learning from the community about what the needs of the lgbt youth community are, and we do a lot of focus on that in our needs assessment. we take that into consideration as we do our allocation plan and right of ever request for proposal, which identifies populations in san francisco that we hope c.d. owes our serving. we will continue to do that. i pointed out a couple places where we want to make sure where we improve the response rate so we look really closely at the sogi data. we have added a feature in our contract management system that shows the demographic breakdown of participants for every program, and it shows up every time a program submits an invoice. they see those demographics. it is front and center as of 18- 19, including the sogi data points for programs. we have that. we look at it regularly and we

also try to be intentional about building the capacity of our grantee agencies to serve lgbt cute communities. we have partnered with community-based organizations, specifically lyric to build capacity of grantees to serve lgbt youth through a number of trainings recently, on this slide here, we have some examples of some of those trainings. couple of them are data-specific on how to collect sogi data both in person and webinars in case it is a challenge for grantees to make it to the office at a given time, and then we have funded a series of allied ships and action trainings as well, which has more to do with service provisions for the lgbt q. community. >> great, thank you. it doesn't look like my colleagues have questions, so thank you for your presentation. i believe that that brings us

last, but not least to the department of aging and adult services and the human services agency being represented by tom nolan and h.s.a. by suzy smith, i think. >> good afternoon, my name is suzy smith, and i'm deputy director of policy and planning interment -- human agencies agency. >> my name is tom nolan, the manager of special projects. >> we are going to talk about four things today. one is sogi data compliance in the context of h.s.a. and our programs and our systems, second , training efforts, third is our compliance to date, and finally we are going to spotlight an equity analysis that the department of aging and adult services has done.

so just by way of context, as you probably know, human services agency as is a foundation for three separate departments. the department of human services and early office education. together we serve 225,000 san franciscans, about a fourth of the population. we have over 2,000 staff, nine main sites, and over 400 contracts. what i laid out here is our 11 main computer systems that collect all of our data, and the ones that are in red are our larger programs that are actually state database systems that we can't manipulate fields and ads to directly. fortunately, as has been mentioned, state senator weiner had passed legislation that requires departments like human services agencies in the department of health to collect sogi data as well. that legislation is effective

year later then the local ordinance, so the state is catching up, essentially, with what we are doing locally. >> okay. sogi training has been tailored by division, program, and system the expertise and materials are shared across these divisions. we require mandatory contract and training annually, and we have contracted with our partner who has trained us to do the training ourselves. they are experts in serving the lgbt q. population, and they have developed a culture of humility program training in conjunction with the department of human resources and serve as experts as we do this. we have undertaken a major training effort to support this under the leadership of our executive director. the contract must do it annually we have leveraged our contract with open house to support all of this work.

i will tell you about the training that we do. there are three of us, melissa mcgee and myself and another. we tailor hours to be to get all the requirements of the law in there. melissa will explain all of that i will talk about the perspective as myself as a 74 -year-old gay man very publicly for a long time and what it was like when i was growing up in the fifties and sixties so that our people can understand what the client his coming to them have gone through , some version of that. overall, we have a great partnership with open house on all of these matters. we continue to offer the training at director mcfadden's suggestion. she sent a letter to all of her friends across the state of california. fifteen counties came into one of our counties for training. we were also asked to do a webinar for their statewide officers. we did that a couple weeks ago. >> thank you, tom.

as of the departments mentioned, especially extremely large departments, this is a development of a process. so the first piece is updating the systems and the forms, the second is training our staff and our contracted providers, starting to look at what the data looks like, what is compliance, where are we seeing pockets of noncompliance, and then going back and doing additional training. we're in this development a stage, and we'll update we will update you as a move forward on the compliance. so they are a leader in this area. all of the programs reported sogi data in the first year of compliance, 17-18, with the exception of the in-home support services program because we were waiting for not only the state database fields to be updated, but also the translations as that population is majority non-english-speaking. the highest data quality and

coverage came from the office on aging. the dignity funds in the community living fund programs. the office of aging has been collecting sogi data since at least 2011-12, so again, precedent-setting. the department of human services , we were not able to report on either the public assistance programs or the county welfare programs in the first year because the state was still working on updating the field and providing guidance and forms that has since been done. so we look forward to being able to report that out next year. on the contractor data side, for the first year, we were able to collect data for 30 of our 58 contracts that collect other demographic data. over 50%, which for first year rolling out, his pretty good. we would like to see that better as we move forward, but we were happy we got at least half. so now moving on to this year

