reiterated that we have a growing problem of disabled people with aids, who are losing their employer's responsered disability and transferring on to a smaller ssa grant which is putting their housing at risk. and so, what we want to do is examine what are some of the drivers and barriers that are leading to this disproportionate rate of homelessness in the lgbtq community, and then, also, what are some of the unique impacts of that homelessness, and i think that a big part of it is telling you right here, that i came to this hearing hoping to hear about the department plans for addressing the historic equities and investment in services targeting the lgbtq community, and i have not heard that. i did not hear about what kind of budget line items are included in this year's plan and now that they know, that there are these disparities i have not heard about any out reach plans or in investment in funding, anything to try to

address the problems. and i think that that is really telling. thank you. >> next speaker please? >> good morning, supervisor, we actually have a presentation and we are asked to do that for today, >> sure. >> and we do the slides and if we could go through briefly. >> okay. >> all right. >> thank you. >> yeah, thank you, (inaudible) and i work with tsf, and the transitional san francisco and housing the department of youth and their families. and to your point, who just spoke and we will just jump ahead since we are expecting to present earlier with more time to some of the recommendations and it has been engaged in the 18 month process with over 18 individuals from the cross city departments that have spoke

here and the community based organizations and the young people themselves, and as a result of this work, we did a needs assessment and a planning process to essentially identify where are the biggest priorities that our city should be focusing on, and what are some of the biggest needs? and so, to talk about some of the biggest needs that we have aside from the data that we have already heard, a few key things that were identified, and some of the needs related to housing, or definitely are around and not only access to affordable housing but specifically, in more safe, neighborhoods and unfortunately a lot of the housing that does exist is in the areas that young people don't necessarily feel safe in. and right? and some of the others is awareness of the housing availability, right? it is something and it is hard for the young people to keep track and be aware when there

is some availability or certain beds available for them to go and take advantage of that opportunity. some of the others, are actions specifically for tay parents and families. and this is one of the gaps that we have seen in the city is not enough for the parents. and then transition planning and support as they are exiting and finishing completing some of these programs, and so that they can be self-sufficient and be able to be independent after the program. and some of the others, are more comprehensive homeless count, and that accounts for marginally housed youth and couch surfers which i know that you spoke to and there has been a huge step up this year. but there is still more that can be done to capture some of those young people that don't identify as homeless or if you asked them may never say it. due to a lot of stigma and there is a lot of the practices, that can be utilized to strengthen our homeless

count. and that is also, i have to say is a thing, because, if we are not capturing like, how many homeless young people we have, right in and we are missing a young amount of young people, then we are not going to come up with the right solutions and strategies and we are never going to allocate the right appropriate amount of resources and so this is huge, when it comes to the right data to then, formulate the best strategies and allocate the resources appropriately. and some of the other barriers, are prohibitive. and the eligibility restrictions, right? and there are certain programs that have or so restrictive and have a specific requirements that is a presents a huge challenge for the young people to access the housing and of course, where we already know some of the waiting lists that the young people have to deal with. and i going to have her talk about the policies and recommendations in terms of next steps, and the process for

planning, and implementing across the city departments. >> thank you, very much. >> and we have the copies of our policy recommendations at the front. and just to be quick, the first is really to continue the pipeline of housing to meet or exceed the goal for 400 units. that was set to be reached by 2015, and we have been working with the department of public health, and hsa and our office of hope, to continually, push for additional units and we feel that 400 is actually locally insufficient, and a lot in san francisco, and it is nice but it is totally not enough. and we would really welcome, a greater number of units and also a greater range of types of opportunities available. and we want to be able to report, annually on the progress that we are making on the tay housing plan and this is as i mentioned is to diversify the housing options to the tay young people and for some it is short term and it might be some immediate financial assistance and a

short term bed, but for some of these people they need longer term supports and so we support a range of opportunities, for the young people. and then, finally, we are going to be working with the office of hope hsa and dph to do the annual evaluation of the effectiveness of the tay housing options in san francisco. and so we will look at how effective they are in reaching the young people that need them and take a look at wait times and the duration times and the application process and etc., and so we look forward to being able to do that and report back to you and bi annual basis. >> okay, thank you very much for your report. and i appreciate the time. >> okay. next speaker, please? >> why don't i call a few cards. >> susan, from the homeless young alliance and jefferson, fellows, and laura and zach murray. >> thank you, so much for hosting this hearing today, we really appreciate the opportunity to speak about youth homelessness in san francisco. and i think that a lot of the

