job. basically i'm glad to hear that this program, ace, is in place from last year and progressing very well from what i'm hearing. so, just kind of want to hear or not hear, but just want to figure out how we can outreach employers that may have people to fail to be more employable. to make it happen more-instead of after the fact. i don't think a lot of employers know there are potential people out there that they go to school and graduate from college but some how or another they cannot find a job because

they do need some accommodation and half the time they won't accommodate them. i'm glad that now we will move forward and hopefully maybe we can draft up a support letter from the council and to move this to basically get more people employed. thank you. >> thank you councilmember wong. i just want to add a comment, i want to thank you for the patience with the ajnda going back and forth and the presenters who came up and spoke and gave their purb spective on the initiatives. we agree a lot of work needs to be done with people of disabilities and how employers view those differences and be educated more and reasonable accommodation and get people with disabilities into had work

force so i thank you for the work we are doing and we will continue partnering with you. unless there are changes to thugenda i will go back to information item 7, which is personal employment perspective. sleckds selection of diverseome ployee with viz and invisible employee for transforming the city and count of affsan francisco. we have two presenters unless that changed. the first speaker will be joanna fugullee who is deputy director. the next person is anne [inaudible] with sutainable streets coordinator, san francisco municipalagy

agency. thank you cochair. my name is joanna fughouly. i usually sit on the other side the table, however, today i'm one of my peers. i have the fun part the agenda which is introduce a group of fellow employees, all of whom entered the cities hiring process not through rule 115 and unfortunately the weather and the seasonal flu has gotten a hold of us so 2 of our group members are not here today. they are the folks with invisibility disabilities. however, i want to alert you at some point we may be joined via the bridge line from one other employee, one other fellow colleague who is deaf and could not be

present today, but she will be calling to share her experience through the bridge line. so, my personal experience started all most 10 years ago and it was directly with the mayors office of disability. i had a long career doing other things, taking a break to go to graduate school and working in sacramento and was sick of the commute, so i looked for a opportunity closer to home and the position of public access became available. so, i just throw my hat in the ring not knowing it was actually quite a competitive process. thankfully i didvent to take a civil service exam, however, i had to go through a series of interviews

and different types of testing. testing about my ada knowledge and testing about my ability to quickly right and draft complaints based on an analysis and this is where it it became tricky. in the city hiring process it is not just the department that is involved, but it is the whole different section with the departmental personnel officers or the hr staff. when i first appeared for my onsight interview, thankfully i showed up about half hour urmy because i end up getting stuck on the lift, the wheelchair lift out at city hall. i joke i got injob because

people felt bad for me. so, anyhow, the issue-after i made it to my nrbt view i was then told i needed to go and take a timed written test and the interesting thing about that is that timing works and i can show my skills however, not prepared the fact i had to quickly work on a computer keyboard i have to request accommodations for that. for those who cannot see me, i have very significant hand or upper body mobility so in order to effectively work on speedy word processing tasks i use a special software called [inaudible]

naturally speaking. that wasn't available. i think this would be a opportunity to ask for a accommodation, it wasn't part the exam or that process, so that brings me to the first barrier that exists in a lot of our processes. this whole communication from the hr staff that scheduled the interviews to the individual who may or may not be aware that there is a task that they need an accommodation with. supervisor mar earlier talked about the burden on the person with the disability to ask and to advocate and to prove that what they need is really something that they need. i was hoping that my colleagues with invisibility disabilities would be here because they often talk about the burden they have to prove that

they indeed have a disability. aside from that, the other part that became very important in my personal experience is the idea of being viewed as the only one. i am person using a wheelchair and it is very isolating over the past 10 years to look around in group meetings and staff meetings and big city hall events and not really see my people. not really see myself reflected in the workforce. i know there are a lot of us wloo have disabilities who may not always feel safe "coming out" but we are disconducted and in different departments. we are seen as

