nancy cross. sorry please go ahead. >> [ speaking in a foreign language ] hi everybody, i am in chan and my family of four lives in the tiny room ten square feet. my grandson comes home from school he will have to do everything on the bed, he will do his homework eat and play and everything is in this tiny

room. i hope that you will be able to help all of our families and help us in this difficult situation. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, and my name is (inaudible) and i worked in the business, and whereas, i have a couple of things to say today, and so first i want to say thank you, and bay for what you bring to this hearing and all of the family hearing and all of the members and so to listen to us all day and all of the stories of what is going on

with our families and i want to take this for you guys and so, i want to have to really tell you guys to pay more attention to the homeless families and we are talking about homeless families we are talking about the homeless familis that live in sro hotels and we have 50 families living in the hotels and we have 500 homeless families living in shelter and we don't know how many homeless families living doubled up and the other conditions and it is a bunch of families and there are thousands, so please supervisors, pay more attention and put in more money to create and more housing for all of the homeless families we need to enthe homelessness and the only way to end it is to put together all of it and working together and unify altogether, the people from the city hall and people from the community to come together, with great idea and say you know, enough

is enough. and we have to have the housing and seems to be one when we create and all of the families united and we found them and 500, and families in sro hotels and today, we have this same number and that does not matter how many families we put in the permanent housing, and we have received half for the 500 families and we need to create the housing for these families and the other issue that i am talking about is that we had to put in money and in the san francisco housing and the housing in general. and we need to review and the 73 housing units. and we need the money and why. because we need to open the waiting list for permanent housing and section 8. and this time. >> thank you. >> the last time that we opened the waiting list was 2008 and so now it is time to open the waiting list. >> thank you have a good day. >> next speaker please.

>> and thank you, supervisors and farrell for calling this hearing and for those that are attending and i am working with the families in the mission for over 40 years and one of the projects that we are working on is the mission promise neighborhood as many of you are aware and in march we can in the town hall where we had over 100 parents from mission public schools attend and talk about their needs and relation to housing before that, town hall, we received some data, that you know expressed that of the four schools that we service, eleven percent of them were homeless. and so, this is a huge problem effecting our public school students and the families and their learning capabilities and so some of the symptoms and the repercussions that happen from this epidemic that we have within our schools is the

anxiety and depression and we have seen this and the insecurety and the fear in children about where they are going to live and the teachers have you know told us that they have seen it in their students and that they are not able to concentrate and that they are, you know they are not able to pick up the information to the other things that are going on that are making it more difficult, and the entire mission of the mission promise neighborhood is to raise academic achievement with family economic success. and it is very difficult to achieve that if we cannot have the housing which, enables the parents to have, you know, a stable job, which enables the students to feel safe at home, and which enables some of our mission families to be able to start a business. and so, we really definitely support, what a lot of the sro tenants have said here today that we do need to prioritize more housing especially for the homeless families, not just in the mission but throughout stephenson, thank you very much. >> thanks, next speaker, please?

>> good afternoon, supervisors, beverly upton, and as you can see from today, many of our survivors of domestic violence are still struggling even when they get a few weeks in an emergency shelter, even when the transitional housing is available and that is one of the things that i want to talk is the only transitional housing right now for confidential for domestic violence and families is on the chopping block at another table and so i want to raise awareness around that. as you heard today, domestic violence is the number one reason for female homelessness and family homelessness in san francisco and we have been talking about this for years. and domestic violence survivors although we are seeing more today because they have been survivors for so long, but emergency housing and domestic violence shelters are really filled with the invisible homeless. and homeless women, mostly and their children who are running

for their lives, and their children's lives and future and so they too are not counted in this homeless population and we only have 77 beds in san francisco. and for domestic violence survivors that are confidential and where their abusers cannot find them, and so, we need more services, so that they can have more after care and longer stays and you see what happens, when they are exited from the shelter with not enough care after. but they are still struggling and they are still in jeopardy and their children are still anxious and we just have to do better. and so, even with the domestic violence, community joining with sexual assault and all of the violence against women programs to make a modest from the mayor's office this year and we really are standing with the brothers and sisters in the housing advocacy community to say that we can do better and we must do better and it is the future of san francisco. and please, help. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker, please.

