as far as our -- we do have specific programming that is focused on adults with disabilities because this is a community and a demographic that faces specific and unique challenges to connecting to employment. again, all of our providers serve people with disabilities. what i have listed here are the three providers who make up the disability portfolio. disability portfolio.

>> to healthcare, substance abuse and some of the things that are preventing them from being able to connect to employment that falls somewhat outside of workforces, sort of pure workforce terrain. they need to be treated holistically if people are going to be successful and really moving up and along this continuum towards economic vitality. and i think we have several of our providers here also to talk a elect more about what they're experience and they're seeing so unless you have questions i'll hand things over to the state to

talk about it. >> do you know, in regards to oewd's budget, total budget and how much they actually spent for these catagories? >> the portfolio provided, that specifically focuses on disability make up $700,000. >> which is what percent? what's the total? >> our total contract budget is approximately $15 million. >> $15 million? and you said 700,000. >> 700,000 for the providers specifically focused on people with disabilities. the general workforce services, again, they serve everybody but the specific focus disability portfolio is about 700,000, yes. >> same question for the other category of just older adults. 55 and older let's say.

>> because we don't have programming that is specifically targeted. i mean our neighborhood access points -- i mean, if we -- so the providers that serve sort of in the greatest concentration. our older workers includes self-help for the elderly which is a neighborhood access point and offers sector programming. good will, and faces are all unable access points. our neighborhood access points tend to get a significant amount of funding but they offer services to the entire neighborhood and so it's hard to sort of stress out. >> i believe that the department of labor allows for funding for older workers that are 55 and

plus. is that something we do? i believe they allow 3% of the budget to be set aside. >> we get workforce innovation and opportunity from the department of labor. i can look into that but right now, we do not exclusively set aside 3% of our funding for older workers. i can see if i can crunch the numbers and follow-up with this group as to if we can give you a better sense of how much sort of funding would be going towards this group. because it makes up eight and a half percent of our total enrollment, i would expect that it's probably an equivalent amount of resources. i can try to give you more specifics around that. >> you can do that later. >> thank you, next.

>> welcome from the state of california. >> thank you. >> i'm from the district administrator of the department of rehabilitation here in san francisco. we're just across the street. to give you a little local perspective, even though we are a state agency, again, we serve individuals with disabilities who want to go to work or are under employed and help people increase their independent living. here in san francisco, we have cases sometimes for several years because we may help someone to go back to school or may take them a little time to find a job or they need some support services. generally speaking, every year we serve 2500 individuals. so some of them are with us for years, some of them could be with us for five years. it's a rolling number. we place many people throughout the year but we can't assess if

they're successfully working for 90 days or more. every year on average, we place for 90 days or more, 350 san franciscans with disabilities in employment. i was asked how long does it take for someone to find a job once they get training and get built up to go back to work. on average it takes six to 12 months for someone to find a job. as you can imagine, there are extreme cases that take longer because maybe they're in a specialized field or maybe they have multiple barriers to employment and we need to spend more time to help someone be able to compete and interview. we serve individuals anywhere from the ages of 16 until they no longer want to work. we do have a lot of youth we work for and folks that apply in their 60s and 70s. on average the bulk are in their

40s and 50s. i want to highlight, first of all, our youth services programs for individuals who are ages of 16 to 21 and under the workforce innovation and opportunity act, we are required to spend 15% of our budget for every state on youth with disabilities ages 16 to 21. and we just kicked off in april here in san francisco. we are now in all 85 public and private schools. we are reaching out to them and we're providing the following services to young people with the hope that early intervention will help a individual with disability to get on the road to employment and education sooner. so they'll have successful

