faith and action is an organization with more than 90 schools in san francisco. we are part of the national pico network and we are functioning in 17 states and 150 cities. [speaking spanish] >> translator: we are committed to ensuring that all the members of our community receive respect. we are here in solidarity with all persons who are unhoused and we are asking for solutions, not

criminalization. [speaking spanish] >> translator: they are part of our community and we should respect them. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> public: good afternoon. i too would like to thank for doing this. i have been familiar with the plaza and the area around the plaza for 20 years. and it has been the object of the most outrageous forms of neglect and has been treated as a drug containment zone without any attempt to solve the underlying injustices and problems that are generating the amount of drug use we are seeing in the plaza. this neglect contributes whether intentionally or not, to the disinvestment that is now being used as an excuse to general --

gent identify -- as people become more desperate both economically and to using and selling drugs and to other forms of behavior that have to do with getting by out of here desperation. i'm grateful we are taking steps to clean the plaza and assist people with their struggles. i would ask we remain along this track and not allow this to be used as an excuse for more luxury development, but that instead we make --

[bell]. >> public: that we treat everyone with respect and make it a livable community for everyone in the neighborhood and in the city. thank you. >> next speaker. >> public: i'm executive director of transit riders and i'm a daily b.a.r.t. rider. i want to thank you, supervisor ronen, for calling this hearing. it is good to see our elected officials speaking up for riders. we all know this extends beyond 16th street. this is into every b.a.r.t. station and train. i hear b.a.r.t. is making plans to tackle the quality of life issue, and that's great. i also read an article that was headlines "b.a.r.t. listening to riders to clean up its act". and i'm trying to figure out how it got to this point where it is nearly unbearable to step into a

station. i recognize that is a country wide issue but i have to call it out. ridership is down on b.a.r.t. to a point where a supervisor had to get involved before b.a.r.t. took this issue seriously. transit riders have been singing this tune for years. despite the shade, sorry, b.a.r.t. i want to say i'm encouraged by this and i think this is a step in the right direction. there are, of course, additional issues that i think transit riders would love to see as part of improving b.a.r.t., including

>> next speaker, please. >> public: thank you for doing this. i know standing for low-income people and poor people. i want to make sure to everyone that being poor is not being a criminal. people have families. they are not criminals. they are people -- this is a bigger problem. this is what i want to have. i have lived there close to 24 and i can see the difference between the 24th and 16th plaza. we want services for everyone and more services for the people who are more in need. we need affordable housing.

[indiscernible] >> public: this is why we are proposing to build the marble. it will be affordable housing and we need more solutions around housing. otherwise we are not going to solve anything. thank you again. i hope we continue this conversation and engagement of the community. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> public: my conversation is not only about number three, but also number four as well. first of all, you're going to continue to have this frontal with people being out on the street just as long as you keep building new apartment building complexes. and you set the medium and requirement of the income above and far above the level of income for the low-income people that's in that income bracket that need housing. you got people on social

security benefits, permanent disability benefits, retirement benefits and veterans who are in income brackets always below the medium that you set the requirement. you always set it at 80%, 90% of the medium produced by h.u.d. as a result, the people cannot apply. you claim that mission is affordable housing. you have a hispanic female and her daughter be a pitch person on a commercial that was shown nationwide -- i mean city wide and getting people to think that people in low-income brackets can apply and be a tenant at an apartment building complex called mission rock. when you look at the fine print, you find the people in that income bracket cannot afford to move in that building. it is discuss gusting.

that's fraud -- disgusting. that's fraud. [bell]. >> public: 20-30% of the medium and you always make the requirement at 70-125% of the medium. you make statements the new low income is $125,000 a year. that's disgusting. that's disgusting. since when is somebody making $125,000 a year need to be part of a low-income affordable housing program? [bell]. >> thank you. next speaker, please. [microphone off] [indiscernible] >> thank you. >> your time is up. thank you.

