calderon olea. better market -- you can tell where my mind was going -- better market street project manager, san francisco department of public works, welcome. >> thank you. -- manager for san francisco public works. i'm going to pull up my presentation. better market street is a joint project developed by san francisco public works. the mayor's office on disability, the planning department, the san francisco

municipal transportation agency, san francisco puc and the transportation authority. it extends from stuart to octavia boulevard. market street is the busiest corridor for people walking, biking and taking transit. it is our premier cultural boulevard. and mobility is a key objective of the better market street project. by mobility, we mean safety and accessibility. this slide shows why the need to improve safety and accessibility on market street is so important. the collision rate within the project area is over 20 times the state average for similar corridors. the corridor also includes three of the top five intersections for cyclists-involved injuries

at octavia, gough and 5th street. and two of the top five intersections for pedestrian-involved injury collisions at 5th and 7th street. there is a high concentration of vulnerable people, including people with disabilities, children and seniors who live and work along the corridor. mid market is a high consumer area for people with disabilities and some of the fatalities in the last slide include -- have included wheelchair users. we also know that as public works, we're stewards of the public right-of-way and responsible for the safety of our residents and visitors. we know that improving accessibility improves safety for everyone. some of the tools that we're using along market street, or that we're adding as part of the project are more detectable warnings, delineations between

the different modes of transportation, transit island improvements, curb ramps, pedestrian signals. pedestrian bike paths and navigation through the corridor. today i'll give you an overview of the project and design details for key elements of the project. just a few other demographic pints i wanted to bring up. over 94,000 san franciscans report a disability. 50% are under the age of 65. nearly 50,000 people have mobility disabilities and 35,000 -- or nearly 35,000 have sensory disabilities. many people reporting multiple disabilities. 27% report daily use of public transit. so the transit improvements along market street are key to improving accessibility along the corridor. as we all know, existing transit

stops, curb ramps and the brick paving on market street do not meet current ada standards. one of our key goals is to improve transit reliability and travel time. there is a discontinuous bike facility that ends at 8th street. there is no dedicated bicycle space east of 8th. and we have aging infrastructure that is reaching the end of its useful life, the traffic signals, the streetlights, the underground utilities and sidewalks. in 2013, the project team recruited 10 individuals with various degrees of mobilities and vision disabilities to participate in the focus group. some of the key findings that are in the report -- and it's available on our website -- were

that the bricks have been replaced in various locations. there is differing color, which causes confusion with the visual cue. certain bricks are less slip resist ant and some of the joints have lost mortar or expanded. the recommendations were to install slip-resistance paving. clear distinction between the pedestrian throughway and ear jones. both a visual cue, such as color and audible cue with textures. so quick overview again. the project area is 2.2 miles of market street from stuart to octavia. the project will enhance roadway safety for everyone. it will improve muni performance and reliability. replace the aging infrastructure.

and revitalize the streetscape design for 21st century san francisco. some key dates that i wanted to bring to everyone's attention. as nicole mentioned earlier, our draft environmental impact report is out for public comment right now. on march 20th, which is next wednesday i believe, there will be a hearing at the historic preservation commission where they will talk about the draft eir and especially the changes to the cultural resources along market street, which do include the bricks and the granite curb. i'm going through the draft eir dates and hit the others one in between. in addition to the hearing at the historic preservation commission, there will be a public hearing on april 4 in the planning commission. that is one way the public can provide comments on the draft eir to the planning department. the other way is writing.

but you can come in person to city hall and give your comments to the planning commission directly. at 5:00 p.m. on april 15, that comment period will close. we expect to have final certification of the draft eir this fall. we're targeting october of this year. in addition, we have other community meets that are coming up. the project has a community working group that will meet on march 25. we also are going to civic design review, a committee of the arts commission, will be presenting the schematic design on monday, march 18. and then we'll be going back in june and in october when we have 65 and 95% design. and then other project approvals will come after final certification in the fall. so we get project approval from our own director as well as from the municipal transportation agency's board, the mta board.