career and not join the roles of unemployment. so the areas we're focusing on is working with young folks on job exploration counseling, find out what they want to do and help them explore different careers and what it takes to get into those careers. we're doing work-based learning experiences where we are working on funding them to get their first job. so they get training. 100 hours of training in a job getting paid. we are also doing postsecondary counseling so if people who want to go in fields that do require education in college, helping them to find the schools, how to apply for schools, how to apply for financial aid. we're also doing work-place readiness training. and this is helping individuals to work on their soft skills, to help build them up, to learn about what it's like in the world of work. we may take them on work-place

tours and help them learn about different industries. we're helping young folks and not necessarily totally be dependent on their family but how to have the skills to advocate for themselves. >> you described a great program. is that what you -- is that similar to how you would approach the older adults? >> so i was jut going to go into that. this is just an emphasis on the youth. we do provide all this for the older adults also. the difference is for the youth, we're providing these services they do need not to apply for department of rehabilitation services. we are going into the schools and we're doing this for everybody else which can include youth. they can apply for vocational rehab services and we provide, in addition to those services, several services we pay for such

as pay for their training. if they don't qualify for financial aid that's a very popular one. obviously they come to us because they need help finding a job. when we work with youth that have not applied for services, we're getting them on the road of employment but we are not necessarily finding them the job when they graduate from high school but we can help them with that if they need that assistance after they graduate. we also provide job coaching. so for individuals who once we help them find the job if they have difficulties learning the job or need more assistance in what their manager can provide them in training we have someone that comes in and work with them either on site or off site so they can keep their jobs. we also provide assisted technology as people need that to go to work or to participate in schools. there's several services. this is a small list.

everything is individualized in terms of what the individual needs to go to work. any questions? >> yeah. how closely do you work with our city's ace program? it's just a great overlap of who you are serving. >> so we're in partnership with them. i have a staff person who does the certification and trains all my staff to do certification. also, when we have openings, every week we get openings for the ace program. we get it out to all of our staff as well as to our community partners to seek qualified applicants and we have to certified that they have a disability so they can qualify for the program. >> i really appreciate that. thank you for being part of this. it's not usual we have the state

department come in our city hearings. >> thank you. >> are there any questions? they can come back and give us solutions. >> good morning. i know you don't. i know you don't. i'm going to talk about just for a few minutes and we want to focus on questions and more public comments. some of the feedback that the mayor's office on disability has received around some of the city's employment efforts and some of the barriers that we've heard expressed and many have been already mentioned this morning but it's worth highlighting again. our mayor's disability council has formally written a letter of recommendation to our colleagues in human resources in response to very thorough presentation on the ace program that is similar

to the one we heard today that more needs to be done city wide for employment for people with disabilities. one of the perceptions we need to continue to work on is that through the ace program that there may not be opportunities for forward advancement and that i think can play into whether or not someone choses to follow through with the ace program or not. so that is definitely a piece of feedback. another challenge that we have is that from our sense in mayor's office in disability, we have a good sense of where people are who are already connected to a city program. we do have as good of a sense in terms of what the city wide need is for those individuals with disabilities and older adults who are not connected through one of our city programs, that already are receiving services. there's a gap with some data missing there, which provides challenge in terms of really

trying to figure out how to best address this truly city wide for those folks who, again, may not be aware a program is available or are just kind of out there and not connected yet. then we have also received public feedback. right now this feedback is anecdotal. we haven't done a formal survey on this. some of the things we've heard overtime is that one of the barriers that keeps folks from a fly for jobs is that many reasonable accommodation processes and application processes to apply for are either -- they feel they're complicated or for technical reasons are physically not accessible to people with disabilities. we hear this especially from our vision constituents. also, we hear often that there is a fear that is out there that

is directly linked to ableism and ageism that hearing of hiring discrimination keeps people from seeking employment. so there's a lot of education and training that we node to do about that and finally as we've mentioned previously, we also hear that folks are unclear how to access benefits and programs that allow for either full time work or part-time work and the the maintenance of benefits that feels confusing to a lot of people and then i think what happens is they decide in some cases, this is addressing both folks that are not in the workforce but want to seek employment that she spoke of earlier. one of the challenges is they are unclear about how to navigate the system. in response to some of these

