discrimination and one of the recommendations that came out of the human rights commission task force is that signage be placed up in shelters that says this is a safe space. the transphobic comments will not be allowed and things like that. it's not uniformly happening in all of the providers but the larger ones and st. vincent de pauls and msc south has signage and they have given the template to the committee and we are changing the names and circulating that out. >> going forward whether a site provides -- i mean puts up that signage something you will report on? >> we do report on it and check on it but because it's not part of the standards of care it's not a complaint driven process

so what we did with the information this year is see how some sites -- where it was posted and get the information and when we send it out and if we don't see it on a site visit we hand it to the provider and so there is that signage and sites like larkin has signage -- i would say 60% have signage up in english and spanish. >> i would appreciate maybe you could share with me the information you have in terms of who has the signage and who doesn't? that would be great. i appreciate it. >> sure. thank you supervisor. >> supervisor tang. >> thank you and thank you supervisor campos for your questions. i wanted to build upon something he asked about and language services and access and i know for the shelters you have things worry about and

health and hygiene issues and standards of care and perhaps language may not be as pressing of a need and i am wondering if you have or going to do an assessment on the demands in terms of the folks requesting certain things so we have data showing what the potential needs are. i think -- yeah, it looks for three years you have been advocating for funding for language services through i guess the language line, but it would be good i think to be able to see what the needs and demands are. >> so a needs assessment -- again not to not answer the question but i think the contractor might be be able to talk about that. i think one of the issues is that the staffing involved to track that information right now might be challenging. the way the committee was able to get some numbers and those numbers are

really little every year we do a turn away count so we're at a reservation location for total hours of operation and we measure things like how many shelter beds are available but some of the other things we measure someone came in and presented with staff their -- what their interpretation available and someone was cantonese and no one to help them and one of the ways the committee came up with the $10,000 which may or may not be enough to see on use, so once -- every single site had it then you could measure how many times it was used by a cantonese speaker or russian speaker and with that information see if there needs more information provided in multiple languages, but this would just be a base for sites to start. again some of the larger shelters do have

-- they're paying for the language service currently out of their own budget, so msc south, dolores street services, episcopal services and we haven't gotten information how many times it's been used but we will follow up with it before the next budget letter is drafted. >> i assumed there are other presentationses. >> i was going to talk about the other report or do you have questions about the standards of care report? >> yeah, when i flip throughout 10 measurements i guess and looking at who is in compliance and so forth starting on page seven -- >> with the trainings?

>> yeah. >> okay. >> and then what happens when i look at dolores street community services and of the 10 items indicators they have zero on six of them. what do you do with them? >> so we don't oversee the shelters. the human services agency does and i know a couple questions have come up for them and i don't know if time for me to speak down and let them speak on the items because we report on the compliance with the training. i was going to talk about some of the things we're doing with training with the second report. >> why don't you continue with your presentation. >> sure. just to piggyback on superivsor yee's comments one of the issues the committee has been measures since the standards of care came about is training, and each year i think

the committee has a deeper understanding of the cost involved in training, particularly when you look at large sites that run 24 hours. when you're pulling staff off to train them there has to be staff to cover. when you look at smaller sites like providence who don't necessarily have this many resources as larger sites, training can be sometimes challenging and when you look at the family shelters like superivsor yee pointed out and go column by column you will see a larger compliance with family shelters and training just because of the way the contracts are arranged so one thing that happened this year there are two shelter monitoring committee staff -- unfortunately my co-worker couldn't be here today but jeff has 20 years experience in the system within the city and county so when we came on

board the committee worked with roving health team and going into shelters and providing training on issues that relate to health, so bugs like bed bugs and lice and hand washing so we can make sure at a minimum sites are receiving these trainings. the committee made additions to the website so we can populate it with more trainings and like national health care and homelessness and start dialogues with service providers on things that they may need to provide to meet these training requirements. the first and second quarter just covers the first six months of this year. what we're seeing is a little bit of a decrease in the amount of standard of care complaints

