for the departments as well and i would really like to see a action from the mayor, and we really need a high level call to action. and i am so happy that supervisor mar is taken it out and we just need more support and getting more visibility. and again, a plan to promote and educate the managers, which again, is a big job, and i would like as a community agency, to be able to meet with the managers, and so, that is the other part of it, is implementing a plan for the community agency to meet with the department managers because there is a real gap in terms of understanding what we do and the people that we represent, and also, you know, the referral and so we can refer our candidates. and, also one other point, would be really that just looking at other city agencies city government and successes has occurred and i know that i have mentioned it previously, that there is a wonderful program in seattle, where they can put over 80 people in

support of the employment and it is an excellent program and i actually sent donna and ed the video on the program. and so, there are wonderful programs out there and so i hope that we can move toward that and i feel light and we can keep it moving for ward and i hope that we don't get bogged down with the task force and i want us to keep moving and hopefully we can get the placements and thank you to the library for really coming up to the plate. and i am happy about that. thank you so much. >> any questions from the council members? >> i just have one quick question and that was the actual name of the seattle based organization, if you didn't know of it, that would be great to know. >> actually it is through the city and so what they did is they, they hired a person who is in their hr department, who is the point person, who deals with all of the agencies, she works with all of the local

non-profits and she is the one that helps screen and is the go-between with the non-profits and all of the city departments. so she is actually is from san francisco and, maybe we could get her to come and speak. that would be great. >> any questions, thank you. >> any questions for the staff? >> okay. and thank you very much. >> next we have mark melanson director of community services at tool works. >> thank you for the time to be here to present for you today. >> i brought the people that want to speak to you today. we are appreciative to be talking about the expansion of the 115 rule and raising awareness and we thank supervisor mar and we were a part of the original hearing and so we are thrilled to be back to be talking again about the rule.

a lot of the comments that have been made today, and definitely, we would like to see a process in that these folks are joining in on those hr department meetings, and so, that is fantastic, if you are ever need a wing man, you know, invite one of us to come and give the same presentation. tool works has been around from 1975 and our visionary and founder, was had a friend that worked at paccal and they were throwing away the broken tools and he said that i have folks that could fix those tools. and you could use them the money that you were spending to by the new tools to pay the folks to fix the tools and so tool works is how we got our name many, many years ago, and a quick story about that. tool works provides an array of services to a wide array of folks with disabilities. and so, really have, and sort

of the diverse population, and we have community integration day program focusing on folks, and volunteering at the local non-profit and we have a community living department to help the folks live independently in the community and we have employment services where we have the group employment sites and some individual placements and we have been at the marriott against the 1998 earthquake or 1989. >> and that was the day that we start and so it was everybody remembers that and we have 14 people working in about five or six different departments in the hotel. and, some other small groups have the family service agencies doing the janitorial and at the flag ship store old navy doing the stock and floor work. and we also have the healthy partnerships throughout the bay area and training programs and

we have our own commercial janitorial business and tool works has 750 clients and 250 employees and 100 of those employees are people with disabilities and so we are proud of the statistics that we have as an agency on our workforce. and i just opened a bakery and check that out and it is a training program for homeless and the folks who have disables. >> we talked a lot about the statistics and the folks that brought up the strats ticks and the folks in the disability have over an 80 percent unemployment rate and so it is huge and, a staggering number and again, all of the things that you heard about the folks wanting to work, and the folks ready to work and i have brought the folks, from the agency, and from the different programs that we talk about how we prepare folks for the workforce. and so you will get to hear a

little bit about those, and about those programs, that we have. and we know that california did have passed a employment first policy recently, which is fantastic. and but not a lot of dollars to back it up but we are still looking to the state to be able to provide the funding to support the employment for the folks with developmental disabilities and it is still an ongoing struggle. and with that, i will turn it over to my team, and promise to stay within our time. i would like to introduce, tina from the employment services department and talk about placement in the individual placement. >> i promise to keep it brief, only ten minutes for me, just kidding. thank you for the opportunity, of being able to present to you. i am the job developer with tool works. and i have been doing that for over 28 years. and i am still doing it.

