and so i think that this is not a tomorrow issue and it is a today issue. and we need to move particularly on more marginalized populations and i also think that i would encourage you as an out come of this task force to create a mechanism of the follow up for the recommendations and that we have active follow up on these things and frankly we hold you accountable make sure that they happen. and lastly, i would not be doing my job if i didn't tell you that we need to make sure that we are also funding basic services across the city like food, and nutrition and support services and senior centers because without those things we can't go up deeper, and to some of the issues that we recommend and so thank you for your time. >> thank you, i am going to read a couple more names, danielle and donna but any member of the public that would like to speak, come on up. next speaker? >> good morning, my name is michael costa i am a health policy analyst and an economist to the health economists and i

had the pleasure of serving on the task force and i want to thank supervisors weiner and campos and former supervisor olague for your vision in putting this together because it would not have happened unless you would have done that, i also want to thank bill in particular on the task force and i very much appreciated my colleagues but bill put this together and pulled it together in an effective way and we would not have had the report that we had without his guidance. and so, one of the things that we quickly realizes is that there are many issues facing our community and we tried to do things and stagger them a little bit and some of the recommendations that we made are what we could call the low hanging fruit and expanding access to existing services by leveraging an examining program in dos does not require much money and easily doable and could reach out to a lot of people and where it began to get more difficult is when we got into the housing issues

because that is for aging lgbt is for everyone else in the city, and the 800 pound gorilla, and i looked at what other cities have done and there are two existing lgbt houses up and running and one in philadelphia and one in los angeles and they both got up and running through a series of rather innovative and complex financing that involve private or public sector city and state money. and so i would encourage that as you think about addressing some of these housing issues, you really look widely, for funding sources. and so you really think of it as a potential public private partnership and something that the state would get involved in. and finally there is an underlying theme in all of our recommendations that it is something that all of us on the task force became aware of as we gathered data. and that is, a lot of us who are aging now, the boomer generation, and we really wanted to stay in our own homes.

and as long as possible. and out of the home, that our parents might be in now, and it is a generational thing, i think. and so, a lot of our recommendations actually attempted to begin to instead of look at how you do that, how do you allow people to be or live in the community as long as possible? and i think that is going to be an ongoing dialogue and i would encourage the board to think about a formation of a group of people, who begin to look at that issue. and how do we keep people in the community as long as possible and thank you. >> thank you very much. >> mr. costa, next speaker. >> good morning, supervisors. i'm dr. edelman a former task force member and a co-founder of the open house and the co-founder to the private practice in the city and i want to thank all of my colleagues

for all of the hard work that went into the task force recommendations, and special shout out to dos. for all of their support, and we could not have done the work that we did with the task force could not have done the work that we did without their support. i want to talk to you this morning about a crisis. that the city and the lgbt community is facing together. and it is in demencika, do not let your response to this crisis be lost in the urgent and important recommendations for housing security and affordability and other much needed services. by 2020, the total population of older adults in san francisco living with alzheimer's disease will be 26,774 older adults. and another ten,000 people will be living with some other form of dementia. using the city's 12 percent estimate of the lgbt senior

population it can be extrapolated that by 2020 over 4,000 lgbt older adults over the age of 65 will be challenged by some form of als hiemer dementia. heterosexual rely on family members to secure medical information and access service and to provide support, but research has shown that elder adults that are twice as likely to be single and live along as heterosexual and less likely to have adult children that support them. they rely on family of choice for support but the families of choice are not friends similar in age who may have relocated passed away or in need of services themselves. this difficult as it is, there are chronic illnesses that a person can manage at home on their own such as asthma. the older adults with alzheimer's who are without benefits of the formal support

system are vulnerable to receiving little or no care to assist them to remain in their homes, if you don't have a place and a plan and some understanding of the disease in its progression, it is too easy to become isolated and forced from your home. it has been well documented that seniors are less likely to access long term services and discrimination keeps the seniors with depen shall in the care giverers from coming out, it is imperative that the board of supervisors address this crisis, now. and the city needs to fund an educational program, resource tools and a community awareness campaign to assist the lgbt community in meeting this crisis. and the task force recommendations are an urgent call to action. unlike the aids epidemic, we see this crisis coming, there is time. but we must act now. >> thank you, doctor, next speaker? >> thank you, for this time,