things, we do have the aging and disability task force and right now we're in the implementation phase. the aging and disability task force is on the world heath organization that is looking at eight different domains. one of the domains we've identified is employment and economic security. and just in january of this year, we began the implementation phase after a year of working with our city partners and non profits and business partners around what are the issues that are facing the aging and disability community. so on this slide, we're talking about what are some of the goals that the task force has recommended in this first phase to really look at in terms of economic and employment security. one is to ensure that we have policies and practices that meet

the needs of older adults and people with disabilities and caregivers. we want to support those efforts. i should say too the goals are set for the next three years but the actions that we're taking are changed and adjusted depending on needs and feedback. and so on the second goal we've identified for this first phase is to really start to look at ableism and ageism within the employment process and are we as a city really -- do we have a representative workforce. san francisco's demographics is specifically for people with disabilities and older adults and we also know that we have some work to do in terms of employer and employee training on working towards helping people under what ableism even is and ageism as well. and then finally the third goal

is to really look at our efforts that are currently supporting economic security for seniors and people with disabilities and their caregivers. this is getting to really looking at what are we doing in terms of benefits, counseling and is it effective. it's an action of this goal is looking eligibility and counseling and the effectiveness of the particular program and looking forward to continuing to work through the aging disability from a task force. that task force is chaired by myself and we really need to make sure we're identifying our stakeholders and collaborating and providing outreach to the

community so the members of our disability. public who are not already connected to some sort of program or in the loop in terms of what is available and i think we have untapped resources in the unified school districts and there are a lot of employees with disabilities in the system that are really looking for opportunities and we want to continue obviously to work with our disability in older adult non-profit advocates and service providers and we also have opportunities within the corporation and the business sector to really build. i think we really need a

framework to bring everybody together though. that would be helpful to get everybody around the table and effort and really. i'll turn it over. >> i think why don't we go to public comments. there's been people waiting here for a long time. the presentations were excellent. i'll sum it up later. >> yes, so i'm ready to -- i'm opening public comment and i have a card from fiona hinsy. from amy yu. i'm not reading these right. edith yaminoa.

kathy spence ly, alisha crawford and rebeca shotwell to start. you can lineup on the left. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm here to tell you a little bit our program. which name is amy yu. i'm the district or for the service employment program. it is a federally funded program, training program for the older adults 55 years and older and low income and residing in san francisco. we have the national council on aging and we're operated by sub projects throughout the united states. the goal of the program really is to foster individual economic self-sufficient see and increase the older benefits that benefit from unsubsidized employment and it's a training program to help

upgrade job skills for older adult today's help them get job placements, to help older adults get involved in the community and to provide a community service and to provide added income as well. it does really play an important role in today's competitive job market. our trainees are in the program for 48 months. it's the time they can be in the program. they are placed in non-profit and governmental agencies for part-time 12 hours per week. while they're getting paid a minimum wage stipend. the trainees are able to gain the skills needed with the goal of traps i transitioning to und employment and we help them find employment as soon as possible so the slots can open up for other older adults that can benefits from the program. and so at this time, we are

recruiting actively for trainees as well as in our program and we are trying to acquire more host agency sites. and we are actually having some durationing out. >> mr. yu. are you part of this group that's been meeting on this issue? >> no, not yet. so i do want to speak with a lot of the folks in this room today just to partner up with them as well. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> if people are ok, if people with disabilities can cut to the head of the line if that is helpful.