and my program has been serving adults with disabilities through on you the bay area and with the special emphasis on serving the people who are deaf and hard of hearing. we assess and prepare those refer by the state department that we have, for job readiness and skills and then partner with the job seeker to assist in the job search process with the role of finding a position that they are qualified for, and with a variety of supports/accommodations as-needed. and including, even sign language classes. at the work site. and our job seekers reflect the larger community in which we all live and work. representing a wide variety of skills and talents, and entry level to professional. and we strongly focus on helping the individual learn as best as they can the tools that they need and can use, to look for a job and land a job, and

keep it. and we have developed the strong partnerships with the employers over the years who look to us and i am happy to say, and unless as a staffing service, referring them candidates who are prepared, and motivated and supported. and these partnerships are valuable and as it allows the door to be opened to consideration. and often times, a job offers the result. and in the past, we looked to government, for these partnerships, and or this leadership. federal state and local agencies. but not so much these days, as you all know. the private sector has been more affirmative, and accessible to our community and hopefully this will change and it really needs to change. many times even very large employers will tell me very sincerely that we don't have any employees with disabilities here. and my reaction which i don't

always voice, is oh, yes you do. but you just are not aware of that due to fear of disclosure and possible discrimination. and the reaction is well why don't you? and there are hundreds of persons working who have benefited from tool works, and employment services program. and i am happy to say that tool works walk the walk and actively recruits, and employees and persons with disabilities, and i am very pleased to introduce you to one person now who will tell you her story, and her name is nelly hoff and here is lily. >> hi, thank you for having me here today. i graduated from a college

called rit, in 2008. i moved here to san francisco in 2009, to look for a job in the bay area. i looked for two years, no luck. oh, one thing that i wanted to mention is that i graduated with two degrees. a bs in psychology, i am sorry. bs in criminal justice and a ba in psychology. and i looked for a job for two years with no luck. i was looking for a job in my field. there was no entry level opportunities. they all required a lot of experience or advanced degrees. i had experienced a lot of different internships. and during my search i decided to volunteer to get more experience still no luck.

vr referred me to tool works, to work with tina. tina set me up with an interview at tool works, and they hired me as an on-call staff for the community integration program to work out in the community with adults with developmental disabilities. after two months, i transferred to work with the community living department, where i worked with clients in their homes. i was promoted to facilitater after some time. last year, i became the lead facilitater and i just recently, applied for another position. i applied for another job and i hope to be promoted next month.

and tool works has really provided me with a lot of training and a lot of support. and they have been and i have had the opportunity to learn a lot. there have been access to interpreters, video phones, so i can make connections, and resources in the community, to my clients. and so, tool works has offered me that training to move up. thank you. >> so, goit i got two minutes, we are almost to the end of mark's, and my name is sarah and i work at tool works and i do many things here obviously, but one of the things that i do is i am a ticket to work specialist and a dei department. and so, i work out of one of the neighborhood access points,

the comprehensive access point at mission and eleventh. and i provide ticket to work services to clients who come in to the center, specifically what or who we serve as people, looking for benefits counseling and so we talk with folks about what it would look like to go back to work and what that would look like with the benefits. and so, we provide a lot of support in that way. and what we are finding is that the primary goal of our program is to place individuals in to job opportunities, but, with the support of ticket to work program, where we are able to do that with them. and so the education that we have we can give to our clients. >> next, i want vira to come up and talk about our internship

program really quick. >> my name is vira and i will keep it to 30 seconds, she mentioned that the internships would be a great step, i manage the programs in partnership with ucsf medical center and the public utility commission and we started off small, but you know we started off with three interns four years ago and now we have 19 intern and four sites and we placed people in ucsf making an average of $25 an hour. and so we are really proud about how, you know, we opened up this dialogue with ucsf and the california public utilities commission and the departments talked about, you know, this program is great and how do we get involved with this? the project search, is an educational tool for the whole site and the interns involved and it educates them on how to work with the individual with disability and give the interns the opportunity to be immersed

in a setting while being with their on site job coach and also starts the dialogue about the people with disabilitied being employed. this is mainly through the inner department, dialogue about how this program has been and how they want to participate in this program. a partnership of the city and county of san francisco to bring the projects for staoet and county is one way to address the desire of the city of san francisco to be diverse in the workforce and to use the rule, 115 to the advantage of the citizens of san francisco and we have a viable pool of qualified work ready candidates that will access, and the circle of support and will continue to facilitate the entry point will be to connect the ability to opportunity and thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you guys so much. >> questions? from the council members? >> we can start with co-chair

