that's doing phenomenal work in that area. >> hi, supervisors, i'm colleen rebecca with st. anthony foundation. we are not city contractors, but we are homeless emergency service providers and we see the need for enhanced services among all of our clients and guests who come to st. anthonys for assistance. that's why we're part of this group and why we're making this ask. it doesn't affect our bottomline, but it affects the people that we serve. the piece that i'm going to be covering is emergency services. so we are focusing on solutions and pathways out of homelessness, but we also really see a great need for an enhancement of some of the emergency services that are

affecting shelter and people on the street. one of the things that we're asking for is $4.6 million that would affect 200 households for providing dignified shelters. not all of our shelters are able to provide 24-hour services. not all are able to provide bathrooms and shower access for the people that stay there. some of our shelters have rather than beds, have mats on the floor. this represents operating costs for making it so that all of our shelters can be able to provide 24-hour access showers, beds, and for families, privacy as well. we're also asking for $100,000 that would support 60 households for hotel vouchers, homeless families turned away from or

inappropriate for emergency shelter. we're asking for $1 million that will assist 400 people for housing navigation services for single adults that could be accessed through drop-ins, through shelters, and access points. these are services that help move people out of shelter and into housing, like housing case management, helping people get ids, benefits advocacy, credit repair, legal aid, helping people enroll in ir ihss. this is $1 million in fiscal year '18, '19 and another in '19, '20. so you're asking for over $2 million. >> yes. that is right for year one, year two? yeah. that's for ongoing. you're right, supervisor. thank you. the next piece is in year one,

$1.1 million that would help other transitional aged youth with emergency housing flexible funding. there's an additional ask for lgbtq transitional aged youth street outreach. this is $321,000 that back fills cuts to this program that affects street outreach for 450lgbtq youth throughout the city. the last is $500,000 ask in year one for expanding the pit stop program which are staffed bathrooms. with this amount, we estimate that an additional 300 people could be served by pit stops. thank you. >> thank you. next. >> i'm the executive -- director

of hospitality. i'm here to talk about initiatives. first and foremost, the cornerstone of the eviction ask is the need for eviction attorneys to help tenants facing eviction in that process. absent an attorney that can provide full scope representation, tenants are at a severe disadvantage in that process. more than 1,000 over the past year and a half, more than 1,000 tenants have appeared at mandatory settlement conferences without legal representation. that puts them at a disadvantage. >> let me interject a question here. so this request is complimentary to the ballot initiative? >> well, our understanding that's an unknown at this point. so we're putting this on our list now to ensure that we can have this in the budget process

irrespective of what happens. >> if it passes, we can pull it off the list. >> it would depend on the resources and how many attorneys are actually funded through that process. >> the ballot doesn't have money a staffed to it is our understanding. >> and then -- or it could be the legislative process also to complement that, that you all are going through as well. >> thank you. >> we don't think it's wise to pull it based on an unknown at this point. we're asking for $2 million to fund 16 full scope attorneys and leave that investment is effective, efficient, and critical in stemming the tide of evictions, stemming the tied of homelessness and preserving our rent control housing in the city. >> how quickly do you think we can get these attorneys hired and up and ready to go and where

would they be placed? in what nonprofit or group? come to the microphone for me, please. >> we can get folks ramped up very quickly. the last time we got additional funding, we had contracts in place starting october 1 after the money was approved for july 1. >> thank you. >> it would be a series of non-profits that would be providing the service. >> thank you. >> and the other piece of our ask is restored funding for cuts to services through the mental health services act. >> when do those happen. >> those cuts happened over the past few years. there's a recent cut to low threshold services for adults accessing the behavioral health