>> thank you, very much. so good afternoon, everyone, my name is anne and i'm the transition program specialist at the light house for the blind and visually impaired in san francisco. people with disabilities are often invisible and are last on the diversity and inclusion train so i'm really heart end to hear and happy we're hosting a hearing to discuss employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. as someone who works from both the macro systemic level, serving on the department of rehabilitation committee and someone that studies this issue and working at the micro level, working specifically at the light house with young adults with disabilities, i witnessed a lot of the detrimental impacts of unemployment for people with disabilities and how this can really impact their self-esteem and economic empowerment. so according to the u.s.

department of health and human services in 2016, employment rates for adults with disabilities and adults without is 35.9 compared to 76.6% so that is nearly doubled. that's very disheartening. and we all know that unemployment is highly correlated with poverty, lack of economic sufficiency and low quality of life. i wanted to highlight three challenges people with disabilities face as they seek employment. so, the first is the awareness and hesitation of employer to hire people with disabilities because of fear of accommodation, if you are an older adult and you reenter the workforce you may need rehab training. the employer may say there's a gap in the resume. second is job exploration and support. lack of internships, mentor ships and there's a lot of room for ace program and others to work with community organizations to really develop those partnerships like the

light house. the third is quality of work and employment so a lot of people with disabilities are tracked into lower wage jobs, so they have to weigh is it worth sacrificing my benefits to make this meager wage. so i know the federal and local governments are really trying to be the model employer but i would encourage partnerships with businesses as well because the federal can't hire everybody. thank you very much and i hope to discuss further. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, my name is edith. azzam'as amy mentioned i'm a for trainee of the service community employment program. i wanted to mention it has really changed the course of my life. i am here to state that we need programs like this to help seniors remain self-sufficient and independent in the city.

i had been un'em employed for eight years, despite having a college degree and years of professional experience in the corporate sector. yet i was lost and i could not find my way into the workforce. participating in this program gave me the confidence, self-worth and the connection i needed to be become employed. i had to be in the workplace to prove my skills. given the chance i did everything in my power to be useful, completing my tasks, always asking myself what more can i do. how can i create value? i am happy to say i have been hired full time as a program manager at the fellton family service agency. i love my job and appreciate my management for giving me the opportunity. to express my gratitude i want to make a difference in the lives of seniors and the community at large. that is what brings me here today. i would like to ask the supervisors to consider

employment when highering seniors with the city and county of san francisco and increase support for work training programs like reserve and the senior community service employment services program. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is kathy spencely. i'm from felt ton institute also known as family service agency of san francisco. our agency has been supporting san francisco safety net for 129 years. we serve older adult who's is worked to build and support san francisco their whole lives. many enrolled and social services or jobs and not come with large salary pensions and with the commitment to san francisco in the community in which we live. they may have saved bought a house in the city affordable and upon retiring, or loosing their jobs, many cannot meet ends to remain living here and out of poverty. they want to work, they need to

work, part-time work is often what they seek they want to be part of the community to keep mentally sharp and find meaning. perhaps most importantly, today they need to retool. to learn more computer skills and other skills to fit the need of today's job markets. fellton has managed the service management program since 2010 under contract with the u.s. department of labor and the national council on aging. this program provides formal training and training placements in city departments to get that on the job experience, job readiness and confidence. this program retools skills that importantly it gives c.b.o.s and city departments an opportunity to see the value of older workers. we understand this as well. over the past eight years we have hired 20 former participants to work in our agency such as edith. we need these programs so more older adults can find meaningful and necessary employment in san

francisco. we rely on federal funding, which was cut in half six years ago. please consider increasing these programs so the city can benefit from the expertise and inclusion in our workforce and community of older adults. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please. could i also call up judy goddis, marie jobling and winnie yu. come on up. thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm alisha crawford. the san francisco reserve program matches older adults and adulted with disabilities with non-profit employment and other sectors government agencies. we are in our second year of the program. it's housed in the community living campaign and we've placed over 35 adults in meaningful employment helping to build the capacity of these non-profit organizations here in san francisco. reservists are bringing an average of 50 years of experience and knowledge and truly desire continuing to