one of the same and represent a specific group or specific disability group. finally, there is the issue with advancement or what i call, pigeon holing. often times i have gotten comments from upper managers talking about what is a great job i do at the mayors office on disability and this is really where i belong. i think my skills are actually applicable in a lot of other different places in the city. this is not the type of comment that you would make to any other professional who is comp tent or good at their job. so, the ada was passed was passed with the following key goals, equal opportunity, economic self sufficiency and full par

tisitation. i did get the job and having economic seft sufficiency even the bay area but do i have a equal participation in all the advantment out there. are people able to move above and beyond just doing non disability work, doing whatever else in the city? being engineer and lawyers and whatever else and not just disability, blah blah blah. fill in the blank. so, in closing, i just want to talk-sorry, i want to make one more point. the ada also includes par tisitation and equal opportunity for employees not only in terms of employment and reasonable accommodation but in terms of all the benefits and activities that

employees get to enjoy. let's take a look at some of our city initiatives. how accessible or available are they? i will give a very small small example. we were having a meeting about the health wellness program for employees and there were a couple of us there that talked about disability and we talked about adaptive yoga classes. -aftered offered as part the full menu for courses that can be taken. we talked about how this might be super important because of age, different types of physicalucts. we talked about accessibility exercise equipment or weight scales and other assistive technology and i'm not

belaborering that point because it is about whether we have access to exercise equipment through the city health system, but it is because it is indictative as a problem. if we see people with disabilities we make accommodations for and gradually get a part of the culture or staff, then we are not fully talking about disability employment opportunities. we are not talking about a way of making ourselves a equal opportunity employer. it is not about the token and not about inclusion, it is really about full participation. so, with that, i will not bore you any longer and will invite my colleague anh to come up and tell about his experience followed by

jonathan. >> good afternoon. thank you councilmember, colleague squz public. my name is anh nguyen and the coordinator for sfmta. i want to thank you for giving up to talk about my experience with the process and working for the city and county of san francisco. one of the interesting thing about my part in the planning field is that we often [inaudible] going out to field to do

inspection. in the planning for planning jobs one of the criteria that i see is a job description is the requirement to have a driver license. often that is often a barrier in the past because many people with disabilities may or may not have a driver license or be able todrive but by stating that is a requirement it is a huge impediment not only melthally but in the interviewing process or application process as well. i would say about 80 percent of my job is in the office bethined computer and the other 20 percent is going to the community by accessing public transit and not necessarily by driving.

that is one area that i have seen that could be a hinder with people with disabilities. the other experience i noticed is the civil service examination process. thees tests are often used to gauge promotional opportunities and also advancement as well. the [inaudible] uses very matrix to see and test a persons competency and ability, often the nature of how the examination is conducted is really difficult. one example, my test taking experiences was required a

written component of it. i also have a mobility range in my upper extrimty where a use a computer to do a lot of my correspondence and holding a pencil is a hardship for me so being required to demonstrate and prove that where have a disability to take a examination is challenging at times as well. thank you. >> yes? once again there is [inaudible] who is reaching us through the video relay interpreter so she is on the bridge line >> thank you and welcome. please go ahead. >> okay, hi everyone. i don't

where to start but my name is orchard [inaudible] and i'm the city employee and i have been for 14 years and understand that my job quh i first applied was under city rule 115. was the exact position designed for a person with a disability. other than that i would have never been able towork as a city employee and worked here for 14 years and have seen deaf people who had never been into the city as far as a employee and i have been here 14 years and worked a specific group related to sign language users specifically. there are hearing people obviously that do come in and want to learn about sign language, asl and the deaf community and all of that and if

they need information they often come to me. really, i don't know if that is enough information for you at this point or not. and of course i am a deaf person myself. i should added that in and i use video remay and that is my preference of choice to be able to use video relay. i wouldn't be able to come in person because where have kids with me obviously so i can't just show up. more than that i mean, as a city worker for 14 years i have worked with a audience of a variety of people within and deaf people who apply for city jobs never really often get in. it is very hard for them, even with a interpreter or without a interpreter because they prefer to have someone that can hear and not deal with