system based in the community. we want those cuts restored. >> what's the total amount that you're asking for this -- >> about $1.3 million. so three elements of it it, low threshold services for adults, accessing behavioral health services. >> is that $1.3 over two years. >> it's per year. >> okay. just making sure you guys aren't tricking me here. >> no, not at all. >> giving me numbers, but they're really asking for in two years, $1.3 million times two? >> yes. >> right. i'm following you. >> this is the budget committee. >> yep, it is. it is. you've got it. >> the second piece is early intervention and mental health services for transitional age youth experiencing homelessness in mental health issues. this would provide for housing and support services for 10

transitional age youth, housing throughout the city. statistics show that upward of 50% of folks who are homeless now first experienced homelessness prior to age 25. so we want to try to stem that. the third aspect is actually building on supervisor yee's comments about early intervention and mental health services for families. so we want to -- we also have an ask to provide those services, full scope clinical health services for up to 450 households in families in shelters and housing placements throughout the city and support for staffing of those programs, to build the capacity and provide the services. the last piece is the restoration of a cut to employment services for homeless people, job readiness services.

we feel that at minimum, providing employment services for homeless job seekers leverages the investment the city is making in housing and other services. this is a minor ask of $140,000 times two to reach about 75 homeless job seekers. are we good? >> we're good. let me say, to the hespa team for keeping it tight and thank you. awesome. you definitely get a gold star. some of these department heads need to tighten it up, but you guys are amazing. i got to ask a couple questions in there. thank you. this could be the beginning of a really beautiful relationship, a whole new way we can deal with the budget. would you agree? has this been fair? all right. colleagues, any questions? that was a lot of information in

like a short condensed amount of time. but we'll be able to pour over this in the next -- throughout this entire process, but certainly we will take this into consideration as we formulate the resolution that we're going to be bringing to put forward to send to the mayor's office where we believe the budget priority should be. colleagues, if you -- i see no questions. no one on the roster. okay. all right. that sounds good. i think what we're going to do next is -- let me see if i have any questions. yes. i'm not sure who did is going to be able to answer this question. you figure out who it is. as our underground partners, do you think there are gaps or issues preventing us from serving those most in need? a big question, but who wants to answer it?

>> i think, you know, sadly, we have gaps in pretty much every level of our services. i think as we've been approaching this, this year in particular, we ended up with a much more spread out situation of gaps. so it's really, really difficult to get folks availablized from a mental health and behavioral health standpoint if they're on the streets. it's really -- so those services are critical. >> so the gap is -- >> on the mental health -- >> mental health housing? yeah. well, so the gap is that making sure that we have housing available to people and making sure they're able to access emergency services that are full-service to really decrease the trauma that they're facing on a day-to-day basis and all those health effects. so you'll see reflected we've

got some stuff -- quite a bit of stuff around emergency services. hopefully with the replacement shelters, we could have expanded capacity especially on the family side. i don't know if there's planned expanded capacity on the single adult side, but it's certainly needed with the wait list. the other piece of things is that -- i think budget legislative analyst talked about this. we've had a lot of success in doing these subsidy programs where we're trying to take advantage of any housing that's available, whether it's below market rate unit or -- just basically turning over every stone and being able to really quickly get that funding in place so they can connect with housing. the programs that we're going for expanse do just that. they're the ones that are quick, that don't go through a whole process in order to get it, and so that's a huge thing as well. >> just so i heard you correctly, replacement and

expansion of housing for families? >> yeah. it's for families and youth and then we have seniors and people with disabilities. they're rapid housing mechanisms. >> all right. one of the really -- we don't have this year rabid rehousing request for -- rapid housing request for families with kids. we have a deep subsidy families for ones that need to stay in san francisco. we have families paroled here or who have severe health issues that are connected to ucsf that can't leave san francisco, and they are wait out of homelessness is through rapid rehousing where they have to be placed out of town. that isn't going to work. >> okay. >> we need the folks to be placed in san francisco. it's a very small ask. you guys funded it last year, which was awesome for one year. so we need to get the ongoing funding for that.