contribute to their community and in a meaningful way. they have jobs that run a wide spectrum from social work support to garden stew address to marketing strattists to bilingual community outreach. 38% have a graduate degree. and in surveys we've taken, 95% of them feel their work contributes back to their community and they feel they have contributed on a daily basis in their work. the experience among older adults and adults with disabilities in san francisco runs deep and wide. to continue living in this city, they need to work and they want to work and they want to work making an impact. in san francisco, as you've heard, 25% of the population are older adults and adults with disabilities. and we have more reservists waiting that we can't yet place. there are plenty to be placed and plenty who want to work but right now we're unable to grow the program, due to a lack of funding. employment should be made available for everyone at all

ages and given that we have 61% of san franciscans lacking economic security, programs like reserve need to grow and accommodate as the city grows with it. employment is needed at all ages. we encourage you to provide additional funding to think about employment programs for older adults and adults with disabilities, the vitality of this city depends on your support of programs like this and others that put all of those who want to go back to work in employment. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> my name is rebeca shotwell. i was one the first people to go through the reserve program. in 2008, my finances went kaput and i had to find a job. who is going to hire a 68-year-old woman. i'm 70 now. i called the department on aging and i got someone who told me there's a new program in san francisco called reserve.

check it o i checked it out. they were fabulous. the two geniouses, maria and kate, i wentz to their meetings and filled out their paper work. within a few weeks they placed me down at the aquatic park senior center where i worked for about six months and one of the great things about reserve is they pay our salaries so it benefits the local business community because they don't have to pay for the help. they get free labor. i was just hired recently by ncphs which runs the senior center so i'm now a permanent employee. reserve did its job. it placed me, it got me hired and i am now contributing to my community. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon supervisors. my name is maria. i'm actually city and county retiree. now for almost three years. i love that it allows me the

time to come to these chambers and advocate for the causes i believe are important. thank you for your attention to this matter. as an occasional trainer with community living campaign and also as a board member for senior and disability action, i seen the benefits for the reserve program and i'm also delighted to hear about the other programs spoken about today. so one of the things that i know is that economically, this does give a boost to those that unfortunately are now in a informatioposition where they hd and modest incomes. i'm also here to talk about the more intrinsic value of what it's like to be able to have older adults and people with disabilities and the creditability that it provides for the members of our program

at s. d.a. and the participants that are greeted and assisted by appear advocate that is a part of the reserve program. it's also important, i believe, to note that there's also value when there's a multi generational work environment as well. there's some to be said about the work ethic and years of work experience and how to problem solve in the real world. so i would really encourage continued funding. younger workers would also be rewarded and benefit if they are open to the mentor ship from older adults and people with disabilities in the workforce. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> hello i'm betty trainer on the board at senior and disability action and also with the community living campaign.

i'm speaking strongly in favor of the reserve program. i'm looking for work and they're seniors and already spoken today. and there just isn't enough money to hire them in these different positions. i also know from the other side, an organization that wanted to have more people from the reserve program to work in her garden program but there wasn't the money there. and so i think this program that just needs to be tremendously expanded the need is there. i can talk from personal experience. i retired from full-time work about 10 years ago. i unfortunately never had a job where i got a good pension and so i'm basically living off of income of social security. so my savings is dwindling and i was fortunate enough to get what some young people would call gig jobs. i have one where i take minutes for a board meeting and i get paid for that and i get paid for wonderful work with seniors

through the community living campaign. this is helping me to pay for my food, et cetera, so my savings doesn't go down. i'm not just the only person, i'm representing so many seniors that were just living as far as income from our social security and we need these jobs. please, help us. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, i'm judy. i want to tell you my story. i spent my whole career working in non-profit agencies. mainly as a grant writer. and they did not pay pensions. on the side, i was doing a lot of advocacy for parents and children in the public schools. i decided it was time to retire from my full-time job and start an advocacy program. so they gave a going away party