our goal is to advertise phase one of the project a year from now in march of 2020. and that first phase will be between 5th and 8th streets. so in the mid market section of market street. some of you may be familiar with the cycle track project that we have on market street now between gough and franklin on the south side. this raised bikeway was a pilot back in 2015. we were testing a raised bikeway at two inches from the roadway and then at four inches from the roadway. what we found was that people were still -- vehicles were still parking on the bikeway. it wasn't raised enough to prevent cars from doing that or delivery vehicles. so we added the posts in 2016, but this pilot led to the proposed project for better

market street. which is to have a sidewalk-level bikeway that is separated from the sidewalk by a clear delineation. and i have another slide on that coming up. here what i wanted to do was talk about the cross section for the roadway. so we have two center lanes that will be muni only. right now, they're transit and taxi, but they will in the future be muni only. taxis, transit, delivery vehicles, will all continue to drive in the curb lane. so even with better market street we still have two lanes in each direction. then the existing curb line will be moved out two feet into the roadway to help make space for the new sidewalk-level bikeway. so the standard cross section is to have a 4-foot buffer between the vehicle lane and the bikeway. and then our separation between the bikeway and the sidewalk and the remainder of the sidewalk is

for people that are walking. so in most place it's around 25 feet from the property line to the building face. this particular cross section of market street is also showing a curbside boarding island, which is 9 feet wide. you can see that on the right side of the slide. this is a rendering of our proposed project. you can see the two lanes, two vehicle lanes in the roadway. the sidewalk-level bikeway. the separation and then a clear furnishing zone where we are trying to move all of our existing street furniture into one area, including the path of gold, which are both streetlights and muni poles for their contact system. all the street furniture will run there, the trees and other street furniture.

then the clear walkway for pedestrians. and then allowing 5-6 feet for table and chairs at restaurants. some of the key considerations is we evaluate different paving materials is the surface roughness, so consistency and slip-resistance. looking at texture and color and the joints. the frequency of the joints, the spacing and the delineation of the pavers. so we have been gathering -- not quite monthly, sometimes every other month -- with an accessibility working group which nicole sits on. we have the access coordinator and the disability access coordinator for mta. we meet with the design team to go over accessibility considerations in all of our designs. so nicole mentioned the study of

the sidewalk separation. it's being led by bc benson, a researcher out of massachusetts, who has study separations and bikeways, kind of like sidewalk-lel bikeways, in the just throughout -- not just through the united states, but around the world. she'll help us select up to six alternatives to test in our pilot area on market street, so we'll be converting the old pilot to a new sidewalk-level bikeway and testing these different separation materials. and the study participants will be of differing levels of vision and mobility -- different abilities. the human factor testing will happen this summer in june and july. you'll see instruction of -- construction of that bikeway happening in april and may. 4-6 weeks from now, breaking ground, raising the bikeway up,

and then installing the different bikeway separation materials and then b.z. will fly out in june and july to do the testing. so now i'll go through the key design features that we have worked with closely as part of the accessibility working group. that is one of the proposed zones. not only will the bikeway be at sidewalk level, but loading zones will also be at sidewalk level. those loading zones will be separated from the sidewalk by truncated domes because it is a vehicle area and we'll continue to use truncated domes there. we'll have ballards to ensure that vehicles stay within the zone. we're making sure it's wide enough so that para transit vehicles can deploy their ramps and help people get on and off

the para transit vehicles. loading will be restricted to off-peak hours. so during peak hours when we have a lot of people using our sidewalks, we'll restrict the loading from happening at those times. and the bikes will be on the outside of the loading zone. so the vehicles will actually roll up onto the loading zone and bikes will pass them on the left. this is an image of a curbside boarding island. bicycles will ride behind the boarding island. the islands will be much longer than they are today. allowing for multiple shelters. it will also, the first shelter will be just ahead of where the muni buses are expected to stop. and so someone can be waiting in the shelter and easily exit the shelter and enter the first bus. we also are channelling people that get off the buses, or that