>> public: good morning. my name is maryland duran. i'm a community organizer and part of the plaza 16 coalition. 16th street b.a.r.t. is one of the places i'm familiar with along with 24th street b.a.r.t. and knowing that since this affordable housing crisis we have seen more folks having to be in that area with no place to go. i applaud supervisor ronen and bevan dufty for coming out to the community and having conversations. that's a lot of things we lack with community and city collaboration is that there's lack of communication and collaboration. it is overseen from city hall and not deep and engrained in the community. where people who live in s.r.o.'s. i had a friend who passed away in his car because he had nowhere to go and often was in the plaza. just applauding there are folks

who are in the community and are members who really want to have this dialogue and need a pathway to housing. a year ago on valentine's day, i was here advocating for more senior housing for both senior and homeless seniors. knowing that is a pathway we need for our communities who are out there and have nowhere else to go. and we as a community know that you can continue to do outreach and you can have a pipeline of outreach. if it has nowhere to go, you are creating a pipeline to go nowhere. again i want to alaud the efforts and we need -- applaud the efforts and we need to create more plans and solutions like affordable housing. like the gentleman mentioned before, we people who are low-income who don't fit in the bracket. communities have solutions. [bell]. >> public: community can also be

planners and we need to be deep and collaborate with community. thank you. >> thank you. any closing comments? >> vice chair ronen: i just wanted to thank you everyone from coming out today. when i called this hearing, we hadn't received the great news from b.a.r.t. i just really want to thank b.a.r.t. for listening and for stepping up. i want to thank community members like eric for funding the downtown streets team. i didn't realize that was you. i want to really tell you how grateful i am. i have seen them with my own eyes. thank you for that. and for all the members of community who came out. this is really government's job to fix these problems that we have had in the b.a.r.t. station. and we're starting to do that and we're just going to get better over time. appreciate my colleagues for taking so much time with this hearing as well. it lasted a while, but it is

well worth it. let's keep up the great work. with that we can go ahead and make a motion to file the hearing. >> i should gavel down public comment. >> sorry. >> anymore public testimony? okay. >> vice chair ronen: i make a motion to file the hearing. >> thank you. no objection? okay. the hearing is filed. thank you. now i would like to call item number two, please. >> clerk: motion verifying that cafe envy llc doing business as cafe envy has completed the preapplication meeting requirement under california business profession code for the issuance of new nontrancial type-87 neighbor hood restricted special on sale general liquor

license. >> we will now hear from city departments on this item. ben van hooten can give us a background on the type-87 liquor license. >> sure. thank you. good morning chair sheehy and members of the committee. this is a type-87 -- should i -- >> i would like to welcome supervisor cohen to the hearing and thank him for sponsoring this item. if there are any comments you would like to make. >> supervisor cohen: just a few comments. thank you. i'm very pleased to present this

item before you today. this is a type-87 liquor license application for new business in the bayview called cafe envy. i want to emphasize my support for this particular license type. as some of you know, the bayview is a restricted use district, meaning there's a cap in place for liquor license applications due to a historic proliferation of liquor retailers. type-87 licenses are a new type of liquor license recently adopted by the state legislature in 2016 and they are affordable. the goal is to help restaurants who in turn help their surrounding neighborhoods. these businesses supply jobs. they bring traffic to a neighborhood and they help keep the dollars circulating in the community. it is particularly exciting to be able to uplift and support black women opening up a -- a

black woman opening up her second business. i will have bragging rights, a friend and a former classmate. although she is a year older than me. for the record. [laughter] >> supervisor cohen: none -- nonetheless it gives me professional and personal sat -- satisfaction to advocate on april's behalf. she creates delicious dishes and makes space for events at her current restaurant which is a tradition i imagine she will continue. i want to thank you, april, for what you have done. what you have brought to the bayview community. a tremendous asset. as the neighborhood continues to grow and to change, you are definitely a business owner we

want to sustain, a business owner that we want to continue to support and support in your professional growth over time. so, without further adieu, i would like to invite ben van hooten to provide an overview of the requirements for community outreach for this particular applicant. thank you, ben. >> thank you, supervisor. to quickly outline, the type-87 is a new type of liquor license that has a unique preapplication community outreach component different from other liquor licenses. so, what the resolution that you're considering today is about certifying that that pre-application community outreach has taken place. should this be successful and this will ultimately perform part of the packet that cafe envy will submit. and they will go through the full application process. as specified in the legislation,