the communication. those are my concerns. >> this is joanna, thank you for joining us and i was wondering if you can tell the council or the audience about the culture of asking for interpreters to attend employee related events, work trainings, or maybe promotional opportunities. >> okay. well, you know as a deaf person you know and deaf people in general, they like to have a choice of interpreters and often many of the interpreters bid a contract with the city and the city of course

look frz the cheapest bid and we auch may get the worst kind of interpreter squz the top interpreters who are really good because they will accept deaf feedback, they are very involved in the community where other interpreters don't care, they don't care about our opinion. it means it becomes money in their pocket, it is not as if they have a vested intrest with the deaf community and we feel like we are the third person in this kind of exchange and really don't like that. people just get a interpreter good enough. no, i want to make sure my voice is heard and get a person that can work well with me. a specific person if they are available. often in san francisco deaf people will struggle with every day things in terms of sign language use. can you lip read, can you read, can we just

use paper and pencil. paper is pencil isn't the same kind of comfort level in a level. often the children that are deaf have hearing parents and struggle in terms of learning communication and they don't even get exposed to sign language until they are much older. often parents will say it isn't necessary there is a lot of cultural feelings and oppression that deaf people face in the community. in the city does have hispanic interpreters and spanish and different languages, russian and so on, i can see that, but with asl it seems like it is a very limited group and we feel so marginalized in the community. we have to fight and it is very tiring and really often deaf people are quite. they don't know who to complain to. they don't know how to change

the existing situation. in my job you know, i do have sign language use and interpreters and in the art museum they told deaf people you can go get your own interpreters. i said what! i was so shocked. i'm much more aggressive. i said no, the museum should provide the interpreters. why do you think the deaf person should be a interpreter with them? i was shocked people saying bring your own interpreter. that is slap in the face. they need fraining in terms of culture and attitude. it is pretty bad in the city and deaf people do complain a lot. how can they change that? how can this be allowed to exist? we need advocacy. we need encouragement. it is very difficult. as i'm the only person as a

deaf employee trying to be able to write letters, a lot of deaf people don't want to write deaf letters because english isn't their first language. there are so many issues relate today using sign language in the city public and private. public event, closed caption as far as open captioning in y movie, and events in the park. they feel that isn't necessary. often the venues are free and the technology is there, but there is no extra expense involved to provide captioning. so, you know, dealing with that is so frustrating, fighting to have equal access. we feel very opressed. [inaudible] >> thank you. i want to stop you here and ask you very quickly if you

have any recommendations for human resources department specifically in san francisco our very own san francisco human resource department about providing greater access in the hiring and the employment process for deaf people? >> well, deaf-blind and deaf people both, the city needs to hire more people that are deaf and deaflined. a lot of people ask mow. mine was rule 115 but deaf people have to [inaudible] program was auch what they used but it is difficult and how to improve that access in hiring, you really need to have someone that is very familiar with the issues and provide the training to

different departments, so they can not necessarily just be low jobs but meet the skill level the deaf people exhibit. for example, a grant design or apply for city jobs, a lot of times they could be hired but the interview process is difficult and a lot of times they say you have to speak and be able to communicate. i think hr you need someone skilled that is able to navigate the system to see if there are openings there that can fit jobs for deaf people or deaf-blind. there are a lot of issues, it isn't just me but hiring deaf and deaf-blind people to have a vision of where they can work. accounting, file office, public

library, even irs. there is a lot of- >> thank you. >> applied but have given up. >> orchard thank you so much. we have to-a couple more speakers to go through. thank you so much for sharing your experiences. and thank you interpreter. >> you're welcome. thank you. >> thank you. we are going on to jonathan lyens, department manager of public health. >> hell ocouncilmember,

jonathan lion, proud poobe back here once again talking about employing people with disabilities. i do have to say i look for would to the day we don't have to talk about this anymore. it has been a very very long time in coming, but i think that we are as a city at long last moving in the right direction in a lot of ways and think that is a reflection of a lot of the good work that is happening. many the good workers being in this room today, a lot of the folks from the community, a lot of the cbo's that spoke earlier, partners on the acess committee