>> my name is maria vasquez i come from the coalition of homelessness in the tender loin. and i am a homeless mother with two children living in a shelter. i am tired of living in shelters.. my 8-year-old daughter has asthma. chronic asthma. because we are living in the emergency shelter, they wake us up at 6:00 in the morning and we ask s to go to the streets. and one time she had a fever

and we had to be wandering around the streets with my daughter with a fever. and she was feeling really bad. and at 6:00 in the morning we had to leave the shelter and then come back to look for a bed. it is really difficult to be in the streets wandering with children. i am here to talk about the big need that all of the families and all of the homeless families with children are suffering. we don't have a stable place where to live. rents are very expensive. and we just don't have enough to afford them. i am requesting one opportunity for housing or for all of the

families with children. it is very difficult to be with our children now in the streets because cps could remove the children from our custody and we don't want to lose them. and waiting list for the shelter are very long. i am here to talk on behalf of all of the homeless families to request affordable housing. to open more housing. and that are affordable for the incomes. this time listen to us. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> >> i am cathy, and i work for

community services and i am standing in for scott who is our director of housing services. and we currently provide supportive housing to over 1,000 formally homeless men and women and children at 9 housing sites. and we maintain a 97 percent housing retention rate. while most of our housing work is with the single adults, we operate bacus where we provide housing for 47 formally homeless families and we will join with mersy housing in provide support services to an additional 50 currently homeless families 1184th street apartments since july and we would like to point out that ecs is an active participant in the proposal this year and we fully support the proposal that includes impact and in helping low income families maintain their housing and we would like to comment on the human service agency's current plan to reduce the funding for support services at some of our

supportive sites in the city and including bacus and since opening hsa has opening the services and we currently have two case managers and in the youth services specialist, and serving our 47 families, and which include, 85 children and youth and as with some of our colleagues in the community, hsa plan would drasically effect our current staff and cutting the staff by over half, and not because of the program need, but because hsa does not currently over see client referral and placement at 32 of the 47 units this will dramatically alter our ability to provide the necessary and essential services that our families need and we urge you to please take a closer look at the hsa planning to insure sufficient funding to hsa and so that the funding services be based on resident need, rather than on which referring entity does the client referral and

placement. thank you very much. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors and, my name is khelly brown and i work with the community services in the community house where we house 47 formally homeless families. i would like to reiterate katherine scott, and her request regarding the board to give further consideration for hsa's current support services funding plan, which will adversely effect our pattern and our ability to effectively serve our families. and we work with the families dealing with a number of challenging issues that include domestic violence, child welfare issues and multigenerational issues and as well as the challenges in the inner youth face, academic, and bullying and others, and most of the families are struggling

with mental health and substance abuse issues as well. it allows our families to get the attention that they deserve and need and we have two case managers in the youth worker who directly are involved in the children with the teachers and parents striving toward the children's academic success and we work with the cps in an effort to prevent the removal from the home of our children and we are working with some families around the monthly and complicated process to obtain legal authorization to work in the u.s. as well as the company and many of the residents to support their health and well-being and we strive to facilitate a number of activity and events that provide structure and a sense of community to help to prevent homelessness and our current ratio and staff to client, ratio is 81 clients per case manage and her if the staff and pattern is changed to one case manager, we look at one case manager dealing with 162 men women and children and their

complex needs this is the potential recipe for disaster take a closer look at hsa's support service plans. and we ask that the funding to the department not be reduced to that so that we can insure the current quantity and the quality of the service provided to the families. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, i am working with the coalition on homelessness, and i am representing today for your support in our proposal. and we need money to open the wait list, but first we need to fix the empty units, and we need more subsidies, and less subsidies and non-profit, buildings, and we need to fix the current subsidy program because sometimes the families need to move outside san francisco, and i think that all

of the kids have the right to go in their ways that they born. and i hope that you come and help us with these proposals thank you. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker, please? >> ♪

>> thanks, next speaker please? >> [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> hello supervisors. >> i would like to request for you to open more housing

opportunities for our children. i have been in the housing for five years because i don't have children that have been born here. i cannot afford a house and we are renting a apartment that we cannot afford to rent and my husband does not make enough money to pay the rent. we have to double up in order to pay the rent and have food for them.

often times we have to look for assistance for the clothing and food and we are here to request your help so that i can afford a home. i will be grateful if you tie up for us in order for us to obtain the housing and for us and our children. i have a 14-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old boy and we are looking to apply for housing. >> and if you help us, our

children will be... the way that you are. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker, please? >> good afternoon, supervisors, devra eddelman with the homeless providers association and i apologize for extending this long hearing by a couple more minutes. but just felt the need to come up after hearing about all of the stories and the situations, that so many families are facing today in san francisco. to remind you, that there are solutions and there is hope, and there is so many people joining together, with great ideas about how we can change this situation, and in san francisco. and hespa has submitted a proposal to all of you, and we are discussing this proposal with the mayor's office and throughout the city to look at different solutions. these solutions include turning over san francisco housing

authority units that are currently vacant and providing additional local operating subsidies to families. and providing housing subsidies that will make market rate housing affordable to families in san francisco. as well as throughout the bay area. and we need to be creative to look at solutions. there are many solutions out there such as shared housing, looking at longer term subsidies, and looking at different flexible policies that will support families in moving into their own permanent long-term housing. so, i am encouraging you to look at our proposal and consider these solutions and if we do this, we can house 687 house holds at an average cost of $10,000 per household. we can bring the wait list for shelter, we believe to zero. but we need to come together

