take this stanford hotel that had a really bad reputation. they have renovated it and opening it up for 125 veterans. in august approximately 100 volunteers combed the city looking for homeless veterans looking in the streets, shelters, transitional housing programs and they took with them what's called a vi -- vulnerability index service planning and assistance tool, a tool to assess vulnerability in any population, but we used it with veterans, we questioned them on mental health, age, incarceration, homelessness. over 200 veterans were assessed during this effort and to date over 600 have been assessed. this is a huge chunk of

that 716. 125 of these veterans are going to be moving into kearney street, 250 kearney street facility. the va and city got together and collaborated to make this happen. so once it's full, we will be managing some of the work there will be providing the 24/7 coverage where we have monitors to make sure everybody is safe. this is a really great thing and we are very appreciative of the people that have come together to make this work. i know i'm running out of time. i just want to close by saying that i think the collaboration is critical and that this is going to take everyone working together as partners. everyone has to work together, agencies, hud, the city, the va, it is going to take like

hilary clinton said, "it's going to take a village" to get through this. i would like to quote -- "we need the vision of inter being, we belong together. we could not cut reality into pieces. the well being of this, is the well being of that. we have to do things together. veterans have experienced that make them the light at the tip of the candle and the war and the way to peace" in healing the wounds of war, we are ultimately healing ourselves. thank you so much for having us here today. >> thank you, questions from the council? i believe we have one from councilmember lara? >> i made notes on

questions. specifically through your speech i crossed them off. you covered a lot of areas in a very short time and i really appreciate your comments. >> councilmember kostanian? >> thank you for coming. you mentioned there were a number of people being incarcerated. can you tell me the percentage? >> i don't have the percentage, you mean the number of veterans that make-up the population? i don't have the percentage. but we can give you our e-mail and get back to you. that is another challenge with veterans with legal issues. unfortunately those legal issues result because of symptoms with ptsd. we have numerous cases when the police pull somebody over they have this guy in a uniform in a gun and leaning in a

window and it triggers them right back to the conflict. it is very serious. i'm glad that veterans court is up and running and we routinely take veterans out of jail and into our program as an arrangement. a lot of times they don't have a place to go and the va has staff that's dedicated and that's their job is to work in the jail with veterans to see if theca range for some type of soft landing in the community. >> back in the 70s or 80s i held support groups for veterans for ptsd. i noticed that some who were incarcerated, they really couldn't figure out why they did that. i'm just hoping that a lot more some covered. >> why they did kwha they did?

yeah, the emotional flooding when that occurs, the executive portion of the brain stops working and a lot of times there won't be a memory of what exactly happened. it's like having a blackout when somebody goes into that intense emotional reaction. >> thank you. >> councilmembers senhaux? >> i want to thank you for your presentation and being here today. i don't have any questions, just comments. i appreciate you giving me a better perspective on issues with veterans. a lot of times you see them on the street and they look drunk or high and we don't think of what caused them to get to that point such as examples you gave us and the correlation with disabilities and how the disabilities perspectives

in finding employment and housing opportunities. besides the horror stories i was happy to hear there are great success stories with the va and getting treatment and helping people get off the street and house them because they are a very valuable asset and they have served their country and they deserve the best they can get. i thank you for the work you do and for being here. >> thank you, one thing i didn't say was that one reason we know that the wounds can be healed is when we see their faces when they get an apartment or a job, you see the look of relief. you see the transformation. it's awesome to witness. >> i just had one quick question and comment. first thank you for coming here today and discussing

this matter. often we see in the disability community, people who do not know about veterans, they know about it but it's always something that they heard from someone else or part of a presentation. what do you see from the veteran population kant great more or where we can connect more to be more part of the community. i know the va plays a strong role in the service they provide but as far as extending that to other community agencies or other events to host where just anybody can connect with them better. i speak as a person with a disability, i would love to connection with that section of the disability community. it just seems kind of closed off. >> one idea is city college, for example has a veterans group

and social events open to everyone sponsored by such group maybe one way to enhance interactions between the civilian population and veterans. i think organizations, volunteer activities. i know the mindfulness community has started to reach out to the veteran population and are holding meditation retreats open to veterans and also their families and maybe expanding those sorts of social possibilities may be a way to move forward, maybe the various faith traditions can allow for activities that would provide more opportunities for people to meet each other. but it

is, you know, one of the challenges is that with returning troops, based on, depending on what they have experienced is they really don't feel like they can connect with someone who has been where they were so they don't feel they can relate. so that is a huge challenge, and unfortunately as a society, we are not exposed to that. we are protected from that. back in the 60s we saw the war come into living room on television every night, but now we are insulated. we don't get what it's like being back there. a huge piece of it is higher awareness on the part of us here that have not been there. i think that's really

important. the feeling that maybe we understand a little bit better. we can't never really understand but that we actually have a higher awareness would go a long way in promoting more interaction. >> thank you. i too feel there is a gap that is kind of missing that we are taught for support the troops. we see that in commercials going there and being there and coming home and welcoming a kid that surprises them but there is a gap that is never shown to the public. for the public to understand this, that gap needs to be filled. i really appreciate what you do. questions from the staff? we had one more comment. councilmember harriet wong?

