are going on. in the program for the san francisco league of urban gardeners over a decade and a half ago, and these programs for teaching, and the teaching our children, and our residents, where the food is coming from, so it is really activate and it can make the space and promotes the neighborhood cohesion, and for the maps i believe that the park and rec department is which is now the lead, for the new urban agriculture will have those maps and they work very closely and have an inner agency working group on rolling out that program and it is the department of the environment is part of that group and the department of public health and planning and i do believe that we can get those maps to you and i will let them know after this. and i think that they are really definitely working on creating and getting the

strategy to having the labors involved and one of the first high priorities is acting for the resource centers and i am sure, that we could get that program to give the board of supervisors an update on their activities, and i have just went to a meeting on it last week and so they are hiring for the coordinator and they already have their work planned for the year. when it comes to the food retail, i think that one of the challenges is just consolidation, in that sector in general, so we don't have a lot of independent operators of grocery stores, and i think that there has been a lot of work to attract them to the tender loin and to the bay view and hunters point and that is just one challenge that we don't have a lot of operators locally.

>> you, thank you, dr. jones. i want to turn it over to public comment because i know that people have been waiting to speak. >> and i have a question about what is happening at the public schools and i see that my good friend keefe who is the director of policy and operations for the school district is here, and it is great to see you, and great

public servant. and maybe she is talk about that. i enjoy this hearing and i think that it is great that the city is paying attention to this important issue and this is a huge priority to the supervisor and our board and the access to healthy nutrition meals is critical to academic achievement and you cannot disconnect dealing with the two. the supervisor of the board are very supportive of this and one of the initiatives that has occurred over the last year is that we rolled out and a new meal provider and we want to provide the meals that are nutrition, and attractive and appealing to the diverse student population and so that was one of the first steps that we took.

we want all of the children to be eating three meals a day, and the breakfast participation is low at the moment and we are doing a lot of work to increase that. our board passed a resolution asking the staff to explore ways that the students would be able to allowed to eat breakfast in the classroom during the first period. and so >> a lot of facilities are old and we are looking to attract and because that will increase the participation for the students and also to create more, convenience, so providing more opportunity for students, especially at the high school level to be able to have

multiple points at which they can pick up the lunch and rather than having to go to the cafeteria and we appreciate the support around the vending machines to supervisor weiner who has provided the support to help us increase the number of vending machines that are available. so on multiple domains we are working to increase the participation to make sure that the students are eating three meals a day because we believe that it is critical. >> thank you. >> and just a quick question, what happens in the summer? >> so, the summer, for the summer school, program that the district offers. we have a meal program. for that. which is a very limited number of students, the city through the department of youth and family services have a summer meal program that is currently how access to summer meals is available. >> great. >> thank you. >> so i will bring it over to supervisor mar so we can begin our public comment.

>> we have a stack of cards here but before we start i wanted to thank the tender loin hunger task force for the report that was released in february and thank liz and ryan from the tender loin neighborhood development center and their work and also barbara and the food bank and meals on wheels. to see, bonina from saint anthonies, and monique from the tender loin hunger task force and paula jones for the important work. i also wanted to thank paul ash, the executive director of the food banks for being here as a resource and as well as and also kevin wing from project open hand and from saint anthony and rita the director of glide as well. now, for the translaters, i

wanted to again, remind or to say that we have translation in chinese, spanish, tagalog and russian and i would ask if the staff from the services who are doing the translation to come forward and say in spanish, in tagalog and russian that they are available to translate the public comment. >> and also grace yee from the department of public health come forward and if you could make that announcement that you can translate.

[ speaking in a foreign language ] >> i am going to call the names in groups of ten, one more, thank you. >> [ speaking in a foreign language ]

>> come forward and i am suggesting that we line up on that side of the room. and from the saint anthony and, liz, development center, wiser from, and wita from glide. >> people will have two minutes to speak and there is a buzzer that goes off that you have a heads up that you have 30 seconds to go.

>> thank you, supervisor and thank you for having us here today and my name is berry and i am the executive director of the foundation and it is for the last 63 years have been a gateway to stability and the poor in san francisco and i am here today to encourage you to consider one of these solutions that was proposed today and mainly the, and we do not accept the government funds and we are supported by the people who see the role in the community as being part of that network of support. and although, we think that it is important that the government does provide a safety net for the poor. and we appreciate support, and actually demand that your work in providing that safety net.

particularly the hungry are falling through the holes in that safety net. and yesterday, we can prove that again in our dining room. and it is the twenth of the month, and that is when we begin to see those people who have been able to make it up to that point in the month, but then, they have no longer the resources to provide the meals for their families. for their children. and themselves and end up using the facilities and others. dr. jones elaborated on those who are not eligible. we believe that if it was allowed, and that would be a way of mending that safety net and it would really help the programs like saint anthonies

thank you. >> we have 19 sites for senior meals in san francisco. and in addition, we have out of about 500 bags of groceries a day, five days a week, with the chronic and critical illness.

he touched on the link between hiv and food insecurity and i see that is why and the doctor will speak to this in more detail and just to know the studies that are showing the benefits of it and the organizations and that worked with the managed care organization. and they were able to demonstrate that 80 percent reduction in healthcare cost and less than 450 per month, per person. so if we can address the issues of food ensecurity for the

people with hiv we have a lot of opportunities to address the healthcare costs. in addition in the program, just to support the discussion by my colleague and acquaintance, providing the meals at 19 sites in the city we are under the continued demand to increase the number of services at those sites and here in >> i want to thank them for the incredible work that the project does and it has been an honor to work with the meals on wheels and, the work that you do every day but very so much. >> we appreciate your support. >> thank you.