for me and the next morning my son called and said that his wife was going to die. she had a brain stem tumor. so i immediately went to santa cruz and spent the next couple years in santa cruz in classrooms and at home, i never saw so much cound reand shopping and taking care of the family and i began taking classes. which was the only thing i had energy for really. and i realized that we weren't talking about aging, this is a program for older people. and i was aging and we were all aging. i started looking into it and started a program there and realized i wanted to get the word out in the community about older people and began writing for a neighborhood newspaper. i've been at your office many

times. and i've been at your office too. and an article in your paper this coming month. it was really rewarding. a lot of people learned something about it. my goal is when seniors are isolated at home, they should know what is happening in the community and know where to go for services. and so, eventuall eventually mad we now have a senior beat. >> thank you, very much. the next speaker is coming up, can i call charles minister, benjamin chung, and nikki and kristen peterson. >> thank you board of exercises. my name is winnie yu. we're a non-profit organization in san francisco. we help immigrants and older

adults stay active and be able to live independently in their homes and communities. i like to summarize our workforce services that we provide in addition to the social services which we also provide for continuum of care. self-help has a series of job readiness workshops to help immigrants and older workers be job ready to secure employment directly or enter vocational connectioning to get the skills they need to be competitive in the job market. our employer engagement focuses on helping job seekers develop skills that match the jobs available in the job market. our staff of career advisor helped with job coast case management, follow-up, to support job seekers to get a job and also keep their job after placement. in the last year, annually, we help over 360 older workers through our workforce services and we provide a range of

vocational training tracks for entry-level workers to access inindustry in the city, hotel housekeeping, in the hospitality and personal caregiver home health aid training for the healthcare industry. we have workplace bridge programs that help job seekers gain the english skills needed to access vocational training and also community college systems. some of the challenges are priorities is develop being secure workers especially those who have multiple barriers to employment such as language. outreach to and more entry level job access and job placement after training and help more incumbent workers access advance training to increase their earning potential and move into entry level jobs. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> i'm the director of the community living campaign. and an older adult with 67 years behind me. i want to thank you for holding this hearing this morning. many have spoken to what a great challenge it is for our city right now. more than half of us seniors and people with disabilities lack economic security. social security and s.s.i. are nowhere near enough to help us make ends meet and we're 25% of the population. you've heard how non-profit programs have provided an example of what is possible but the funding is so minimal. participants hit a wall if there aren't pathways to more opportunities. on the other hand, while the challenge is great, the opportunities are even greater. we, seniors and people with disabilities, are this vast reservoir of time, talent, experience, commitment to purpose, and to serve us. so hire us, engage us, keep us connected so we can help others.

just imagine if you were able to mobilize more of us to teach computer skills and online safety to our community. the peer navigators to help people access appropriate health, physical and behavioral health services. to help people learn how to use all the transportation options now available to avoid being isolated. organize neighborhoods so they are prepare prepared for emerged people can look out for one another in a crisis. be dementia coaches to families struggling with a loved one with alzheimer's. men tore high school students to successful leah ply to college. the time is now. we can't wait. we help make the city of wonderful diverse inclusive creative city it is and we want to stay. we look to the board of supervisors to help support this movement for economic security. we look to the mayor's office for strong leadership and clear direction with the city departments to work together with the non-profit and business sector. just imagine the possibilities.

thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> thank you. charles, senior disability action member and also active with reserve. i got turned down by two jobs this past week. going through the process. i was born in a working-class family and working is part of my d.n.a. i worked in heavy industry and also for the government. since i've been retired, i haven't been laying around drinking beer and watching television. yesterday, and monday i was on the picket lines with the u.c. workers and a lot of my older adults were there also for that important struggle. i was in supervisor's chambers a couple days ago about the same subject. jobs for seniors and people with disabilities. i go up to sacramento, i was up

there friday for defending three anti fascist youth who had been victimized for fighting to defend themselves against fascists a couple years ago, they're being prosecuted. i keep active. i am active with senior and disability action. i go up to sacramento. there's thousands of people like myself who worked all their lives, who are on fixed incomes, not making a hell of a lot of money, we can use the money and we can use that social environment that we've been used to all our lives. hell, i was working when i was 10-years-old. it was part of our lives as kids. pg&e have been laying people off and now they got caught with the fires. people like myself that can be put into jobs there? i bet all these u.c., they've