>> perhaps in terms of social events, social connections for veterans, last year the san francisco veterans lions club was formed and they have had a tremendous growth in their club. so if anyone wants to google, i think her name is los os -- latonia humming bird. she will connect you with activities. lions is worldwide and we serve our communities and people. >> wonderful. >> i would like to make one last comment. it's latonia dixon.

she's very active in the community. >> thank you very much. >> with that, we will adjourn for a a >> next item. information item. recommendation for employers highering veterans. if you want to hold public comment to ensure that all three presentations. if anyone would like to make a comment. so we can recognize you. >> good afternoon. my name is christopher dame. workforce liaison for plow shares as well as my

experience as a swords client. i transitioned out of the military january 2012. i went to school, i had a family. in fact let me preface that by saying that i deployed twice. i was in the army for four 4 years. 50 months, i served in active duty. during those months, 27 of them were spent in iraq. i spent 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011. i come home and i think i can get a job and take care

of my family and be a productive person in society. that didn't happen. i ended up homeless with my family, we were pending homelessness twice, i was with va and different community resources. i have heard about swords before but it wasn't what i thought i needed but when i connected in there, they trained me in work. for a whole year i was getting contacted by my manager. what kind of job can you do, what skills do you have, what is it that you are not willing to do? i said i'm in school, i don't want to do anything. i'm good. i realize now that the reason i didn't want to jump back into the workforce is i didn't feel i was adequate enough after failing. it took a sit down

conversation with my case manager and she took the time to ask me those hard questions. what is it you want to do? do you have credentials for that or the other? and most of my responses were no, but she kept at it and one 1 day i got a call saying there was a job at plow shares. i said since it's you, i will try it out and five 5 months ago i started my job at swords and plow shares and i have been promoted since then. the reason i bring this up is because i had a hard time transitioning between this job and getting a chance and the reason was due to my invisible wounds that leo

was nice to profile. so irritability, being unable to really function to capacity, to the capacity that i knew i could function at was a real issue. i didn't look at it as a disability because according to the state of california, my disability rating says it allows me to continue in gainful employment which mees i'm not disabled and when i would be faced with the question "are you disabled? ". i didn't know how to answer because i don't seem disabled. however that's not the case and that is the case for many of our veterans, for many of my cohort and many of the people we serve and swords of plow shares. at swords of plow

shares we recognize that it's a dual approach to getting services for the veterans. it's not just a job. if we could not put an employee with an employer that is a specific match that's going to work, we burn that bridge and we also set that veteran up for failure. that's what we strive not to do. with plows shares and employment training they recognized my barriers and they said this is something ugg -- you can do and sure enough i met the expectations way beyond myself and that's what employers need to

understand as mindful they can be with regular ada situations, a veteran who may or may not display permanent or physical or non-physical disabilities is something they should really keep in mind is that they can still work, they can still be gainful employees. more importantly i believe, kevin will talk about this more is that you are not taking a risk with a veteran especially when you are talking about our employment and training. over 65 percent of those who are replaced in job kept their job for at least six 6 months. you do not take a risk when you bring on a veteran because of supposed disabilities. a reasonable accommodation is the same reasonable accommodation that we want our employers to keep in mind. we are not going to send our veterans to

a construction place to do a job if they need a service dog. we are mindful ourselves because it's a dual can an -- customer approach. we want to stress the fact that our veterans are not going to be just sent to you because they are veterans and we don't want some type of sympathy. we do want sympathy, understanding a reasonable accommodation for a non-veteran is a same accommodation for a veteran. that's what our employment training program does. we take anybody that comes to that oofs that says i want to be trained and we assess them case by case by

individual. i'm a staff sergeant in the united states army. i take my so you -- soldier and you say what's good for my unit, what's good for my soldier. that's what we do for our veteran clients. we say what is good for you? how can we help you? and how do we maintain our employment services? that's it. any questions? >> we have a question from councilmember lara. >> thank you for being here. those of you who know my relationship with swords, is exactly what i felt i was going through. when i was in

the military, i had trouble getting around for employment. me going to swords, i was a client. they worked with me on my resume and made sure that i took advantage of all of my benefits that made me unique. i was offered a position and since then in five years 5 years i have had a lot of opportunities within the organization and it's unanimously that my superiors would say that i have displayed above reproach and that my relationship within the community has also grown. i really want to thank you for sharing that part of your story and approaching this topic about employment as a way to highlight the veterans with disabilities are just parts of our community and that these special accommodations are no additional accommodations for anyone else particularly with unemployment.