>> food insecurity is a big problem for people in san francisco with the people living with hiv and we found in the studies that over half of the hiv infected individuals in san francisco are food insecure, in the tender loin, we found three quauters of the people that were getting the form of food assistance, the project open hand and glide and all of the other organizations are doing a phenomenal job of providing the needed aid and all of the funding and increasing the client loads, it has not been enough to take the people out of food insecurity and importantly there are costs not only to the patient's health but also to the city for failing to address this. first, not having the food makes it harder for the people to take their anti-hiv medications we found that there are up to 50 percent more

likely to fail the therapy, and there are 25 percent more likely to progress to aids even on treatment. twice as likely to be hospitalized and twice as likely in the emergency room. increased risky sex increases the risks of transmitting hiv to others. we see the impacts to the food insecurity in canada and internationally, in vancouver, food insee kuali'i hiv positive individuals are 50 percent more likely to die than the people who are not food insecure and i want to end by saying that we know that the freedom from hunger is a right, but more than that, tackling the food insecurity head on is a practical and cost effective approach to improving health

and saving lives. thank you. and the next two speakers are ken, from the community services and rama from the community housing, and meals on wheels and kevin, a great leader from the tender loin neighborhood, and the center, and the healthy corn ner historical, and tammy, wo ng, from i can't read it. ryan from tndc and fred and another >> in this city we are all

connected and the portion of the citizenry is anxious and distressed because they are growing and that effects all of us all across the city, have you heard that this is a city wide issue. and we are here to ask for your support to really support all of the non-profits represented here, and that provide the food programs.

we are celling the people that we care for them and, bruce has done a lot of education to the community, and through the child care program and our family and youth and how do you access the nutrition foods? and he has been the senior education to the senior programming and we also, we have three meals a day that we serve so that the people who are or who need food with their medications can get that because we have the health services clinic there. >> thank you, supervisors for

your attention today. and in general. my name is liz. orlin and i am the chief operating officer of tnbc and i am a member of the tender loin, hunger task force. and the executive director, dan is out of town and otherwise, he would have been here today. and the tender loin is the only neighborhood in san francisco without a full service grocery store.

>> it has been instrumental in creating the healthy food program in the united states, our aim is to support the small corner stores to supply the healthy food in the community and for increase the availability and the convenience of the meat and other options with 70 corner stores, we believe that this is an important contribution to these much broader food security issues. and we appreciate your continued support in this, and in other efforts. >> good morning, supervisors, and my fellow concerned san

franciscans. thank you, for hosting this hearing. and i am lucy and i am a pediatrician, and a member of the child advocacy committee of the american academy of pediatrics. we have something called who is hungry you can't tell by looking, we do not have the photographer here today because she is out with the flu but she did get her shot. we

>> they were only two of the 18 with the help of the ucla large study and they were help you in the last 12 months, and ever run out of enough money, to buy groceris for your family, and the other and have you in the last 12 months had the lack of food so that the members of your family went hungry and it is very important to remember nice that children who are hungry, not only have more health issues they do not learn as well, i site the st. paul minnesota school district provides free meals to all

public school children no child should go hungry and no child should be teased about having to have a free lunch or a breakfast. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you for looking at this issue and my name is robert jones and i am a cook in san francisco. and i reside in the area, of the city. and i have lived in sros in the city, and i had to use the free meals program in the past and i have been on cal fresh and currently when the time avails me i am able to help out with one of the programs in the cooking classes and one of the points that i would like to reiterate is, the fact of ex-expanding the access to publicly available cooking facilities.

the programs are being strained for the budget, and this is just as was pointed out, and at one point, however many came to the door. within the sros we can kind of eliminate that stress. by, having cal fresh utilize more of getting food that you made and in the sros. by people that need it. and the problem is that most sros, have at most, a microwave, it is no nutrition or filling, if you build it they will come, if more are funded and more sros and that sort, were able to have a more

fully equipped kitchen that to deliver the nutritional value and would i feed my kids and myself. and you are very limited with the either having the microwave or has to be supplied to you by other people, and i think that the process would be looking at it and cooking facilitis in sros thank you. >> the next few speakers, i will call the names of the next few speaksers, coline, from the california hunger action coalition, and david harness, and kim and brewstre., tony from senior and disability action, and wendy as well. james from senior disability and peter from the immigrant

legal resource center, nancy cross, don nunly from the aims project, coline from the cap pain for a better nutrition and mopsy from the center of health and uc beckerry public health >> next speaker? >> good morning, my name is alex and i am a senior disability action. and even though there are meal sites and home delivered meals for seniors and people with disabilities that demand that such meals as stated in the funding can provide. and in 2006, the cap between the number of meals served and the number needed was between 6 and 9 million needs. annually. and the last three years, the budget for the home delivered meals has been cut and what needs to happen is that the money needs to be increased. and there is a long waiting list and it has to be paid with

young people with disabilities and they tend to fall through the cracks, on the list of needs food is on top along with housing more money for food. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> with reference to the sros one of the things ha they are asking for is that there be cooking facility and many of the sros are being brought out by large non-profit organizations that are painting and making them look pretty but

they are not redoing the wiring, so that each room could have a proper electric facilities and the least that they should do is make sure there is a community kitchen in every sro that is large enough in capacity that people can cook all day long at 3 or 4 different ovens some sros have community kitchens that are only opened part of the time, they should be opened all of the time. and sros in many cases could have community gardens on the roof if they would fix the buildings properly. and these are some places where seniors and people with disabilities cannot really afford to live there, but it is the only housing they can find. and half of the income goes for their housing, and they need to

have a place where they can have food. each new sro hire, and should spend the money to fix the wiring and put in the plumbing and so that the rooms could have a sink and a refridge and a small stove and then, the community kitchen for the big meals, every sro should have those. and i think that it is time that the city sets in and make sure that it does do that. >> thank you. >>