important information has been shared and i do want to clarify a couple of things and talk about the effective strategies for addressing the homelessness. and first of all just to be clear on the numbers and the point in time counts it is actually 1902 young people that are homeless that identified in the point in time count and there is the 914 that were in the youth specific point in time count, and there were additional youth identified in the over night count and then the numbers and i think that there were some on the duplicate those numbers and so 1902, is actually the accurate number for the count for the youth who are unaccompanied miners under the age of 18 and 18 to 24. we see 2300 a year and there are 5700 young people who are homeless in san francisco each year and i think that it is really important to many speakers have said it that the youth do notify as homeless, always, so the youth actually take the huge effort to hide their homeless or don't have a

reliable or safe place to say and they are not always on the streets, they might be staying with a boyfriend or pimped and might be trafficked and there are a number of reasons why the youth are invisible and there is a city wide strategy to try to add, 400 units that is identified as the work of the task force and we are making progress, but we are not at 400 and that number is insufficient. and what is most important for the youth homelessness is that we have a continuous strategies available to address the needs of homeless youth and that is the emergency housing and shelter and subsidies and that is transitional housing and that is and has the high level of service and address the mental address issues and to be able to successfully transition out of housing and our goal is to prevent the chronic

homelessness and that they complete and be able to lives in a part of that community and that the range of housing options that we have in san francisco for the youth now is actually great and it is just completely inadequate and so we just need to build on all of the great options that we have created. and lar instreet is a provider but there are many providers and i think that we need to invest in all of those providers. >> thank you. >> and i am out of time. >> do you have anything else? >> no. >> i have a lot more. i have like hours more. >> and then, yes. >> next speaker, please? >> >> hi, jennifer, coalition on the homeless youth. so, as we are hearing today talking about the homeless youth, and the homelessness in the lgbtq community, there is a story, and there is a story behind every individual who is young, and experiencing homelessness. and it is a tragic story, it is a story filled with fear and

uncertainty and a lot of trauma and a lot of abuse. no place to call home. no feeling of safety. and it is tragic. and it is a tragedy really san francisco can avoid. we don't have to be doing this to people. and that is what we are doing, we are doing it to them. and san francisco is an incredibly afluent city and this year in particular, we have a lot of resources and right now as we speak, the mayor's office is deliberating on what direction the budget is going to go. and it is right there, across the hall. there are steps that we can take, and we really should not be okay with anything else and there is action that needs to happen and we need to fund the housing that is being talked about and we need to make sure that we are stopping homelessness at the front end, that the tenants in san francisco, have a right to council, and many are becoming victim to land lords, and to the real estate speculator and

we know what steps to take to halt it and we got to do it. we have these units sitting empty and boarded up and we have the people who are truly suffering on our streets. and we can fund subsidies in the private housing and we can make sure that our non-profit housing is affordable to the poorest people and we can make sure that the communities, have access to that housing, thank you. >> thank you, next speaker, please? >> >> good morning, my name is laura and i am a recent graduate from the uc berkeley, and a research assistant with dr. cocoa on the we count, california a project for improving the count of homeless youth and with we ask how many,

the answer depends on whether you ask the homeless out reach and the homeless and housing programs who serve thousands of young people every year are the schools that insure that 2,000 homeless young experience littles disruption in the education as possible and if you consider a young person homeless when they have landed a couch to crash on for tonight last year, marked the first

time that community required to count 18 to 24-year-olds or transitional youth as a separate population and despite the challenges of counting the young people who hide and identifies the homeless and san francisco made the significant advances to conduct and the first dedicated youth count and using practices to improve the accuracy of the numbers. youth numbers should not be marginalized from the conversations but acknowledged as a blind spot in homeless counts that is corrected through the methods and the community should not be penalized or criticized, for the homeless population but supported for a more accurate and a more picture of who is experiencing the homelessness in san francisco and contributing to a local, and state dialogue. >> the next speaker, i want to say hello to the class from the elementary school, hello in the back. >> i am sorry.