sb 1285 adopted a couple of years ago, the application has to send a notice out to residents within 500 feet from the location. has to note planning groups and send a note to the chief of police as well. that note has to happen 14 days before a community meeting. it has to occur within a mile of the proposed business location and then ultimately there has to be that community meeting has to be held. and evidence of that community meeting has to be submitted and so your packet includes evidence from those steps certifying the mailing happened. that the actual mailer itself, notes from the community meeting and the abc form that ultimately cafe envy will need. and i'm happy to answer any technical questions but i would be happy to invite april spears from cafe envy to discuss her project in more detail. >> supervisor cohen: thank you.

we will invite april spears to describe the project and outreach strategy and the work you have done. welcome. >> thank you. i'm april spears, the owner of aunty april's chicken and soul waffles and the new owner of cafe envy. this is megan mitchell, my community partner. together we're going to bring a really exciting project to bayview. expanding is really, you know, at heart for me. i'm so excited to continue to bring great entertainment, great food, comradery and a place where people can come and just the community can come and -- what do you say? >> supervisor cohen: hang out. >> hang out basically. [laughter] >> in a safe, fun environment. i have been in business on the corner for 12 years now. so, expanding -- i'm so excited

about it. i can't even put my words together. and i will let megan talk a little about what we are going to do. we did the 500 mailer. we did hold a community meeting. very few people did show to meeting. however, i was in contact with several of our neighborhood organizations, merchants of the town, economic development on third street. i have had a phone conference with officer gordon in talking about what it is that we're going to be bringing to the corridor. and i have been able to gather quite a bit of support from new residents as well as the old-timers of the neighborhood who are really looking forward to bringing back basically a historic location that a lot of them have missed. because prior to cafe envy, it

used to be the monte carlo which is a place of meeting for a lot of the older community members. so, they are very excited to see something coming back to the corridor that they dearly missed. i will let megan talk -- elaborate a little more about the project. >> supervisor cohen: i just want to recognize megan mitchell who is also a native san franciscoian and has done and written a lot of articles that have been publicized. >> thank you. what we're doing with cafe envy, i don't know if any of you have been to third street, but there are going to be a ton of restaurants and things opening up along the corridor. the thing about third street is you have places that either close at 3:00 or open at 5:00. we will be bridging that gap of nothing happening on third street. we will be open all day long. this is the place that we want

our residents to go to when they want to get things done. think cafe bean bag. you know how that place is open all day long. we are going to have heart. we're going to have live entertainment and most pointly healthy food that's so crucial in our district. we want kids to come and pick up snacks after school. for anybody who is just in the area to come and look at us as a place to hang out. and then we will also be bridging the night life gap. after hours -- not after hours but 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. doing fun things 21 and up. it should be pretty exciting and we are super excited aren't we? >> yeah! [laughter] >> supervisor cohen: thank you, ladies. >> i cook better than i speak by the way. >> supervisor cohen: i don't know if you have any remaining questions for the applicants or for staff. i ask that you give this business your support and vote

and send this back to the full board with a positive recommendation and then we could take public comment. thank you. >> is there any public testimony? seeing none, public comment is closed. do we have a motion? >> vice chair ronen: i just wanted to say i'm very excited to send this to the board with positive recommendation. it sounds incredible. i can't wait to be a client or patron. but i wanted to thank you o.e.w.d. for bringing this program into existence. especially for some of the older businesses run by native san franciscoans. having a liquor license will make or break a business. i want to thank you. i'm really excited in seeing these applications come through this committee after years of

work that i know you've been doing is such a happy thing to watch. i just wanted to appreciate you as well. thank you very much. with that i will make a motion to bring this item forward with positive recommendations. >> no objections? no. that's it right? still figuring this out. that, mr. clerk. please call item four. >> clerk: a hearing on the homeless navigation center including number of people served, efficacy and impact on host neighborhoods. >> thank you. supervisor cohen. >> supervisor cohen: yes. thank you. one more piece of business that i have brought to this committee and again, thank you for hearing this item. this is an important one because what we're going to be doing is discussing about the homeless