and carla johnson and staff and department of human resources are rock solid partners throughout the process. sometimeatize is difficult to think about how many jobs i have so i'll speak with 2 separate hats, one as a city employee and also as a president of the fdr democratic club in the city for seniors and people with disabilities. first off speaking as the president of the fdr club, we are proud to be really the spear head of helping to kick this thing open within the city. i want to say thank you to supervisor mar for his rock solid support throughout this process. i was disappointed i missed him. i missed his remarks today, but sure they are

pretty much in line with every comment i heard him make on this issue. when the fdr club brought this isue to supervisor mars attention all most 2 years ago, the only thing he asked was how can i help. he never said anything else, he just said let's get this done. this isn't okay, how do we fix this and move forward. so we did. we brought forward a series of recommenditions one being to hire a disability employment coordinator in the city and proud to say that our members, we walk the halls during the budget process this year knocking on every door of the board of supervisors and walking through every door that was opened and saying we are here. this is important. remember when our members helped you get elected? well,

that was because we thought you would be an ally and proud to say many of them were. supervisor mar, supervisor kim, supervisor kim and farrell and breed and cohen in particular stepped up from the get-go and said this is important, we are going to take the sum we have in the budgetary process and put muno towards this because having somebody to be a single point of contact to coordinate disability employment in the city is important and they stepped up and did that and every one of those people deserves credit for doing that. the other things that our club put forward is policy recommendations that were things we brought forward to this council all most a year ago i think it was. athround issue of data

collection and goal setting. i think we need to do both. too often good public policy gets lost in a lack of data. you have know idea how-good the policy is if you don't collect data. basic think. each individual department in the city in the city of which are are more than 60 should be required to set hiring goals for people with disabilities. it was said earlier and said again, we need to create a cull whicher of diversity. the cities strength and drawn from the diversity and the employees should be the same way rchlt we should have a work force that representathize city we serve. moving quickly to-i don't want to take all day, but moving quickly to my work within the sitee, i worked with the city for all most 10 years now. in

many different capacity. started in the mayors budget office during the recession and went from there to budget office to labor negotiate and now at the department of public health. i am now a senior contract analyst on the team rebuilding general hospital and so going through this process, it has been a challenge in a lot och ways and in a lot of ways it has gin great. i have grown up in the city. i matureed in a lot of ways. i think some people still say i have matureing to do and that is fine but i have come into my own and think that is largely due to my work in city service. when i first came into had mayors office it came out there was actually a diversity training done for the staff ahead of

time and i was appalled. i was like, why-they have to train these people to get ridy ready for me? why is that big a deal? i realized it is because there were no blind people in city hall. 1100 people and i was the only one. there were a lot of catch atealing people i am the blind guy that works for gaven nusem. a lot of people enjoyed that. stepping up as that one disabled person like the banner of disabled guy that sits in the budget office, there is a lot of pressure in that. but, i have experienced through the other issues i experienced that is a the biggest challenge to overcome is

what i call compassionate discrimination. the idea that because i have a disability i can't do certain things and it is up to my managers and other senior management to define what my abilities are and what my abilities are not. that is a challenge for me through the years and think as i have grown through the process i think i have -i want to say i learned to overcome that. i am proud to say that as a senior contractor analyst in the city i actually just closed a deal-i negotiate multi-million dollar contracts with large international medical device prideers. i just closed a 25 million dollar deal with siemens so i think i have been able to prove to a lot of people what i am capable of doing. and also briefly want to touch on

the issue of being able to get into city service. i worked for the city for all most 5 and a half years and i separated from the department of human resources and i was so confident when i walked out of dhr as the last time as a employee. i was confident very soon i would get opportunity in the city. i worked for 2 mayors, i have been done labor negotiateating, i have done budgeting, i bring a lot to the table. i spent 14 months after that out of work. i was on unemployment until congress decided i was unemployed long enough and cut off my unemployment and i have been to the dark side. i have