that's another huge gap we see. >> it sounds like you gave me three different versions, but the big topic is rapid rehousing. that's a priority. it's helple for seniors, those with disabilities, for families, those with mental health as well as youth. >> yeah. the emergency services piece also. i mean, i think really across the system. the very last piece we're really trying to stop that entryway into homelessness. a large number of san franciscans are becoming homeless and there are so many things we can do that we're not doing to keep people in their homes. you know, it could be an elderly woman who this was one case, from last year where her son was paying her rent, and he died from gun violence. we want to keep that elder in her home. she has a cheap rent control apartment. let's go ahead and subsidize her to the end of her life.

let's not have a situation where she ends up in the streets. these are the creative things we need to do. so our proposal was really formulated around those basic principles. >> thank you. >> yeah. >> thank you very much. [ applause ] >> ladies and gentlemen, it's time for public comment. as a rule, we don't have applause in the chamber. most of you have been here before and know that. so i didn't announce that, but it's important to know, because it cuts into the time for people to speak. so if you like what you hear, use your spirit fingers and say hey, that's good with your fingers. fusser something you don't like, do a thumbs down. so i have a ton of cards here. i just want to -- oh, yes. i'm not going to call names. i think we're going do ask people to come on up and to get in line. folks, i'll get to you in a second. the folks that are in the overflow room, if you would like to come and get in line for public comment, i want to invite you to come on down into the chamber.

people, please try to keep it down so we can keep order. i want to recognize and invite seniors and those with some physical challenges to come to the front of the line. maybe i should have called names because this is not working. joe, i need your group to be quiet over there. okay. ladies and gentlemen, again, we're calling up seniors and those with physical challenges to speak in the microphone. at this time, i want to give supervisor ronen a chance to comment. thank you. >> thank you, supervisor. i appreciate the short period of time i need to speak. supervisor ronen sends her apologies. she wishes she could be here and is incredibly interested in this topic. she is in seattle right now doing some research on

behavioral health programming up there and hopes to be able to bring the lessons these learning there and incorporate them into what's being planned in san francisco. but i do want to very quickly speak in support of the option that was part of the bla report in terms of the permanent housing that is being proposed and that budget request. district 9 is losing rent controlled units faster than almost any other district. we have a cue of market rate projects, and our concern is around the housing balance. we need to continue to sustain a very vibrant pipeline of affordable housing moving forward. we do have this $5 million jump start grant from mtc which was awarded in recognition of the particular challenges of the mission in terms of displacement. so we are hoping that the $30

million request that was part of option one under the bla report will be supported and that project in the mission will be funded as well. thank you. >> thank you, we'll take that under consideration. all right folks, it's time for the best part of the day, public comment. just as a reminder, you have two minutes to speak. you'll hear a chime indicating 30 seconds remaining on your time. then you'll hear a larger chime indicating your time is up. we'll also kill your microphone. now, the floor is yours. thank you. >> my name is christie. i'm actually speaking for two people. my friend had to leave because her -- she's ray senior with disabilities. >> you have two minutes. >> i live in the south of market neighborhood. i'm concerned about my community as a person with a disability, i see many people who are threatened with homelessness. i asked board of supervisors fund more rental subsidies, housing subsidies.

they can make a difference between having a home and becoming homeless. we are spending millions of dollars to criminalize homeless people. these resources could be better spent to help people remain in their homes. san francisco has a budget of $10 billion and less than 3% of it is spent on homelessness. please dedicate more services to help our most vulnerable residences. i would add i myself was homeless and i'm now in a sro and i spent host of my time hanging out in the park, but since i've become housed, i am now making all my doctors appointments, i have primary care, and i have joined up with senior and disabilities action, and i'm also doing outreach to help end homelessness myself. this is my friends. this is michelle. i'm a senior with a disability. i was displaced by a fire and