and improving our data quality coverage going forward, with the program we are able to begin data collection and september o. the county welfare programs are now using a new state sogi demographic questionnaire that is included in all application forms for cal works, alpha rush, medi-cal, and there were state child welfare system recently added these fields as well and finally issued guidance along with that because it is not helpful to just have additional fields. front-line staff need to have the state guidelines on how they are expecting as to implement those deals. we have been working to improve on the contractor data side, as well. again collaborating with the mayor's office of transgender initiative who have been terrific in providing additional support to conduct additional training for contractors, which we did again last fall. we are reviewing all the contractors to see who is not complying, and we are providing

midyear reminders to say this is a requirement, and don't tell us at the end of the year you haven't done it. keeping an eye on where we are seeing compliance and that. and then a couple other departments have mentioned the issue of lingering concern with certain eligibility workers or front-line staff, or others who are not just accustomed to asking these questions, frankly, and it is a culture change, and it is giving them the training and the support to be able to know how to respond to one questions are asked about these questions, and to be able to say , look, you know, years ago there was other ethnic data that was not asked or people felt uncomfortable, and as a society, we move on and start to make this normalized. i it is really important to continue with that message and continue to bring in experts that provide that training and support so that our people feel comfortable with their own staff as well as with our contracted

providers. we've instigated sogi data collection into all of our training for new staff. we've instituted quality assurance and reviews of the sogi data and a look again where we might have pockets of noncompliance. here we list some of our h.s.a. contracts that are specifically serving the lgbt q. community. i will go over all of them, but it is everything from transgender employment programs to legal assistance to ways to combat isolation, because we know social isolation is a big problem with this population. so we have a number of different contracts that we included in our reporting. i won't go over all of them. we have done lgbt q. cultural sensitivity training. it is required for all employees , not just when they start. we have converted all of our bathrooms to all gender

bathrooms, and when the legislation was first passed locally, soon after we convened our car to parts in other departments to get a sense of what they're doing to comply, what are the challenges, how can we partner on translations to make sure that the forms are not only translated in all the languages, but tested and to make sure they're culturally appropriate, his abuse frontline staff to help us test as well, and we are making our city forms and applications gender inclusive as well. >> you may recall that this whole thing came out of the agent policy task force. senator weiner was mentioning this morning it was created in 2012 and 2014 highlighted that. the idea was when we learned about this population early on, it is anecdotal in nature. this is a way to find concrete information. they neglected to mention in our training -- she is a long-term

social worker and she explains the nuts and bolts of how to do it. one of the most successful things that we did was role-playing at the end. we have someone play a reluctant client and all that kind of thing and it really seems to help. reports after your sort of doing this is now there are not as many problems that we anticipated. the task force -- i was liaison to that and i worked with the human rights commission. a number of issues came out of it. there are 13 recommendations. many of those have seen great progress, including the bill of rights for long-term care facilities. counciling, a program with the dementia awareness and all of that, and all kinds of other things within the community. humility training, open house stuff, we do that with our entire staff, and as mentioned earlier, we use this contract to deal with trainer models, and so finally we are using all the information we have collected do analyse trends in the population

and program utilization. we look forward to the additional years of this information coming in. we will provide more detailed information for more recent equity analysis. >> here we just list some of the reports we have done in addition to the programs and trainings. lastly, and i realize this is very late and so you have all been very patient, but it did just want to highlight that earlier, we talked about the need to do equity analysis, and so in the case here, we were able to do an equity analysis specifically for the lgbt q. population as part of our dignity fund community needs assessment, i want to highlight some of those findings and provide a copy of the report to your office. here we are looking specifically on the programs that are funded through the office on aging, and what we are seeing over time is that we are now serving more

lgbt q. clients. we saw a 71% increase in enrolment over four years ago dick as you can see from this slide, and the reason for the increase is not rocket science. a lot of it is we have programs that are designed for the populations and tailored for them and we are also working on better and more complete sogi data collection so trying to understand better who we are actually serving, and targeting program specifically for the population. what we find, however, is lgbt q. clients are last ethnically diverse, and when we compare lgbt seniors in our office of aging programs compared to the general senior population in our programs, we find that the white population is represented much