experienced the depths of dispair and the depths of depression that come with applying and applying and applying for jobs that you know you're qualified for and never hearing anything back. getting to the point where you apply for jobs you are over qualified for just because you need a job and still never hearing anything back. so, in sumimation i would say as a city we need to keep marching forward. we are marching in the right direction. we must work harder to develop that culture of diversity. disability really needs to not be a issue anymore. we need to have a city that is truly representative. 20 percent the population identifies as having a disability. san francisco that's 160 thousand people. with our work force of 30 thousand that is 6

thousand people. confident we don't have 6 thousand people with disabilities as employees. >> thank you mr. lyens and hope too one day we will no longer have to have this as a agenda item but thank you fl hard work. >> now councilmembers i want to bring one last fellow employee, marti who was on the hiring panel that first day and she was talking with somebody who like many of the people on our work force age with a disability. acquire a disability as a result of

different reasons and then they have to be -sorry, then they have to be accommodated in the work place. marti, thank you. >> thank you. as i said before, i am the access services man ager at the san francisco public library and the ada coordinator. i have been there for 26 years next week and think i need to talk about both sides of my experience. so, my experience with the library has included using rule 115 as well as working through typical hr processes to hire people with disabilities to work in the programs i supervise and support. because those services are specifically focus td on the information needs of people with disabilities and their family members and their allies, i think it is

really critical we have on our team people who deeply understand and people who represent the community of people we serve. my biggest challenge through time has been figuring how to encourage colleagues throughout the library system to take advantage of what is called access to sit a employment or ace. i see it as a opportunity to have a diverse and inclusive workforce and also a opportunity to have a fast track for hiring people to fill the positions we have open because if we can work around those regular hr processes we can hire people actually much more quickly. on the more positive note i am happy to say the library hires a number of disabled employees and who

work through had processes to get accommodations they need at work and i have a couple recommendations as a hiring manager and someone who served on this commit eover the past year, i really believe that hiring managers throughout san francisco departments should be educated about access to city employment and encourage to hire people who represent all the communities of people who live in the city including all our communities of people with disability. i say communities plural, this is not a homeo genius community but there are a number of communities with people with very different needs who represent our disability communities in san francisco and once we get those people hired, my recommend is that success stories should be shared in a way that respects the privacy of those employees but encourage other city

departments to bring into our workforce people with disabilities. so, it is only through the past 3 years and not due to aging, but due to cancer that i havea quered disability and i have been dealing with personal changes and learning about what sorts of adjustments i need in order to keep working. i'm grateful to say i only found support from my own supervisor and from our hr folks that library. i haven't missed a step so i'm grateful for that. >> thank you. is there any more additions or anyone else who would like to speak? finally i will open up to any questions from the council to any the presenters at this point.

no questions? okay. i will turn to public comment. any of the presenters or anyone on the bridge line? i feel through the chair coming. >> i think you can hear a microphone moving. >> couldn't resist. >> carla johnson director of the may r office on disability. i want to extend my sincere and profound thanks to everyone who spoke today starting with supervisor mar who thrully has been a leader and a lion with the heart that is in the right place and never have to give him the talking points because he always knows them own his own experience. i also want to thank all the member thofz employee advisory committee because we met for a period of 9 month jz sometimes twice a month

and thrfs a extraordinary commitment for the people who showed up who really put themselves out on the line to develop the recommendations that have come sfrward. i also want to thank donna and ed. i feel having the relationship with human resources is critical if we move this task forward. looking forward to work with our new ace recruiters. i think it is so important to have a recruit rr the disability expertise and the relationshipwise the various disability communities as marti so clearly articulated because i think a big challenge moving forward is making sure our recruitment effortss are not only effective to bring people with disabilities into the the application process, but also that we are able to match the people to the right