>> thank you, any other questions of councilmembers? councilmember senhaux? >> i want to thank you for being here. your presentation was very impressive. i thank you for sharing parts of yourself and struggles that you went through with your family. i think that you are amazing not just from what you have been through but sitting here with your knowledge and experience not only from a disability perspective. you look at concerns from an employer and client from someone that has been through the services and you see this from both ends and how you approach and look at things and look at the clients and set them up for success. too often we don't see people in key positions who have the full scope of understanding from a visual perspective and i like

how you appreciated reasonable accommodations for a veteran and non-veterans. i congratulate you on your job. thank you. >> thank you for coming here and sharing your experiences. i had a couple of questions. this happens with any speaker coming from a different sector of society. you mentioned disability rating. could you speak a little bit more about that and explain that more in terms so we can understand that with how that works. >> without going into too much detail, there is a service disconnect iv disability that the va rates you at. depending on the disability that are applied for and valid, it's not a rating that i'm equipped to do that, but i will say that when you look at the requirements to be fully disabled in california compared to

being disabled in the va perspective, they are different. for instance if i wanted to get an rtc card? >> san francisco, i can do that based on my rating. however if i want a disabled rate for my license plate or something from that nature from california, i would not meet that requirement. that is one of those things that raises questions as to am i disabled or not? am i being recognized for what i have or not? is it going to help me or not? that's the stigma, it definitely creates a barrier on both sides for the employer and effective employee. >> as a quick follow up to that, this is me speaking out of ignorance and

not knowing, it sounds to me as you serve you come back, i don't want to say trapped, but like a rating as a veteran it's like you cannot separate from that as getting the same experience as a civilian with disability. for example if i was a civilian with disability going to the station on howard for seeking a job or vocational rehabilitation or accommodation for a workplace, they would get a doctor or someone to do an assessment and i would get a job and move forward, but it sounds to me this is something much harsher or sister viewing of the rating system. is

this because you are rated only as a veteran? >> i can't speak for all of them because i don't know what's available for a civilian but most of what are available to civilians are available to veterans. it's just a matter of that veteran being pointed in one direction. one thing we tend to do in communities is you are a veteran, go to this veteran place. it's not only can you get this, you can get that. don't worry about your status being veteran or not. depends on how you define veteran or whose definition you are going by, you may or may not be a veteran. there is a lot of gray area, but conversations like this and committee and council's like this are helping to bridge that gap and we are more mindful in bringing ibs

to -- issues to the forefront. >> thank you for that highlight in that area. >> thank you very much for your presentation. i wanted to make some clarifications for the public and also bridge the gap. we talk about disability under the state of california. you talked about disabled placards. let's just clarify a couple of things. all the issues that you mentioned are services, are benefits. they are not part of the civil rights or equal rights clause that are under the ada. so as a person with a disability, all you require to qualify for equal treatment and reasonable accommodations in the workplace is to have a form, any form of visible or

invisible physical or mental impairment that impacts a person's life activities. that is how you are defined as a person with a disability. it doesn't matter how that irritability or if it's war related. ptsd, civilian related exposure to violence or mental helthsdz health -- and neurological order, what they need to do is provide that level of civil rights to the client. the term disability gets misrepresented and miss quoted a lot, right. we as a society have an image of what a disability is and a stigma of what

disabled people can and cannot do, but in terms of employment. we are not talking about special privileges, we are talking about a right to accommodations. like a disability. that is true, simply because you meet the definition of a disability. now, if we are talking about much -- money and services, those are social welfare rules and regulations that has nothing to do with everybody having equal rights and reasonable affordable accommodations. i hope that you as helping veterans that you build the connection for people who have invisible or visible to the mainstream

disability community because as you heard at the beginning of this presentation, the history supports that connection. so thank you again for bringing that up. >> i absolutely agree with what you just said. the reason i brought up those benefits is because it creates an image in a person's mind that once again am i or not entitled to reasonable accommodations or not. if a person is more informed like we attempt to do here at swords and in this council, if we can get that information out and that doesn't have anything to do with it if you are as you are, but right now, i bring that up because i didn't have an answer for myself. >> i think the situation is similar with people with mental health issues. we have