supanich. >> this question is actually for the woman sited behind mark, you mentioned the ticket to work program and i am not completely familiar with that, could we get the information sent to our council clerk? >> sure. >> thank you. >> and i just have one quick question for the last speaker regarding internships. what is your name. >> vira. >> and so my question to you is when you started these internship programs was there a model that you were going off of? or in a way did you just kind of from the ground up. >> had is the project search model that started 20 years ago out of children's hospital of cincinnati and so supervisor mar mentioned the alameda county, that they have, and it has been about 9 years since they started terry from the arc has the pg&e. >> and as far as it being a model as far as replicating for

the city level, you know, as far as the way that it incorporated and the way that increased the employment and do you feel that is a good model to go off of? >> i think that it is a great model to go off of and it is an entry point and you you know the people we talked about the fear that hesitantcy about employing the people with disabilities because a lot of people don't have the experience of working with the people with disabilities it is a great model because the interns get to try the city out and the city gets to try the interns out and thes a win/win. >> the city gets to see folks in the work environment before they make that hire and so it is an opportunity to educate the department heads to share that knowledge with other department heads to come to see the intern that i have and also gives an opportunity for the city to assess the folks that are actually interning who might be applying for that 115, rule, position. >> great, and thank you very much. >> and comments to the questions from the staff?

>> no, thank you so much. >> we will go ahead to jessy lorenz the executive director of independent living resource center of san francisco. >> thank you. >> carla, could you show anywhere the mic is please, thank you. >> jessy lorenz, independent living resource center san francisco, thank you so much council members for taking up this very, very important issue. the independent living resource center of san francisco is funded in large part through a partners with the department of rehabilitation. and the department of rehabilitation is in the business of trying to get people jobs and the independent resource center of san francisco we are in the business of working with those people to insure that those

jobs are accessible and that the people have skills to fill those jobs. and i want to react to a couple of things that i heard today because i am excited and inspired and i think that you all should think about a becon award for what is going on in the library and i don't know if marti is still here. >> it is an amazing example of what city departments should be striving for. and but in addition to that, as i am sitting in the audience through the hearing, i heard a lot of comments under the people's breath about the anxiety about this process and i think that we all need to be honest about where we are talking about a very large people who as a society we have systematically devalued for centuries. and think about how we talk about people with disabilities. we say, oh, mary went out on disability, and as though mary never intended to come back. and think about how we talk about people as they age and,

they are going to be a lot more people who are older, and then insist on being part of the workforce and we say that we retired. but, in fact if you look at population trends, retired adult and americans and many who will have physical limitations those folks are going to be part of the workforce of the future. and so when you are thinking about the disability, and i will encourage you not to try to put the people in boxes. and because, the box that you put me in is the same box that you may be in tomorrow. and if we really looking at creating the workforce that represents all of our communities, and we need to start, from the premise that all of our citizens are valuable and all of our citizens have something to contribute. and at the independent living resource centers in san francisco, we strive to eliminate buyers and president and to help the people with disabilities think of what they have and what they bring to the table is valuable. and we see value in all of our communities members and some of

the services that we provide, related to employing individuals with disabilities include, intensive benefits counciling and like i said before, going out on disability and sometimes that step of going back to work and needing to figure out how to negotiate your benefit system, and it can be a barrier for people and we provide internships and counseling and we are eager to help the city of san francisco continue their effort to meaningful employ the people with disabilities, and then lastly. i just have to put in a plug for tool works, my agency recently moved and we were in the market for janitorial services and now we are using tool works and i am literally getting people saying that our place is beautiful and clean and so, go to tool works and they practice what they preach,

so thank you so much. >> thank you, miss lorenz, are there any comments or questions from the council members? >> i hope not. >> seeing none. >> enough time for me to start being shy. >> and seeing none, any questions or comments from the staff? >> okay. and thank you. >> thank you very much. >> okay, next on the agenda is moving quickly before we get to information item 9, our with a presentation by maria su, we will want to go over some public comments. >> and employment issues. and first up, we have lea, vanderm a?