jobs and matching the people to the jobs where they can thrive we want to work with human resources on how better to train our hr staff and our hiring managers about the reasonable accommodation. the reasonable accommodation process is reasonable and it is actually fairly easy in many cases to accomplish. it is about having conversations that are honest and straight forward about what the job dris criptions are and whether the individual is capable of performing the job with our without accommodation. i was happy to hear marti spuke but her experience but this is much more about bringing people into city service, it is also about retaining them and in retaining our

employees we have to look at the life time contrary and how our needs and abilities change over time and how we need to ajustz how we work with the city. so i look forward to the work of the committee being something that is of a more permanent nature and i think that key the the committee is that data collection so that we can measure the progress that we make and the goals that we set. i just want to thank everybody who has been here today who told their stories either as a advocate or employee or committee and also want to thank the mayor disability council for shining a spot light on isissue with the hope that someone had spoken earlier about a future with this won't be necessary so thank you. >> thank you very much for your

comment director. we'll go on to information item number 8 unless there are changes before i proceed? okay. presentation by jason anmark intake service manager department of aging and adult suvss. >> good afternoon counsm rr. jason adamek and here to talk about the soorn to be department of aging and adult services benefit and resources hub at 2 gauch is around oats and van ness. i'll talk but what the center will offer, we call the hub, and the serves we offer there, timeline and what the space will look like. it is a exciteic

time for us. i manage intake for aging and adult services and the service we provide assist with applications and adult protective service, in home support service, home delivered meals, case manage jment connecting seniors and adults with disabilities with resources in the community through the community based organizations and other resources. we are physically moving to this hub but what is exciting and unique is i dobet go any other city in california that is offering a service that combined a assistance sunchs along with the benefits side of service. medi-cal and cat fresh will be combined along with our county

veteran service office at 2 gauf. it is a one stop shop. we work hand in hand already with medi-cal ihs and med kale is a great example where you need to be on medi-cal. there is a lot of times someone come in for service my staff help getting someone connected with resource and also need assistance getting connected to benefit whether it be cal fresh or medi-cal and on top of that a lot of people coming in are also veterans and our vice versa veterans that may need service outside the va system so it is a great way to combine those resources and provide a much i guess friendler environment. friendler in the sense it is easier to gain access physically because the

current location at 1650 mission is not the most friendly. there isn't a lot of confidence space. it is hard to do a interview sometimes and so people are being shuttleed from the 5th floor the the first or maybe drop over across the street to oat isstreet as a provider for ihss so ree all over the place. there is a real i guess recognitionnition that we need more public spaces site so it will happen. sometimes it feels like it won't happen but as you can appreciate everything from getting the phone lines and computers in and kaf moved, there is quite a lot of lugestics that have to take place. my staff and part the medi-cal staff are going to be moving we are told in 2 weeks. trying

to work around the holiday schedule. we are going to be completing the ground floor in december with anticipateation of a soft launch in january and in january we want to make sure we know what ree are doing, and all the systems work and know how to use the new technology how to route people in the right way and i can go into that a little bit. with the anticipateation of having a more informal site and doing outreach. there is a lot to do and been preparing for this for the last 6 months to a year. the think i would like to start with is for all of you to get a mental picture of dropping into the site at 2 gough we will have greeters who

instead of a physical kiosk we have at the other benefits site throughout the city where you log in woorks ewill have a human being that will help that person who is a senior or person with a disability log into and get routed into the system and we'll have a service counter where we can hopefully expedite a lot of quick medical related issues. maybe someone came in and lost need a medi-cal replacement card or maybe quick housing information, so we will have this service countser set up then we'll have as part the router a ability to give people if you have at rens raunts a buzzer because we are mindful of people with hearing

ishis and it isn't a friendly environment when you see a ticker come up on the big screen and a loud announcement so we'll go with the buzzer idea and have a waiting area while we meet with them to bring them into a more confidence interview space so we have quite a number of confidential interview spaces hooked up with computers and asust ivdevices so we can serve seniors and people with disabilities. for those that know the veterans office is colocated and provide the same type of service. the other nice thing about this space is right now a veterans go into the [inaudible] they get assistance with benefits and hooked up with the va but may not know about all the resources dos provides so