higher than communities of color , so that is a really important issue that we have flagged through this analysis. when we look at a deafness a tf adults with disabilities and compare what that population looks like in terms of the lgbtq services received to the general population, again, we see disproportionate white population getting serviced. finally, you mentioned the issue of isolation, and we are seeing that in our data as well, a high percentage of lgbtq clients live alone, compared to the overall population of our clients in the office on aging programs. again, having them specifically targeting isolation is an important resource. we find that in our community -based services, we

overall are reaching one in four seniors, but in the lgbtq community, we are reaching one in ten lgbt cute seniors, and so again, looking at gaps there. lgbtq seniors have a lower participation rates mac across most of our services including food pantries, congregants meals , et cetera, but they have not surprisingly a high participation rate in the programs specifically targeting the population. part of it is how do you increase sensitivity and outreach among the general programs that we fund and so that we can capture more of the population, as well as how do we continue to expand programs specifically targeting them. finally, i will not go through all of these, but here are some key findings and recommendations about what we are doing based on those gaps that we have identified, and i think that one really important piece is around the diversity piece which is drawing on the knowledge of our community partners and leaders

that are serving diverse ethnic communities and conducting research and how we can better serve the population, convening partners to discuss cultural competency, and other challenge that we have assumed talked about how there's not a great baseline data in all cases, so for example, we don't have great baseline data to compare lgbtq adults with disabilities to a general population. and we mentioned earlier the issue of the census and not having this data incorporated into the national census, so when we are looking at gaps analysis and equity, it is hard when you don't have the baseline data. working with research partners who you may want to do some surveying, institutions that might want to focus on how to get better baseline data. thank you for your patience and for this. hopefully it was still helpful

for you. >> it was helpful. >> do you have any questions? >> i think as you do more data work, will be interesting to break down the lgbt because i think, for example, some clients are less ethnically diverse and it may not be true of all elements of the lgbtq. >> yeah, that's true. >> rather than lumping everybody , it will be important -- sometimes that is valuable, and sometimes it is important to look at each cohort. >> yeah. >> all right. i think -- i think particularly as we tried to try to figure out how to better serve each of the subcategories of lgbt and q., that the overall insights that new programs, you know, that you have been able to increase your services because you decided you will provide services for the full group, and i'm imagining it

is also true that if you want to be providing services to, say, lesbians or transgender people, that you will need to be focusing on lesbians or transgender people. >> i think that is a great point , thank you. >> all right. thanks to all the departments, and i will now get this back to our chair. i think there's a lot of public comment. >> through the chair to supervisor mandelman and members of the public, i unfortunately have to go to the bay conservation develop into commission where we have a number of folks this afternoon, but i will be replaced by supervisor fewer who president you will be appointing to replace me. >> thank you, supervisor pet scan. thanks again, supervisor mandelman, for calling on this hearing. thank you to all of the

departments who shared their updates and all of their work on implementing the sogi reporting requirements. we will go to public comment now speakers will have two minutes. please state your first and last name clearly and speak directly into the microphone. those persons who have written statements are encouraged to leave their copy for inclusion in the official file. no applause or booing is committed to -- permitted. speakers are encouraged to invoice -- avoid repetition of previous statements. we do have a lot of speaker cards here. i will call in groups of ten, if you hear your name called, please get in line and step up to the microphone to speak and everyone who has filled out a speaker card will have a chance to speak and others as well. the first group of speakers are ... [reading names]

>> sir, you will have a chance to speak but i'm just calling to speaker cards right now. >> i thought it was public comment? >> would you allow the names i just called to speak first? >> i have been here all day, that is a waste of time filling out those cards, i was the first one here. the 14th amendment means it due process and equal protection under the law. that means transgender and all alike must have equal opportunity in the city of san francisco and throughout the united states. they also must be included in my demonstration.