from last fiscal year. the complaints continue to focus mostly on staff, facilities and access. one of the areas that we're trying to work on when we do site inspections, and there's a signage issue, as i mentioned in the priest report, that when we come back to the office. >> >> we're making sure to send out the signage for the site so they have it right away. whether there are issues of danger or clients are making strong allegations of violence we're contacting the human service agency and making them aware of the complaints and through the meetings that the committee and hsa and others have been having we're trying to make the communication quicker so the way the complaint process is now a client can file a complaint of

the site has seven days to respond. after that response the client has up to 45 days to tell us if they're satisfied or not. after that we have 10 days to do a complaint, so if you start measuring it out when an initial complaint happens it maybe more than three months before there is a final finding so things around danger or allegations, threats were immediately notifying the contractor. the other thing that has happened from those meetings is as supervisor campos question about facility and access that the numbers that we provide, so on this report on page six there is the chart that gives the breakdown of how many facility complaints there were, health and hygiene, american with disabilities act and to try to break that down more when we go to a site we may see the

same facility and access violations and get to a root of why it's happening. if a training or funding issue and show that level of specificity in the reports and the final thing that has come out of the meetings although what we're seeing is a six month report every month the monitoring committee we're giving a standard of care every month and that has specificity to it and we're providing it to the shelters and the contractors themselves have it. >> any questions? thank you very much. >> thank you very much for your time supervisors. >> let's see i think -- [inaudible] are you here? >> unfortunately the chair couldn't be here today and vice chair dennis is working. that's

why staff made a presentation but scott walton from the human services agency is here. >> thank you very much. >> good morning or good afternoon supervisor. i am scott walton from the human services agency housing and homeless division and i am here representing joyce crum our director who is in other meetings today related to housing programs. if it helps i have comments to the questions you have already asked and then welcome any additional questions you have. i would like to start by saying i think the collaboration between the shelter monitoring committee, the department of public health and the human services agency about the workings and what we can do has greatly improved and we're continuing to work on that. one of the things we have noted which we really appreciated is when the reports come out quarterly and another month or two when they come out it's hard to use that in a

timely fashion but their monthly summaries have helped us identify specific issues with providers or contractors in a much more effective manner. the access issues that were talked about on the language issue we do produce all -- anything that we provide to be posted, rules, announcements and so forth we provide those in english and spanish and in large print. we try to work with providers around their unique issues and as the committee pointed out they're aware that some of the providers have access to language line and don't use it as heavily. we do -- i didn't bring this but we can produce demographics based on our shelter reference system that lets us know ethnicity and language needs of clients, so that is something that we can provide you if that's of

interest that gives an overview. and another issue for us with access is related to transportation to and from shelters, and to that end we were asked about that. hsa basically gives $29,000 budgeted for tokens each year and produces 1200 a month to use in the dealt and family system. when you realize that we have 1600 sleeping. >> >> across the system it's a challenge. we have a established token policy that highlights or prioritizes tokens to people that need them to get to and from

places and one thing we did that isn't reflected in the report that you received and dph have readjusted how and ended their van service that provided some transportation for shelter users but they repositioned that program for this fiscal year we have created and fund a shelter shuttle service which provides a predesignated route that's specifically focuses in the morning getting people from the out lying shelters back to central city and in the afternoon and evening out to the out lying shelters and pleased that service has taken hold and we had over 1400 people transported that way and doubled what we can do with our token budget and we still have that token budget that we provide. in the area of training this is an ongoing concern and it was

the 12-13 report that was the first report by the shelter monitoring committee that focused according to the legislation which looks at the training experience or the training staff has had when they're at the shelter for a year, so this was our first real look, this report you're seeing how it matched up to that and sometimes shelters were tallied against employees there for a couple of months and not a year and wouldn't have been trained on everything. to that end this helps focus the trainings. trainings are provided in three ways. our shelter contractors train their own staff. they provide the trainings as part of their own employment and employment advancement on these

