>> >> pretty much a lot of places were closed down and no disrespect to the womens but i got closed down and i am 24 hours a day. the thing is -- [inaudible] i need a place to stay. hamilton is nice but i see improvement. sleep on the jail bed. okay. maybe that's the best you could do but hamilton did give me room and board and i love the staff

there but you have to make it more family friendly and card toonos the wall and the food and kid friendly and my son is not eating and it's like dog food and no disrespect to the place but this is my experience. i walk through the city of san francisco. i look at all of million dollar buildings and i was born and raised here and see all of the buildings and what are you doing for the kids here? it's about the kids. i have a eight year old boy. i love him but i am looking for a better place for him. you know me. i am looking for help. i don't know if you do anything for guys. i don't know but if you want to experience what i experience and grand a nephew or niece and with a suitcase and find resources. now calling for a bed. if you don't get a bed you will sleep on the floor period. on a jail bed, jail

pillow. that's what it is so i don't want to sugar coat it and they need more places like the hamilton. they do. the staff is great but make the food a little kid friendly and change the bed if you could, the jail beds if you could if you can find the money. put some cartoons -- i am sure you can find artists in san francisco to paint the walls -- if i can ask you to wrap up and we appreciate you waiting. >> >> thank you. it's just emotional. i am emotional. it's like fire works and everywhere so i try to keep composure with my son and going to be all right. like right now he knows i'm going to a meeting and going to ask how it goes and i don't know. i have to ask you guys and have the same experience and walk the streets

and pretend you don't have a place to go and where are you going? you will sleep on the floor. you need more places like this with beds. >> thank you so much for coming to speak. i'm going to call up 10 speaker cards. [calling speaker names] >> good evening. i am wilma and a grandmother -- >> if you don't mind speaking into the mic and the meetings are recorded so people can hear. >> thank you. i am a

grandmother and work and go to school here and grew up in san francisco haitd ashbury and want to thank pl lee for cleaning up the streets up and i am at the hamilton family shelter and it's hard. and i have grandkids skipping houses and having one graduating in new orleans and this is one and at john mu and made me. >> >> feel like a human being again and i can wash and clean and i can sleep by myself and i prayed. i asked mr. lee and also wrote senator boxer and asked for the 13th street center so we can wash the clothes and kids and you have no place. i am at the hamilton and i am appreciative of the roof over my head and the food and we have

technology -- we got a dollar for a bus stop and -- [inaudible] i want to be here and go to school. i don't want to go outside the city. this is my city. i want the city to be given back to the families and open your hearts and money to us and at 13th street center and i want to thank senator boxer and mr. lee again. >> thank you. i know it's hard to get the stories out and it's a time constraint. >> good afternoon commissioners and supervisors. my name is helen lamar and i am the executive director of the providence foundation who works in coordination with some of the members and hamilton and others to provide emergency shelter. we operate three sites in the city and one is the friendship

baptist church and have spaces for homeless families. we built a 73 unit building in which we put 55 homeless families with a total of 120 children. we have been in operation since 1997 and our main focus is homelessness. we have three shelters and at one point we had five but we do house people that are in need. we feed them and clothe them when necessary as well as give them emergency shelter each night. we have been doing this since the year 2000 sounded by the city and county of san francisco -- funded by the city and county of san francisco. thank you. >> thank you. i called up eight other speakers. at any time please come up. feel free

to line up. >> [speaking spanish] good afternoon. >> her name is maria. >> [speaking spanish] >> she was homeless. she didn't know where she go. she didn't have a job, no where to go and has a daughter 10 years old and she was a single mother. she went to the different shelters. [speaking spanish]

>> and she finally accepted in the shelter -- [inaudible] and she don't know how -- give food to her daughter and she finally -- i don't know at the house. >> [speaking spanish] >> thank you. >> thank you for speaking. >> good evening board of supervisors and commissioners. my name is judy and i'm the united families coordinator of [inaudible] and i am here to read a letter from a client in a sro and not able to come here. march 2014 is when i came to california from the philippines and excited and hope that our life would be better and u.s. is

a first world country. however when we arrived life was not as good as expected. during the first few days we transferred from one residence to another because we didn't have money to rent rooms or have jobs because we had to wait for social security cards and id. fortunately we got food stamps to help and we found a hotel on market street -- [inaudible] it's too hard to apply for low income housing. since this time we suffer too much airchg wis -- we encounter anxiety everyday and due to the bed bugs and and interrupted our sleep. i send my clinics to checkup and

cleanups and the ventilation is not good and all of us get sick because four of share the same bed at night, but despite there are families and others to help us attain the dreams of the future. we understand the homelessness cannot be solved and if the city government would invest in this. thank you. >> thank you. >> [speaking foreign language]

>> (paused). >> thank you.

>> [speaking foreign language] >> i lived in an sro in chinatown for over eight years. [speaking foreign language] >> i am very happy to share with you that i moved into a new apartment last month because of a program called loft and it's very difficult living in a sro. [speaking foreign language]

>> okay. however there are still over 450 families living in chinatown sros. i hope the government can do something to help these families to have adequate housing. thank you. >> can i ask were you placed in affordable housing or placed in private? >> they were referred to an apartment in chinatown. >> great. thank you. congratulations. >> [speaking foreign language] >> hi. supervisors and commissioners. i am julie. i live in chinatown sro building.