been going after contractors laying off union men and women and hiring contractors and paying them minimum wage. and they sure got money. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is kristen peterson i'm the chief and services at the arc san francisco. the arc has been around for 65 years and we serve adults with developmental disabilities. when you hear the numbers you've been hearing this afternoon, about individuals with disabilities and their unand under employment, the individuals that we support nationally are employed at about 11%. that is their employment rate. which is shocking. at the arc, our employment rate is about 45%, which when we do an event we get a big round of applause for. if you take a step back from that, that is horrifying in a

city where unemployment is under 3% currently. we have wonderful partnerships with oewd, department of rehabilitation, the regional center, as well as many of the companies here in san francisco. but one of our most significant gaps is not the demand, as far as our clients wanting to work and wanting to work full time, or the demand of employers wanting to hire. it's our ability to be able to staff our programs. we are fighting against increasing costs of running our business. the minimum wage rising significantly as within our organization for six years. the difference between our wages that we're able to pay and the minimum wage keeps getting smaller and smaller for specialized work. i would like to encourage the city, it look at how your funding programs like hours and when r.s.p.s go out, to make

sure they're not just focused on new people and programming but sustaining the programming core to individuals with developmental disabilities. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. christine. i'm an attorney here in san francisco and the first thing i did when i went to usf law school was i 'em employed the americans with disabilities act on my own behalf. fell under its protection and was able to graduate from usf law school. and then advocated on bow half of the disabled to give back to that community to make up to say thank you because if it were not for the americans with disabilities act i would not be an attorney today. and so, as you look around the room, you see people from all back grounds here advocating.

it's time we change the word disabled. people with disabilities are able. they are capable individuals as they come from all different back grounds and now that the act will be 30-years-old, it's time we convene a grand jury or some sort of task forced to take a look at how we are serving the citizens of san francisco and see how our graduates from the san francisco unified school district are tracking. are they 'em employed, have they found employment, where are they now and are they shut in? i would like to talk about individuals with aspergers. in the next 10 years, more than 500,000 individuals in the united states will be suffering from or have the autism spectrum. of those individuals, 85% will be un'em employed. they will be college graduates without employment.

they will not have jobs. are we serving them well having them graduate from college and have nowhere to go. i believe that we did public-private partnerships with the san francisco chamber of commerce. if you look at this diagram you'll see the non profits we have in the bay area that work to try to help these individuals. yet we have absolutely no coordination. >> thank you. next speaker. the next speaker is coming up i'll call tyler sutton, june' dwanis and joe ramerez. >> hi, i'm mimi aragodi. i have been going to the arc for

seven years and i work at the academy of science sciences. i've been there for seven months now almost eight and nine and i have autism. i've been trying to get a job for years. the reason i think the arc is a good place for help because it helps people get jobs and fin find -- go to school. the thing is, i have been working for, i've been with dan for years and my group and --

sorry. i forget what i was going -- the reason it's hard for me to find a job is because i have autism and my concentration is impaired and i never could trust myself in a job. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you for your testimony. next speaker, please. >> hello everyone, my name is benjamin and i have been in project search for a long time. it's a really great program for people with disabilities and it can help us get a job. i wish that we could have more paid job in the city because we

need money to survive. i hope that people with disabilities will also have, let's just say, i don't know what to say. >> thank you. >> great, thank you, very much. next speaker, please. >> hello. my name is tyler sutton and i was diagnosed with high functioning autism at the age of seven. i'm very interested in government and politics and i have interned for the former district 9 supervisor cam post as well as the hillary rownan. >> you are the best. >> while i was studying politics at usf. i graduated with a b.a. last year. both of arc and the san francisco department of rehabilitation have tirelessly

