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. the fires are caused by the people experiencing mental illness and perhaps the fires are caused by the overcrowding in the rental units but i want you to be cognoscente of that and we want to house the people and the expanded family and we agree with that, but, the down

side of that, >> they have been helpful from the data that you gave me in the good samaritan tendencies and the john stewart company as well and in addition to the bay property group, some of the residence and green tree and also the west coast property manager and jay, waiver associates as well. and so the colleagues, those are the speakers can we open this up for public comment? >> yes. >> thank you, so, any member of the public that would like to speak on this item, please come forward and you each have two minutes >> seeing no member of the public it is closed. >> i would like to say thank you so much to all of the speakers and our office will work with the supervisors that are working on these issues and i think that identifying more support to hsa and working with community based organizations

and like, dolores street and also the department of organization defined even stronger, efforts to reach the vulnerable renters that are displaced and more coordinated efforts with the community and the city. i just wanted to thank people for raising a number of other issues like the renter's insurance issue and how to proactively get the units back on-line as quickly as possible. and so thank you so much to everyone, and mr. chair, i would like to ask if we could continue this item to the call of the chair? >> so we have a motion to continue to the call of the chair? could we take that without objection? >> without objection. >> mr. clerk, if you could call item number three. >> item three is a hearing to better understand the operational and budgetary needs of animal care and control including enforcement staffing and capacity to care for animals, and exploring these issues and how best to insure that the department can perform all of its responsibilities. >> great, thank you and this is an item that has been

introduced by supervisor weiner, and supervisor tang. before i turn it over to them, i want to make a quick note. i have to leave the meeting for a prior commitment but i do want to note that i certainly support any effort to increase the resources of this department which i think is doing a great deal with very, very little. and so, i would be supportive of that and i think that supervisor weiner for calling this item. >> supervisor weiner? >> thank you, very much, mr. chairman and i appreciate the support. i called this hearing today to really shed public light on the significant funding and staffing challenges faced by animal care and control. and i wanted to do it outside of the budget season, once we get in the budget season, there is so much going on, and what ends up happening is some of our smaller departments, and functions even within larger departments, just really get swept under the rug, and once

we are in the budget process and i think that this really deserves its own hearing. as we have seen, recently and i am glad that we are having more i think, dialogue about this on the board of supervisors and we saw this the other day with park patrol and we have very, very basic fundamental municipal functions that we as a city are simply not funding. and we have, we told the park patrol that we have almost no park patrol officers and dpw has been gutted in a lot of ways and we see in the animal care and control the same thing has happened. animal care and control is our safety net agency for animals, in san francisco. and san francisco, if nothing else, is an animal city. and this is a city that we have, not just dogs, but cats and every other manner of pet, we have wild life, and this is a city that is, we are

passionate about, and animals, and in this city and there are a lot of animals in this city. and it is very, very important that we, as a city provide an agency and a safety net agency, that is being funded and staffed in a way that matches up, to the critical important and significance of animals in the city and we have not done that. and animal care and control, is in addition to its shelter services, and a shelter that does not turn away any animal. and whether it is domesticated and whether it is wild, whether it has behave or issues or not. and this, agency has run deficits for the 7 out of the last ten years. it recently had to shut down its shelter, two days a week because of budget problems fortunately that has been reversed, although who knows for how long.

it has, the agency has very few officers in the field and so stepping outside of the shelter, this is an agency that responds to calls of animal abuse. and animal neglect. and it deals with even barking dogs issues, and it deals with vicious animal issues and whether it is wild or domesticated animal and i can say that i am getting more and more complaints from the dog owners and dog walkers about dog parks where there might be a dog that is attacking other dogs. and so it is a very, it is a, it is a very important function of this agency, in terms of being able to respond when there are problems around animals that need to be addressed. and yet the agency has very, very low staffing to even respond, right now, i know that animal care and control receives on average, 31 field

calls a day and has the staffing to respond to 7 right now it is under staffed to the point where the people are on vacation and out sick, there is no one to cover for them. there is an increase in the dog surrenders and a significant increase without a come men sur rate increasing. and we know that in a bad economy, sometimes it is whether they have to move or they just don't have the resources, that they you see an increase in surrenders of animals and we have not staffed this agency to be able to respond to that appropriately. and the agency has also seen a significant increase in the reports of abuse case and again, it does not have the capacity to fully investigate all of those cases. and so i called for this hearing today, to really, shed

public light on the budget and staffing challenges of this agency to talk about what we can do differently. and about budget, and about the staffing, and other considerations, as well. to make those agencies really what we need it to be. and as a city. and so i look forward to the discussion today. and i know that supervisor tang i want to thank her for co-responsering this hearing and i would like to make some introduction remarks and then we will have a presentation, from our city administrator and from animal care and control. >> i just wanted to thank supervisor weiner for calling this hearing today and i wanted to co-sponsor because i do appreciate the fact that we are talking about this, you know, again, outside of the budget season and so that as we are putting together, you know, what our needs are in terms of capitol expenditures that we can really take this into consideration and for a full

disclosure a spent a lot of time in the animal care and control when the family was looking for an animal to adopt and i spent every weekend there looking for something and if you take a look at the space that it is, you can see that even the infrastructure is so inadequate and so today i really just hope that through the hearing we can shed light on what some of the needs are not only in the facility but also what service they provide out in the community. as you know, at least in terms of dogs, there is about 150,000 dogs that according to the animal care and control in our city alone and i don't know the numbers for you know some of the other animals and this is significant, and i think that it goes out, without saying that many people consider their pets as part of their families, when you are talking about services or the case of a emergency or natural disaster the people do care a lot about their animal and some go so far as to trying to go back into a burning building just to save

their animals. so, and in many cases i look forward to the hearing today and thank you supervisor weiner for calling this hearing. >> i just wanted to add in that i think that this is a really important hearing, and i wanted to thank rebecca cats for always reaching out from my office to really provide the information on the visits to the animal welfare and control space, and it has been really eye opening and i should reveal that i am a cat person. and that is how i live my cat really dominates my public space and residence. but i grew up with many dogs and i really appreciate the very lively discussions that we have had at the board level on declawing on cats and coyote and the so-called no kill legislation over the years. but in terms of the work of the animal control and even the

connected space with the sbca it has been wonderful to see but you need so much more support in my opinion as well and so thank you for calling this hearing supervisor wean and her taning. >> thank you. >> and i would go down to the shelter more and rebecca is trying to get me to go down and i know that it is a trick and she will not let me leave without adopting and my 17-year-old cat would not be happy about that. >> and so thank you, colleagues and so i would now like to invite up, and we have a joint presentation by animal care and control and the city administrator. and then we will hear from sally stevens from the animal welfare commission. so, miss cats? >> thank you, sir. supervisors, good morning, and i want to thank you for hearing this matter and for your continuing support and in particular, supervisor weiner and supervisor tang for co-sponsoring this matter and we really appreciate the opportunity to tell you more