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 and that's in part because clients -- i think if we said we will give everybody two tokens a day clients would take them. we don't know necessarily what they're used for. we track the use afnlg the tokens with the allocation of 1200 a month meaning our sites will say superivsor yee two tokens for a medical appointment or whatever, so they are tracking that usage but it's hard to say whether they're turned around. now the shelter monitoring committee may go and a site might not have tokens when asked and maybe an issue they're out and didn't report to us. we maybe out later in the month but that doesn't happen a lot. usage is balanced to our availability because people know what it's going to be now it's 1200 a month for so many years so it's

a really difficult question to ask. i think we would have to look at some sort of assessment means that would tell us what people want and there are people -- i'm not saying this is a major part of the problem. but it's hard to ask people what they want. they will take tokens because it has a monetary value and might use it for other means if they get a hold of them. >> the people that are getting a hold of them now are they abusing that? >> i don't think they are. we're focused on the reservation site and give them out when they have a challenge and give one to come back the next morning. obviously a transfer is not good for a 12 hour period, and we do see usage of them, but i don't think we have abuse now, but

it's probably because we have these rules of people stating what the purpose of their need for a token is. go ahead. >> can we actually test this through maybe a pilot for one or two months? you keep -- i guess in my mind if you have a system where you have rules and uses of tokens and not just giving them away, and there might be actually more demand and they run out of tokens but we don't know what the demand is. can't we have a pilot of one or two months period -- maybe one month and we over supply tokens but keep the same rules at the end of the period so you would know what your demand would be and it shouldn't cost all that much more. >>i think what we could start with -- again we meet with our contractors once a month so this month we will meet with them. i

would like to take this idea to them and see how we might structure that in a way. i get your point. have more tokens available. still follow the same rules and see if there say need for a greater number of tokens and at least we can put a dollar value on that. we do pay full value for it is tokens. we're paying $2 a token and get the 1200 a month. >> the point for me is we're spending money on the shelter and so forth and so forth and here one extra token for somebody might make a difference in the world and we're talking $2 and extending it in the facility. that's my point. >> what we will do is we will have a discussion with our providers. we think of something and we can stay in touch with and you let you know

what is happening on that. i don't have a ready thought how to implement without getting their input because they're the ones who actually interface with clientses who need the tokens. >> no. i appreciate if you could bring it back. >> yes. >> okay. any other questions? >> thank you. >> thank you. any other -- any public comments on this item? seeing none public comment is closed. [gavel] . this is an informational item, is it? so we don't need to vote on anything. madam clerk is there anything else? >> mr. chair we need to take action. >> we need to take action. >> continue to the call of the chair. >> okay. >> okay. make the motion to continue this hearing to the call of the chair. >> okay. with no objection then this motion passes. [gavel] thank you very much.

>> thank you. >> madam clerk is there any other item? >> no. that concludes our business for today. >> meeting is adjourned. [gavel] >> good morning, everyone and if i may have your attention. good morning, and welcome to the thursday, april 17th, 2014

meeting of the board of supervisors, neighborhood services and safety committee, my name is david campos and i am the chair of the committee and we are joined today by the committee members and supervisor norman yee and supervisor eric mar and is excused so if we can have a motion to ex-excuse supervisor mar, and a motion by supervisor yee, without objection. and the clerk of the committee is derek evans and we want to the following members of sfgtv for helping to cover the meeting today, mr. clerk, do we have any announcements? >> thank you, mr. chair, please be sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices and completed speaker cards to be included in the file and should be submitted to the clerk and the items acted on upon should appear on the board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> this is an item that is introduced by supervisor weiner and i am proud to be a

co-sponsor, before i turn it over to supervisor weiner so that he can make his remarks and i will make mine after he does, i want to begin by simply thanking... >> sorry mr. chair, but we need to call the item. >> call item one. >> hearing to formally accept the recommendations of the lgbt aging task force for the board of supervisors and consist of final recommendations and include action plans for implementations of recommendation and time lines and estimated cost and potential funding sources and additional information to implementation. >> once again, this is an item that is introduced by supervisor weiner myself and before i turn it over to supervisor weiner, i just want to make sure that i make the brief points and i am happy to make the perhaps after supervisor weiner does and i just want to thank the members of the task force for the service, and i know that it has been a lot of work, a lot of energy, and that has gone into

this task force and each and every one of you has very busy schedule, so, on behalf of san francisco, the city, and as a member of the lgbt community i am just really grateful to each of you for all of the work that you put in and i especially want today to begin the meeting by recognizing to individuals who started as members of this task force who dedicated a great deal, not only to this subject, but to the community as a whole and who are not with us any longer, and that is jazzy kol ins and stewart smith and they are here in spirit and we want to thank them for the service. and so with that i will turn it over to supervisor weiner. >> i thank you, mr. chairman and i also want to acknowledge stew and jazzy who were

incredibly committed to the work of the task force and so many other issues of importance in the community and i know that they are greatly missed by all of us and they are in spirit here today. as we talk about the wonderful work of the task force, and i remember that it was almost two years ago that supervisor campos and i were aprofpd by bill and others saying that would you help that we would really start meaningful addressing this growing issue in our community. and that is how do we make sure that we are addressing the needs of our growing lgbt senior population and supervisor campos and i immediately agreed to work on that, with bill and the others. and then supervisor alagi joined us and we sponsored the legislation that created this task force and i have to say that i have been to so impressed by the work that the