are getting onto the boarding islands on these crosswalks that will have truncated domes and crosswalk striping. at the front end and the back end we're hoping to add greening and landscaping to help improve the area as a whole. this image is of a center boarding island with a new mini high platform. i think i mentioned earlier, the actual boarding islands will be wider, a little over nine feet. right now they're 5-6 feet. very narrow. we'll be widening them by three feet. the mini highs will be at the center boarding islands. they'll be at each of the muni and bart stations. this also presents an opportunity to add some lighting, or to provide additional lighting on the

center boarding islands as well. moving to community engagement. the project actually started in 2010 and since 2011, we've had four rounds of community meetings. we also have a community working group that is meeting every other month. and includes a good cross section, a representation, not just of market street or people with an interest in market street, but city-wide advocacy groups and advocacy groups. for the month of february, we had a pop-up at the act theater at the strand. we were -- the project team stayed -- or had a pop-up -- staffed a pop-up twice a week on tuesdays and thursdays and it was pretty successful. we hope to do that again later this year. it provides an opportunity for

people who are walking by to stop in and learn more about the project. you might have heard we did a prototyping festival to look at the activation opportunities along market street. we've talked a little bit about the draft environmental import, i wanted to show the link to where you can find the documents. it's better market street sf.org/eir. and better market street sf.org is the project website. there are frequently asked questions. public comment will be accepted by the planning department until 5:00 p.m. on april 15th. and all questions and comments should be sent to christopher thomas at the planning department. that concludes my presentation. i'm happy to answer any questions that you have.

>> co-chair blacksten: thank you. that was a great presentation. a lot of information. are there any council members who have comments and questions? >> through the chair? >> co-chair blacksten: yes. >> orkid would like to speak. >> co-chair senhaux: why weren't you including deaf people in the groups? i'm thinking about the impact on the deaf community. it's a concern really, about -- and based on my own personal experience of having been hit by vehicles, i'm wondering how you chose the individuals that you focused on and the groups you were discussing these plans with? and just seeing what the results of these focus groups are. i'm wondering if you're going to include lights as warnings, or

is that a separate part of the process? that's some of my questions. >> thank you, those are good questions. i took over the project last may. so i'm not sure how people were selected prior to that. i think we've worked quite a bit with the mayor's office on disability and i think it's a good idea to include people who are deaf. we can definitely do that moving forward. as far as lights, the accessible pedestrian signals do have vibration as well sound. and a light that shows that you have pushed the button. those will be installed in all of the intersections. did i catch all the questions? >> co-chair senhaux: that was some of it. i'm wondering about the deaf people and you're receiving feedback? my reasoning for that, often at intersections, people will blow red lights. some of them have been killed.

and, unfortunately, people in the deaf community have been killed by people running red lights or not seeing things. or they're walking in a place they feel is safe and cars have come, maybe they've done a quick look around, a visual sweep, and then someone comes out of nowhere. just thinking about what driver's behavior is. maybe it's an issue of teaching drivers at that point. but i'm just wondering about some of that. it's great you're involving the public in the focus groups, but how do we change information about how to be more observant as a driver? and deaf people specifically. i'm thinking about how we raise awareness and how there is a lack of information and understanding out there in general. >> so we often work with the municipal transportation agency to add enforcement and education

to our projects. not just the engineering changes. and so that is something we'll continue to do as we implement better market street. i think working through the mayor's office on disability and the mayor's disability council we can pull in more representation from the deaf community. >> co-chair senhaux: that would be great, thank you. >> council member mcdonald: hi. question came to mind. you mentioned the working group. can you talk about what diversity are those? are there any differences of people? and second, you mentioned about