>> and welcome. >> and the next speaker please? >> hi, my name is susan and i work for the homeless youth alliance which is the program that they are talking about earlier. and we are all kind of joking and we know as the homeless youth because we lost the lease on the drop in center in january of 2014 and christmas was our last day in that space and since that happened we have been a mobile program and we have conducted all of our continual services through the street out reach and we now run a needle exchange, and from a cargo van outside of our former drop in location on the sidewalk. and although these are less than ideal circumstances we have been reaching a lot of kids that way and we placed six youth in the housing since we

became mobile. and so our program is going strong and we are looking for another permanent location from which to have the new drop-in center, but one thing that is to come clear since we lost our space, is that it is such a scarcity. of a low threshold safe place where the population of homeless kids can just come in and just sort of relax. and that is what we used to offer and you know a kid could come in or take a shower or watch tv or get a hot meal and they were not immediately pressured when ye came in to start to make a plan to transition off of the street.

the homeless that are disconnected on the street and really, there is a permanent, situation for the drop-in center for the kids. >> i just have a follow up question. >> yes. >> a couple of years ago, four years ago there was a big discussion about sit live. >> yes. >> and in the haight. >> yes. >> and i know that and i can tell that there seems to be discrimination enforcement or if it is being enforced at all. it seemed like that was a big issue. and but, i am not saying, and i didn't support the law, because i don't see that it is an actual or a real way to enforce it, or when there are homeless people that report on the streets and don't have a place to go and you know, and sometimes they have to >> yes. >> and so what are you seeing now in terms of looking in the

enforcement is like and how that is effecting young people and what kind of pressure that puts on the young people as well. >> there is an independent assessment of the efficacy there in particular and what that found is that it is a disproportionate against the homeless kids. and that it does not discourage homelessness or discourage you from being in the neighborhood or coming to the neighborhood, what it does, is enacts these huge barriers to the kids being able to access the resources or get into the housing because they have the warrant out or citations. and you know they just got all of these bureaucracy and red tape that they have to deal with. because they have no money to pay the fine or whatever and so what it ends up being is just yet another huge barrier to getting out of the situation that is why it was supposed to prevent, which is being homeless and being on the streets. >> and so yeah, we found it to

be, extremely counter productive. >> do you think that it would make sense to repeal it >> absolutely. >> yes. >> and even though the merchants and some of the merchants who were initially for the laws have reported that it has done nothing to deter the problems that they were explaining about it. and >> thank you. >> thanks. >> thank you, next speaker, please? >> let me call a few other speaker cards. >> evan alamar, franklin rarera and tommy. meca and mike and john nolty. >> thank you. and my name is justin fellow and i work at the youth services specifically with the street based out reach team and the referral center. and i would like to thank, them on to speak here and for everyone who has already spoken and throwing up all of the numbers in the data so that i don't have to go over it.

and you can tell, and we can all tell looking at the numbers, that there is a great need and a lot of folks who are going unserved. and i would like to second everything, that the folks who said before me and thank you, susan for also bringing up the points about the need. and i am up here to just to speak on behalf of the youth and i know that, from what i have been told there is always a more compelling story and argument coming from the youth directly and i am usually asked to rally a group of folks to speak and to advocate on their own behalf. and when i thought about that a lot and it is a difficult thing to ask or expect of folks. and that clock is correct, and so it is 12:10, and so my team is in there right now serving anywhere from 50 to 80 people in our tiny referral center and maybe a tenth of a size of this room. and so it is difficult for me to really have such a compelling story.

and that i am considered an expert on the matter and i think that i am considered an expert, just because i am in this work and i have a expertise comes from talking to people and so you could go to the market street and go on the 71 and make the way on the golden gate and go on the 19 and you could talk to people and figure out what the need is directly from them themselves and step into their homes and rather than asking for us to come to the venue which is difficult in my mind. >> i am zach murray for the welcome youth services and i am rising to advocate that the board of supervisors in the department is here to do more and be accountible and give us public leadership to enhance the budget and the policy

priorities to include the youth and the reality is that when compared to the homeless adult population you have the needs that set them apart from the homeless population and to date, the youth needs are rarely prioritized in the public policy and san francisco is first, and the ten year plan to abolish the homelessness, and the larger exiting foster care and represent 25 percent of the population, and the needs of 3 out of four homeless youth were not considered in that and so i am advocating that you do more to meet those needs to understand what is happening and market street has produced years and years worth of research and analyzing what the youth people are experiencing and what the needs are and we know what they need and it is time for the public resources to be behind this and end this crisis as we speak. if we are not going to take the abundant resources of san francisco to end the crisis and i think that the board of supervisors in the city of san francisco can play a vital role in rallying that progress and