navigation centers. they often services and flexibility to move people permanently off the streets and into safe and supportive systems. kind of been a theme all morning for this committee what we are doing with our homeless crisis. we are pouring tens of millions of dollars into the builds-out to support the navy congratulations centers because we believe -- navigation centers because we believe it is the most efficient way to help people experiencing homelessness. is this a good investment? i called this hearing to understand how does the department of homelessness think about, quote, success? success looks different to different people and i want to make sure we are on the same page and we're getting a good solid return on our investment. so, i'm going to frame this

hearing in three different parts. i'm interested in three top issues. first, getting people off the streets. in particular i want to know how many people have we moved into the they're congratulations centers -- navigation centers? how many go back on to the streets after their maximum 60-day stay? do any people return to navigation centers after the 60-day stay? i want to understand the services that are being offered. what's the percentage of people -- what percentage of people are taking advantage of services and which services are they taking advantage of? does that percentage increase on a second visit and how are we measuring their efficacy? and how are navigation centers affecting neighborhoods that are hosting them?

that is important so we begin to talk to other neighborhoods and people that are considering bringing in a navigation center. i'm sure member peskin would be interested. he has identified a source. and i want to be able to show you some examples of solid data and positive response. we've had one in district ten and district nine. but i think we need to quantify that so stories aren't just anecdot anecdotal. does trash increase? and i think that's a fair question to ask and interested in the specific metrics we are using to evaluate our success. i want to make sure we're not just measuring the inputs, meaning the number of centers or number of social workers or folks that are just going

through the door. and we're not just numbering and measuring output to the people that we're serving. i'm looking for a quantity theyive shift in the -- quantitative shift. and we are moving them into long-to determine housing. that's a value we share. finally, i want to realize the software system is new. there's a new software system for those that don't know that the department of homeless is working with. we may not have great data but i would like to establish a firm baseline. we need to be more data driven and develop an empire empire - empirical process. i would like to thank the director and emily cohen from

the department of homelessness for presenting today, as well as -- i can't pronounce this. i'm sorry. i can't pronounce this. last name is patel. thank you. good to see you both this morning or this afternoon. >> good morning. sorry you have to endure me twice in one committee hearing. thank you for calling this hearing and i couldn't agree more with what you said in your remarks, supervisor. our framework which is available on the website speaks about using the considerable investments the city has made in addressing homelessness towards a data driven system to get

people to exit homelessness. that is the most important and the only really important metric is how many people do we help move from homelessness to housing, whether it is through city funded housing, through their own efforts or through programs like homeward bound. there's clearly a crisis on our streets with 7,500 people homeless on any given night. 58% of them sleeping outdoors and finding temporary solutions for them is also important. not only for people who are homeless, but also for people who are living in neighborhoods where there's high concentration of homelessness. as you see in the first slide, the count said 7,500 people on any given night, there's about 21,000 people in any given year experiencing homelessness in san francisco. 8,000 are newly homeless in

every year. >> supervisor cohen: are really homeless? >> newly homeless. >> supervisor cohen: okay. >> however, you will see on the far right we help about 2,000 people a year exit homelessness through a environment of different programs, through homeward bound and permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing rent subsidies. but nonetheless with 8,000 new homeless people every year and only helping 2,000 people exit homelessness, that's a big channel we're trying to address. it is important we not just focus on navigation centers which are really a very small part of our system. we think about how do we solve this problem from a system wide level to better use our resources effectively. we already shelter 7,000 people a year. 6,000 hot team clients are served every year. 2,000 people served in the nav centers within the 7,000. 1,500 people receiving homeward

bound or eviction prevention. and that's in addition to the nearly 10,000 people housed in our permanent supportive housing units that we have. nav centers are an important part of that system, but they are just that, a part of the system. this is just a quick snapshot of homelessness in the city and how it is directed. primarily in districts six, ten and nine. and on the next slide you see this is the distribution of housing shelters, nav centers and all homeless services in the city, again concentrated primary in districts six, nine and ten based on the where the populations are. then there's housing spread throughout the city. in some cases just one or two facilities there.

