>> no. only with the gasoline. the combustible flammable liquid is part of the fire department. >>supervisor scott weiner: let's say it's not a flammable liquid and fires can start in other ways. are there other situations that could be lit on fire and maybe increased risk because there is tons of this stuff everywhere. >> i think in the grand view situation, that situation had been going on for years and there wasn't a fire. >>supervisor scott weiner: we were lucky. >> yeah, what if, i mean with earthquakes, right? where is the safety for all of these buildings if there is an earthquake. a lot of people were killed in 1989 when the facade fell off. >>supervisor scott weiner: i think there are situations even when you don't of a combustible liquid there that

does seem to a lay person to be a fire risk. you are saying if there is not a combustible liquid there, there is no authority to take action? >> we will make sure that egress and ingres for firefighters is sufficient for the resident. however, beyond >> lieutenant, maybe i can help. i was in a situation where the home was very cluttered and the building owner complained about it and we went. what we did was we looked at the home and we can tell the resident lived there a long long time and it was a single family home and the at the present time was very aware of the fire code. what i explained to him is that we are concerned with anything that is fire related. if i can't open the door to get

in, i can't put out your fire and you cannot get out of the building in an emergency. there was other things he did by locking the building by putting a screw in the window. i had to educate him. i had to tell him to remove the screws. with the screws there, he couldn't open the window and get on the fire escape. i had authority to do that. but in his hallway, one side of the wall was full of shelves, the 44-inch hallway was maybe like 28, i can get through it and he can get through it, but i didn't have the authority to say, no, you have to remove the shelf to become a 42-inch hallway. that's kind of the example of what jurisdiction we don't have. versus if i

was in a high rise building if someone decided to fill the hallway full of furniture which is why the hallway is now a narrow hallway. i would have them move because this is anne egress pass. >>supervisor scott weiner: the others you weren't able to because it was a one or 2 story building? >> right. >>supervisor scott weiner: let's say there is a situation where there is a three or 4-unit billion -- building where you need to remove that from the hallway, and one situation where you want to tell them but you don't have the authority. >> for buildings we have authority for common areas, but inside a home that is more complicated. >>supervisor scott weiner: let's say a two or 3-unit

building you have more jurisdiction? >> yes, we can go to the common hallway the foyer, or should the barbecue be there? we have jurisdiction there. >>supervisor scott weiner: are there situations where you are in a 2-unit building and you see something in the hallway where you think to yourself if this were a 3-unit building, i would definitely make them get rid of that but i don't have the power for that. >> usually in a 3-unit building i don't see a common hallway. usually they have their own entrance. i have not seen this. i can make suggestions. if you move this out of the way you wouldn't of a hazard. we get buildings where people argue with each other a lot. we don't say we don't deal with it because it's one or 2 units. if we see a hazard, we an abate it. >>supervisor scott weiner: what about in a single family

home that is completely removed the whole front staircase porch. i know the building, i know there are obviously some building code issues there and it's a single family home and clearly at the egress is impeded. you have to do basically some rock climbing to get up there, would that be a fire issue? >> we would work with the building department. usually the building department would take the lead. we would work with the building department because the firefighter would need to access it. it gets the building owner to abate the situation much faster. >>supervisor scott weiner: i don't understand why state law would draw distinction between one and 2 units. if it's a fire hazard, it seems to me it shouldn't matter how many units are in a building. has there been any discussion as

to eliminating that? >> not that i know about? >> could we have local jurisdiction on that? >> you would have to talk to the fire marshall. kimberly luis: kim -- >>supervisor jane kim: i have a question. i was curious if you can give me your interpretation of the residential? >> residential means a bed or cot where a person is able to lie down and fall sleep. sleeping in a chair is not considered residential. >>supervisor jane kim: okay, what about sleeping in a floor? >> in a horizontal position, that maybe, but again, you would have to talk to the building official to get their clarification on residential also. the building code and

the fire code tend to share the same definition. >> when you say tend, do they or not, if they do not, where do they differ? >> i don't have the code with me so i can't give you a direct answer to that. i can get back to you if you would like. >>supervisor jane kim: i would appreciate you getting back to me, thank you. >> any other questions? >>supervisor jane kim: mr. chair, it's all yours. >>supervisor scott weiner: i think we are done. >> thank you. >>supervisor scott weiner: now we'll bring department of public health for a presentation and then to public comment. we have doctor johnson oh jo from the department of public health. >> good afternoon, my name is johnson ohjo representing the department of public health. i will be sharing with you very

briefly the department of public health code enforcement policies and procedures as requested and i will be available to answer any questions that you may have. i discovered that the chart provided because of the number provided on the flowchart is not too well on the screen. bear with me. we'll try to see if we can get this on. our healthy housing program is designed to inspect residential apartments with more than three 3 units in the city and to respond to our complaints of properties violating the health code.