i'm just going to wing it, i'm on the receiving end of these organizations, and that are in place to help people, seniors of the lgbt community. and i have been in california in the bay area since i was about three and a half weeks old. and i have moved into san francisco in 1969. and at a volunteer job at let it slip that i was having a very bad living situation and someone there give me a referral to open house. and fortunately through that, it was, i have adequate housing. and i felt that after all of this time, what am i going to do, just sit in the apartment and live with my dog, and not do anything. and i was grateful that the same time that i was aggravated, because so many people need housing, and so

many people have been waiting on waiting lists for years and years, and there was recently a purge, that is the housing authority's word on purging the list and a lot of the people on the list have impairments in terms of maybe not a permanent address but of a friends address and they may not go there to check their mail or be in what impaired by bad choices of lifestyle. and to be waiting on a list and be eliminated is just seems in congress with the whole idea with the housing authority is supposed to do. and i would like to see more moneys spent rather than someone leaving a legacy of a coliseum down on the water front, and i would like to see those moneys spent on issues concerning seniors by going and

not dwell in the past so that the people that passed away, during the pandemic, and i feel the need to let them go. and to live the rest of my life all of a sudden by going to the open house, i realize that i am a senior, and i was lost in my mind to remembering all of these people, and downtown and i would go to the stores and see them in the window and i stuff and i thought that it was not fair for myself or the either the people who are no longer here. and just think more funding for not just open house but all of the organizations that help the lgbt and if this is not dealt with now, it will just be pushed into the future when it will be far more expensive to deal with, thanks again for your time. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker please? >> hello, my name is kevin fox and i will keep it short and

also receiving on the receiving end of this services of the open house, and just wanted to point out that the open house, is critical to survival of seniors. and if it weren't not for the open house i would not have any connection to the world. i mean, they address and attack isolated issues and that they are visiting friend services and that out reach, that they do, and i just think that it is critical that the housing and the open house get money. and basically, they need their funding. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker? >> good morning, my name is tony meca and i am with the housing rights committee of san francisco and i also served as the housing subcommittee chair for the aging task force. and i am myself a senior and i am 62 years old. and i would like to talk a

little bit about housing, because it has been mentioned a lot and it is absolutely a vital issue right now. i would like to urge you to not shy away from i recommendation or an eviction protection. and i realize that what we are proposing that seniors, that they get prohibition on evicting seniors may not be possible. but, i urge you to push it as far as you can. it is actually urgent, eviction is a health issue. and when the people get evicted it effects their health and their life and we know this. and so i would like to urge you to look at this as a matter of life-and-death. we must keep our seniors in their housing, and we must not allow what is happening now, where investors and speculators are evicting the seniors for profit and we must not allow that to happen. in terms of building housing, which is another recommendation that we make, i would like to

urge you to stick to our recommendation of building housing in the castro. during the late 90s, we lost a lot of our elders because they were evicted by the speculators in the first dot com boom and we are seeing that again and i think that it is important that our seniors get to live in the castro. and it should be the place that we get to retire and to live out the rest of our lives and so i would like to urge you to look at housing in the castro for lgbt seniors and in that regard, i would like you also to consider a more non-traditional root, which is community land trust and it is one of the under utilized gems in our city and it is a way to keep the housing affordable forever and there are limitations in other forms of affordable housing such as tax credit programs and there is no limitation or a land trust and we can keep that housing affordable forever and i urge you to look at that and finally in terms of shelter, we do talk about the shelters in our

report and as much as i support having the lgbt shelters i would like to remind folks that shelters are not housing. shelters are something that arose in this country because of an emergency, i think that there is still an emergency measure we should not look at them as a solution as a way to house people. they are not housing. so, i hope that while we make our shul ters lgbt senior friendly, we also recognize that is an emergency measure and that the real goal is to put our seniors in housing, and keep them in the housing that they are in right now. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker please? >> hello. >> i would like to acknowledge the importance of all of the recommendations in particular social services. such as the program that open house provides. i moved to san francisco, my name is robert and i moved to

san francisco in 1974, and i am a gay senior, and i have a lover of 26 years, i had a job of 23 years. and then suddenly i was homeless and living in my car, a friend of mine recommended i go to the open house men's senior support group at the lgbt center it was through them that i met scott at open house, and scott became my case manager, and he had continuous and encouragement and counseling and support for me, he recommended, he referred me to the tom ladel clinic where i got a primary care doctor in healthy sf and scott also referred me to the progress foundation senior treatment program, where i had a three-month residency, and i went to a hotel and then to baker places. and then it was through a social worker at the clinic that i got the housing and shelter plus care, and permanent housing. also, scott, referred me to the