now live in an sro in substandard conditions in the south of market area. i am a disabled senior. i understand the hardships for seniors experience. the need to fund and expand housing sub did he's is important. people struggle to pay remember the and a subsidy can make a difference between eating and not eating. it can mean the difference of remaining in one's home and being homeless. i care for my community and feel that the city should devote more resources that would allow people to remain in their homes and help those without homes access resources. thank you. >> thank you. very well done all right. who is next? both microphones work. >> i am a homeless single mother of a 10-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter. we have been homeless for the

past 8 months since we relocated back here from georgia. we've been at hamilton emergency family shelter for the remainder 60 days in and out. we just got placed in a house and we received our rapid rehousing subsidy through hamilton families. they gave me and my children $1200 limit and with that, it is very hard for me to find something here in the city, which is forcing me to move out of san francisco. my son who just received an african-american honor in san francisco unified school district has also received a scholarship. i'm also afraid of him losing his scholarship, being forced that we have to move out of san francisco. it is also hard for me to get around and look for housing with the subsidy being that my son is

injured. he just broke his leg while we were living in a shelter. so it is important that we ask that you guys please support the budget proposal for need based subsidies for families. thank you. >> thank you. thank you for sharing your story. excellent. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm with hamilton families. thank you so much for having this hearing today. it's important that we surface the issues that many of the families and people are facing in san francisco. as a member of hespa, i want to encourage you all to support the asks as outlined earlier. i want to call attention to a couple of really important ones. the previous speaker spoke about the fact that rental subsidies are critically important, but they're not sufficient to disrupt a family's experience of homelessness permanently. we need to also be thinking about how do we support families

once they are housed to stay housed. it's critically important. the problem solving pieces that were discussed, right now we spend a lot of private resources on problem solving and homelessness presential. it's a critical piece of the system. we encourage you all to think deeply about how to invest resources in the front end of the system so fewer families and people are exposed to homelessness over time. i think the last thing i would say is we spend a lot of time talking about our numbers and how well and not well we're doing, but we still have 1 in 25 students in our district experiencing homelessness. and that is persistent. i just want to encourage us, although we are making incredible progress, i think, towards some of our goals, i think we still have a long way to go. then lastly, the supervisor asked a lot about sort of the

demographics. 52% of the families we serve are african-american. 4% of the population in this city is african-american. 49% of the families that we house are latino and hispanic. so understanding the racial element of homelessness is critically important and having cultural other appropriate interventions that are some kind by those folks and with those folks is also important. >> next speakers. >> thank you for sticking is it out. my name is sharon. i am a long time, 40 year resident of the mission district. i also live in a rent controlled apartment building. i am a member of ace and also a -- we are members of the budget justice coalition.

we support their ask. we are part of the ask. it's not an either-or. it's please, all of it. so i'm finding that it's very difficult to get help on tenant to tenant issues. if you are on the brink of being evicted, you can get help, but there isn't a whole lot of help for preventing eviction. i am being harassed by my neighbor. i have -- i'm continuing to seek help. this means i have to approach my landlord. we have had a relationship of, don't ask, don't tell.

you don't bother me, and i won't bother you. well, i'm going to be forced to bother him. i don't know if i'm going to get help from him either, which is going to mean further steps. so it would be nice to have funding to help seniors to relocate because waiting for senior housing is at least 7 years and very little new senior housing is being built and include disabled in that. >> thank you for sharing your story. next speaker, please. >> good evening, everyone. i'm karen. i'm currently homeless and i live in the sanctuary by the community services. i also work part-time with the coalition of homelessness fighting to end homelessness. pretty much what i hear everyone

and what everyone is saying and i just want to bring attention to the need for a shelter, those being family and single individual shelters in our bayview district. we have the funding, but i know that the residents overturned the place that we chose or the place that the city chose to build such shelter. again, there is numbers going around saying that african-american people are 12% of the population. now they are currently 6. i like to argue that 6% is now homeless or under housed. we need the money to keep our san franciscans housed and homed. thank you. >> thank you. thank you very much. next speaker. >> good afternoon. my name is cecilia. i live in the -- i'm a member of

ace and a member of the budget coalition fighting for very low budget people in san francisco. we're fighting for the housing fund that it was submitted to you previously to keep tenants and homeowners in their homes and communities. i'm here to request help now, to be able to move somewhere in the city to a safe, healthy, and decent living space before i die while waiting for new affordable housing to be built. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is del.

