we are not scanning fingerprints in the field like a hollywood television show. >> families say thank you for what you do, for me that is extremely fulfilling. somebody has to do my job. if i can make a situation that is really negative for someone more positive, then i feel like i am doing the right thing for the city of san francisco. [gavel] >> meet willing come to order. good morning everyone. welcome to the april 1, 2019 meeting of the rules committee. i'm supervisor hillary ronen chair of the committee.

seated to my right is vice chair supervisor shamann walton and to my left is supervisor gordon mar. our clerk is victor young. like to thank jim smith from s.f. gov to looking the meeting. >> items will appear on the april 9th board of supervisors agenda. >> supervisor ronen: please read item number one. [agenda item read] >> supervisor ronen: wonderful. there is an appointment by our nomination by supervisor valley brown for allegra fortunati. hi.

welcome. thanks for being here. >> good morning. i'm allegra fortunati. i resided in district 5 for 25 years. thank you for hearing my application for reappointment to the aging advisory council. i have served on the council since october 2016 fulfilling the term of office of a prior district 5 representative followed by a three-year term of my own. i served about about years. i serve as secretary to the counsel. i was installed senior senator from san francisco to the california senior legislature. i retired from the university of california. i continue to work part time for the san francisco long-term care omnibus program. i cover several assisted living

facilities and residential facilities for elderly. primarily i work with the adult residential facilities. haven't for adults with disabilities and those with mental health issues. i worked with city and county departments that address issues regarding older adults and adults with disabilities. most recently participating in the assisted living work group representing the omnibus program. also with sever c.b.o.s. i believe the work i do offers a unique perspective. on an fragmented system where too many fall through the cracks particularly those with low income. i'm also a member of several organizations including san francisco village which focuses on keeping older adults in their homes as long as possible and hopefully avoiding institutionalization. within that organization, i

co-lead a solo age circle. older adults without family who must bill their own support and advocacy system. for a couple of terms i served on the san francisco civil grand jury and enjoyed the opportunity to be engaged and continue my efforts and ideas to improving san francisco government and services. i wanted to don't that experience by serving on the council. i'm hoping you will renew my application to the aging advisory council so that it may become a better advocate for our diverse population of older adults and adults with disabilities. i believe having an active participant from district 5 on this council is vital. district 5 is on the the lowest income seniors and adults can disabilities in the city. it has a second largest percentage adults with disabilities. i'm interested visiting and hearing from all programs that

serve this community and from hearing from the community about the quality of services and care they receive in order to find areas of improvement and fill in the gaps. i hope you will support my application. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: wonderful, thank you so much. hell of qualification. is there any questions? thank you so much. really appreciate it. i will now open this item for public comment. anyone wants to speak. now is your chance. seeing none. public comment is closed. i want to thank you so much for being willing to serve in this capacity especially given your incredible history and knowledge and work. really appreciate that. i'll be reaching out to you on your expertise especially around aging adults and mental health. thank you so much for coming

before this committee. is there a motion? >> supervisor walton: i move to forward ms. allegra fortunati for on commission aging advisory council to the full board with recommendation. >> supervisor ronen: that motion passes. thank you so much. please read item number two. [agenda item read] >> supervisor ronen: it's so exciting that we have such a qualified pool of applicants for this commission. i would love to call you in order and which you're listed on the agenda and they believ ask p your remarks around three or four minutes if at all possible.

i did have one overarching question that you like to address in your remarks would be greatly appreciated. i'll read that now. the veteran affairs council is charged advising board of supervisors and mayor on issues concerning the veteran community. i wanted to know how you see the role of san francisco legislators? what should we be paying attention to and working on in regard to economic development, healthcare and social service programs as they relate to veterans. within that framework, what do see as the most urgent issues that you would want to tackle and work with us on and what your ideas are for doing that? kind of a broad question.