subjects. hsa directly provides trainings, particularly we're focused on providing the access for persons with disabilities training, and we have previous years created a shelter training manual that covers these issues but we have the shelters manage that because they're hiring and dealing with staff time, and then another large component of the training has come from the department of public health and when the standards of care were first approved dph was offering trainings and hsa would coordinate to make sure shelter staff signed up for that and that covered health related topics and safety and health hygiene and so forth and there were a number of years that couldn't be done and their staff is now focused on doing some of

the trainings where you see that component increased in the current fiscal year and again that was not in place for the report year that you have. to that end we are working with dph and the shelter monitoring committee to identify the items they're going to cover in training so we can focus training on additional items but to that end this morning we trained 75 staff for access for persons with disabilities and have two more trainings set up before the end of the fiscal year to meet the compliance on that issue and that one we were aware was below standard and then some of the other items that you brought up. we are pleased to get better information about complaints. one of our concerns was if clients didn't follow up we wanted a method to hear about those because the experience of the shelter monitoring committee

and their own visits to sites means that they can give us information even if the client hasn't said aye or nay to the response. we make sure they respond and the committee let it is us know if someone isn't responding and we follow up on that. you ask why one shelter is successful and one isn't? in the family shelters the stay is longer from three to six months and easier to maintain. there are less complaints. if you look at the number of complaints and the size of the shelters there is a direct correlation. our adult system has 90 beds and we make use of every bed and if someone doesn't claim a bed it's released for the night and we will see 6,000 users in the system and naturally there is a higher number of complaints. not that we're satisfied with

that but i wanted to explain the difference. in terms of the lgbt issues we do monthly meet with our contractors. it is an issue that we discuss along with other access issues and people feeling safe. ideas are exchanged how signage works. we also do our own looking at complaints because unfortunately in congregate settings many complaints are about guest to guest statements and are rule enforcement system and our shelter grievance process doesn't allow us to deny someone service if a staff person didn't witness the complaint so we can address it but we can't use some of the same rules we would use if a staff person witnesses somebody using verbal or physical assault on people. it is a big concern of us and we are looking at the fact that

even though we continue to work on development of expansion of the shelter system with lgbt focus set of shelter beds we wanted the entire system to be as welcoming for that community and every one of our communities and our shelters providers take that very seriously and try to do conflict resolution if this are people who are in conflict. we try to remind clients we're not trying to change their personal opinions but in this setting everyone is welcome, and then in terms of the overall process i want to end by general comments by the fact that i think the three components of department of public health which provides the oversight of the shelter monitoring committee and roving health services within the system. our shelters resource centers and sites are providers and i think we are

continuing to progress in terms of making these systems that have been put in place with legislation even more functional to better our systems across the board. >> supervisor campos. >> thank you mr. chairman and mr. walton and i want to follow up on the lgbt piece. is there any thought of -- or maybe it's provided for cultural competency and wondering if you have thoughts about that. >> it's part of the standard of care training so it's included and some of the providers offered cultural competency exposure to our guests as a way

to move it beyond the staff and into a understanding of the community. those attempts have not been -- i don't want to say well received but not well attended by shelter users, but the standard of care does cover that which gets into poverty issues, lgbt, transgender included and any number of other cultural issues as well as the training covers issues, components deal with issues of working with people with mental health and so forth so we're covering all of that. we triering t make -- trying to make the community as well as with staff as welcoming as possible. >> right. >> and that is with signage and responding to issues at a timely mearnt is additional components that we do? >> i guess that brings up what