the department of public health enforcement action are generated through two distinct sources. namely services request or complaints to routine inspections. usually for routine inspections these facilities that we routinely inspect throughout the year and these include the hotels, apartments, shelters. many of the times, these inspection are scheduled. the service request or complaints are usually made to 311 system, through e-mails, and public agencies and the board of supervisors and mayor's office. what we do when we receive these complaints, the routine and the complete

inspections are generate what we call notice of violation. when we review these complaints we make initial investigations and usually we respond within 48 hours. during the inspection, if we discover there is no violation, the cases are vetted. if the issue is not within the purview of the department of public health, we'll file the case to appropriate city agencies. after the inspection if we observed any violation, we issue a notice of violation. with specific corrective actions to be made and depending on the severity of the complaints we may locate from 1-30 days. sanitation as well as 7 days issues with total sanitation is 14 days

and 30 days for our total violations. if for example when we go about after notice of violation, if the nov is corrected, the case is closed. if there is no correction, we issue a citation to the branch for the hearing. usually the hearing is held every tuesday each week. at that hearing, some extension might be granted or referred to the department of public health hearing usually it's held once every month. at the hearing, if the case, if the violation

is corrected, it will be closed. if it is not corrected, usually the directors orders is final. meaning if the operator or the owner of the property did not cooperate, the department of public health can order a summary abatement. this results into a vacation order especially in sro's. the hearing officer council issues a fine of up to $1,000 by day that the violation remains uncorrected. if there is on going uncompliance, the case maybe referred to the city attorneys office. i want to

specify here that many of our cases as soon as we discover that a specific issue is not going to be corrected within the time specified, especially in sro hotels, we've worked out a very good working relationship with aps. where by we refer cases to aps to provide early intervention. >>supervisor scott weiner: in terms of as i mentioned before a severe hoarder situation. i was very frustrated with this situation. dph the process got stuck and we were dealing with alternative housing and were told that department of public health was addressing the

situation and it didn't happen. the housing and dbi got the personnel into alternate housing. are things moving efficiently through dbi process? >> i can assure you that process has dramatically improved. it was in transition at that time. when i came on board less than a year, as soon as i recognized the issue, because we have the authority to declare the premises unhabitable and provide alternative housing to the individual. it was unfortunate that happened. as soon as i found out, i did issue the order to vacate and we worked very closely with the city attorneys office to get that processed. thank you for the intervention too. if you have any questions, i would be happy to answer. >>supervisor scott weiner: thank you very much. finally

we are going to hear briefly from adult protective services. thank you for coming today. >> good afternoon, my name is jill nielsen i'm the program director for adult protective services. it's located within the department of aging and we are part of the human services agency. i appreciate you squeezing me in. it's a very interesting topic and i know we've talked about a range of different issues. from the adult protective services side what we are seeing is a real increase in a number of cases that are involving what we are consider to be self neglect. adult protective services in addition to investigating an intervening of cases involving physical abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse, we do intervene in self neglect situations and in fact about 50 percent of our cases

involve self neglect. we receive about 500 reports every single month. we've only started tracking cases that are specifically hoarding and cluttering cases in the past 6 months what we are seeing is we have receiving up to 50 cases a month that might involve what might be more severe incidents of hoarding and cluttering and we have overlapping bedbug cases that we do receive, and increasingly adult protective services is becoming a central point for citywide agencies to be dealing with the clients and as you might suspect, the cases that we see are often the most challenging cases and there is a significant burden on all city departments because the clients that we are serving very often are elders, they may have

advanced dementia, adults with disabilities who may have cooccurring mental health issues, they may have substance issues, they may have physical disabilities that make it very difficult to look at options. but one aspect to these client situation are usually clients that have no insight to their own behaviors and usually very resistant to accepting services. and i know that my colleagues at dbi and code enforcement within the department of public health they know this as well as i do. so we have been working -- >>supervisor jane kim: i have a question, i understand you are dealing with those that are mentally challenged and also seniors, how do you address those that don't speak english and are less familiar with our system and maybe

concerned about reporting a crime or violation of a code largely because of their concern about documentation? >> so are you referring to renters , for example that might want to refer to a landlord? >> yes. >> we have a very diverse staff. we have eight languages and lots of resources to accommodate language needs. the role of the aps social worker would be to explain the rights that a resident renter would have and we connect with the landlord to try to handle those types of violations that we might see outside of the system. if we see that a london -- landlord is not willing, then we work on a

code enforcement of our own. does that answer your question? >> yes. >> i don't think that that situation is very frequent for us . really what i wanted to make a comment about was in terms of the collaboration piece, i am working with dbi with dr. oj and we are trying to get our agencies to coordinate and collaborate more effectively around these cases. i think it's really important that as you start considering legislation to try to enhance the coordination in the capacity of these agencies departments to talk to each other that you consider the social services aspect. even if we are able to stream line effective process what we end up with are clients that have multi-physical forms of disabilities or impairments. they maybe elders as i have described before and we may