i'm going to skip over slides. this isn't a presentation about our strategic framework. but there are many components to it. maybe a couple i should highlight. one being we talk about problem solving, which is because we have so many people coming into the system every year, we need to find ways to divert them out of the system as quickly as possible. and problem solving is things like eviction prevention, flexible grants. just the other day we helped a family who was about to become homeless because the father was driving for a ride-sharing company and he needed the side view mirror fixed so he could get back to work. 300 bucks and we prevented them from becoming homeless. to make sure before people get into the system they are being offered problem solving. and even though we have 74 hundred units of supportive

housing, only 800 units become available. we have this new housing program to help residents move out into the private market with section eight vouchers or housing choice vouchers. next year instead of having 800 units of housing turn over, we will have a thousand units become available, which will make a significant difference. and you spoke about data. on the next slide here, we are using data -- the data we have as well as we possibly can and are modeling for how are we going to achieve specific goals we have. and how are we going to reduce chronic momlessness by 50%. we have a fairly robust data model that we've developed that shows how housing replacementses we need to make and how many people we need to prevent from becoming chronically homeless versus the new flow. i think we are moving in that direction and we have special teams specific goals for

ourselves around family youth and adult homelessness. those are the standards by which we need to judge the efficacy of our system. and this is a visualization of what our new system looks like. you will see there's a lot of components to it. and temporary shelter is just one part of it. den, temporary shelter only solves people's problems and nav centers and the like on a temporary basis. let's talk about the inventory. people send to focus on nav centers. but there's 2,300 shelter beds in our system. and they range from emergency shelters where you can stay one night and the others where you can stay longer. again, we try to measure our success based on how our system

is doing. not how one particular program is doing. the program on the temporary shelter side is much bigger than nav centers. i think everybody knows at this point what nav centers are. i like to refer to them as shelters as they should be. there are essentially shelters but there are some unique features that don't exist in other shelters. they allow people to bring in pets, partners and their possessions. the services on site are more robust and there's deeper partnerships with h.s.a. and the department of health. it is a much higher service enrich environment than you will see in a shelter. their open 24/7 so people can go. they allow people who are working or for whatever reason just want to step out to do so and not have to sort of come in

and be governed by rules that some of our larger shelters have. i think it's a bet every way to provide shelter and it is more attractive to people on the streets who have been in the shelter system and feel they didn't work for me. i'm not comfortable being with 300 other people. that environment doesn't work for whatever reason. so, when we're outreaching and offering people places to go, they are much more attractive to individuals who maybe have had p.t.s.d. or have been in jail and don't do well in these large settings. they are also more expensive to operate. shelters ranges from 40 to $60 a night. nav centers range from like $90 to $95 night. they are smaller and they have more services. a couple of things important to clear up about nav centers,

there's misinformation swirling around about how long you can stay, how they work. they are really very flexible shelters we use in a environment of ways. we have nav center beds participating for one night. we have a few of those beds available. we see about five -- 17 people a week is our goal. we will see a couple of beds every night for folks getting ready to reunify with a family member. we have emergency beds, about a dozen, that are only seven-day stays and used for emergencies. if we get a call in the middle of the night, somebody on the street really suffering or the paramedics pick somebody up, they can call to see if there is a bed available. we don't have that flexibility in most of our shelter systems. the option are we take people to the sobering center and now we've the nav center beds. and we have time limited beds

which people can stay in for 60 days. however, if they are working on housing or they are trying to get shelter or there's a clear path forward for them, we will extend the stay to help facilitate them getting the job or shelter bed or getting the housing. but in many cases, not everybody is using those beds for that purpose. and because we have so many people who need access to shelter and because we don't have permanent supportive housing for everybody, letting all those beds with time unlimited wouldn't make very much sense. the places who do that like new york city, for example, end up with 60,000 people in their shelter system with very little movement out of the shelter system because the investments haven't been made in housing. so, we don't let people stay indefinitely. we have pathway to housing beds. we have about about 110. so, almost half of the nav