i love to hear your thoughts on that. i don't know if there's any other overaveragin overarching t my colleagues like to address. no, that's great. if we can first hear from douglas bullard. >> he is unable to attend the meeting. he's still interested. he did have a family emergency. >> supervisor ronen: great, thank you so much. is hanley chan here? >> i was born and raised in san francisco. i was in chinatown north beach and moved down to sunset. that's where i went to elementary school, high school

in san francisco. got my associated degree in state college at san francisco. i got my b.a. in new college of california where i'm mentor my student advisor very well-known. legendary harry britt. if you watching man, love you. i served in the united states navy as aviation in 1999. i served in the california national guard as a army tanker in 2004. i currently appointed to the u.s. selected service board as district appeals board member appointed by president obama. volunteerism is in my blood. i like giving back to the community. i want to serve this commission to solve the homeless crises and

veterans and i want to understand how to navigate. i understand how to navigate city services because i was once homeless myself. i understand the need and wants of veterans out there, especially government system where the bureaucracy is very big. i want to combat mental health issue. i'm working with the executive director of the penal tool health project. basically i'm working with them now. those are two biggest concerns for veterans, homelessness and housing for veterans and mental health issues. that's it. you have any questions?

>> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. next is david chasteen. >> thank you for all your service on this commission. >> thank you supervisor ronen. as you know, i was recently elected to be the president of the commission. although my term has expired. we'll see. i wanted to say in my short time so far as vice president and serving as member on the commission, i think you probably seen this other commissions, we have a lot of responsibility in terms of mandate. we have lot of people responsible for. not a lot of power with which to do that. which is not necessarily a problem. one of the things that you asked, we can do to address those issues, i think one of the things i learned in nonprofit

space is, the very largest nonprofit, couldn't fund v.a. operations for a week. a slight change in government policy has a much bigger impact than any small group of nonprofit folks. what you like about the commission that you see there, us at our best, we are a policy group who can pull from our lived experience and many cases professional experience. we have lot of people who are professional who worked in the space far long time. there are lot of resources to address issues around homelessness and economic opportunity for folks who are transitioning and economic disparity and housing and mental health. i think the best thing the commission can do is focus on that job of advising the board of supervisors and mayor on

policy. i think best done that means returning annual report which countrwasn't completed into a rl document that provides goals for the commission which is good and not hard to do and reach goals. that's what i like the commission going forward. in means bringing in people who can do that work of policy. last thing i wanted to do here, the executive committee had a look at our -- we focused lot on recruiting and inclusive recruiting. we got some good results. of these excellent candidates in addition to myself and commissioner olivieri, we wanted to highlight george chewning, 17

martin-pinto as stand outs on the application today. >> supervisor ronen: i'm wondering since you served already one term on the commission, what are the avenues? i've been here for a while. i had a ton of opportunity to work directly with the veteran commission. when you have policy suggestions, how have you worked with members of the board of supervisors or the mayor's office to enact those policies? >> it's interesting. i done some lobbying around veteran issues d.c. before i came to san francisco. one of the things i like about the commission, you all know, there are lots of lobbyist for corporations and people who stand to make money. there are very rarely lobbyist for good policy. when you find those people they are kind of great. usually nonprofits.

what i found is where we've been most effective is those and the commissioners who have personal relationship with supervisors and their staff and mayoral staff and you can say hey, here the thing we see. it might not be that hard to fix would it take legislation to work better? it's talking to people and making connections. i love living in big city like san francisco. it's lot easier to make the connections. >> supervisor ronen: have you worked with any supervisor or anyone from the mayor's office to do that? >> yes. we've done some of that. supervisor safai recommended we do a report annually. we trying to figure out how to

best comply with sunshine request pipelike m. -- are we doing the best we can. what are the outcomes? one the things i want to do is subcommittees where i can take teams of three and do that work and come back. they can talk to each other and coordinate and do good work and come back and report to the commission so we can get it on the record and still comply with the law in terms of transparency. supervisor safai recommended biannual report is a great idea.

our veteran population is centred downtown in the hospitals way out in west side of town. sometimes folks, especially if they're dealing with mental health issues have difficult getting on the bus and getting out there. those are couple of examples of kind of easier kinds of things that we've been talking to supervisors about getting through. >> supervisor ronen: supervisor walton has a question. >> supervisor walton: since you brought up, yos recommended four individual who are also nominees. can you touch on why you chose those four? >> i would of those four, in particular we're looking for folks who either have experience on public policy or have

experience in navigating larger systems that affect outcomes for veterans. most of these folks either work at companies in the bay area that have impact on outcomes and communications or have experience working in local government, state government and federal government on policy issues. i want to turn my commissioners into if it's hearings and it's reporting out, that means you got to be someone who can dig and someone who can write and actually do that lobbying work. the folks i highlighted are people who have that experience. >> supervisor ronen: next if we can hear from george chewning. >> good morning. i'm george chewning. thank you for taking the time to