92, or 17,000 people with disability, i'm wondering how did you get that number? >> for your first question, do you mean for the pedestrian focus group or the separation study? >> council member madrid: both. >> for the focus group in 2013, that one, i think we worked closely with the mayor's office on disability at the time. and lrc, bob was on that focus group. ilrc facilitated that meeting. for the separation study, we'll continue to work with the mayor's office on disability and we also hired a consultant team. benson is part of the consultant team that includes civic edge

that will be helping us reach out through the community to find representation. but again, working with mod, working with lighthouse, working with ilrc and the key advocacy groups in the city. >> council member madrid: i'm wondering how maem people in the group? >> for the separation study -- >> i think, alex, are you asking about the community working group? >> council member mcdonald: yeah. >> so you're asking if there is a presentation of people with disabilities on the working group? >> yes, there is. we have bob planthold and representatives from lirc -- just lighthouse. okay. so we have a member of our community working group from lighthouse for the blind. >> nicole: i think one of the things we would be happy to do

is gather all the opportunities, put them in one place and send them back out to the distribution and to you, so that you can have all the different ways to be engaged in one spot. >> council member madrid: thank you. and second question. >> nicole: i can answer that, too. cristina got the numbers from me [laughter]. those are from the american community survey. as you might remember, department of aging and adult services and mod worked on an info graphic, so all of the information is from that. >> council member madrid: thank you. >> co-chair blacksten: thank you, alex. any other council members. >> through the chair, i'm taking a quick scan to see. no other council member. >> co-chair blacksten: all right. before we go to staff, i just want to thank you for the work

you're doing. we had a presentation by the director of the project before you, i believe it was last year, and this is a tremendous amount of involvement you're doing to redesign market street and the islands, everything. and i'm glad to see you're covering all aspects. i just want to emphasize that you really need to -- seems like you're doing it, considering pedestrian safety. i'm involved with a group of seniors that are near to where i work, and they're concerned about pedestrian safety. one of the people who volunteer got hit on market street, crossing market street. and it's really almost

unbelievable that people who are pedestrians get hit by cars crossing market street. more than you may realize. and i had to point out to them there certainly are things that pedestrians can do to look both ways, to make sure that no vehicles are coming, paying attention to the audio signals, watching for the curb cuts, all of the coloring and the texture changes that you have to the surface, all that is good, but i think you really need to do education out there in the community. so that pedestrian safety can go down to zero. so if you had any more comment about pedestrian safety, i'd be happy to entertain that. all right, well, anyway.

that's all i have to say on that issue. let's open it up to staff. anyone on staff? >> nicole: this is nicole again. i want to reiterate our thanks for being here today. i do think it would be helpful if we could work together to bring all the dates and opportunities together into one document. and then we'd be happy to distribute that to the mayor's disability council as i said, and also to the general distribution for anyone signed up there. i think, kind of in tandem with what is happening on better market street, much of this pedestrian safety conversation is also happening through vision zero. and i know the council has had interest in giving an update from the colleagues that are working on vision zero initiatives for people with disabilities. so keep that in mind, i

encourage to ask for update on that because all of this works together. and then to keep in mind that the delineation project, the folks have not been selected for that yet, that's coming later this summer, but there are many opportunities to engage and provide comment in the interim through the various -- to these various public meetings. >> co-chair blacksten: any more comments from staff? i want to thank you for making your presentation to us. that was outstanding. and i think that will conclude your part of the presenting. and thank you very much. >> thank you. >> co-chair blacksten: now, let's go to -- we're going to go to public comment. do we have any public comment? >> yes, we do. bob planthold.

maybe others, but i don't have slips yet. >> i'm bob planthold. i'm one of two people with an obvious disability on the community working group. there is one, maybe two that have a hidden disability. i was on the survey walking tour back in 2013 and fortunately, surprisingly, it rained that saturday, so our sidewalks were wet the entire distance we were walking and all sorts of materials. not just brick, but various types of concrete. i want to get to eir and brick. the staffer who wrote up the portion about the sidewalk surface said these bricks have the potential for historic character. now, these brick sidewalks are less than 45 years old. so i'm going to say how many of

you who were at or close to or likely beyond 45 think you're historic? i don't get it. i'm sure the staffer had some reason, but it just doesn't seem realistic or logical that 45-year-old bricks are somehow historic, because that wasn't the character before the bricks. it's not like we had brick sidewalks for 150 years. didn't happen. and i'm bringing that to mind because as we're hearing, there is a multiple of agencies, the arts commission, the historic preservation commission, the planning commission, the multimodal access, all of them having something to say. so it's hard to keep track of these. but unless the disability council and disability-related groups and advocates weigh in and say, hold it, you've got to think more carefully about the safety of the materials you're using. and especially i'm going to suggest this council consider