[speaking foreign language] >> i'm a single mom with my son living in a very tiny room. [speaking foreign language] >> i wish could afford (paused)[speaking foreign

language] >> i know that there is a pief year plan to -- five year plan to end family homelessness. i

hope this plan can become a reality so many families can benefit and have better housing. [speaking foreign language] >> i hope i would be one of the lucky family that get into the housing so my son will have a good place to study, to live and that's my wish. [speaking foreign language]

>> so i hope that our city departments and supervisors could support this five year plan so our families have a better place. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> thank you ms. lee. i'm going to call up more because i realize we have one more speaker. [calling speaker names] oh i'm sorry. i am still calling names and we have one more speaker if you don't mind up lining up. the line is over there. >> [inaudible] >> she is speaking ahead. feel free to line up.

[calling speaker names] >> [speaking foreign language] >> supervisors and commissioners good afternoon. [speaking foreign language] >> i am glad to have the opportunity to speak before you. [speaking foreign language] . i live in chinatown sro building and there are three people in my family. >> [speaking foreign language]

>> my son and husband live in this unit. (change of captioners).

>> so it's pretty bad for a kid to grow up. [translator] >> we are very supportive of the five-year plan that is proposed. [translator] >> we hope the city would pass this proposal. translator: we need more housing for low-income people.

translator: so that our families will have decent housing, our kids will have a good place for them to live and study. so that homeless families homeless people would have housing. translator: for a long time our hope is to have a good housing for our children. [beep] translator: i urge everyone to help us fulfill our dream to have kids better housing for our families. thank you. >> thank you very much for coming to speak and thank you

mrs. chu for translating. >> i have a speaker card too. >> i hope to tell people there is hope for the homelessness in our city. recently as our families moved into an apartment, that is a concerted effort -- of hsa, housing developers and also the mayor's office of housing. we think things can happen. and make such a difference for families that can move into decent housing. it's really a big deal. however, those opportunities are very few. i hope that there is a way for us to do it and san francisco does know how to make that happen. right before us the five-year

plan is things that are possible they are things that the city all of us can work on to make it happen. so thank you for the hearing, thank you for making this topic for us to look at discuss, make real thank you. >> thank you mrs. chu, i know you have been in this position for 24 years now at ccdc, and great to hear you say that we can end this issue, there is hope. call the number of speaker cards, please feel free to come up. if not, i will call other speaker calls i haven't called yet. i have elizabeth arker, and jenny frigenbot. >> a couple from the previous batch. >> i did and no one came up. if you stand, so i have a sense.

[speaking spanish] translator: good afternoon, i am bess vanquez i have two children one is 14 years old. [speaking spanish] translator: i really appreciate that my children are really good. i like to work i am a

hard-working person, nevertheless i do not have a house and i need a house. [speaking spanish] translator: i am originally from honduras however the situation in honduras is difficult because of the crime, i am here to work and hope for a better future for my children and i. [speaking spanish] translator: thanks in advance for your help i encourage you to keep supporting the initiatives for housing, the future of our city is the children, and that's the way we

will stand up. gracias. >> gracias. >> good afternoon, i am raul fernandez, i am here with bay family united collaborative. i promise to be brief, i thank you for your time. as we know san francisco is facing an unprecedented housing crisis, some believe that between 7,000 and 10,000 homeless individual probably 3,000 homeless children enrolled in san francisco unified school district. as we know that the average range of $3,000 and the average income is 1500.

and [inaudible] for homeless families, i don't need to elaborate because probably of you know rooms 6 x 6, and rooms 10 x 10 and if you stretch your arms you touch each wall and they have lead and asbestos and you name it, and they go for as high as 1100 or 1200. it's difficult for homeless families to live under these circumstances. in the collaborative starting in 2001, and since we been able to transition 40 families into supportive housing. 18 of them came in the broadway sampson apartments that my supervisor, mrs. chiu was talking about recently. and these families with the subsidies and the solution that we propose, and homeless and

chinatown cdc to transition these familys to housing, i think is realistic. san francisco is [inaudible] in united states, and only 2% of the budget is dedicated to homelessness. so i appreciate your support of this initiative. >> thank you. >> hi i am elizabeth anchor the program director at compass point, we holder of wait list i have been there eight years and we have seen the numbers going up they went from 77 in 2008 all the way to 287. and during that time there is two times that we have seen the wait-list numbers go down in 2011 and the homeless authority

came through. and the next time was in the last year and a half and we have had 125 chronically homeless families and taken them out of the system as a result the number has gone down significantly, and 137 families are waiting for shelter. those permits for housing units are now full. and we don't have any supportive housing units in the pipeline, and we are looking at that resource to slow down and looking to those wait list numbers to go back to eight or nine or 10 months to wait for shelter. if we don't aggressively look for concrete solutions for homeless we will see those numbers go back up we are a community and knows what works. and we