s.f. viewer, please. avenue some has handed down $500 million for homeless people , okay? by the same response, the economic council claims that $12.7 million must be used in order to house a total of 28,200 homeless people. by the same response, san mateo county is building 144 unit apartment building complexes. if you use the, math with the $500 million that newsom has handed down, it means that you can build nine three-story apartment building complexes that is demonstrated here. you multiply that by nine, it means you can make a 27 story apartment building complex with

a total of 1,296 apartments. the opportunity should be applied to not only transgender his and all the like, but all people in the cities. moreover, san mateo county is building a 68 unit apartment building complex that is engineered and targeted for veterans and formerly homeless people, and transgender his and all the like. you use the same technique of the $500 million that is handed down, which can be taken out of the average of $11.5 billion that the city is giving down and you could do the same technique -- >> thank you. next speaker, please. [applause]. >> hey, y'all. thank you so much for this. i want to thank senator scott

weiner now and also supervisor mandelman for calling this. i'm also, trent rohr and shereen many, many years ago when this thing first got under my skin, i went up to him and asked them to start collecting sogi data, and i pushed, and i pushed, and i pushed, and he said yes. i knew in that moment that he was a man of his word and that we were going to make this happen. for people who are not, who are maybe used to being counted and used to being seen, it might be hard to understand how important this is. this is still part of what coming out of the closet, and it is being seen by the government, when we are not seen and we and we are not counted, we are not treated equally, and also i want to thank the departments for putting up with my pushing and pushing and pushing to get the

kind of reports to give us the data that is useful. i know it is sometimes uncomfortable, but change is always uncomfortable, and i'm really proud of where we are at right now. i wasn't happy at first, but we are in a much better place and a lot of that has to do with claire and the office of transgender initiatives to be my diplomatic counterpoint and all of this. and we still need to know how many lgbt people got served by the city. that is the fundamental question here. have we been served equitably, and if not, as the ordinance says, what is the city's plan to make the departments and the organizations and their contractors serve as equally? steps company dedicated people. this is a big job, and this is going to keep going on. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> hi, good afternoon. my name is miss billy cooper. i am here today -- and i am here representing our trans home san francisco. the homelessness crisis in san francisco has affected all communities, but especially the transgender community. trans residents are a staggering 18 times more likely to experience homelessness in the city then the average san franciscan. when we tried to access general shelters, we face harassment and discrimination, and during homelessness and instability compounds the difficulty we already place in finding jobs,

accessing health care, and contributing to the vibrancy of san francisco as our authentic selves. given the lack of housing services that are safe and accessible for trams and gender nonconforming residence, i'm here today to ask you to support our trans home coalition request , and the request someone else will read, but i would like to say, i am a 60-year-old trans woman, and i'm going to say, it is said that in san francisco before now, that we haven't had adequate transgender housing, and trans people need equality, excellent, and equalization, as trans people. we need all of that right now. so please step up to the plate and give it to us.

>> thank you. >> i still have six seconds. thank you. [laughter]. >> next speaker, please. >> i am birdie, it made me smile in that i was announced as best d. brew hard. i will not need two minutes. i'm a property owner in district five, a supervisor the supervisor them's district. i volunteer in supervisor eight district. i have some idea of what it is like to be transgender and a senior. i really can't get my arms around or fathom what it would be like to be homeless, nor any idea what it would be like to be homeless and a person of color who is also transgender.

i would like you, good supervisors, to shine your light on a wonderful opportunity, and that would be our trans home s.f. coalition. seven cisco is known as a city of firsts, and there's a wonderful opportunity to being, again, one of those firsts. i ask you to support the coalition and its work in that the trans unity is very needy, very deserving, and now is the time. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good day, board of supervisors. i am here representing the transgender advisory committee under the office of transgender initiatives. i'm here today to read to you some of the requests we have with the returns home s.f.

one of those requests is to provide rental subsidies to support these individuals at risk of losing their housing or to help secure new housing. the second request is to increase inclusion and safety in existing shelter and housing programs through comprehensive organizational to -- organizational development programs. our third request is to establish dedicated housing programs to address service navigation and emergency housing and long-term housing stability. i want to speak for myself when i say, i moved to san francisco from florida, and my first years here were extremely rough. i was faced with a decision of having to stay here, take brett out of trash cans, or end up back in florida where i had no chance to live authentic life. i know that the transgender struggle is moment by moment of obstacles, trying to find a job, trying to not to be hurt or harmed, murdered, just constant

discrimination, and what i want with this project as we can offer transgender people a place to rest, a place to lay their head, to feel safe, because in the rest of the world, a lot of trans people don't get that. our brothers and sisters are out there starving and really just trying to live their lives, so with your help, we can make a difference for these people who are constantly facing struggles. i invite you to pleas look into this program and encourager community members to take parts because this'll make a big difference for our community. thank you so much for your time. [applause]. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am donna persona, and i am here representing open house, which is a housing facility for