hi, good afternoon, and emily, and i am with the california academy of sciences and i manage the public floor and i am a member of the (inaudible) and the serve as the ada coordinator for the academy and in the spare time and you know the academy is committed to the practice and we are a honored to be a part of the discussion today and a lot of people have touched on internship and employment programs but at the academy in the last five years we have hired five individuals with disabilities in my department alone and it is the wonderful partnership of the arc of san francisco and they are a guiding force to us and in the summer we started a internship, with access sfd, and that serves youth, 18 to 22 and currently we are in talks with the arc about starting in january, and so we are not only looking at job placement we are looking at job development. and a lot of people have talked about kind of the anxiety and the hesitantcy of the internship being the stepping

stone into the job placement and we also see it as setting up the employees for success. and our current interns that i was working with them today. and they are so much more ready for the next step and for the job because they have actually had an opportunity to do the job and it is not just about us getting them a job it is do they want to have this job, it needs to be a good fit for them. and so any way, i am drinking the cool-aid like everyone else here, but ates wonderful opportunity and it is exciting to see these discussions happening, thank you. >> thank you. and i forgot to mention for those who wants to give the comment public, fill out a comment card at the front. >> next up we have marla mcdunal from the golden gate regional center. >> i also want to say thank you to everybody for your efforts and for particularly, highlighting this issue now. and most of you probably know, that employment for folks with

disabilities, is a huge issue for this state. and there of course we did pass the employment first law. and that in february and it is also a huge issue for the feds the department of justice is coming in to some states, and compelling them to follow, you know, their, the time line that they set in the process that they set to include people. in a more comprehensive way, and we have a lot of, and we really truly have a lot of great ideas and, a lot of great resources here, and in san francisco, across the state, across the country, that we could benefit from. and we need to really get together and we need the commitment and we need the leadership to make this stuff happen. and we are so fortunate to be in san francisco, and i am

so..., but i also want to just mention that one of the other wonderful things about san francisco is what we have been able to accomplish in all areas of civil rights. like, in san francisco. and why are we not dealing with the disability in the same way and we should have a parade. and why not? right? >> let me see. heather is the program in seattle and she is the person who went in by herself, and developed her process and has gotten people in and now works for the human resources department in seattle. and she is, we are in touch and she is coming down to san francisco for at holidays. and so it will be great to make

some connections. she has done some really exciting stuff, and i certainly don't want to speak for her and i hope that she has a chance to speak for herself with you folks, again, thank you so much to everyone. >> thank you. >> next, we have ann stiener with the sf committee for employment with persons with disabilities. >> good afternoon, everyone. and thank you. i gosh, i have been working in disability employment primarily here in the bay area for more than 35 years, and i am currently because of a family matter, hopefully just temporarily retired and however, i am still an officer, and i am first vice chair of the san francisco mayor's committee on the employment with persons with disability and i also have a special connection with san francisco and with your rule 115 program.

and in 1981 or 82, i was working for the human resources designing and implementing a grant funded special hiring program for people with disabilities and we had gotten a grant from the state personnel board to do that and i got a call from my former colleagues at the former at the time, colleagues, at the san francisco mayor's committee, and saying that they were having a very, very hard time getting rule 34, passed and getting the attention and getting the consideration of the board of supervisors. they asked me, since i had had the experience, doing it, and a similar program, and then they knew who i was, they asked if i would please come up and go to a subcommittee meeting. the day the evening that i was standing in front of supervisor (inaudible) and to talk about the effort and to endorse and encourage the adoption that took several years as you

realize now to get rule 34 going, the first thing that he said to me with a stern voice was, tell me miss stiener, how this is not a special preferences program. everything else kind of fell from there. that is one of the main reasons why we are looking at entry levels positions only and that is also one of the problems with one of these special hiring program it in some people's minds reinforces that is all that the people with disabilities can do which is not so good. and also, not all people with disabilities feel comfortable being out in the workplace as a person with a disability. and the people do not want to be identified that way. we, the san francisco mayor's committee in the process of planning our fifth annual employment networking and recruitment event and a successful invitational event for the community agencies and the employees that participate

with us. does that mean that my time is up. >> 30 seconds. >> shoot. >> okay, i am going to skip that. don't let rule 115 be the only thing that you do, you need multiple measures if you want the people to come out and do a bunch of things at the same time, get in groups, and get the older workers groups and you will be amazed what kind of happens, the kind of buzz that brings, and also you need, the support from the top. and you need a person who is your point person on employment, who has some kind of passion for the subject. for whom it is not just a collateral duty and i could say a lot more obviously. but i will defer. and if anybody wants to contact me, i will be more than glad to sit down with you and offer other suggestions and observations from over the years. thank you. >> thank you. >> are there any other comments on the employment section for the public comment?