i represent the local board upstairs and we deal with advising the department. so i come here to talk about a few things i would like you to consider. consider in the budget the problem solving grants to make them as flexible as possible, the funding of them and the use of them because homelessness is not a cookie cutter type situation. everyone is not the same. everyone has different needs. the director of the department of public health mentioned we need to start going out more and asking what that americans needs rather than telling him or her what they need because everyone person needs a different thing. some episodes of homelessness can be solved by a simple thing as buying them a $49 cell phone that they can go and call and work for a temporary service. that could solve the whole problem. because it's not on paper that they can do that, we don't do it. simple things we have to get out of this -- next few weeks, you're going to be looking at

numbers. quit look at the numbers and look at the people behind the numbers. that's what it's really about. numbers are homeless. people are homeless. i just want you to consider that when you're looking at it. why aren't we a society to have the right to shelter? i've been in new york and boston. i've been to washington, d.c. beautiful situation. we want to be innovative. no, we're not. we need to be. why are we closing our winter shelters in march or april? this is not la. san francisco is a 12-month winter. any time of the year, it's 30 to 40 degrees outside every night, not just in the winter. so we need to be more flexible in funding our winter shelter. that's bs, it should be a year long shelter. we're going to do that. one thing that wasn't mentioned here today and was mentioned one time which joe wilson, paycheck. a paycheck is an easy way to get out of homelessness. >> thank you very much. thank you for coming.

next speaker, please. >> [speaking foreign language] >> thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is ya. i live in one sro. i'm one of the families there. today, the biggest problem that we face is housing and homelessness. our city needs to put all we could afford into solving these problems. please support the proposal before you today.

thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> [speaking foreign language]

>> good afternoon, supervisors. i just came to the u.s. the way that i look on housing is really difficult. i knock on all the doors, all the hotels on stockton street. however, no one is going to lend

to us because we have -- i have a kid. a long, long time, a lot of difficulties living there. i hope that there will be more housing for people, for families, for people who are homeless. the housing supply is so little, it's really difficult. i myself work odd jobs to support myself and my 7-year-old son. the situation is really difficult. i can't imagine homeless families and all the families that need housing, people on the street that need housing. please support more housing, more support for families, more

support fore homeless people. we need a healthy place to live for our kids to grow. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> hello. i want to say, we need funding for youth experiencing homelessness. homes are a human right. without homes, we don't have an opportunity to heal and thrive. we don't have motivation and education. we never thought we would be homeless in america and it's also very embarrassing. i feel like without having a home, how are we going to work on our mental health and education to get motivated to what we need to do. having homes is a human right and it's up acceptable that home

people are homeless. it's sad. as an immigrant, i'm homeless and it's really -- i've never dreamed or thought i would end up being homeless in america, which is crazy. but we really need this funding to help people with mental health and many other things especially also students facing homelessness who really need the funding. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. thank you so much for your time. i'm krista and i'm with second street youth services. i work with youth as well as alex who is sitting over here not feeling so well. i know you know, but san francisco spends 3% of our budget on homelessness. i know you know homelessness is our top issue in san francisco. i know you know that young people are our future and they're here to speak for themselves. one in five are transitional

aged youth. they're hidden and underfunded population that need a lot of specialized services. they are our future and we thank you for considering putting the amount of money that's being requested through hespa toward homelessness and include sporing our youth. i work with them every day. they are an inspiring incredible resilient, creative, brilliant part of our population and they are our future. thank you for taking the time and to listen to some of them now. >> hello. my name is nick. i was raised in foster care actually. i've been there 18 years. i was abused by my dad, and they helped me with all of that. this is ridiculous that we have a lot of homeless people in this city, in this state, and the money would help the homeless