is required of someone staying at a shelter? obviously there are limitations and wondering if you have any thoughts? >> well, we use a system of rules. to be in our shelter -- first and foremost you need to self care because they're not board and care or medical facilities and we have rules and the rules include no physical violence, no weapons, no illegal substances in general but they also include no threats, no verbal assaults and so forth but if you have a shelter with 200 people on a congregate floor and 2-4 staff at night monitoring they are not going to hear and observe and when two people come forward with a conflict they need to try to resolve it but not deny the service rules and warnings if they didn't witness it themselves. now if someone

is continually complained about they watch them to catch them but i don't know in a system that we try to make it as welcoming -- if you state you're homeless we try to accommodate you. it's hard to put a layer of requirement over that when these are people looking for a bed for the night and a meal and a shower, so we have to try to do it in a creative way. >> do you think -- is there a place -- especially if you're transgender and you're being harass or there is fear for your safety where do you go? who did you report that to? >> we want clients first to go to staff because they can

address it immediately. as a background for transgender we take people at the gender they choose and people can change their gender in our shelter system but they're gender assigned and that's a safety issue. we encourage them to report to staff and up the chain but the committee can get complaints. we can get complaints directly. we see complaints come through the mayor's office of disability because there is synergy and overlap and we try to be aggressive. as soon as we hear about a complaint we try to notify the shelter. we're pleaseed in many cases they know about the situation but our point we're trying to solve the people that can do something about it. if they're afraid to talk to staff if they come to us we can encourage and support them to do that and even

participate if that will help them feel at ease, but we encourage it to be reported and there are times in hearings and so forth we hear statements and we're following up afterwards tell us detail. we haven't heard about it. we want to address it and that's where we look at information in timely a fashion as we can. we try to make it possible to make complaints and not speak to anybody such as dropping off a note and they are addressed as seriously as they can be but sometimes there's little information. we had floor meetings when there say specific issue and there's always -- not always, there are friction points for people who are transgender from people who don't identify as transgender but share that gender and sometimes that's a conflict resolution between individuals.

>> thank you. >> so when i had the briefing the issue of tokens came up and this seemed to be more information right here, and the more -- this is about tokens. >> yes. >> okay. let me just ask. what do people use tokens for? >> well, people would take tokens for any number of purposes. because we're limited in our supply our token policy focuses them for somebody who has a reference trying to get to the. >> >> reservation trying to get to the shelter, to job, mental health appointments, intake appointments and so forth and seniors. we give tokens to seniors just because they're seniors, but -- >> maybe we wrote need to give seniors tokens in a few more

months. >> and we also pay attention to what is available to people. the clients who are county benefit that can get their fast pass we encourage them to do that. we promote the reduced fast pass system, the life line system, to clients to support them to get transportation access. it's free for them to use however they wish. >> so the shuttle that you spoke of. >> yes. >> where does that go? >> in the morning it goes to the out lying shelters providence and first friendship -- >> from where? >> they go to the sites and bring the clients in town. we have morning routes going to the out lying shelters. all of the routes are one way. shay show up at providence and whoever wants to come into central city can ride the shuttle or first friendship and a shuttle that

comes into the city and other services are available since that's not a 24 hour shelter. neither of them are and in the evenings they do the reverse and taking families out to first friendship or to the reservation sites and taking the clients where they might have a reservation so it's a route identified system so clients can count on it. they know when it's coming and so forth. the vans have space for basically 12-14 people but because we're doing single routes nobody is riding -- they're getting on at one place and getting off at the next stop and easier to manage. like i said we launched this program july 1, 2013 and as of last month we are 1400 riders so it's adding to what we offer

with tokens and replaced the other system and had more users besides shelter users and sometimes they couldn't show because they had medical emergencies and by having a routed system and set schedule and how we built up the usage over the first nine months. >> i guess i am asking these questions because i mainly don't know if i should be concerned or we should be concerned that the clients are not getting to their medical appointments, not getting to employment opportunities and so forth because they don't have a token, and i hate to see that being the barrier to their welfare so the question i have is -- does anybody know what the need is, whether we need to expand the usage of tokens or what? >> that's a very difficult question even for us to answer