consider my application for the v.a. commission. i'm u.s. army veteran. i received my commission federal west point and served officer for five years. after leaving the service i joined a veteran nonprofit in washington d.c. as a legislative director. i lobbied for passage of bill allowing for construction of the national monument for the post 9/11 conflicts. i moved to san francisco to be closer to family and friends. i wish to continue my service to my community and veterans. i'm pursuing my master in leadership from the university of san francisco to develop the skills i need for my second service. i want to be a commissioner to advise the board of supervisors and mayor on veteran issues and advocate for legislation that will benefit veterans, their families and their community. thank you for your time.

>> supervisor ronen: what do you think we should be working on board of supervisors to help address issue of underemployment? are there types of training programs that we should be investing in and sort of advertising to the veteran community? >> i think one of the avenues is helpful developing public private partnerships. there are companies in the community that offer different boot camps and different workshops for veterans to address unemployment. having that public support behind those and helping get out the word using the v.a. commission to spread that and communicate that, i think it's a great avenue. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. next is christy collins.

is taurean diaz-coleman present? raymond gobberg present? hello, good morning. >> good morning. thank you so much for allowing me an opportunity to introduce myself. air force veteran four years, active duty service currently reservist serving defense down in mountain view. when i moved to san francisco about five years ago from chicago i immediately saw opportunity to engage in the veteran community. it was all on my own drawn by my service and david chasteen network and bringing in people. my activities included v.a.,

vets in tech and then i started coming to the commission meetings as a participant. that's when i interest came to join as a full time commissioner if i had the opportunity. really why do i think i can provide value? previous speaker mentioned something that's really a common theme in my background which is partnerships. building partnerships understanding how to bring diverse group of people together who have different backgrounds. on active duty i was public affairs officer, served in new mexico. building relationships between local civic governments. new york city, i did the same thing. out here in my professional life, i'm a tech sector. as i mentioned, defense innovation unit is a term to know about. it's actually an organization meant to find innovative

companies and connect them with department of defense leaders to make sure technology is making it in the hands of d.o.d. to enhance national security. ultimately at the end of the day, the strength of any community relies on its diversity. my thought would be how can we build more diverse partnerships whether it's internal, externality or -- external or public or private. to answer your question up front, what's the most pressing issue i would address, it comes down to those connections and those partnerships. whenever you build a network and that network grows and it's diverse the right outcomes comes from it. that's where i would invest my time. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much.

next is james hayden present? >> i did receival contact. he's unable to attend but still interested. >> supervisor ronen: wonderful. thank you so much. is stephen martin-pinto present? hello. >> good morning supervisors. my name is stephen martin-pinto. thanks for quivering m give -- e this opportunity. i'm captain in united states marine corps. i been in reserves for 16 years. i began as a private and worked my way as a sergeant and now i'm captain. hopefully be major here next year and a half. i have a deployment to iraq in 2007 and 2008. deployment to afghanistan in 2012 and deployed to georgia the country in 2013-2014 as a foreign military advisor trainer.

i'm currently a firefighter at engineering truck 2 in chinatown chinatown. bilingual english, spark. i learned russia when i was in jordan. the reason i'm here is, i've been very fortunate because my job has been very good to me and supporting me when i have to go to drills or deployments whatever it is. i worked for employer who hasn't been kind. it was a very bad experience. kind of swore to myself if i ever gotten position where i can make a difference, i want to make sure that never happen to anybody to have the experience i had. i like to also promote the

hiring event. vets make a great highly-quality employee. they are disciplined and motivated. they can work in any condition pipelike to see mor -- i like te more of that. you like to see us promote veterans as a whole. i think that not lot of people from familiar what it means to serve in the military and i think we're a very diverse group. we're your neighbors, firefighters, polic police officeringpolice officers,many . we're around. i like see us promote that more. as far as what i like to see us accomplish and focus our efforts on, i think we need to do more to promote the hiring of

veterans. i know in my job, they have veteran points. i don't know if that's true in every department in the city. best thing we can do is help hire more, promote and hiring more veterans if th. they make great employees and they are dedicated. i like to see us protect their rights. that's all i have. thank you for your time. >> supervisor ronen: i'm curious the negative experience you had in the workplace, if you're willing to ewill belaborate on e or is there something as policymakers to prevent that from happening? >> when i came back from iraq in 2008, i worked for in southern