lgbtq seniors, and i'm happy to say that they have embraced the transgender community and they are being educated in how to facilitate and treat transgender and provide the needs that they want and have to have. i want to say, on a personal level, that as a transgender woman who is a senior citizen here in san francisco, i am a law-abiding citizen, a college-educated human being, a former business owner, and i myself, in this city, have experienced trauma here in san francisco. i was arrested a year ago, and i

was merely assaulted two weeks ago. i believe that it is because i present as transgender. i'm here to tell you that i believe we are the most marginalized and are in danger, so i think that the organization put in place like the navigation centers and the shelters, they all across the board need to be more educated and trained to treat the transgender community, and i will also ask you to provide the services that shane mentions. >> thank you. [applause]. [indiscernible]. >> next speaker, please.

>> thank you so much for your comments. i'm going to read five more speaker card names. if you hear your name, please step in line. [reading names] >> good day. i am from columbia. i want to tell you that now i don't speak english very good but i try. i have three years around all the country. i lived in new york, i lived in los angeles, i lived in santa clarita, now i chose to live here in san francisco because

the people is more open mind, is more gentlemen, is beautiful city. i have to live in different place in the last year because i don't have one home. i have my things in my car, i have my live for all san francisco. i have my living room which is -- [speaking spanish] -- is my place when i go to take rest. we are loving this place in this moment. other place is -- [indiscernible] -- i live all around the city, in the libraries, in the streets

, in everything. i thank you can make a difference. help us to find a good home. one home is more than one roof over your head. it is one place where you can feel safe, where you can feel happy, one home -- >> thank you, thank you so much. next speaker, please. >> hi. i'm with the housing rights committee. i've also been a long time housing advocates. i help set up three temporary shelters for queer youth in the castro, as well as a permanent adult shelter for the lgbtq community and also marti's place which is a co-op for low income and formerly homeless people

with aids. i have a lot of experience in doing housing work. i have to say, that without statistics and data, we don't know the impact of this housing crisis on the lgbt community. we don't know the impact on lgbt tenants, on our neighborhoods, on displacement, on gentrification of our neighborhoods. we don't know the needs of our community in terms of affordable housing, which is something basic that we should know. of course, anecdotally, i know that what we really need in our communities 0-30% of a.m.i. housing at that level which is not being built by the city and there is nothing in the pipeline as far as i know at that level. what is being built and upper market, giving the b.m.r. is not affordable by members of our community. what are the needs of lgbt tenants? my organization does collect data. we do ask people if they're lgbt

when they come in, but not of a lot of organizations do. how culturally sensitive are the housing services? for instance, the shelters are not safe for lgbt folks. we knew that ten years ago but nothing has changed. why has nothing changed? contrary to popular perception, we have a tremendous amount of poverty in our community. studies show that. we have to do something, and we have to do it now because literally our lives depend on this. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, board of supervisors. mightiness -- my name is serenity and i'm supporting transgender justice projects. i am here to support our trans home s.f. coalition. i was going to read a paper but everybody else has read it, but i will not be a repeat, but i have been faced with homelessness, going to shelters being discriminated against

because of the way i like to dress, the way that i lift my lifestyle here in san francisco. i believe that homelessness has affected all of our communities, but mainly the transgender community. also, i've survived sexual harassment, i've survived prison , and a lot of things due to being homeless. i've been in san francisco for the past six years, and during these six years, i was formerly and cost -- incarcerated, but i got out and i got a job. i found housing, i'm living life , but for some strange reason, i am still seeing our transgender growth and family outside are still sleeping and not being helped for and not being cared for. this plenty of houses and places that are open and recovery places, but there's nonspecifically for us, and i feel like people just tried to erase it and not trying to help

us is not going to make us go anywhere. we just like everybody else. we are here and we will fight for it. i will appreciate it if you guys can please help the transgender and the lgbtq community with everything. thank you very much. [applause]. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, board of supervisors. i am here representing two gip jp which is a nonprofit agency that looks to stabilize and support trans women, specifically trans women of color. i'm also here to say, no, we will not be forest to be last. this meeting is indicated -- indicative of how we are treated we are forced to be last. we are forced to go unheard, which translates that we do not have needs, but we -- or that our needs don't matter, but we have very specific needs, and