very, very great. homeless -- some homeless people didn't choose to be homeless. they were abandoned by their parents and siblings. we need the money and please, please, please help us. thanks. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. phil with the aids legal refer panel. thank you for taking the time this afternoon. it's not often that service providers and people who are experiencing homelessness get to speak before you folks. so we appreciate you taking the time to hear from us. if there's one thing that i hope that you leave this afternoon with is a simple math calculation. there are over 7,000 people experiencing homelessness at any point in time, and we have 1400 shelter beds. that is a very simple math equation even for me and i'm no

mathematician. i want to make a couple quick points. first of all, i want to thank supervisor sheehy for his leadership for the civil right to council legislation. the hespa proposal will help us make significant progress in meeting that goal. we're asking for $2 million in new funding foray vision defense attorneys. we know that eviction prevention is a critical strategy. i also want to speak in support of the housing subsidies. they are for seniors and adults with disabilities is a really critical strategy in quickly and efficiently and cheaply addressing homelessness. as you heard, it costs sometimes $300,000 to 500,000 to very much new affordable housing. that's without identifying the

ongoing operating subsidy. then i just want to speak to the particular needs of people living with hiv and aids. housing is the single biggest issue for people living with hiv, and in san francisco, we have embraced the getting to 0 goals of reducing transmissions to 0, deaths to 0, and stigma to 0. if we're going to meet those goals, we have to address homelessness. housing status is the single biggest factor in determining the health outcome for an individual living with hiv. thank you for your time. >> thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. thank you for hearing us on these important issues. i'm an attorney at alrp. i work in the housing unit and the vast majority of my time is spentony vacation defense. hesp arc's budget proposal is very meaningful to me.

i firmly believe that any plan to eradicate homelessness must include money for eviction defense. it's to denight the reality of >> when a disabled tenant is evicted from 'rent controlled or affordable housing unit and forced to move out of the city to find cheaper housing, it means giving up their health care and other services because they are only provided to san francisco residents. losing those services is so detrimental that i often find myself in the position of having to counsel ten apartments on the pros and cons of remaining in the city without adequate

housing but retaining access to social services versus moving outside of the city and obtaining stable housing but giving up virtually every other service they rely upon. that's no choice a person with a disability should have to make. i also think it's important to remember very few of the ten on the who end up in eviction proceedings lose their home. i've seen them be evicted for minor lease violation or nonpayment of represent issues that should be resolved with a payment plan. they need an advocate to fight for them. it's harsh even when you have good defenses and a strong case. for that reason, i urge the board to approve the funding proposal. funding eviction difference prevents homelessness -- >> thank you very much. thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. thank you for your time. i'm a housing attorney.

they provide direct legal services to low income tenants in san francisco. i speak in support of the $2 million a additional funding proposed for eviction defense attorneys in san francisco. this additional funding will help more tenants in need of legal representation during the eviction proceedings. they are extremely vulnerable throughout san francisco including immigrant populations. on average, a housing attorney can only represent around 5 out of the 10 to 12 case cases in ay given month. the others are turned down because of capacity and resource issues. majority of these tenants benefit from having an attorney in advance of their court dates. we're able to investigate the cases, get them better deals, or even get cases dismissed. our representation resolves in tenants being able to remain housed despite the filing of eviction lawsuit against them.

we specialize in assisting tenants in subsidized housing. laws can be complex and tenants often need expert advice and guidance to navigate through them. without the assistance of an attorney, they are often forced to sign an agreement on harsh terms including paying legal fees and costs just to keep their home, but in reality, they are set up for failure and could not subsequently lose their home. i think increasing money will directly impact our ability to stop families from becoming homeless. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. hello. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm joey cordero. former client of homeless prenatal program and my daughter and i are housed in san francisco in the bmr unit using a section 8 voucher. i also now work for a homeless

prenatal program. i had the opportunity of working for a federal demonstration grant which was called families moving forward. all of our families that were referred to that program had an open child welfare case. we're dealing with homelessness, substance abuse, mental health, all those at the same time. what happened -- what we discovered in that demonstration grant is that some of our undocumented families -- we were housing families with section 8 vouchers, but our undocumented families couldn't receive the section 8 voucher because they were undocumented. we were able to use housing program called the share program and use them -- how's them with that subsidy money in the share program. it took about two to three years, but we were able to a play for section 8 vouchers after they were documented. i'm just asking to support the share program and homeless prenatal program.

