not too self congrat tutory and we ask yourself this. is it not to share the food with the hungry and provide the poor with shelter? when you see the -- [inaudible] and not to turn away. the lack of food security takes place as you know in the larger context of alarming and growing inequality and that's what i want to highlight this is a entry point issue in a larger and demanding set of problems we're facing in san francisco in the bay area but really in san francisco where recent brookings institution study showed that the wealth gap in san francisco is growing faster than any other city in the u.s. in order to live up to these values like with healthy san francisco and lgbt quality and freedom we're going to more than words but bold action to live our values.

thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon supervisors. i am shawn brooks director at the sf marin food bank and i want to express my appreciation for your leadership on the issue and the supporters of the food security task force for highlighting the opportunities that lay before us. although i support all of the recommendations i would like to speak on the need for a city wide home gresh grocery delivery program. we serve over 30,000s a week and the majority of the pantry participants are older adults and whom receive ssi and ineligible for benefits. many are frail and disabled and struggle to attend food pant reese regularly. when the burden is too great they stop coming and some don't even try

to show up so with the projected aging supervisor mar you talked about if san francisco's population coupled with rising costs the numbers meeting but unable to access food assistance will continue to grow without a concerted effort to expand services so we believe that recruiting community volunteers to deliver healthy groceries and social connection is the lowest cost and effective way to maintain health of this vulnerable population and continue living and enrich the communities and in collaboration with home delivered meals when things evolve and thank you for the support and other initiatives presented today. >> thank you mr. brooks. next speaker. >> i am barbara and i come from senior and disability action group. today we actually had a meeting of senior disability

action and -- okay. we had a meeting and there were 100 people there all trying to get together, even to get transportation to the meeting, into the meeting by various means. seniors are often not very able to get around even if they have money to prepare the food every part of the life is more difficult, and today you can see people with canes and wheelchairs and everything. we think this program of ending hunger and food security in san francisco and important and really key for our group of people who we are serving. we serve scpeerns disabled people so these people are not only vulnerable they're still in many ways capable and they're difficult need to be supported. their incomes are often very

low and when you are on a fixed income and i live on one so i know your whole picture changes when the paycheck stops coming in i guarantee you and the budget is a critical part of your daily life. also in san francisco today costs have gone up. i would hate to [inaudible] on food inflation in san francisco. over the next four years utilities will go up 40% in san francisco. i mean it's just one thing or another shrinking away the small amount of money that we have in our savings so this food program is key to our being able to survive in a healthy lifestyle and participate in the life of the city. you have really great effort and we're totally in support of it. thank you very much. >> thank you. i'm going to call one other name. ber nice ross from having pride unity. next

speaker. >> good evening supervisors. i am from having pride unity and troubles and needs in the community and i am here to speak about the additional benefit about home delivered groceries. one thing about these groceries they provide a one to one connection between seniors and disabled individuals cannot normally make it out to their stores. one of the things that i found when i was doing, and i am only able to do it during the summer because i work you have a person connection and the needs of the people and have medical needs or additional needs like a caretaker or the need for a listening ear so i want to urge the supervisors to continue to sustain where often some communities have lost grocery

stores. the home delivery grocery program. i am working in bay view hunter's point and on several occasions they lost small and large stores and like one went out of business so it's essential to the seniors in the communities who are in high rises and homes who have paid their dues to san francisco, and now cannot make it out, and their only connection are the home deliveries. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hi supervisors. i am colleen. i'm the co-chair of california hunger coalition and it's exciting to be at this hearing getting a chance to support everything that has been in the presentation that you guys have heard. i wanted to talk a little bit about a couple things going on at the state

level that we're working on to complement what i hope can be great initiatives to go forward at the city level. one is there's a bill to help to provide calfresh for a group of people who currently don't get it. they're ineligible for it and that is people with drug related felony convictions. the state prohibits them from participating in calfresh and the burden falls on the county social service providers and of the programs, so that bill passed the first policy hurdle in committee on tuesday which is a great thing and we're going to be fighting with that and the city and county of san francisco was one of the supporters so that's great. the other thing that we're working on is benefit adequacy for people that receive ssi and they're ineligible for calfresh looking at really what's the inadequacy of the

benefit level is important, especially in light of the fact the state reduced or cut benefits and $181 a month since the last recession and they're receiving below the very low poverty level and so we're working to address that so we can start thinking about benefit adequacy which can help promote -- a great complement to the pilot discussed earlier. thank you. >> thank you. and the last card is from meals on wheels and if anyone else wants to speak come forward. >> thank you supervisors. i want to thank you for the

efforts to end hunger in san francisco by 2020 and thank the task force to put the information together. it's amazing and you have a lot to go through. i want to thank linda from dass and she did a great job and the gap is in home delivered meals and the future need. meals on cheryls in san francisco is a provider in san francisco and providing 1.3 million meals to 3,000 seniors and we're the safety net to those that need the meals. the best indicator of a policy is to see what happens in the past. we adopted the standards and emergency standards with the city in 2007. what did that do? we were serving 11 hundred

people a day and now we're doubled in size. what happens when you back off of that commitment? this year because of funding we had to pull back and we were averaging 22 days and went out to the 30 day maximum. what happened? the wait list doubled so we encourage you to stay with it and invest in the policy and without you we can't maintain this commitment so we implement it city wide and fund it and stem the need. one this web that we all work on is exactly that. when one part fails we all fail so we need to invest across the board. i invite you out on the route and see the seniors that we serve and they're on the poverty agenda in the city. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker.