have to consider the human side. they may own their houses or have rent control. locally we are trying to enhance our capacity to manage these cases and in fact within the dos budget with the next fiscal year we are requesting increased funding to be able to pay for heavy clean up for emergency place " a. -- placements. they used to be rare. the department used to pay for serves that can reduce cost citywide. we can keep people out of hospitals and keep them in their homes. we need more resources. i think the department of human services and adult services agency they understand the needs of our community. enhancing the

capacity of social services within the city and county is a key part in trying to effectively address some of the problems that you are seeing in your district. >>supervisor scott weiner: thank you. i appreciate you coming in. we'll now open up for public comment. folks interested in commenting on item no. 3, please come up. i don't have cards. public comments will be 2 minutes. first speaker. >> yes, good afternoon supervisor, my name is barry pearl. i'm a native san franciscans and native and county of san francisco employee. i started working in code enforcement for the planning department. i no longer do that. my opinions

are my own and i don't reflect on my current employer. while i encourage you to pursue this, i think it is very important to look at the code enforcement function in the city and county of san francisco. my recommendation to you at this point is to look at other jurisdictions and see how they function effectively and in particular there are major jurisdictions such as sacramento, san jose that have a coordinated code enforcement function that is not separated into a multiple departments and they even enforce things such as parking violations. other jurisdictions know how to work together. i know there are issues in san francisco. you have very specialized job classifications, while most other jurisdictions have what is called general code enforcement officers. you may

have to look at that. if you were able to create a single code enforcement department, you may have to have more generalized classifications. one suggestion is you should seriously look at the idea of notifying property owners insurance companies when particularly when there is a land use or safety violation because you may get a financial incentive for the property owner to correct the situation if suddenly they are threatened with losing their fire or home owners insurance. >>supervisor scott weiner: thank you. supervisor kim has a question. >>supervisor jane kim: i would louvre -- love to get some of that research. i too understand we should have one code enforcement department. i would like to get more data. >> i actually wrote my

masters project. i believe it's out of date but there is a lot of information that would be helpful to you. i can make sure i can get you a copy of it. if i can quickly make one comment about dbi, you were concerned about a lot of these properties that seem to sit in a state of disrepair for many years. part of the problem is dbi can only force the property owner to secure the property. if they succeed in securing it then dbi has very little control in actually forcing the property owner to fix the situation. if dbi believes it's secure, they have very little ability to achieve further compliance. >>supervisor scott weiner: thank you very much. next speaker. >> good afternoon. my name is

leticia, we are an immigrant rights association in oakland. our tenant rights in both cities we have over 1,000 cases that we manage each year. we have a partner of the code enforcement program with the housing inspection division of dbi for some time now. as a counselor i see many repair cases where the landlord is responsible. mr. caballero has seen repairs to get done in his unit which includes stairs, ceilings and electrical violation. he had been living in his unit since 2001 and there was a lengthy list of repairs the landlord refused to take care of. i

informed the landlord the steps to take to resolve this case. after he failed to respond to these repairs. we followed a complaint with dbi. i helped the tenant file a complaint and a notice of violation was issued. after the initial reluctance to the repair letter. the landlord finally hired a contract or and obtained the proper permits. during this process there was constant communication between myself, tenant and inspector to ensure all were completed in the units. this case was abated in mid-january of 2014. this is a great example of triumph and one of many successes we have witnessed and for ability of all residents of san francisco. >>supervisor scott weiner: thank you very much for your

patience today. next speaker. >> my name is jerry. drat ler. i was a member of 2012-2013 civil grand jury that wrote the report that found that 11 percent of 2008-2009, 2010 notice of violations issued by the department of building inspection were never resolved. as you know a notice of violation is issued after a building inspector does a site visit and finds a building code violation. the majority deal with safety issues. the department opened unresolved effective august 2010. the grand jury found that only the housing inspection of dbi were collecting the $250 violation

monitoring fee for open nov's. the civil grand jury found the failure of code enforcement to collecting this fee resulted in a loss of about $900,000 which could have been used for building code enforcement. as you know dbi is an enterprise department and dbi has collected $40 million more in fees than you have expended. this enables them to fund necessary infrastructure repairs including systems. the civil grand jury found the dbi building code enforcement policies and practices resulted in a significant backlog of unresolved notices

of violations. for example dbi does not have a standard that required nov to be resolved in a specific time period. nor does dbi have the ability to produce management reports to identify cases open in the time period standard. only 54 percent of the nov's issues are closed out within 90 days and only 72 percent of the nov's issues are closed out within 12 months from the date of issuance. that means that 28 percent of the nov's take over 12 months to be resolved and 11 percent of the 28 percent are never resolved. the civil grarj grand jury found out that inspectors. >>supervisor scott weiner: yes, we are happy if you want

to send us a copy. we are happy to take a look. i do recall that report coming out. >> can i make one last comment. i suggest the committee conduct an independent analyst to conduct an assessment of the current code compliance process and existing remedies available to city departments to enforce the building code. >>supervisor scott weiner: great. appreciate it. thank you. >> i'm viera hale. i have two comments. if you are looking at policies i hope you will include some provisions for the residents of the building