thank you. >> next speaker. >> hello supervisors, thank you for being here and inviting us. i'm the coshare of the provider network. we're the younger sister of hespa on the supportive housing side. we joined with their ask. our ask is just under $5 million in the first year and a little over $5 million in the second year. it's meant to address two things. i should say our network is made up of the 16 main providers of supportive housing in the city. we're looking to address two things. one is wage issue that's really about race and equity in our city. despite the great work of the directors and hsa family and mayor's office, there's a challenge we have with retaining and recruiting staff especially at the lower end of our wages, whether that's a desk clerk, a janitor, the line staff of the case management team, and that

wage compression issue grows as minimum wage goes up, which is great, but it has an impact. it's harder for us to attract and retain great people to do this important difficult work. a number of our workers are having to live further and further away and are suffering their own significant housing crisis. we need help with wages. the other issue we're facing in terms of the current housing stock is about quality. in some cases, it's the quality of the building which has been underfunded that our tenants are living in conditions they shouldn't have to and none of us are -- then also again, the total staffing as we look to house more and more people with so-called higher level of needs. we need the right staffing and we look forward to working with you to get there. thank you. >> thank you. >> goods afternoon, supervisors. i'm the founder and director of the st. francis homelessness challenge and i want to start by saying i fully support the hespa budget proposal request.

i want us to focus on that question you asked about what are the biggest service gaps, supervisor cohen, and we have billion -- approximately 3,000 to 5,000 people living on the streets and sidewalks of san francisco each night in a state of trauma and crisis without access to a toilet or secure sleep, storage, a place to belong in community with reasonable agreements and responsibilities on that pathway to healing and housing. let's look at this. right now, the city is spending $30 million a year on dpw and sfpd, 8.7 million and 26 million to focus on our unhoused residents living on the streets and sidewalks. that's a $30 million move along strategy where we shuffle people without homes from block to block. i have been working with my organization and with the safe

organized faces working group to create a model that scales up so that for that same $30 million, we could create safe organized spaces for 3,000 people. we could actually heal this at the root rather than shuffle this around. with that $30 million for 3,000 people, the majority of that is for on site staffing. that would be 60 hours per every 20 people that are on the street per week of service support in transitional vocational support and community integration support, and in resident empowerment support so people could live together. there's a license agreement, insurance. it's nonprofit operated, works with the community. a $30 million, you belong strategy to heal at the root. >> thank you. next speaker. >> greetings, supervisor. david elliott lewis.

around 2005, because of untreated disabling depression, i found myself losing my own housing after living many years in san francisco and living well in pacific heights. i went from pacific heights, you might say, to a view of the pacific. and i was on the street. it was a harsh life. i think i would have actually died. i was rescued in 2006 by community housing partnership, a supportive housing provider. that allowed me to both recover from mental illness and rebuild my life centering around volunteer work and helping my community. because of that, because of the supporting housing, i received, i can now give back. i serve on the boards of national alliance and mental illness san francisco, the mental health association, and the community housing partnership as a resident board

member as well as i work as a trainer for the san francisco police department crisis intervention team training program. none of this would have been possible if i wasn't rescued by supportive housing. those waiting on wait lists for supportive housing because the turnover is pretty low. i noticed that once people get their housing, there's not a lot of move-up, move-on opportunities. people stay. we need to take care of the people still on the street. i think amy's idea of providing bathrooms, providing showers, providing vocational support, providing support for people on the street, i think makes sense. it's a humane, compassionate solution for people until they can get housing, sr os or supportive housing. i think it's worth consideration. thank you for your time. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

