were seniors like myself, all black. one of them worked in this building for 25 years and they were going to jail. i spent a year in there on $2 million bail because they were black and they stood up for their rights. so, i know that's what they want to do here because believe me, there's going to be upsurge in this society when the economic collapse occurs. people are right now chomping at the bit. i've been chomping at that bit for 40 years because something has to be done in this society to end this disparity in wealth. and that's going to happen. that's what they want a new jail for and also to keep the sheriffs occupied and hired. they're building a bureaucracy little big he. we don't need a new jail in this town. we need jobs, we need housing, health care. that's where we can put this money. it's unconscionable to think about building a jail at this time. thank you. (applause) >> [speaker not understood].

[speaker not understood] block. raphael sperry. adrian sky roberts. [speaker not understood] leon, laurel butler. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is mindy kener. i work with anders and anders foundation. [speaker not understood]. whatever happens with the jails, we would like reentry clients to build and democrat aloe the jails. [speaker not understood]. we work with people who are incarcerated and do not have access to employment when they get out. we need to train them. we need to have funding available to help them so they don't go back in. this is speaking for the clients that i speak to every day. we also need to be mindful of the fact we need to accommodate

families of those who are incarcerated to be able to see their loved ones. chief suhr and public defender adachi spoke to the fact that it's very difficult to go to san bruno. we need families to see their families. it helps them while they're incarcerated. it gives them hope that they will be out and see their families. going to san bruno is impossible. we go thereby car. it takes 45 minutes to get there. so, i want you to please be mindful of those who are in and those who come out, and that help is needed badly. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. supervisors, i'm terry anders of anders and anders foundation. it probably will be a jail bill. but like mindy kener who spoke

before me, why can't reentry be part of that? see, too often the economics is the about the politics and the politics is about the economics. the people who are poor and incarcerated because they don't have the wherewithal to get themselves into another situation. so, since you are public officials, you're talking about building a public institution with incarceration, which there are some people that probably need to be there. but the reality is why not help change that factor by putting people in reentry who don't have no job skills? putting them to work? you're talking about putting $290 million? how much is that going to the depressed neighborhoods? how many of that is going to ex offenders? you need to think about that when you're chalking up those

numbers. >> i have a few more names. david lewis and [speaker not understood]. greetings. my name is la fontaine, i'm a father of three, organization called all of us none. and also a full captive of the san francisco county jail 43 months, almost three years. 33 months, not 32 months 15 days, but exactly 33 months. ~ and we can build the most urban friendly, eco friendly, ergonomickally friendly services programs, church members going into it and have it in the most ideal locations. but as long as there's a culture of punishment,

retribution and violence stemming from the guards who helped create [speaker not understood] environment within the county jail, all of them san bruno, i've been in the county jail here, the sixth floor, the seventh floor, the jail will only serve as a cage that provides employment for the nonimprisoned population and all the contractors and whatnot. it is 2014 and sadly we are revisiting a very horrible side of u.s. history, except with better public relations, a pseudomulti-cultural dissertation, and a refined methodologies of hypocracy. we must invest in people and stop investing multinational transnational corporations security forces. thank you. >> next speaker, please. thank you. (applause) hello, my name is [speaker not understood] and i'm the program coordinator for project

[speaker not understood] which is a program that supports teenagers who has a parent in prison or jail. and i'm here today to read a statement on behalf of one of youths in my program who can't come because unfor the fortunately these meetings happen at the hours youth can't attend. i'm going to read a statement on behalf of her now. i am the child of a father who pep nearly 20 years in and out of jail and most recently released. i am a current student at city college of san francisco and resident of san francisco my entire life and therefore i know firsthand what services children and families and those in our jail system need in addition to knowing what services my family still needs in working to reunify with my father. it is absurd to argue that spending money to build a new jail will benefit children of incarcerated parents by providing better [speaker not understood] to interact with our parents and programming in the jail. it would be better to [speaker not understood] and provide sustainable living for us all. funding a new jail will make it harder for my younger sister to