california, i've been gone for 13 months. my skills were not a sharp as when i left. i had a very difficult time getting back into relearning all my skills. i think as a city, we need to give those veteran who have deployed for a long period of time, time to retrain, to get their life back to together again. they are gone for a long time. you doing lot of high-speed things and then you come back to your normal life again. like almost immediately. it's kind of a very jarring experience. sometimes it's hard to adjust. i think we need really focus on maybe programs counseling programs, retraining programs and help veterans reintegrate

back in the workforce. as far as details, i can't think off the top of my head. >> supervisor ronen: i wasn't aware until now we had extra points in our fire department to recruit and hire veterans. that seems excellent to me. do we have a lot of veterans working in our san francisco fire department? >> absolutely. i'm part of the s.f. fire veterans association. i say about 5 to 8 percent of our workforce that's including the e.m.t.s, paramedics, firefighters and veterans. >> supervisor ronen: thank you

so much. is christopher todd mcdonald present? >> good morning. how is everybody doing? it is a great honor to stand before this board in hopes representing all veterans of the san francisco communities. i come from a long family line of military combat veterans. my name is christopher mcdonald. i'mal 20-year retired disabled military veteran. you'll know that my dd214, i was

equal opportunity representative trained settlemen six years in y and affirmative action. my background goes into logistics. due to disabilities and layoffs, i got caught up in layoff with about 600 other people. i became homeless and wound up in san francisco where my family was living. this is a story i wish to share with all of you. i wish to share with you that i met the commissioner two years ago. he was instrumental helping me get out of a bad housing situation as well as helping multitude other veterans during this housing crisis. it was like 14 families that was getting displaced.

with his guidance, we were able to join with other veterans to represent the veterans who also having to relocate due to landlord building code violations. i was afforded the opportunity to meet with the city district attorney, the landlord and their attorneys in hopes resolving this issue by getting the soon to be displaced veterans and nonveterans to help to find new housing. that was successful because they did, unfortunately, have to go up to the landlord for the building code violations. i believe she did try deep down but there was some issues going on that needed to be brought to the table as well. i was able to bring those to the table. the veterans, as we come together, were able to find new housing. veterans that could stay, did stay. i wolld love for him to mentor

me and for me to be an asset and helping other veterans. >> supervisor ronen: i'm just curious, having gone through that experience of being homeless and finding housing, what could you offer to other veterans that are currently facing that situation that you think your work on veteran commission would be helpful? >> it would be hope. as i went through s.r.o.s by california state law, that says you're in homeless state also. my goal would be to bring to the legislatures some of the problems like bedbugs infestation. i went through that.

we final got the right stuff to get rid that. that's still happening in the city. the other issue the city and legislatures have been through so much to help them get on top and get out of the hole but one thing we're kind of missing, i don't know how to tackle it yet, is the drugs that are getting back into veterans that, mental health disabilityings they trying to get to a better life. i senile veterans go from the top to the bottom because of that. it was because he had mental health issues. they also -- they were trying but there was still problems, there was disconnect somewhere. that scares me and it's a bit

concern for us as a community to come together and try to solve that issue. i think i can do it working with commissioner barnacle. i seen lot of families broken up because of this transition and there's lot of good people that's trying to make it smooth. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. victor olivieri. good morning. >> good morning supervisors. thank you for having us today. i wanted to remind you that we had severe attendance issues in the commission last month.

we're incredibly grateful for bumping us forward to make sure we can fill the commission as soon as possible. i myself and along with the president has been on the commission fulfilling a two-year term that was left empty. this is a commission that's been in transition for years. we're transitioning from a vietnam war veteran to a post-9/11 veterans. some of our applicants are on the younger side. the commission is transitioningg from a counsel to a commission. we don't have a budget, a staff or a secretary. the things that we are trying to do as veteran affairs commissioners are advising the board, advising the mayor and making sure that we have appropriate policy prescriptions. lot of the thingsly talk about and lot of things we've been working on have been bottom-up. it's time to start working at a more top-down from here out. i've been one of the active commissioners by being able it bring in lot of people from the community.