centers beds are called pathway to housing beds -- >> i thought the previous slide said 352? >> yes. a little over a third. sorry supervisors. i'm probably doing the math wrong. about 150 roughly are pathway to housing beds and those are for individuals who are long term homeless who have some form of disability who will be prioritized into our housing. we just don't have housing for everybody. we prioritize the housing for that population. when we identify those individuals either on the streets or in a nav center, we will put them in that bed and stay there until they get housing. but having all these beds available until they get housing when there's not enough housing doesn't make sense because they will end up living there

permanently in the nav centers. >> so, you are saying those 150 beds are 60-day stays that can be extended? those are 60-day beds but if you're working towards housing -- >> yep. or you have made a shelter reservation and you are going to go into a 90-day shelter or moving into transitional housing and we have gotten you a slot in a substance abuse treatment program. we are not going to interrupt the path and say your 60 days is up. go back out on the street for a week and then you can go into the shelter. that makes zero sense to do that. but we have, frankly, folks who are not on that pathway. and when their 60 days are up, they have to leave. >> what i'm hearing when i talk to someone who works at a needle

exchange program and provides shelter to homeless folks, it is somewhat traumatizing when people are taken out of encampments where they have formed community. but that is ameliorated when you are taking folks and providing a safe place where they can get services. but 60 days later, if they don't get a path and they're suddenly back on the street, their community is gone. their whole way of being organized on the street is disrupted. and you've like traumatized them twice because now they are dumped back on the streets. so, that amplifies whatever mental or behavioral health or substance abuse issues they had before they were connected with the system. you have actually exacerbated the situation and those circumstances. you put people back on the street without their community, without their support and made

them more vulnerable and more traumatized. i think it is a cycle that ends up with more negative consequences. if we get someone off the streets why we can't keep them off the streets? >> hopefully the numbers i shared with you prior explain the answer to that question. we have 21,000 people experiencing homelessness in the city on any given year. only have the resources to help about 2,000 people exit homelessness. if we allowed everybody to stay in our temporary shelters permanently, we would end up a street homeless problem the city has not seen since the '90s. very large encampment in front of city hall. this is a heart-break and difficult decision we have to make because we are having to ration resources where we don't have enough of. i would argue that somebody who

has been homeless in san francisco for ten years or longer, who grew up in san francisco perhaps and who has a severe mental health issue and is on our streets needs to get prioritized for housing versus somebody who maybe shows up two weeks ago and sets up in a tent and we end up responding to a neighbor's complaint because that person is unhoused. we put them in a nav center and that person because they happen to have triggered a complaint and a response they end up getting permanent supportive housing when we have so many people on the streets suffering. these aren't easy decisions to make. but folks who have been -- so, they are just not easy decisions to make. but we've got a system that is based on successes that we have seen in other communities, including houston which saw a 75% reduction in homelessness in about ten years. using coordinated entry and

using data and making decisions on how to effectively ration what you have. not a perfect solution by any stretch of the imagination. and difficult decisions have to be made. that's the reason why. the numbers just are what they are. i would also argue that whereas i have seen encampments where there is a sense of community and where people have come together to really create -- to care for one another. the vast majority of them are not that. they are very unsafe and very unhealthy. there's violence. the police have indicated to me that they estimate that four out of five of the women in the encampments have been subject to violence against them and that they're not in good places. and that using nav centers as a tool to redirect folks to more healthy environments has been a successful one.

it is really a balancing act between how do you deal with a limited amount of resources, how do we address concerns that citizens have about large encampments in their neighborhoods versus -- and then the other thing that i will say to answer your question, supervisor, is that there's a ton of data that shows when people come indoors even if it is for 30 days, their cortisone levels drop, they gain weight and if they have serious mental illness, their thinking becomes more organized. where i don't disagree in some cases this hasn't been a positive experience and they lost something, i would argue that in the vast majority of cases, people -- and there's lots of data to back this up, medically shows it is good for people to get a break from the streets and help them lead towards more -- maybe to resolve

their homelessness on their own. >> so, you put a woman back on the street who four out of five have been sexually assaulted to allow them to be revictimized. and the person who came and set up a tent on the sidewalk might be a queer kid, trans kid whose life is in danger i don't get the sense that some humans are better than others. half the young people on our treats are lgbqt -- it is just a concern. >> i would also say there's 21,000 people coming in the streets every year. about 40% of them will be women.