successfully grow up in san francisco because there will be less money for books in her school, for healthy food in her cap tier i can't and for a safe place to go after school. it will make it harder for her to thrive. why invest in a new jail rather than the potential of our youth? helping a child or teen know that potential today could very well reduce the need for a new jail tomorrow. san francisco has done a great job of providing alternatives to incarceration and i urge you to stay commit today that vision which means not using our money to fund a new jail. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. (applause) ~ michael [speaker not understood] has been involved in [speaker not understood] panthers senior disability action now for 15 years, but i'm speaking as an individual. i believe this rebuilding of san francisco jail is going to be bad for all of san francisco residents, but the rebuild is going to be inappropriate and harmful to different populations and different ways.

so, i would want to concentrate on the benefits of seniors and people with disability, although the other groups equally valid reasons to oppose it such as young adults, parents with children, and lgbt residents. to run them down quickly, jail is a particular hardship for seniors and people with disability. jails is inappropriate for seniors and people with disability, but most important seniors and people with disability need the services that would be sacrificed in order to finance this jail thing. the projected cost, 600 million if you include financing, could give us 20 million in services each year over the 30 years that would be required to pay that debt. the $1 billion prop c housing trust fund could be expanded by 60% so we would really start

including housing for very low-income groups like seniors and people with disability. 600 of the city's poorest family could be in subsidized apartments for 30 years. mentally medical health programs that have been cutback for years could be restored and even expanded. but most important, we grape with everyone else that the space already exists in the jails even with the closure of cjc3 and 4. in fact, with new proposed sentencing -- >> thank you. not even cj6 would be necessary. >> thank you. next speaker, please. good afternoon, my name is [speaker not understood]. the conditions at the 850 bryant jail are deplorable. this is more than a fact. it is a message that devalues

those who are housed there. some people may be adverse to having anything too nice for those they want to see punished. keep in mind that many people in jail are awaiting their day in court and have not been found guilty of anything. nobody is suggesting providing luxurious living. but a facility that is clean and safe for inmates, staff, and visitors is a must. supporting rehabilitation and supporting a new jail are not mutually exclusive. no matter how creative we are with alternatives of incarceration, there will remain a portion of the population who will spend time in jail. i am a strong proponent of rehabilitation. i was raised by [speaker not understood] expert and spent my career developing and running rehabilitation programs in the nonprofit sector as well as for the city and county. if inmates are kept in surroundings that indicate they

are deemed unworthy, they will have difficulty feeling hopeful enough to engage in rehabilitation. the new facility would have classrooms so inmates could gain knowledge and skills to help turn their lives around. by being on-site, transportation issues are eliminated. rehabilitation become accessible and a natural part of the daily routine. we need a decent jail in which people awaken to new days that lay the foundation for better tomorrows for them and ultimately for san francisco. >> thank you very much. next speaker, deborah bruce. elaine morgan. david baruto. and kim roberti. [speaker not understood]. sorry about that. go ahead. i'm [speaker not understood]. i've been a resident of the

mission district since 1968 and i came there as an activist and i'm still an activist. ~ around civil rights, and now prison reform and general overhaul. i went to the sacramento hearing that was about the funding of the jails in the state. i was very impressed with the fact that san francisco was not funded, and it kind of surprised me. i am not sure if the reasons behind it and what the justification was, but to me it sent a very strong message that the adequate -- the buildings are adequate, the ones that are here. i really believe that. i toured the facility at 850 bryant once and i found it repairable. it was sold to us when it was built as an earthquake sound building and that it would last for many, many decades.