some simple letter saying we appreciate the efforts, but you really can't think of brick as realistic, as something to be replaced with brick, with clay that is baked and if you don't call it brick, it's still clay that is baked. i'm going to suggest you think of some simple line that it's unsafe when wet. we've had a relatively wet winter. i mean, myself and others haven't been as mobile just because of all the rain and the slippery sidewalk surfaces. if you can come up with a simple letter that can be transmitted soon to the historic preservation commission, the planning commission, that can help, because too often the voice of the disabled is silent on the matters. and regarding mr. blacksten's comments about pedestrian safety, there is a separate program called vision zero that is working mightily at it as well. i am part of that. also, it's just that you need to

realize a lot of agencies have to focus their works on specific programs and they can't go all over the place. vision zero is a place -- [bell ringing] -- that has a website. look it up, participate in that if you can. thank you. >> co-chair blacksten: thank you, bob. >> apparently there are two others, but i don't have the slips. just come up and give me your name, if you would? >> good afternoon, council members, charles. senior community organizer at the san francisco bicycle coalition. i'm also the vice chair of the better market street working community group. as a staffer of the bicycle coalition, i can say we're committed to a project that is safe and accessible. that means separated bicycle facility of course, but also a street that is accessible to people with all types of disabilities. also blind and deaf people. i appreciate council member

orkid pointing that out. we're particularly excited to engage with the pilot program of the delineation between the bike lane and the pedestrian area. that is something we haven't seen before in san francisco and there are a lot of questions on all sides of that issue. so we're looking forward to being able to engage with that. it will be right in front of our office, so seeing what different types of delineation makes sense given we're going to be applying this to the whole corridor. it's a crucial moment for the project, but we're excited to work in partnership with the disability community. thank you. >> co-chair blacksten: thank you. the second person? >> robin crop? >> hello, everyone. the market street project sounds really interesting, fabetty

bonifassi -- fascinating to follow. i got hit by a car around that time and i was in a crosswalk. i had the green light. when i think about safety, i think about all levels, pedestrian, bicyclists, motorists, we all have to figure out our safety issues. i don't step out into the street until i watch to see where all vehicles are. i see so many people on cell phones and not paying attention. i think a public advertising campaign needs to happen, even if you do it on billboards, speaking to the pedestrians, to watch the cars before they step you on the street, because we assume if we're in the crosswalk with a green light, we're fine, but we're not if a vehicle is coming. i learned that lesson. getting people off of cell phones, watching where they're going and for bikers this is important, too. the city is going to have to grapple with that because we just lost another person last week at 6th and howard.

and the motorists, i'm wondering if there could be an advertising campaign about that, too, because they go fast. i'm wondering if we could put in signs to slow down. the cars are coming by. whatever signage we could do, because the slower we go for any of us, the better we're going to do in terms of safety. though i know this vision zero, but i'm wondering also if everybody plays a part in trying to figure this out, or is it channelled to vision zero. i see three groups, pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists. we have to consider how to aeach of the groups to slow down, watch out and pay attention. i think it's a challenge for all three groups. let's keep working at it. >> co-chair blacksten: thank you very much for your comments. any more people want to speak on the issue? >> we have one more.

>> this is cristina calderon olea again from public works. one of the the key initiatives of better market street is restricting private passenger vehicles from market street. so private passenger vehicles will no longer be allowed on market street between stuart and octavia. that will be part of the early implementation, so not dependent on the implementation of the different segments. and i think that will help reduce collisions, help us get closer to vision zero, and will calm the corridor from what we have right now. >> co-chair blacksten: that's great. all right. anyone else? >> excuse me, through the chair. is there anyone on the bridge line that would like to speak on this? >> yes, there is. >> co-chair blacksten: we'll go to the bridge line. who is on the bridge line?