what we are planning to do is for every person that comes into 2 gough they are expose sed to the resources through gough we with provide for assistance or benefits side so we try to provide a full service. the other exciting thing about the site is we have a out for bid now a contract with the community based organization to hire what we call, community liaisons and this will be to hire seniors and younger aadults with disabilities who can provide greeter assistance and help people fee comfort in the isspa. we don't have a sense how long people will wait. if you go

to thedical office alt 1440 harrison #13450i78s there sometimes there is a wait and there can be a lot of traffic so we are mindful of having support from the community, having someone who is a senior or person with a disability to help other people that are senior jz people with disabilities to feel comfort in the space. we want to try to get a sense how people are experiencing the space so the community leozanhs [inaudible] accommodations whether for language or disability and just really be a leah ozanh between the greeters, the service counter, staff, security guards, be the eyes and ear of the lobby and help make people feel comfort. we are looking at

hiring people part time and thinking about when we will have the most traffic. it may be something around lunch time where staff are not as available so that may be something we would depend on the community liaisons to help people feel comfortable. we have a lot of goals and a lot of timelines. our phase 2 we have a computer lab that we will launch and for those that know the sf connected program, it helps seniors and people with disabilities get connected to the the internet and learn how to use computers. we will have a sf connected site there as well but we won't launch that in february. we are looking at giving maybe a few months getting the sf connect site fully operational and getting the staff necessary to run it. then we are also

looking at doing some other type of intensive counseling for people coming into the site. one the things that drove the idea of 2 gough is people under the age of 65 on medi-cal they don't have the same asset limit tests that someone who is a senior has and we call that inl the world of medi-cal the madgeee populationism people on ihsf and have a provider and get case manage squment other services through medi-cal and may have a few thousand in savings and when they turn 65 they are -there is a asset limit test and are only allowed 2 thousand dollars as a single adult. the ihfs director and deputy director are concerned about this real

issue so part of this site will provide counseling for individuals who are between the age of 62 and 64 to be able to spin down and understand that the services they are receiving are tied to medi-cal and the medi-cal limits change when a person turns 65 so that can be my staff providing the counseling by my staff are knowledgeable in the long term service and support in the community or medi-cal staff doing that counseling so that is a another big change in our phase 2. we are looking out maybe a few months after we launch in february. the other thing that we want to do because health insurance is such a confusing thing for everyone, for people whening in that may not be eligible for medi-cal, we want to also provide other types of counseling services so having someone from

health care options or a high cap office. we are looking at having people there part time to help people get connected with other types of helths insurance besides just medi-cal services. we are really excited, slightly nervous because none of us are really used using all the technology you have to use to effectively track and route people because we do want to make sure we know what people are coming in for and also just making sure people are served in the first come first serve. they come in, the pager or whatever you want to call it, there is a whole back end system to that that all the staff will be use to route people appropriately, so fingers crossed, phones will be working and we'll be in in december and can come back and tell you more

and -more about our official launch date hopefully in february. with a soft launch in january, meaning people will when in and test our systems before we do the major grand opening in february. >> thank you. we look forward and hold you to that commitment. i'll turn it over to questions from the council. cochair sep supanich. >> i want to congreatulate you on opening this. i know it is a long road and tough at times. could you describe where it is at because that is a difficult intersection and there are a lot of interesting buildings. is the the building across the school district on one corner or the city college board? >> there is city college on the other side of gough and if if you go

the other direction across the street is our provider enrollment center for inhome support. that is a confusing block because that is where mission plits and turned into ottis. we'll have more accessible parking for people who are dropping off so it will be better site than the county veterans service office has now because on van ness they are at 27 van ness and don't have a area for people to come be dropped off or park, so we should have a little better access there. the door is on gough, but the building is mainly on ottis. >> the big yellow building? >> i think it is brown. >> there is the parking lot along- >> there is parking