so, yes, we may end up having a person end up bag on the streets again. -- back out on the streets but there's somebody behind them able to use the bed and maybe get reconnected to a family member. there's no easy solutions. i think it's just important to remember that it's not just about the person who is right in front of you. but it's about looking at the system and using the resources we have to make wise decisions. as we're getting more organized in how we use the resources, we have an assessment tool that factors in three things. eleventh of homelessness, disability as well as like mshlg situations that people -- emergency situations that are people are in. if it is domestic violence or you just got out of the hospital and you have been discharged out on to the streets. it is not as straightforward as the length of homelessness. there's multiple factors we use to determine and unfortunately to ration the services we have to help as many people as we possibly can.

right now, each navigation center bed can serve four people a year roughly. if we followed a policy in which you're going to stay here until you get housed, each navigation center would probably serve one person for potentially 18 months or longer. it is again a hard decision. that's why we have multiple types of services. again going back to the slide i showed before. some beds are for one night and some are for 18 months. and in the pathway to housing beds they are unlimited until you get housing. we have a wide range of different types including the youth. it is a very big system with a lot of moving parts to it. >> vice chair ronen: i would love to chime in here. i couldn't agree more with my colleague, jeff sheehy. and this is something that you

and i have been arguing about for quite some time, jeff. i'm actually looking into legislating around this point because i don't think it is an either or proposition. i think we have to start being honest about what we need to solve our street homelessness crisis in this city. if we just keep sort of working around the edges and adding a couple of beds here and there and having individual supervisors fight to get a navigation center in her district and solve the problem in her neighborhood only, we are going to continue to have san francis franciscoians get fed up. before mayor lee passed away, he made a pledge to add a thousand new beds to the system.

is that what is in your budget >> we need to see that kind of investment from the mayor's office. i see jim in the crowd. i have talked to the chamber of commissioners and the golden gate restoration. they want to help but they want to see a dpifrns in the street. if -- difference in the street. if we are just taking people off the street for 60 days and they are traumatized -- you are absolutely right and you're absolutely right. but many people in the mission district that didn't want to go to the navigation center, one of the reasons they said they didn't want to go is they said what's the point? i'm going to be out in 60 days. they are resistant to use the services and they become distrustful of government that we are going to be able to help. we can't throw up our hands and

say we don't have enough resources or beds. we need to talk about what we need to actually make a difference in this raging crisis on our streets. and then work with our partners both in and out of government to actually get there. but every time we go to the voters and we ask them for more money for supportive housing for affordable housing and for homelessness, they are like every ballot we vote yes and we put more money in and things get worse, not better. we have to start showing the voters that we're taking our tax dollars and we're making a visible difference on our streets and in people's lives. that is not what is happening today. i get emails even though we have done amazing work in the mission and we have reduced tents from 264 to 60 today, i get dozens of e-mails people saying you cleared the encampment for a

week and there it is again. i understand it will never be perfect. that's not what we're asking for. but what we're asking for is a real vision about what will make a difference in the street, a plan to get there. a dollar amount that we need to solve it. and then someone leading the charge to get us there. and everything i have heard up to now is just -- it's window dressing. it is not solving the frontal -- problem. every time we are losing the faith of the people in our government. it's just not right. and we are traumatizing homeless people. i couldn't say it better than you supervisor sheehy. we are we on the thousand beds? and how are we going to make a difference in the streets?