>> this is helen walsh. i'd like to thank you for the presentation. i think it was really helpful. the one thing i want to speak on is making sure the community, the communications to the community of individuals with disabilities and the public at large, is more available. so we have more diversity in the people that are doing the beta testing and what not in terms of persons with disabilities. i thought nicole had a great idea in terms of putting everything on one document. it might be helpful if the city utilized the website they have to condense the information so people can be a little bit more aware and understanding. and i also want to go in on communications for public awareness and getting ad campaigns going and making sure when those ad campaigns are done, or when you're calling up,

or what not, doing something psa, or some other way that we diversify the talent to include persons with disabilities and that as the pedestrians or the bicyclists. as persons with disabilities are using all these modes of transportation. i think we should provide a better intersection of providing communications for public safety and for input for our redevelopment plan. that's it. >> co-chair blacksten: all right. good comments. thank you very much. anyone else on the bridge line? want to chime in here? hearing none, this has been quite a very active discussion. we appreciate it.

thank you very much. we will follow up with you. please feel free to talk with any one of us during the break. or following our meeting. so with that, i think we are talking about break. we're right at the break time. 10 minutes after 10. what am i doing? 10 minutes after 2. let's come back at >> i know we're getting into the march 17 -- well, some people think it's a holiday on sunday, but -- >> it is. >> it is. it is for me -- a lot of folks. all right. we have our next presenter by teresa yanga, director of housing research, mayor's office of housing and community development. so welcome to the council.

>> good afternoon. thank you so much for having me. we were asking to provide a little presentation about our five-year strategic planning process that we're undertaking to talk about several of our strategic plans that our office is undertaking as well as some of our sister agencies. so what i'd like to do is provide you an overview of the various plans, the timeline in which we're doing our community engagement. i also wanted to talk -- ask -- invite you members of the disability council to participant in a specific focus group but i will go into that in a little bit. i also have some specific questions that i would like to ask of the council that i would love to inform of the strategic plan if we have time for that. so if i could indulge your time, thank you. so the strategic plans that our

office is specifically taking, there's three for our office. there's our five-year consolidated plan. it identifies the community housing needs as well as community development needs and priorities. it also helps guide our federal funding as well as our local sources and how we spend our funding. we have also an hiv housing plan which it's specifically required by the board of supervisors? and it's housing-related programs for people specifying living with hiv and aids. the third strategic plan which is kind of in a companion document to our dedicated plan is occupants of fair housing choice. so that's looking at fair housing issues and how those can be addressed and that's also a fire-year document. in conjunction with our particular strategic plans we're doing community engagement since january

working also with the office of economic and workforce development. they are working on a workforce strategic framework that's working on development -- workforce development needs and priorities that helps inform oewd's local and community engagement plans. so the questions we have been asks are not only related to housing development and community, but also to jobs. and two other jobs that we're working with the planning department on is the community planning strategy. it's how the cigovernment and citizens can make strategic decisions as the city changes. you may have heard there's a lot of displacement of residents so the city is working on a strategy to help address some of those displacement concerns.

the other plan we're working on with the planning department is a housing affordability strategy and it's how housing affordable and plans how housing affordability can be addressed to help all of san francisco's diverse propositions. so we're doing community engagement in a number of methods. one, we are doing a survey that is both on-line as well as available in paper. it is available in four languages, the four languages required for frisk frisk as well as vietnamese, samoan, russian, and as well as what's on the next slide. it provides some quantitative responses. we also have been conducting a

number of community forums, where we had ten community forums thus far where we're doing it in ten different neighborhoods in san francisco, and we wanted to make sure we covered all the supervisorial districts. that is focused on neighborhood-based input. lastly -- or thirdly, we're working on different focus groups, trying to target specific vulnerable populations and also talking to community advocates. we're looking to -- to talk to people with subject matter expertise and also go into a little deeper dive on some of the questions we have to ask. and fourth we are working -- or planning to talk to city agency staff especially at the city departments that are -- to inform them of the needs that we have been hearing throughout the community but also to get an understanding of their various programs and help us