and work together and look for solutions. thank you very much for listening to all of these concerns today and coming together with the whole... >> thank you very much. >> thank you supervisors for listening on this issue, first i want to give thanks again to the coalition. and jennifer as well as the director dufty and i would ask you humblely to reconsider shoe box units not a market rate, shoe box units at submarket rate and ear mark with a pilot project and as supervisor mar mentioned knows of help and knows of rehabilitation throughout the different sectors of the city so that everybody does not have to come to the building on mission street downtown all of the time if you correct these along with the shoe box unit housing 50 square feet or whatever this will provide, the rapid,

rehabilitation director dufty mentioned and it will support it and there are novel techniques for the building and coming out of europe and china and that can rebuild the units and 99 units in one part of town and the other part of town and there is an ugly ethnic issue as well as birth and childbearing and non-productivity and so with the... i did not want to give this away, so much was taken from me in singapore, with 3 d protein and a new manufacturing and work paradigm could be created in the city as opposed to a manufacturing structure where people have to go through like robots and leave. please reconsider shoe box units 500 square feet for the housing for the suffering, and for the people and loads of it as well as resource or rehab efforts throughout the city. and so people don't have to keep coming downtown. >> thank you.

>> if there are any other member of the public that wish to comment step forward and we will be closing public comment. >> good afternoon, supervisors and i would like to thank chairman farrell for having this item on the agenda for the important item and we all have heard very compelling stories from some of these families, and i think that when you appropriate moneys, homeless children, should be a number one priority, or should be the number one priority. and they are the most innocence of our homeless community, and you are funding this year should reflect that. and i am a little troubled although, that we didn't hear any solutions opposed to them as to how to deal with a situation and so let me offer a couple of suggestions.

and the idea of increasing the winter shelters is very doable. and the inner faith council of churches and more than one to expand the winter shelter program with the additional funding to ecs, which staffs the winter shelters. and when you expand the winter shelters, you should specifically ear mark one shelter for homeless families at a minimum and secondly, in terms of the affordable housing, again, i think that homeless children should have priority thank you. >> thanks very much. >> next speaker. >> my name is nancy cross, and i am going to use the time limited time that i have here, to talk about some of the things that might maintain a

new approach that could, and get us out of this myer that we are in and i could talk about... but i have suffered in this situation and to know the people but we have heard many people here very eloquent speaking on that and so i am going to let... and pardon me. specifically about some ideas that you have not already explored. and we have many processes for dealing with individuals. and maybe it is not adequate and several the housing is not adequate, but, when you have not really addressed what the institutions or what like the ecs contract and the standards of the facilities that the city has control of that may effect the well-being and the welfare load of the city. and if we could reduce the welfare load of the city, we would have more money for

housing. and some of these things are fairly easy to do. they don't need the housing as such, but we have a situation where, the city gets, like 87 cents or 85 cents, a pack cigarettes but we have not taken into account and according to the center for disease control in atlanta, that the welfare costs just for direct medical services, and lower productivity of the individual, amount to $7.18 a pack. and in other words, we take with that benefit and try to adjust the maximum tax and use it appropriately, but try to decrease the use of tobacco to reduce the welfare costs and that could be done and is done in los angeles, i understand. >> thank you very much.

>> any other members of the public that wish to comment on this item? >> yes. here i am. i guess one of the things that bothers me is that i want you to consider it is that for as much money you put into all of these services for the homeless, they can actually buy a house. i have seen houses go for 6 to 14, i even saw a house in hawaii for $37,000. but, the plan, it speaks about that you should be putting your money into more housing, instead of more money into shelters. so, i think that i think that you should probably try to provide some more mental health services in the shelters that no more shelters just put that money into housing and i mean that i think that nobody really grew up with a dream of living

in a homeless shelter. for the rest of their lives. >> i think that the other thing too, is let's here what the team and the workers have to say and i think that they are being, they are being forgotten and i guess that my other problem that i am having is, that you are talking about the domestic abuse and then, for me i feel like, the men should be some type of a program for the men where they can get help regarding those issues and how not to cause those problems. and the women, too, they are like, men are like, one or ten percent of being abused. and i am also very i am also having a problem that where is the training for the living wage jobs? i mean, this is my version of what i have heard so far of the housing ladder. and we, can we get the screens

in here? >> all right. all right, well it is not showing up. well, the housing ladder, it only has two rungs. and i mean, we have got a housing ladder. with two rungs and it is a supportive housing and no training for us. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. >> next speaker please. >> [ speaking in a foreign language ] my name is catalina kerera. we are asking more homes and less jails. more rehab programs for