there is another point i want to bring up and that is that the people being released from the prisons in this state have not been rehabilitated as they should have been and it's going to be up to the countieses to rehabilitate them. there has to be ~ a lot of citizenry involvement and thing like that. we need to focus on funding the rehabilitation rather than building more facilities. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. reverend glenda hope. i've worked in the tenderloin for 40 years and i'm the founder of the safe house for homeless women escaping prostitution. on the streets in the s-r-os and especially at our safe house, we see an alarming increase in serious mental illness. mental health treatment should be a priority focus for city planning and budgeting, jailing, mentally ill people

only exacerbates their problem. our safe house is an example of an effective alternative to incarceration. drug court, the sisters program, probation officers, judges, and others refer women to safe house. these women are traumatized. many are suffering from mental illness, and especially from ptsd. some are pregnant. they are young. they are old. they do not need to be in jail. we have a comprehensive program and mental, physical, and dental care, education, group therapy, money management, computer training, job internshipses and more. and we do this for slightly over half what it costs to keep a woman in jail. our graduates are working. they are off the street, out of the emergency rooms, off the welfare roll. out of jails, out of courts, and onto the tax rolls. what's not to like? all the programs that provide

alternatives to incarceration, particularly residential programs like safe house, are struggling for funding. a lot of that money would give us a big boost. we would like to open a second house. all the funds would be used for the people we serve and none of it would go to the financierses who had create aid whole new class of homeless people with their evictions ~. so, please, no [speaker not understood] to alternatives. (applause) >> thank you, reverend. next speaker, next speaker. good afternoon. my name is angel reid and i'm a clinical social worker in san francisco. i work with women who are formerly incarcerated and have histories of substance abuse. so, that means i work with women whose mother started beating them to a bloody pull be when they were nine months old, whose father started raping them when they were three years old, and whose

guardians started giving them meth and other drugs when they were 9 and 10. these women are severely traumatized and we are only further trauma ~ traumatizing them by sending them to jail where they are exposed to abuse and violence that is so pervasive within cdcr. what we need is not new jails. we need rehabilitation facilities. thank you. >> thank you. we have a few more speakers. [speaker not understood] crack off. sarah wedsky. debby [speaker not understood]. i apologize if i mispronounce the last name. zoe wilmont and [speaker not understood]. thank you for the hearing. i'm [speaker not understood] and architects and designers for social responsibility, a nonprofit [speaker not understood] and district 9. thank you for representing me.

i appreciate [speaker not understood] raised here today. i want to speak to some of the facts that i know you're concerned about. and i've had the opportunity to read the previous budget, the controller's estimate of forecast and spend time on one thats was released today. there are technical issues in there i hope you'll spend some time on. one is the alternative -- other speakers mentioned the community based alternatives were not assessed even by law enforcement based [speaker not understood] were assessed. one of them, the sheriff's program that wasn't estimated so it basically assumed it would have zero impact on future jail population. of the other programs which they limited to a future total of 60 people per day who might be kept out of jail, even that 60 people was not factored into the population [speaker not understood] they used [speaker not understood]. that seems to me like there is a mathematical problem there. i also notice the transportation costs that have been floated around in these estimates. the most recent number is $300 million over 40 years and that's going to be what's incurred if a new replacement jail downtown is not built. i find that number -- that just

totally impossible to fathom. and the reason is because we already have county jail number 5 in san bruno by all accounts that's going to stay hope open. we have 17 years left to payoff the bond. we're already running a shuttle bus service there. it's staffed moving a few more people to san bruno i don't see how that can result in tens of millions of dollars a year in extra costs. lastly i'd like to say if it's true that certificates of participation cadthctionvction be used for service projects but have to be used for capital -- i'm a big fan of the city's capital planning project -- let's expand the capital plan to include the capital needs for alternatives like supportive housing which is half the cost of jail housing. like another safe house resident hope just asked for. that's what i think we can do with that money. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. (applause) hi, thank you for the hearing. my name is adrian [speaker not understood] roberts. i'm a member of the california coalition for women prisoners and we work with people incarcerated in the san francisco county jails and also in the state prisons for women. i also want to say i was born