task force did, people have been, and we really, i think that empaneled a very diverse set of task force members and people from a lot of different backgrounds. and different subject matter and expertise, and the different political views. and the different demographics and a very diverse task force and sometimes in san francisco, we, you know, you wonder, with so much diversity are people going to be able to work together effectively and this task force, really, i just think worked beautifully, together and the people i think engage in very respectful and thoughtful dialogue, and i have to say that the report is incredibly impressive, and i think that it is going to be helpful for all of us, as we move forward, and we know, that

we have a significant need to address the very unique needs of our lgbt senior population. and for a long time, particularly among gay men, because of the hiv aids, epidemic, we did not have as many seniors as we all wanted to have and now with the advances in terms of healthcare and people being able to live longer, we have a more and more diverse group of lgbt seniors, and it is growing and it is going to continue to grow, and while lgbt seniors of course, share some of the same challenges and needs as all seniors, we all know that there are some very unique needs, which are spelled out quite articulately in this report. and so, one thing that i said to the task force, when it was impaneled, please, don't send us a report with, you know, 75

or 100 recommendations, so that it is not manageable and it all just sits on a shelf and nothing happens, please prioritize and boil things down and the report really does that nicely. and as i know, we have been public about it already. supervisor campos and i are already working on legislation to move forward with several of the recommendations of the task force. and i know that we spoke and we really wanted to make sure that we quickly moved two items forward so that we may be clear that we are all very, very serious about moving these recommendations, we also know that some of the recommendations, particularly, around housing also feed into the larger housing discussions and work, happening here in city hall, on some of that is short term work and a lot of it is long term work in terms of stabilizing our housing situation. and so again, i just want to thank the task force for its work and i look forward to today's hearing and to continuing to work together afterwards. >> thank you.

supervisor yee? >> thank you, share campos. and just as i realized, i'm the lake comer, in this issue. and but i wanted to say that i recognize that not only this subset of the senior population, but the entire senior population i want to see more focus on it especially when i look at my own district where we are probably going to have one of the oldest districts, and yet, we have very few services out there and when it comes to housing, i note that the uniqueness of everybody's need and in terms and in regards to the seniors in the lgbt population and it is very unique and so i will be very glad to support legislation that supervisor weiner and supervisor campos will be forwarded. >> thank you supervisor yee. and as i noted before i am proud to join supervisor weiner today in holding this hearing.

the san francisco lgbt aging policy task force and this report, truly a product of a community effort. to raise the profile of issues effecting lgbt seniors in san francisco. and i also want to acknowledge the work that former supervisor kristine and the three of us and the lgbt caucus of the board at the time that created this task force in october of 2012, the task force is final report, aging at the golden gate, and quite frankly has far surpassed my expectations and it bring to light the critical issues that are facing san francisco's aging lgbt community. and the efforts by the task force are truly admirable, before the task force what is established, the lgbt community in san francisco, had really not made it a priority to advocate for seniors, and quite frankly, speaking about aging

in the lgbt community can be a difficult thing to do. we recognize that we must make strides to provide for and protect our lgbt seniors and i am proud that because of the recommendations that are laid out by the task force, we will be introducing legislation to specifically address a number of issues. and more precisely, we will be working to immediately adopt the following recommendations around the data collection, around the cultural competency, and we are also working to draft an lgbt long term care facility residence bill of rights. and that will begin to address the issues of discrimination in long term facilities that has been identified. and i am also in my office, beginning the discussions with housing advocates, and like others i will specifically talk about how do we draft housing policy that is specifically addresses the needs of lgbt

seniors. and we are facing an affordable crisis. and within that crisis, there are specific and additional challenges that lgbt seniors face. and so, with that in mind, i would like to ask the chair of the task force bill ambrum to please come up and again, mr. chair, thank you very much, for your leadership. and you know, you have your work cut out, any time that you have a large group of lgbt community members coming together on something as complicated as this issue. and so, a job well done. >> thank you very much, supervisors. and for those of my colleagues here, who served on the task force and came to the meetings everyone has heard me talk quite enough at this point. so i am just going to say a few brief remarks and then turn it over to the other people who wanted to speak today. first of all, our thanks on behalf of the task force, i

want to thank supervisors weiner, campos, former supervisor olague and cohen was a co-sponsor and so i want to thank her too. and i also want to thank the city departments that we worked with, and who have all been incredibly supportive of our work including dos and i would like to single out sheren, and tom nolan and diana jensen for their amazing wonderful work for the task force. and also, teresa sparks and the staff at the human rights commission, and most notably terina and snay were again, instrumental in us getting our work done. also, in the city attorney's office, sherry kaiser was great and julie has been added to our teams and we are appreciative of it as well and i would like to thank all of the members of

the task force and it really was not as difficult as the introductory remarks might have suggested. and i think that maybe it was really cohesive and brought together by a sincere desire to make this situation better for seniors and for those of us who are seniors, now, or will become seniors soon. or you have been becoming seniors off in the distant future, there. and there is a reason for everyone in our community to rally behind these ideas. and i think that the task force, proved that, it can be done. and this is data driven and we want this to be a subnative report and we appreciate that you