by bringing in city groups, nonprofits, different city departments whether it's department of supportive housing all the way to v.a. we ended up recruiting a v.a. member. i've gone to become the vice president because we needed good people that will do the work. i have been spearheading the 9/11 v.a. service. organized the veterans mayoral forum. beyond that, i have helped diversify the commission by recruiting members of the lgbt community to make sure voices of the communities were heard. i work in veteran affairs retreat. the big thing i have coming up next is on june 12th.

we have veteran affairs summits which is an opportunity to bring in city t department, nonprofits to make sure we hear all the things we need to be hearing. i think that will give us the leverage we need to draft together policy recommendations. other things that i have again it's the 9/11 data service and that's coming up. i see the work that i've been doing really two fold. one side it's really structural. i want to make the commission stronger. two main things i want to do, is really create a liaison, sort of system between the board of supervisors and the commission. once we get the commission full up, first thing i will assign a commissioner to every single board of supervisors member to

make sure they have their own commissioner. this will be a person that lives in your district or work in that district. primarily because as you might know, every single issue that affects local citizen in san francisco, affects the veteran community disproportionately. every single piece of legislation you're getting out and everything your working to help the community it will be wonderful to have a set of eyes to understand how that might affect or not affect veterans. my hope is that this assignment will lead to a monthly meeting with you or staff members in we say these are the things worry working on inhearses policy recommendations and here's this month official letter and go from there. other big thing is really working with the mayor's office

to make sure that we have veteran affairs senior advisor. we're only major city in the united states that does not have one at the executive level. veterans do have resources at the the state and federal level. at the local level there's a huge gap and huge disconnect in terms of coverage and communication. we need somebody executive level make sure those two fields are connected. those are my two biggest recommendations and work i have in of cooing year. beyond that, i want to work with the -- point four, there's a veteran hiring initiative in the city. i want to make sure that's robustly brought up. i want to make sure that we work with employee resource groups to make sure veterans can find those paths to employment. the next thing will be working on an aging veterans home. san francisco one of those major cities that does not have one. we have couple of models and we

have one possibility that we can leverage to expand their current facility. i would love to bring that up to make sure that we do that. mostly veterans of the v.a., mostly veterans we have in san francisco that we know of are now becoming geriatric and they need end of life care. last thing is really working with the board to create two different sorts of legislation. one that highlights the need for veterans to find homes in san francisco, making sure veteran who are willing and able to get a v.a. loan can actually get that in san francisco. it is such an expensive city to live in. v.a. system does not original for them and the amounts don't work up. other thing to make sure this

november, 2019, becomes legislative piece that calls november veteran's month. you want to highlight veterans mental health, i want to bring up the amazing research that was done by the university of southern california to highlight the state of veterans in san francisco particularly when it comes to ptsd, substance abuse and other mental health issues. if we create a veterans month, we can work with the members in the community and highlight the issue and needs that veterans has in san francisco. any questions? >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. very impressive. >> supervisor walton: you talked about trying to recruit members of the lgbt community to serve on the commission, do you know the percentage of the commission that is made up of member of the lgbt community? >> i don't know the percentage. i can tell you the number of memberships. we currently have two members of

the lgbt community and we're currently recruiting another one which is a woman of color. >> supervisor ronen: i'm wondering as you explained that transitioning from vietnam vets to post-9/11 vets, what has -- what are the major parts that change? are there different issues facing the community? >> absolutely. vietnam veterans came back to san francisco to a unfriendly city. the anti-war movement, they were called all sorts of things. when they were finally embraced in the community, it was years and years later. we're talking decades of neglect

and decades of mental health issues and substance abuse. we cannot afford to do that again with the next generation of veterans. that's the reason why i want to work on the veteran affairs commission. on one hand, i hate seeing the veterans that we have in the streets. we need to continue to work with them. that's why our commission still has veterans serving from the vietnam war. these are veterans we'll continue to work with. we will continue to work with them. at the same time, i feel like we need to get ahead of the curve and don't repeat the mistakes of the past and focus on the issues that are ailing these veterans but also affecting veterans that we don't often see. the veteran you see behind me, statistically, have 83% chance of having ptsd. you can magic that will snowball to other issues that we don't see now but we will see in 20 or 30 years. that's i think that as public servants we have a mandate that we learn from our mistakes from the past and leverage strengths