supported me in my search for a job that makes good use of my strengths and interests. i'd like to thank everyone working for those organizations. i hope that some day i can put my unique strength and talents towards making this city a better place and ensuring everyone finds fitting, fulfilling work that i am. and to that effect, i say fund these people. >> thank you. >> i just want to thank tyler for his amazing work and my office for so much time and how much you contributed and helped our constituents. i just want to thank him publicly for that amazing work. >> thank you. [applause] >> hi joe ramerez, the managing director for employment services at p.r. c. p.r. c.'s mission is to help

people effected by h.i.v. and aids, substance abuse and mental health issues to realize opportunities that integrate legal, social and health services that impact wellness and potential. i also sit on the h.i.v. and aging group. work group so i'm representing vincent, who advises d.o.s. and one of the things they're recommending is an employment program for people with h.i.v. as we saw, a lot of the great services, the new emerging disability, aging population is people with h.i.v. and aids. and they also don't have the punitive return to work benefits so more and more are seeking income potential. we are partners with the department of rehabilitation, the office economic workforce development, and part getting the zero initiative in this last year and we placed 153 people, 9 # 6 of them using the d.o.r. services and we'd like to make sure homeless populations get

the case management services in coordination with employment ser visions as majority of the people we see have homeless or are marginally housed. if we could start imbedding those services that would be better. right now they're not embedded. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. i'm juno. i'm the executive director of support for families. thank you for hearing our voices today. i am a parent of a youth with disabilities. who is actually now an adult. i'm here to talk about youth can bis abilities and special healthcare needs. those are the ones that grow up to be adults. disabilities is a part of our national commission. yet challenges that youth with disabilities experience are crushing. youth with disabilities are at a higher risk then their non

disabled peer for abuse, neglect, dropping out, homelessness, juvenile justice system as well as joblessness. good news is, research shows that they can reach their potential with appropriate and timeless services. they can have success. if we want our youth to work, we have to set up a system to help make that happen. families and providers need information education and support to assist them in getting the services. they need assistance in negotiating assistance whether they're at a regional center, education services, in-home support services. s.s.i., d.o.r., medical medical, institutional teaming and last but not least, we need to provide a coordinated system of transition services. to give our youth the opportunities they need to grow

up to be contributing members of our community. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. if there's anyone else who would like to make public comments, please lineup on the left. >> hello, supervisors. jessica layman with senior and disability action. you've heard a lot of great comments today. i wanted to thank you for taking the time to hear from us and think about it and to continue and figure out what we can do as a city. i really want to highlight i think we're at an exciting time where the way we talk about aging and the way we talk about disability is starting to shift from this negative idea that oh my gosh, people are going to take over and what are we going to do so people are a resource and seniors and people with disabilities bring such amazing experience and perspective to our community. and i think marie job ling took credit to say you know, we have people who can do amazing work and with programs like reserve and csep so i hope you build

them, as well as looking at how we can train businesses and non profits to understandablism and ageism and at the city level, right, what we can do to provide incentives to make sure people are in jobs where they will contribute so much. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. good afternoon. my name is ricardo perez. i'm a regional specialist. i wanted to quickly let you know that one of the programs that we do assist with businesses and other departments is disability etiquette training that is commonly known as windmills. we offer that free service to anybody and everybody that needs it. aside from including education about disability we discuss about ageism. we also discuss with the businesses how we can better accommodate in order to be able to employ any individual that

comes through d.o.r. or any of our vendors and agencies that we happen to work with. just want to quickly let you know that we can is assist with that in case you need that. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is joyce. i'm active with senior disability action and among other things. i was sitting back there and i'm also signed up with reserve but i haven't been assigned a job through them yet. with my experience this past two months, i had -- what do you call, a garage sale with my neighbor across the street three doors down. and i'm thinking, i went online yesterday and there's a huge need for a senior housing and i'm thinking, hey, i can help

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