>> i don't disagree with you about the fact voters are frustrated and asking for more money is at times challenging when people don't see the problem getting better. but i don't know how, supervisor, other than to lay out the facts and explain what we're trying to do and explain what we're trying to do is developed by a lot of people who have worked on this issue both in san francisco and nationally. just talk about the realities of what we are facing on our streets with an in flow of 8,000 newly homelessness. for us to be able to solve homelessness would require us to built 3,000 unit as year nonstop for seven years in a row. we could get everybody off the streets and then the turnover in those units would be enough that we would be able to absorb in flow into the system.

assuming in flow doesn't increase. that would cost approximately ten builds and would take individual multiple family sites and cost $500 million a year to operate. and in the meantime we are in the middle of a crisis. i don't see that we're going to be building 3,000 units of perform innocent supportive -- permanent supportive housing. we have to use what we have as effectively as we and develop a system that makes sense. that is what we're trying to do. i'm sorry we haven't been able to maybe explain it as well as we should or help folks understand it. the fact of the matter is with the numbers we are dealing with, we have to find other solutions. one solution is problem solving that i believe i spoke about earlier. which is how do you get people -- asking everybody the question, where was the last place that you slept safely and

how can we get you back there? homeward bounds, i have a stack of letters of people from all over the country saying thank you for reunifying me with my family in kentucky, or north carolina. we heard from a former homeward bound client who is going to yale saying we saved his life getting him off the streets. we need to do more of those kinds of things. and then the other situation is if we just build shelters and we just invest our money in shelters, people are going to get stuck in the shelters and we are going to end up spending a lot more money for the same number if not more homeless people. if we don't have flow in the system, we are not going to solve it. this is a grind. it is hard work. my staff are working and our non-profit partners are working hard to change what i would say is 20 years of not using our resources effectively into a system that is effective.

and i don't believe that -- i will also say as i said earlier, we have 24% of bay area's homeless population and about 5,000 people every year coming from other counties in the bay area to san francisco and they don't necessarily stay here. but those are the numbers we are dealing with. this is not an easy problem. it is going to require using data and being smart about how we use our resources. then we have a right to go back to the voters or at least an opportunity to go back to them. i want to point out i'm not going to tell you i will cheer until the time count is zero. the bottom line is it has held flat from 2015 to 2017 where l.a. went up 39%, santa clara 15%. seattle 16%. we are moving in the right direction. we have seen a 13% reduction in

teen homelessness. i get it is bad on the streets. i get the same complaints you do. again there is also no denying there were 265 tenlt -- tents in the mission district and now there are 50 or 60. we are making progress. i agree we need to do more. but we need to do it smartly and understand that nav centers are one part of a very big system and we need to meet people at all levels. and mayor lee was aware of that and the thousand-person project to clarify, mayor lee didn't say he was going to build a thousand new nav centers beds. but we were going to get a thousand people after the streets. it has been a combination of

things. we have three navigation centers in the pipeline with a total of over 300 new navigation center beds being built. we have traditional housing program for women who are pregnant. we have the auburn residence that has already opened. 70 units for veterans. we are now also seeking additional permanent supportive housing exits for individual -- i'm sorry. these another new supportive housing site in soma and we can leverage the private market to find more housing. we unfortunately have only gotten 190 people off the streets. but that's almost 200 more than we would have if it wasn't for

mayor lee's vision and his push. as you know, supervisor, we are having construction delays. these sites will start opening up in may and june and we will quickly get to that goal once we are at that point. work is being done on that. a couple of things i could say around budge that i think -- budget that i think we absolutely need to see a navigation center -- we have been opening up all these navigation centers. we need to find one in the right neighborhood to serve that population and we are pursuing a number of options. >> happy to have it in my district, by the way. >> thank you. we should talk after. and we to need to open up more, but we also need to look at the rest of the system and the efficacy of nav centers and see why they are not always as

successful as they should be. >> supervisor cohen: in the interest of time, i will just jump in and throw out questions to try to move this along. the presentation is pretty comprehensive. playing off what supervisor ronen was saying, why is there a 60-day cap? is that a policy you inherited when you came on board? >> no. again it is not a 60-day cap on all beds. it is some of the beds. the reason why is because we just don't have enough housing to let everybody stay indefinitely in the nav center. >> supervisor cohen: how do you determine which beds get capped? >> roughly we try to mix almost -- it is about 50/50. a little more weighted towards the more temporary beds. and it is balancing our need to be able to when i have a supervisor or a citizen call me and say i need to get this person off the streets, we need to bbl