that we have. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. second question is, we spent lot of time trying to understand study local mental health system what i've come to the conclusion, or i believe that the biggest reason it's so hard to understand, we don't really have a coherent system. we have separate services that don't really functions a system. i'm wondering given that there are mental health services that are provided through the v.a., what are the level of those services and does that mean that veterans don't access or city-run mental health system. this is a longer conversation that i love to have offline with

you. i love to get sort of thoughts on the top of your head on this issue? >> that's one of the major issues why we don't have is somebody in the executive that's supporting that mission as a senior advisor to the mayor working with the board of supervisors. there's a major disconnect between services. there's a major issue of communication. there's an issue of stigma. if we had somebody that was leaning forward and taking this as a project of their own, i think we could take that up. that's why i would advocate for a senior advisor to the mayor to work on that specific problem. this is a problem that the v.a. can't get a hold of at the local level and san francisco is such a difficult bureaucratic.

>> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. next is michael scanlon here. good morning. >> good morning. i'm mike scanlon. i'm here to request consideration for seat on the veteran affairs commission. i served eight years before being medically retired in 2016. finding adequate employment and navigating the red tape, i believe my experience will be beneficial and helping the v.a. commission draft meaningful recommendations to the mayor and board of supervisors. if elected, my priority will be to work with local leaders in hiring veterans as well as using the transferable skills. i believe promoting this, especially in regards to journalist of veterans, would be

proactive approach to preventing other issues such as veteran homelessness. it took me over a year to find employment after leaving the military. [please stand by]

>> i'm excited to take this to my new veterans community here. with my current professional experience in academic experience in public policy. in my professional life right now, i am a policy get budget and performance analyst with the county of san mateo, in addition to be a guardsman in fresno --

in fresno. working in local government every day, i get to see awesome, outstanding civil servants serving their community from the ground up on a daily basis, and between that and my background in program evaluation, having spent the last two years working a defence acquisition performance evaluation, and doing my capstone building a performance evaluation plan for the city of aust -- austin, i can tie that along with my daily interaction as a performance lead with the budget policy of san mateo to help identify the public-policy pollution -- solutions to help you, the board , and the mayor advocate for veterans. first and foremost, there is a charter of opportunity. san francisco is a leader in his transparent and informative open data portal. unfortunately, there's not one item on that portal that is

relevant to veterans or directly relevant to veterans. and i think that as a commission , using the expertise of the folks in the room, but also engaging the folks who are the ground level, engaging the folks who are working on the ground, making this a bottom-up idea, the folks who see and interact with veterans every day , using their knowledge with our expertise and our perspective, and as well as the perspectives of veterans succumbing testify to help develop accurate performance measures that we as a community know can accurately measure how well we are serving as a city our veterans, and passing those along for inclusion in the annual report to the board and to the mayor to include those in the open data portal so you are equipped with the information that you need to advocate for veterans both at the city, state , and federal level. i want to touch on one of the questions you asked, supervisor ronen, in ways that the board of supervisors and american better

advocate. it is that, the first thing is primarily using a platform. i think david did mention the federal va budget is just so massive, and there's not really a huge way to compare that at the local level level, nevermind the nonprofit level, and it is using your seat as a progressive , as a forward thinking have here in san francisco to use that platform to advocate at the state and federal level to make sure they're upholding their promise to veterans so at the end of the day, the va has made a promise, and the federal government has not always been the best at upholding that promise and using your platform, and hopefully will use the commission to help inform you and arm you with the right data to help go and advocates. i think on that second point, it is in -- if in the meantime, we can use that a test to help fill those gaps. there are huge gaps in san francisco. we need local solutions to some of the more local problems, and

using data we can help inform you with. i think that will really make a huge difference. and tying onto your second question, what is urgent? what is urgent, and i this came up today, his intergenerational gaps between the needs of not only our vietnam veterans, but our older veterans when it comes to the housing crisis in the city. they maybe locked into tough housing situation where if they moved to a smaller place, the property tax may jump on them, it is a huge issue, and i know working in san mateo, we see that a lot with folks being locked in, i know that problem exists here. is letting that disparity between those challenges and also other challenges, folks who want to use the va home loans to buy, but it is too slow a process, or the challenges facing the post- 911 generation creates generational gaps, and i think that is a huge area of urgency that the board can work together to help address. i don't want to take up to too