this has been 115 million on the youth in the country and the reality that it is going to take a lot more than that in the federal government. and i want to talk about the education and workforce training this is the root of why the people are homeless and they are not getting the education and employment. and yes, they are only, 20 percent of the surveyed homeless youth need an education, but 72 percent of them would like the further education, and only 79 percent of the youth at market street report being unemployed but 86 percent of them want a job, they want a job that is going to allow them to live here in san francisco and not on the streets where they are forced to be criminalized and forced into exploitation and they are forced, and the reality is that you can do more. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> hello, i am sorry. i am daysy and i am a advocate

and i just wanted to tell you my story, i was once a homeless youth and i was able to get services and on the services and if i did not able to get the services i would not know where i would be today. going to the market street and i was actually able to graduate to two college degrees and i am not advocating for the same problem that i was suffering from, i need more awareness about mental health and young homelessness, and san francisco has a lot of money and if we don't, it is going to be a bigger problem. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> my name is franklin, and part of the community and at one point in time the used to have the native american aged projects on the market and it is no longer there. and at the moment, i am getting help from the aids housing

alliance and mine is ssi is $900 a month and my rent is $800, when i was homeless in the last year, and they saved me, mind you, the housing alliance and i am going to say this because, being on the streets had deter ated my health. and being homeless to me, felt like a crime. and sit and lie down and the policy rule, and the police department, are harassing and criminalizing homeless people and youth on the streets. and only our safe places are larger street youth center and all of these other homeless organizations. and what i wanted to say is that i am waiting for subdiced housing right now and i am afraid to die, my cousin died on the streets. and a lot of people have stigmaized aids and other diseases and when you need your youth, and the homeless out

there, they are susceptible to diseases, and harassment and violence, and death on the streets. your not, we are not only advocating for housing, but we are advocating for our lives so we can live as normal human beings in society. and the native american health center has been also helping me, the bates program they have an lgbtq pow wo w and they are trying to raise the funds and there is a lack of funds in the lgbtq community and there is a high rate of lgbtq in the native american community and i would like to see more of that and more housing for the homeless. and awareness towards the mental stages that home sness brings to the people in san francisco. let's be a better community, thank you. >> and thank you. >> a few more speaker cards, torrey, and tony, redoc, and

sumor, and ryan, minvar. >> and hi. i have been working with at the cross roads and for the homeless youth in san francisco and i am here to talk about the need to focus more attention on black street youth and in a city that is 6 percent black and 39 percent of homeless adults are black and this pairs repeating in a city that is 6 percent black and 39 percent of homeless adults are black. >> not only is the third the most logical but it is what we are seeing at the cross roads and 58 percent of our clients are black and this number has

risen dramatically over the past decade. and as the black population in san francisco declined, the black youth have fewer options in the community to turn to when the immediate home is not working. and they are turning to the streets and their needs are not being met by the social service system and they do not fit the typical profile of what the homeless youth look like. and the only people targeting them are law enforcement and they rarely identify as being homeless youth and so they do not seek out services for the homeless youth and they frequently do not meet the definition of being chronickly homeless and so they are ineligible for the homeless and they are less likely to seek help for mental health issues. and everyone in the city complaints about the homeless and frustrated by a lack of clear solutions, create a strategy that targets black youth between the ages of 18 to 29 with the housing and

employment and mental health services and these youth are on for our city and adult population and they don't have to be instead they can be the pipeline for the city. and work for the leadership and genius, and this is going to start with the government deciding to focus on this specific population and dedicate, thought, planning and resources to address these unique needs and today, is a day to do that. >> thank you. >> hi, i am tommy and i am with the housing rights committee and i have been a clear activist for the past 44 years and that has been for 17 years, working and doing the work in again for the evictions and for the affordable housing. and i also recently served as the lgbtq senior task force, and that was mentioned earlier and i have three recommendations for how to stop the homelessness in the lgbtq community and also, just in any period, and i think that there is a workforce and i think that the first is we need to stop

the evictions and there is a correlation and of these other people have said that the lower income and the working class people have said evicted and homeless and a huge correlation and we need to do everything that we can to stop the predatory evictions that are happening by speculator and real estate investors in the city. 2,000 units are lost to ellis in the move in evictions. the housing for those folks. and but, it is going to get them and the mayor is proposing

40,000 units and i say that they go to the homeless people first and then the low income folks and we need to stop criminalizing the homeless and repeal the measures and the un said it and the violations of the human rights. and the reality folks, is that we cannot end the homelessness, unless we end the evictions. next speaker, please? >> >> and from the program director of the national youth network from 1979 to 1993. and i am also the founder and co-founder of the rocket street youth service and san francisco needs to provide more housing for those and