support, to... >> yeah. >> to get back up to speed? >> yes, we do. and all of these buildings, where the fires initiated and it is, the units in the residential area will have the smoke and water damage, so we can work with all of that and the tenant and perform the work and because a lot of this work even though there is not structural damage done, they still have to scrub and they put a primer and a seal on it and to get the smell of the smoke and the units back on-line. >> i want to get back to the displaced residents that are displace and they find sometimes hotel voucher house and then some other temporary housing. what if a landlord is just

dragging their feet and not getting the units back on-line in seemingly wanting the renters to just move somewhere else and although they could rent to other people for a much higher cost. and what do you do in that situation. and if they are dragging their feet. we could, schedule it for a director's hearing and if they don't comply with the notice of violation, and we are not given a notice of violation, to are

there any enforcement mechanisms that we have and we could schedule it to a director's hearing and then, try to get compliance through that and then if they are not compliant enough, and we could eventually refer to the city attorney. >> thank you. >> >> i believe that the last speaker is madi from the dolores service and thank you for assisting in the mission district and especially the other displaced residents as well. >> good morning, supervisors and it is great to be here and i feel like there should be other people here, other than me that did a lot of the ground level work in terms of them helping the displaced residents of 23rd and the cap street fires, and just a quick background in terms of how i became involved in that particular situation, my name is marla and i am a street community service and specifically i operate the

shelter program. and which is in the vicinity of 23rd and cap. my program rents the kitchen that is across the street from where the fire occurred and that happens to be one of the areas where the fire victims were together to connect with the red cross and so i became aware of this through the staff and through that specific location, and i just could not turn away, and knowing that so many people were displaced at a single time, or around the holiday season, and as other people, i know became aware, and we put together a facebook page and some social media efforts were made to start and passing that on to the other fire victims and i think that initially that was something that we did. and but as the time went on, we realized that the housing vouchers would run out. for the victims, and there was no clear solution for what would happen after that. to point at the shelter system, the family shelter or the adult shelter system as the next step would not be fair to the

displaced tenants because there is no capacity in either of those systems right now. to say that they can go out there and compete with everybody else in the housing market would also be unrealistic. and the way that the housing market looks right now, a family of spanish-speaking, individuals, would limited income would not be able to complete in the housing e market and those are all difficultis that we saw in a particular time and myself and others took it upon ourselves to basically bother aims as far as being part of these meetings and insisting that the information be distributed. specifically from just cause, the council, we brought them into the conversation, and to distribute, information about the tenant rights and i hope that that made a difference but my certain is that that was the one time involvement that myself and others had and i don't know that it looks like that every single time and my other concern at the time was whether the community information being distributed

was up to date and at least one of the fliers that i saw seemed to be a little bit out of date and i know that the red cross, and benjamin aims did great work and i have a new found respect for the work that they do and i hope that there is effort to bring the accurate and up to date community information to the victims affected by fires and including the tenant rights information and the community resources. and having said that, i did check with somebody from just cause, and in terms of anything that they did because many people did follow up with them specifically around the tenant rights and some of the concerns that came to their conversations on 23rd and cap was just, not having access to the belongings and in a timely manner and that over time, it came very difficult for their staff to follow up with the tenants as they looked at other solution and started to move away from yairt area and i think that timing is critical and at least for one person that i spoke with.

there might not be a time limit or a frame in which the repairs should get done, the longer that it takes the more likely that the people have moved away outside of the mission of san francisco to find the more permanent solution and so, enforcing time limits i think will be a recommendation that comes from some of the folks on the ground level and another one is, to just, just to pay attention to the use of ellis act. and in such a timely crisis, you know the opportunity of using the act when the people are trying to recover, and their lives, basically and this does not seem right to me and in fact, i think that just in the different situations and just making sure that the laws are enforced correctly and closing the loop holes so that the people can increase the likelihood of the people returning back home which is a difficult thing to say, it is to discourage people not to bring them under the rent

control. i think that it is going to take an effort under the red cross and the community organizations and individuals in the neighborhood, and making a lot of noise, and bringing attention as we see it, but it really is going to take everybody's effort to make sure that people displaced by the fires can actually go back home. and that is, i say that, in every since of the word, i think that we are seeing so much change in the neighborhood and at least one, you know, one thing that i looked at on my way here, and talked about how, the ellis act and basement and maybe not at the level that they were several years ago but maybe 100 or something or so in a period of a year and i automatically compare that to the number that benjamin aims just mentioned and so you have to think about the number of people being displaced by fires and also the number of people displaced by the ellis act evictions and it really will take a coordinated effort to bring all of that together. and so, that is all that i have to say for now, but are there

any, and i say that again, the people from just cause, council that i spoke with, you lucia kimball, and both of them did a lot of work with the tenants after the fire and in the capacity and the tenants rights information is something that they provided that was critical and also like to think him for keeping it open and i respect the work that he does and give him what he needs, thank you. >> so supervisor, campos, could you ask that from the department of authorization that is here and i know to thank you so much for goss as well, the government and community affairs as well, thank you. we have been joined by supervisor weiner and thank you for the association and i know that you do a lot of work to help these folks and besides that you are a lover and so that, you know, a great deal of

respect and admiration for that. >> thank you so much. thank you, supervisor campos and mar, and supervisor yee. and a special shout out to supervisor weiner who just joined us, i would like to first of all, would like to thank supervisor weiner who had the courage to push forward with the good samaritan law which allows the land lords to exercise the benevolent side to offer up the vacant units to the tenants that have been displaced by natural disaster whether it be a fire or a land slide. without the passage of that law, that allows very small rent control ravers to allow them to bring in the tenants we would not have been able to house the tenants that we have been able to house in the past

year. there were 15 fire victims that came to us and out of those 15 we were able to house eight, i am going to read the land leders step forward. >> we speak cantonese. and mandarine and we get no money from this program. our land lords have donated over 48,000 in rent subsidies with no government assistance. okay? that was out of the goodness of

their hearts. i want to speak about the renter's insurance. i think that we should move forward with that and we have all of the research done, in our leases, that are standard in the rental housing industry and we have a clause in there that requires, tenants to get renter's insurance. that does provide information to them and we have resources within our office to provide the tenants about where they should go for that and so we can do some public education, i think that supervisor weiner has already started that program. and we are again, happy to assist on that at no cost to the city. there are negotiations with the

insurance companies that can sometimes take an extremely long time. and so, when a fire happens, the owner has to go in and help negotiate what the pay out is going to be so that they can bring those units back on-line. so, i just want some acknowledgment that it takes a while sometimes for those negotiations to work. especially the way that our world is right now and how complicated of a business environment we are all living in. so, thank you, and that is it. and unless you have some additional questions, one other thing. we should mention that overcrowding in units. there were some things that were allowing for the tenants to bring more people in under the broad definition of family and sniems as you can see.