much time, i know it beeps twice at me, i'm happy to take any questions. thank you for the time to speak today. >> thank you for answering all the questions. any other questions? no. thank you so much. >> thank you for your time today >> is robert mining here? good morning. >> hello, good morning. thank you for allowing me to speak and address make application. i made navy veteran from youngstown, -- ohio. i have been here for a year and three months. it is a very interesting city. it is almost the tale of two cities. at night it is very different. the homeless camps come up, there is messes in the street, one of the biggest things that i think needs to be -- that we should be concerned with is how we transition our veterans out of active duty. 80% of our veterans are military members come out of the military without a job, so no direction,

they just jumped -- dumped out into the streets. and sebastian younger, i don't know if you have heard of him, he is a war reporter who has written a book called "tribes. he says one of the biggest problems that we face is not ptsd. when you have this group of people that you are in the military with, that you can rely on, life or death, and then you leave that community and it leaves you with a sense of loss, and one of the best ways i think we can help veterans is career counciling. when you joined the military, you step into a situation where a recruiter is directing you through the entire process, tell me what the military will be like, what jobs you can do, what you can do with that job once you get out. when you get out of the military we get either -- i got nothing, i did not get a tap class, i was given my records and sent him down the way. sometimes you get a three-day top class or even up to two weeks. we are indoctrinating these military members for up to two months to become a soldier a -- or a sailor, ehrman, or marine,

and then all of a sudden you are a civilian. it doesn't work like that. for one, when you transitional services. two, for the veterans who are already on the streets here we have failed to reach, we need homes. we don't need navigation centres , we don't need beds, they're not the chronically bet less, they're not struggling with the navigation, they don't need compasses, they need homes, so we should start with transitional services, two we actually need to give them homes , and some people that are doing this is a veterans community project in missouri. they have ended homelessness in their cities. we can copy and paste some of these programs. some of them have been effective and we can take them and implement them in san francisco. so that is some of the policy, i guess, tips i would give if i were selected. >> professor wilson? >> quick question, what is a top class? >> it is a transition or class

when you get out of the military when i got out, did not get the top class, but it was a free date -- three-day court -- course. it tells you what resources are available to you as a veteran, but there are some things like a myers-briggs test that you might take to discover who you are now when you are exiting the military. however, you're doing this on active duty. you're not transitioned in taking these tests, it is a transition every course. >> did you have any other questions? >> i just thank you made such a great point of how much recruiting and training the government does to get individuals into the military and then on the backend, they're just not engaged. >> there is a reboot program down in san diego, it has replaced the top classes. the military base in the

commanders down there are not his our note sending them to a third party, bso, because the classes that the government provides are insufficient. >> thank you, thank you so much for your application. thank you. last, but certainly not least, kyle,. is kyle here? no. there are few people who enter the room after we called. i want to make sure anyone who has applied for a seat on the commission that didn't get a chance to speak. is anyone here? nope. wonderful, then i wanted to open up this item for public comments if there's any member of the public who would like to comment on the applicant his for this commission, now is your time. hello, good morning. >> good morning. it is get to know that you will

have two minutes. >> no problem. that's enough. >> supervisor ronen, good morning to you, supervisor walton, good morning to you, supervisor martin, good morning to you. i would like to talk with you about some of the issues that are happening in the east slope where i live. and you are my supervisor. please keep up the good work you are doing, certainly i admired the things you were doing, keep it up. your brother is a friend of mine i'm glad to see all appear doing your job. i'm here to support mr. chan who has been a long time friend of mine. i have watched him do extensive work with, pauls around veteran issues, raising funds, and reaching up across multicultural lines to support individuals that are veterans that are in need of help. i'm a proponent of not what people say, but with what they do, and i have watched him do extensive work around veteran issues, and that is why i want to support him.

i hope you taken into consideration. >> thank you so much. please reach out any time, by the way, to my office, i would love to meet with you. okay, good. thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is george, i'm the current secretary of the veterans affairs commission, and although i am here obviously supporting the president and vice president, mostly because i don't want to get stuck with any of the work they do, i also wanted to speak out and support today of mr. douglas buller to could not be here because of a family emergency. i have had the honour of knowing doug for about 20 years. he is an exceptional person and one of his strengths, i think as though he is an engineer by trade and has technical and detailed ability, he is really a people person. he engages with people tremendously across all sectors and across all walks, and he has been, up till now, a staunch advocate for lgbt gr a