bay area, legal aid, and through the progress foundation, and i was referred to positive resource and got ga and food stamps and also scott at open house referred me to the grief group where i have been going for the last year and a half from 5:15 to 7 p.m. every thursday. and also, scott at open house and ellen at open house, referred me to the friendly visitor program where my friendly visitor, and his name is russell and i have been meeting for the last year on mondays. and he is a fantastic person. and then, scott also referred me to the lion's health project where i got therapy, psychiatrist and medications. because of open house, i have food, support, medicines, shelter, housing and healthcare and hope, thank you. >> thank you, very much. >> next speaker? >> good morning, gentleman, my

name is michael berseskin and i am a san francisco resident and i live in supervisor yee's district and i am a registered nurse and a volunteer with the open house. and i just want to mention a few things about open house, and they i lived through the aids epidemic of the 80s i am a long term hiv survivor. i can equate that experience with holocaust survivors, today the older gay men have lost their cohort group to aids. many of them live alone and open house reaches out to these people who are depressed. despondent and despaired and possibly worse. and they reach out with a plethera of activities. and not forced upon them and

not judging, activities where these older gay people can meet new friends, get out, have lives, get out of their house, not isolate. and not be afraid to engage a new social group. so, this is what my concern, with open house. that they do this social out reach which is so very, very important today. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker? >> good morning, supervisors my name is daniel red man and i am a resident of supervisor weiner's district and i served as a member of the task force and chaired the legal work group on the task force and first i wanted to thank supervisor weiner and campos and the board of supervisors for this hearing today and for their work to make this task

force happen. and i urge the board to seriously consider our recommendations and take steps to implement them. and as bill and others have said, all of the recommendations passed unanimously by the task force and all of them deserve your full attention and i want to speak about two of the recommendations and all of the care recommendation and the life plan and document recommendation, which were the focal point of the legal work group. lgbt seniors are at risk in care facilities across the country, 80 percent of the respondents said that they will not feel safe coming out in a facility and, 50 percent of respondents say that they or someone that they knew had faced discrimination in a care facility. and the seniors and care facilities are some of the most vulnerable in our community and for those who lack the capacity or have disability effecting communication they can be literally voiceless. and the report lays out a

comprehensive plan for insuring the lgbt folks with safety, and dignity and respect. and thank you so much for making a priority so far and thank you for your consideration. >> and terms of life plan and document, lgbt seniors lack access to appropriate and affordable life planning document services forms may not be appropriate for them or affordable services may be hard to find, it lays out a two part approach, and based on successful efforts and other cities, used by other cities in organizations, for number one, getting lgbt seniors the sample formeds that they need that are specific to their needs and establishing widening the availability of the low cost and probono services in this area of law and so thank you for your time and your commitment to all of the members of our diverse, lgbt communities. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> hello, gentleman, my name is dana veacof and for 40 years i have been a resident of san

francisco and most recently in supervisor weiner's district and i am a member of aarp and i used open house services. and i am with the san francisco organizing project who merged with the interfaith action and are part of the pico national network. and in november, we held an action that addressed issues of aging lgbt aging and healthcare. and we asked tom nolan the chair of this task force to keep us involved in its work. so that we that qualified as lgbt seniors were involved in the work for the first surveys through the focus groups thorough indicational meetings and review the documents. and we are very thankful for the work of the task force and its effort and for the supervisors. and in bringing that about and

i personally am thrilled to hear that legislation is already in the works to enact the recommendations of the task force. my fellow sfop leaders stand ready to assist in making those recommendations a reality. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker, please? >> my name is larry saxon and i am a resident of the district five and i have been for the last 35 years and i would like to thank you very much for the opportunity of having served on the task force and go from the human perspective and the mind of all present that during the process of researching and compiling this comprehensive report, which by the way is the first of its kind, in the nation

. we lost two task force members and we almost lost a third and that is myself, and i suffer the major catastrophic illness in the process of working with the task force which entailed my having to remove myself from the process for two or three months they became my support group and will to live, as an african many who is married and a father of an 18-year-old i cannot begin to impress upon you have how diverse and how conflicts our communities are. i am an extremely powerful fan of open house. but i know that they will not be able to do everything that we need and i realize from a

fiscal perspective that the city and county of san francisco will not be able to do it all and i would really suggest that we look at a very diversified portfolio of investers and a number of businesss that have a number of advantages of being in san francisco. and i think that they will be happy to assist us in building this new model and here in the non-existent model that entails far more than any one program. and most importantly i would like to remind you sadly, that out of the tens of millions of dollars of portfolio that is invested in the senior services in san francisco, we need to make sure that those service providers are cultural competent and serve this population. and thank you so much for your time. and we all look for toward to continued supporting this in any way that we can, thank you.