in this city. we at cc [speaker not understood] feel strongly some of the most important voices in this discussion are the very people who are incarcerated and who can't be here. we want to publicly thank david campos's office who sent in aides to come speak with our weekly group on tuesday nights which i might add is very different than just taking a fewer of the facility. we want to invite the rest of the supervisors to come, contact our organization and come actually sit down in rooms and speak to the people, the very population who are most directly impacted by this decision. so, in that vein i'm going to read statements from some of our members who are currently in county jail 2. a new state-of-the-art facility is irrelevant if it's filled with deputies who abuse their power, with insufficient health care, with lack of continuing education, with no contact visits with our families. a jail house is a jail house is a jail house. it is never safe. i've been in jail pretrial for more than one year. i know people who have been

here for up to six years pretrial. if you are concerned about the burden of transportation for our families, create bail reform. let me raise my kids, not just sit across from them at a table in a crowded room. they want to lock us up and helping the people with their problem. they really don't care at all. this is about money. money they get for having us in jail. the deputies are very disrespectful. they treat us like we're nothing. thank you. >> thank you. (applause) >> next speaker. good afternoon, my name is [speaker not understood] i'm also a member of the california coalition of women prisoners. and i like hundreds of others who are adamant about staffing the building of this new jail, but i'd like to take my time to give space to the voices inside for the people and families who their decision most affect and they will hear there is a pretty unified message. these are from men in the rfcp

program in san bruno. "first let me express my gratitude for the rare opportunity to speak about my opinion regarding the pro poed building of the new jail. i find this strange that a group of people want to tear down the hall of justice to build an institution to lock up humans. 290 million could be invested into programs with a common goal of rebuilding communities. no need for a new jail. if we decrease recidivism. some priorities are out of order. lamar. "290 million, that should be used towards education, public housing, lunch programs, affordable health care, more jails would equal dark days for the youths of san francisco. "how is there enough money to build a bigger jail when there is barely enough money to keep some of our schools? [speaker not understood]. "i believe we the people could come together to learn ways to help people learn not to come to jail by starting funding programs to me a funder's needs of why they come to jail and address those issues in the first place." donald.

"i feel the 290 million to use to build another jail is not needed at all. that money could help people get into programs in education so they will not commit crimes and help people who get out of jail or prisons to get on-the-job training and skills for good jobs." that's from gabriel. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. hi, i'm diana block and i'm also with the california coalition for women prisoners. and i guess i just first want to say i am really proud to be part of this community here today and all the people who have spoken up from is san francisco, the organizations and the residents. i think this is what keeps me hanging on and being in this city and i really appreciate that, and also the hearing. so, having said that, i also just want to say i think you've heard very clearly the reasons why we should not be rebuilding this jail. and i would like to urge you to

think outside of the box, outside of the cage. what san francisco is actually good at, a few years ago, the only question people would ever think of was paper or plastic. now there is no such thing as plastic in grocery stores in san francisco, which is like a groundbreaking change in the consciousness which is spread across the country. just think, if you could change the question around jails as well, and what an impact it could have for jails around the country and communities around the country. so, the question is not, you know, how many millions to spend, but how to reduce the prison population of the jail of san francisco. how to tree deuce it so that there are no women left in san francisco county jail. ~ reduce and i really hope that you will think of that question seriously. thank you. >> thank you. (applause) >> i'm going to read a few more names.

iris biblowitz. angel reid. commander jeff caldwell. [speaker not understood]. and [speaker not understood]. next speaker, please. hi, my name is [speaker not understood] johnson. i'm a wellness organizer at [speaker not understood] community against violence. we work with low and no eligibility with lgbt [speaker not understood]. [speaker not understood]. most are black and latino people who have suffered through violence and discrimination throughout their entire lives and incarceration is only retraumatized them rather than helping them lead healthier lives. knowing that 75% of our jail population is pretrial, i worry about what jail expansion would mean for our members who wouldn't be able to afford bail. when 56% of our jail population is black men, i worry about what jail expansion would mean for people from my communities who are already being displaced at alarming rates in this city as housing becomes less and less available to them. the people who come to [speaker not understood] for services