address the needs that are surfaces. and get feedback on some of the strategies that we may be developing. just a little about the survey. it's available on our website, like i mentioned. it's available in seven languages, just because we understood that those are languages that are often asked for and for translation. the survey, unfortunately, we have a window in which we need to close it, and then it is as of next friday, so i do encourage the council to go onto our website and -- or if you want to get hard copies of the survey, please let me know or i can work with m.o.d. to get you guys copies, and we're going to be including those as part of our data collection. i wanted to also talk specifically about a focus group as i mentioned to address

impediments to access or a.i. there's three particular topics that we wanted to address. one is affordable housing, one is about healthy neighborhoods and thirdly is persons with disabilities. i would love to invite a representative or more than one from the disability council to participate in these particular focus groups. the focus groups will be meeting over the course of three meetings over the month of april and may. the hope is the initial one would be talking about various data and issues this we have researched thus far? the second would be talking about the needs of the stakeholders that they've identified, and then, the third, we'd be talking about potential strategies to help address those needs. so this is our timeline. starting from december, we've been working on community engagement, whether it's through our forums, our surveys or our focus groups. we are doing data collection

now, and we should be complete is that through the month of april? we are then going to be reporting back to the community in june as to everything that we've heard? and then, we will be working on developing strategies to during the month of -- strategies during the month of may to june, and then putting out our strategies out to the public for comment. we will be having a public meeting to talk about those particular strategies. this is all in anticipation of issuing a request for proposal for all of our community development public service grants due out in august of this year. it'll be various funding that we provide, everything from like eviction defense, immigration services, etc., having access. then we will be drafting the plans themes in the fall and winter in anticipation of putting out the draft plans during the months of january and february -- or yeah,

providing comments and finalizing the plans in february and march. our plan is due to h.u.s., the department of housing and urban development in may 2020, and that will be our road map for the next five years. so with that. i would love to be able to ask a few questions of you, if you would be so inclined, and then i would definitely love to take questions from you. i'm not sure how to structure this first, if i would ask questions of you or you would ask me. >> why don't you finish up your presentation and then we'll open it up to council members to talk with you. >> okay. so these are just general questions that we've been asking the community and as we consider you stakeholders, as well, we'd love to get your

answers. i've got ann romero here, who's taking notes on her laptop so we can collect this data as part of our data collection. so one of the things we wanted to ask is what do you or your family need to get or stay in housing, so just kind of a general question. other than housing services -- the second question is, other than housing services, what are other services that are most important for you and your family, so nonhousing services that you would need. and then, what are things that would get in the way to be able to access or use existing programs or services, are there barriers particularly that you have identified or constituents that you know of that are in the way of getting access to particular programs. so those are three specific questions, and then, the next ones are, do you have suggestions on how we could make our services better to meet your community's programs and needs? the next is are there services

that you've been unable to find, so again, trying to find unmet needs. and this is a communication question. if you wanted to learn about affordable rental or ownership opportunities, what method of being notified do you prefer? whether it's things like through the e-mail, is it through fliering, is it through word of mouth, t.v. ads, etc. because we want to make sure that the hearing at-large is hearing about these opportunities as broadly as possible. so these are the extras, and we can go into those if we have time; extras. >> all right. well, let's open it up to council members to see if there's some of us that have thoughts. we'll go from there. >> through the chair. >> yes. >> first council member, helen smolinski would like to speak. >> all right. >> hi. so you want us to answer these

questions. these questions sound like they all came from the survey. do you want us to answer the questions if we filled out the survey? i filled out the survey twice, by the way. >> oh, that's fine. . >> i remember the survey going out, and twice, but i kept going. do you want my input a third time? >> well, the questions are a little different. >> are they? >> yeah. they're totally different. so we were trying to get a little more specific about some of the demographic questions? >> well, just for the record -- sk >> sure. >> i had this experience while i was filling out the survey two times, and i had that

experience thinking about your questions and listening to your presentation. i think there's been a disconnect in we're talking, we're concerned primary with bei accessible housing, you're concerned with housing access. and i was like oh, housing access, that's different, significantly different. so i want to make sure that i'm understanding that correctly how you're using those terms because it's -- with my experience filling out the survey that there was a lot of emphasis on economic access, and that's a legitimate and serious concern in the city as we all know, right? and i don't remember seeing the word disability or disabled on that. so my concern is kind of the