>> thank you very much. >> it is good to see you. >> next speaker, please? >> good morning, supervisors. my name is denny smith and i moved to san francisco 40 years ago. i appreciate your consideration of our remarks today. i have always been very, very proud of san francisco and how it treats its citizens. especially citizens who face a challenge in life. whether the challenges is homophobia or racism or health challenges as hiv infection or breast cancer and i am sorry to say that the pride that i have in how san francisco rises to that went from being a collective pride to a personal pride last year. and because i became unemployed and homeless. for the first time, and it was quite a blow to my ego and to my understanding of how the

world works. but again, i am still proud of how san francisco deals with adversity. and i wish that i could say that it is not necessary to target tefk populations with special funding, but i think that it is. last night, i spent the night under the monument between the library and the asian art museum. and i think i don't want to be a bother to the city's workers and i don't want to wake up with them kicking my feet, so i think that housing is really, really a desperate issue now. and i would love it if the city could help to solve that problem. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. thank you for sharing your experience and i am wondering if you can if we can maybe have someone from my office contact you to give you some information so to see how we can be helpful.

>> is there any other member of the public who has not spoken who would like to speak on this item? >> please, if so, come forward. don't be shy. >> good morning, my name is michelle asedo and i am the director of programs at open house and also a task force member and vice chair of the coalition of agencies serving the elderly and we are encouraged by your support of the recommendations and thrilled that you are seeking to implement a hope all of them. and i just want to say that we are a community that wants to help ourselves and we need additional funding in order to do that. and i am really encouraged to highlight the recommendation around the expansion of case management, services, to an lgbt specific case management program.

and this is a critical service that our community needs. and really hoping that these recommendations that are funded through it and those that expand on the foundation that open house is established through our housing social services, and community building programs. programs that seek to reach the most under served in our community and we need to create more programs that reach out to the transgender aging community. and that bisexual aging community and the lesbian community and so i really encouraged again by your support and really hope that we can see funding that expands these critical services, to the most unserved and under served in our community mainly as well as people of color in the lgbt community, so thank you. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker? >> hi, my name is joseph smith warner and i was born and raised here in san francisco. and after this i have a lot of

changes that is forthe lgbt community center. where we are really like a big happy family and stuff like that and i am also part of a group called bbe. and we just came to order with lgbt center and we are doing a lot with them and with this, updated like that of this community sight and you will have the stuff and it will be a good process and everybody here in san francisco for the people of color. and that is basically what we need here in san francisco, a site for people of color, there are gay straight and buy sexual. thank you. >> thank you, very much. seeing no other member of the public. okay, come on up. >> and if there is anyone else, please come on up. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors my name is edwin hiens and i am the chap len for bbe, which is under the umbrella of the aids foundation. and i have been with them for

now 12 years, and i have been chaplin for three and my conquest is to find the housing for the seniors most of our group and the brothers are i would say 70 percent of them are lgbseniors, you know, and we have been there, for 17 years. and now, housing is becoming a great problem, especially in san francisco. and the rent is not affordable for most of us. so i would recommend that and i commend you on open house. and i really hope that it takes off and in the right direction, because we have been working in this community for 17 years and we have not seen any kind of opening as far as housing for us. and i spend the day on behalf of all of my 62 brothers that

go hope house, thank you supervisors. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for your work. seeing no other member of the public, the public comment is closed. i see at least two department heads and i just want to give them an opportunity to say a few words and i see hinton of the dos and i see teresa sparks as well from the human rights commission. so i want to give them an opportunity to add anything and again thank you for your work. >> good morning and as everyone else has said here today, thank you so much for i think what was it about a year ago calling the first hearing, having actually a few of us that were there that day and we are here today to speak again and i really want to thank the task force r