are struggling to find ways to meet their basic needs such as housing jobs, and health care. incarceration does not solve the vast need for community services. in fact, it makes it worse. as prison expansion leads to budget cuts to education health care and human services. at [speaker not understood], we found that community services that increase people's health and healing build up public safety while incarceration only leads to more trauma and more limited access to meeting basic needs. we have been able to work with our members to develop healthy approaches to conflict and unsafe situations and to make healthier choices to take care of themselves and those in their communities. leading to reduced rates of violence in their lives. i believe that we should invest in more community services [speaker not understood]. one that help prevent and alleviate the impact of violence our members face. that would be a more cost-effective sustainable and safe solution for our city's most vulnerable people. many of whom would end up behind bars if we expanded our prisons. please consider [speaker not understood] and say no to more

jails. thank you. (applause) >> thank you very much. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is pete [speaker not understood]. i work at the california partnership. i appreciate you opening the forum here to this incredibly important issue. we are a statewide coalition of anti poverty organizations. mostly of what we focus on is eliminating poverty in california and we work with clinics and food banks and affordable housing groups to do so. we see incarceration as something that happens to poor people, like hunger, like homelessness, like all of these other -- like poverty. it impacts poor people's lives. we've got a chance here in san francisco to face that head on and instead of going with the -- continue to be the city we all dream of, we're proud to serve, we're proud to work in. so, i want to speak to the fact that what we heard in the report earlier today doesn't reference what the population of the jail would look like if we put these resources into systems outside of the criminal

justice system. what if we put this money into real community-based services that are owned by the community, not tie today law enforcement, not tied to building back into the law enforcement and the criminal justice system. what if we -- if we have to use this as capital money, sure, let's put it into building housing, building clinics, building thing that are not -- if we've got a choice to build something, we have to build something with this money, let's build things we can be proud of. let's build beautiful homes for people in the city of san francisco. i'd also like to say that meanwhile we are having this conversation while organizations would serve the very folks we're talking about, the same folks who are coming to our clinics as well as being locked up in jail, though organizations are being pushed out because of rent. being pushed out because san francisco is too difficult to hold is on, keep a foothold for poor people and the organizations that serve them ~. so, let's talk about what we want the city to look like, who want to be here, and start from

that conversation. let's invest in homes, not jails. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. (applause) good afternoon, supervisors. thank you for holding this hearing. david elliott lewis, co-chair mental health board, city and county of san francisco. one of the things our board does is program reviews and one of the programs we reviewed in the end of last year was jail psychiatric services. so, i toured the jails. i spoke to staff. i interviewed inmates in custody in both cj1, 2, 3 and 4. and i can tell you 3 and 4 needs to be replaced. it's not conducive to mental health rehabilitation. it's not conducive to any kind of recovery. so, given that this place is going to be replaced, where do we put it? do we put it in san francisco or do we put it in san bruno? it's going to go somewhere. 850 bryant has been condemned basically so where are we going to put them? if we put them in san bruno, it's really unfair to the

visiting families. they talked about a half hour to 45-minute drive time. a lot of these poor families can't drive. they have to take public transportation. for them it's a half day to get to san bruno and back. that is really unfair and without these families, you deprive these incarcerated inmates of the support that they need from their families. so, we need a facility and this is not jail expansion. several people incorrectly talked about this as jail expansion. this is actually a jail reduction. the new facility would have fewer cells, more program space, and much improved family visitation space. the current family visitation space for men in san francisco is horrid. it's just horrible. so, this would be a much more humane facility with better mental health facilities. and while i'm all in favor of more pretrial diversion and actually be putting people in jail at all, for those that have to be there, this give them the absolute best facility

we can. so, again, i hope you will consider funding this and replacing the facility with fewer cells, better cells, more program space, better visitation space. thank you. ~ let's >> thank you. next speaker. hello, my name is gabrielle a bruce. thank you for having this hearing today ~. i'm not affiliated with -- i'm not here as an activist. i'm here just as a regular citizen. so, i am so glad to hear as a native and lifelong san franciscan about all of the alternatives to incarceration that the city has been pursuing and very, very successfully and i hope we do have bail reform. and i'm concerned many of the people we do have in our jail are awaiting trial simply because they can't come up with bail. that said, if we must have a jail, i do believe