legitimacy of the survey and how much you guys are going to rely on it to put together your strategies to get the r.f.p. out. so if we can all just agree on the terms first. >> sure. no thank you for that feedback. just let me know if you want to continue to provide comments or continue to respond. >> no, no, continue to respond. >> so thank you for that comment. i completely understand the concern that it was more about housing access versus accessible housing because the intent, unfortunately was we had well over 100 questions, honestly, that we had to pare down because we're trying to provide feedback for various different plans? one thing i would encourage the council to do because we are focusing on persons with disability and we are going to be focusing on accessible housing in that focus group, we are definitely going to be taking that feedback in that

context. >> well, i want to know how we can get the board of supervisors to require a plan for the disabled community and for accessible housing. >> we'll note that as in terms of a particular request from the disability council. >> sure. because all those plans you mentioned, there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen, and a lot of constituencies you've got to meet, and i kept waiting to hear the disability community, and it wasn't until, you know, when you broke it down into three, and then it was disability. >> yes. >> just so you know that -- because we're doing announcements on impediments with fair housing choices. that's why i wanted to make sure we focused on persons with disabilities in that particular document. >> and to be fair, to answer your first question, i think this is the extent that i'm going to be able to answer

those questions or feel comfortable answering in a public forum. >> sure. >> i have an eight-year-old daughter who is in a wheelchair, and, you know, is multiple severe complex disabilities. but definitely requires a wheelchair. and, you know, my partner and i have lived in the city over 25 years, and we had our children here, and we were lucky to be living in a rent controlled apartment with an elevator on the third floor. lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky. but we were also after saving for many years to be able to afford a place in the city and talking about staying in the city that we love with our children, you know, i've had -- i've had government groups, government agencies, social workers say get a ranch in the

city, right? we all know san francisco is a vertical city, and there doesn't seem to be any interest -- and this was something i saw firsthand when we were looking for housing and help with making our new home accessible. it doesn't seem there's any interest on the part of the city in keeping folks with disabilities in the city or making the city liveable to people with disabilities. i didn't just move here and expect to find a place, oh, i've got a daughter with a wheelchair. no interest, nothing to make that happen. so it was very difficult, and that was a priority for us, a priority. and you know what? at the end of the day, i think a colleague of mine said this at one point. we all become disabled, right? at one point, we all get older

and older and older and more feeble, and those -- those home ms. san francisco that have a flight of stairs to even get into the first floor, you know, i think that the city needs to make this a priority because it all affects us eventually. the city needs to put this in affordable homes, and they need to make this a priority for the city. >> okay. >> all right. that's excellent. are there other members of the council would would like to address our presenter? >> yes. the next council member that would like to speak is alex madrid. >> okay. >> thank you for the questions. i have a question about affordable accessible housing

for people with disabilities, so my first question is that as you know -- [inaudible] >> -- and when you're talking about accessible access to housing, people with disability has a limited income and right now, we're talking about unaffordable. most people with disabilities cannot afford that. so can you discuss that or not?

and second thing is i don't know if you're talking about focus group for people with disabilities, but i would suggest having this group a very diverse community when it comes to disability allies and people with disability. >> all right. go ahead. >> go ahead. >> the gauntlet has been thrown. thank you. so in terms of may i make sure i can reiterate the question. the concerns is because of affordable housing, especially because persons with disability have limited income. >> yes. >> okay. we completely understand and are acknowledging that. the one thing that we know that we will need to work towards is

to be able to make the housing affordable because we will need to work towards getting subsidies so what we call rental subsidies. we can make a recommendation and a strategy that we can be working towards. >> i think you should. >> thank you. and the second question? >> the second question in terms of making sure our focus groups are diverse? yes. i believe your second question was making sure persons are diverse with disabilities and getting a range -- and allies. >> yes, allies. >> thank you. >> very good. we're raising some important issues here. are there other members of the council -- >> yes, through the chair. >> yes. >> council member orkid sasounni? >> all right