[ stand by ] >> they really need the help. there's nothing that they can

really do more than what they've already been doing. that's all i really have to say. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> my name is michael. i'm the director of -- we're gearing toward the well-being of our veterans. we're able to do it with the health department, the new department, et cetera. we've had some good results in the last five years, the number of chronic homeless veterans has gone down from 450 to about 130. that was made possible because we were able to make really good use of the federal subsidies. it's va supportive housing. we've made a real difference in the lives of veterans. i want to say that i'm up here to support the hespa request, specifically around the new housing subsidies that will make

a big difference. the employment services, critical mental health services. i say that because it will help, you know, the veterans that reserve, the quality of life. let's keep in mind, 70% of the veterans in san francisco are senior veterans. supervisor yee takes this situation -- so these vets who are older and sicker really need our care. some of the hespa proposal will in fact address their needs. thanks very much. >> thank you. next speaker. >> my name is francis collins. i've lived in the city for 51 years. i'm a member of ace. ace is a member of the budget justice coalition for low and moderate income people all over san francisco. i'm on section 8. trump is cutting the program by

billions of dollars, and they are not letting new people on. so we need to help people locally now that -- that are low income with funds so subsidize their represent. we need sanctuary housing fund. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. i'm with the ace families united, and i'm grateful to be here. i'm here in full support of the hespa ask as we know, the landscape of our city is most discouraging given that we have 7,000 to 10,000 homeless people. the real tragedy of this is that one-third of them are children. as we know, one out of each 25 students in the san francisco unified school district are

children and we don't have many housing exits for these families. working with families united collaborative, we work with over 700 families living in small -- in five different neighborhoods or four different neighborhoods. 8 by 10 with no kitchen, no bathroom, with abusive landlords. as we know, we conducted a census in 2015 and found out 48% of our families reporting illnesses associated with living in sros. so children are living in sros obviously are more prone to be sick than other houses, but not only that, they're not meeting their developmental milestones due to lack of space. so in this city, perhaps the most -- city of the united states is having homeless people. we only have 2% of the budget for homelessness, and most of -- not most of this -- a

significant part is associated with criminalization of the poor. we're here in full support of the hespa ask. thank you very much. >> thank you. next. >> hello. my name is flo kelly. i'm a volunteer at the coalition on homelessness, and so i'm here to speak in support of the hespa proposal. i just wanted to point out, nationwide, there is an eviction once every four minutes. this statistics is reported by matthew desmond, the principal investigator at the eviction lab at princeton university after they examined 80 million eviction records going back to the year 2000. an eviction once every four minutes in this entire country.

evictions for families have disastrous results for all the members because they're thrown into even more poverty and desperation. as a retired san francisco public schoolteacher, i have witnessed the results firsthand. considering everything i've heard today, i think we need to revisit rent control. if somebody moves out of rent control why doesn't it stay rent controlled or something. oh, my goodness. today's proposal is well thought out by people of 28 different organizations, all of whom are on the front line as service workers and advocates. they know what works and what the stumbling blocks are. this proposal is really only a small step toward meeting the overwhelming needs, but we have to take as many steps as are necessary to permanently house all of our residents. san francisco prides itself on

being a vanguard leading the way in developing new solutions, ideas, that the rest of the nation can follow. so let's take all the necessary steps to keep people housed. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon. my name is hailey. much i'm with youth services and i'm here speaking on behalf of the hespa ask. san francisco's most recent point in time count found that on a given night, 1,363 young people are on the streets of our city without a safe place to sleep. this doesn't include those who are hiding in plain sight, couch surfing or living in cars or buildings or making tradeoffs for a place to sleep. they represent one in five individuals experiencing homelessness in san francisco. we know the long-term impact. half of all homeless people in san francisco fir