>> hi. i am marianne hayward and moved from southern california and i noticed that you have vacant land all over the city that could be utilized to grow the fresh fruit and vegetables that would go with the carts that would supply the fresh fruit and vegetables that would cost the cost and allow more people to eat allowing less people to go hungry. a possible idea for utilizing that land that belongs to the private sector is to give them a tax break on the property tax and in turn it would give a lot of food that was grown to supply the people with food which would be a economic plus in your favor and that's what i wanted to bring to your attention. i thank you very much. >> thank you. is there anyone

else that would like to speak please come forward? i know that dr. paula jones and others are working with the san francisco urban agriculture alliance and identify areas for urban farms and i think that's a great suggestion. >>i am erica and i just really excited to hear all this information with what i have been learning at city college in the nutrition program. it collaborates well with my job as a case manager in a supportive program and it would be great to receive funding from dos and department of public health and the organizations that receive money from the human service agency that there be more of a coordinated collaborative effort to disseminate effort for calfresh and a lot of education around nutrition and just different health conditions

that can be prevented by lifestyle so that's it. thank you. >> thank you erica. any other -- go ahead. >> so i want to say that amanda and i are also and a class of us are interested in helping out as much as we can and volunteering and maybe i will speak to paula. >> yeah i see the food security task force members smiling on that one. >> thank you. >> thank you. anyone else that would like to speak? mr. chairman can we close public comment? >> thank you very much. public comment is closed. any again i want to thank the members of the public that came out and i think that this is definitely something that i'm glad as a city we're really talking about and mentioned the larger context this is happening and the issue of inequality is something i

have been talking about for some time and as noted we have the second highest inequality in any major city in the country and our's is growing at a faster rate than anywhere ems and recently the "new york times" talked how we surpassed other cities in terms of inequality and it's hard to imagine in a city that has as much wealth as san francisco has that we have so people going hungry everyday so i think that the work that people are doing is really important work that goes to the core of who we are as a city, and hopefully not only by 2020 but hopefully before whatever you say about san francisco you can say there is no hunger in san francisco and i will turn it over to

supervisor mar and thank you for the leadership. >> again i appreciate all of the recommendations and everything from everyone and i want to repeat the comment we're one of the wealthiest cities in the world that no one with disabilities or a senior and no one should be hungry. this is an incredible effort you're leading and makes it easy as the members of the board of supervisors to support such great recommendations. i know we have work before us though and i wanted to thank the food security task force, the tenderloin task force as well and i think in the upcoming budget process we will be looking very carefully as we craft different budget proposals that come from a number of different organizations, community based folks and the private sector that are here, and identifying the needs even more carefully than we have done here to prioritize them as we look at our budget process. i

also wanted to say that in the next couple of weeks i will be working with my colleagues and i really appreciate commissioner yee and campos for their leadership but also the other colleagues that have cosponsored this hearing as well, supervisor chu and kim as well but we will work with the department of adult and aging services to identify more of the need is especially as people testified to with the home bound seniors and disabled adults currently on the waiting list and address the issue of the 30 day wait list so to make sure we're looking at a cost analysis of that and also the emergency to make sure that we have those seniors in an emergency to be served within 2-5 days as well.

also we will work on a report on the progress of the solutions that are presented today to be coming back to this body, so i will work with the food security task force to do this probably within six months and i think we want to do this so that we're tracking our progress so within every six months we will have updates to the committee but i wanted to thank the chair and commissioner yee for this great hearing and everyone here for your amazing work everyday as we try to end hunger in san francisco by 2020 and in the future so thank you very much everyone. >> thank you supervisor. i know commissioner yee would like to say a couple of words. >> quickly i will join the chorus and the food security task force and everyone that contributed to the discussion today. this is a issue near and dear to me when talking about the summer programs and i

actually lead in chinatown -- i don't want to tell you these things, but in the late 60's, early 70's we had a dozen organizations involved and so i'm familiar with these issues. i talk about isolation of seniors all the time. it's not just a few particular districts that we talking about. even in my own district which is relatively wealthy we're talking about seniors isolated in certain pockets and we need to get services to them so i want to thank again everyone and i looking forward to supporting this as the process goes through. >> thank you very much. supervisor mar would you like to file this or continue this? >> i would like to continue this to the call of the chair. >> so we a motion to the call of the chair and take that without objection. thank you for

coming out. mr. clerk do we have any other business? >> that concludes the business mr. chair. >> [applause] >> thank you.welcome to the san

francisco municipal transportation board of directors department of the authority please call the roll. director brinkman, heke