those needs translate to provide rental subsidies, to prevent -- per -- protect these individuals at risk of losing their housing or to secure new housing that is conducive to the needs of trans women and more specific, black trans women. increased safety and existing housing and shelter programs are comprehensive organizational development programs that are sensitive to the needs of trans women and specifically of color. establish dedicated housing programs to address service navigation emergency housing and long-term housing stability that are sensitive to the needs of trans women and more specifically, women of color. before i say thank you, i have a young sister that is homeless. she lives in a tent. instead of helping her, you criminalize her. she has to go to court for

trespassing issues. you do not stabilize by criminalizing those who are subjugated or relegated to substandard conditions. please support this community that is present, that you often times pushed to the back and try to wait until the end. we are here. i don't get restless. i am a fighter and the voice for a community of women who go on house. thank you. >> thank you. [cheers and applause]. >> next speaker, please. >> hello, i'm here because i am homeless right now, so i'm actually living through this. i have been to hotel to hotel, discriminated, lied on, put out within ten minutes and all my belongings, and everything standing outside on the street. it is very embarrassing and it is not comfortable at all pick i just recently got a job and i can't even get to work on time.

i can't -- if i don't have stability, it is hard for me to go on with my life or be successful. it is really hard. i do have a lot of support from people, but just having a place to sleep at night and laying my head somewhere together my thoughts in my mind, because everything -- every day something new, it is a different challenge every day. just to be able to go to a home or somewhere where i could shelter gather my thoughts and make sure i am doing what i need to do in my life to better myself, i would really appreciate it from my heart if you guys would please, please, help us out. thank you so much. >> thank you. [applause]. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, board of supervisors. i have -- i am. [speaking spanish] -- i want to talk about -- [indiscernible]. >> reality it does not. i was working in a drafting

center as a bsa. it is not a safe place. i have been hearing from clients that it is not a safe place. is the only shelter that we haven't san francisco and it is a shame we only have one place for lgbt community which is not safe. we don't want more shelters, we want homes, we want permanent homes. i think our transgender community and lgbt community deserve homes. a lot of the transgender have h.i.v., which is very difficult for them to take their medication, but they have to go to different clinics to do it because they don't have a home. a lot of transgender going through their transition, but they can't do the surgeries because they don't have a home. they have to have a home. i think we need help, we need a home, we need affordable homes, we need housing. there's a lot of transgender girls outside to live on the streets, they don't have a place to live. we need to help. they say, well why don't they

work? we don't have a place where we can live. a lot of jobs want higher s. because we are homeless. we ask you to help us. we need to help, especially -- if you guys want to know more, i was in charge of it. it is very tough, very, very tough to get on the 90 days waiting list. there's literally about two months to wait before you get -- there's a lot of people who want to go there, and a lot of people go there and they're not even lgbt. how do i know? because i was working there. please, we need to help. we don't want shelters, we want homes, we want affordable homes. thank you. >> thank you. i'm going to read some additional speaker cards. if you hear your name, please get in line. [reading names] next speaker. >> hello, the name is thomas, and my journey here in san

francisco started about two years ago where i couldn't find housing in my current county. i got here, no friends, no family, no help and on top of that, besides identifying myself as gay, i am also legally blind, therefore, i was homeless. as i put it, the hoop jumping that i have to go through in order to get sufficient housing took almost a year and a half, during the time, i did spend a bit of time and i can say besides being belittled, shamed,

and treated as if i was in a concentration camp, food poisoned, those were just some of the bonuses. and constant illness in the facilities this is not a safe environment you need to step up to the play and stop dribbling the ball to be taking place here in the city. i am currently housed two blocks away in a b.m.r., but without services for the b.m.r., and section eight, i would still be homeless, and of course, without the assistance of all the agencies that i got information from. >> thank you next speaker,

please. >> so what is around my work is to help provide housing, and collect data on trans people who are accessing housing services. so i have witnessed, i've supported, and i've also experienced accessing housing services, and the experiences that i have heard of, and experienced personally is basically around inadequacy and providing services to trans people. doing this work, one thing i've noticed is that one way that we can ensure that there isn't -- that we have -- that it is less likely for us to have mishaps, is that the housing services that we do have, what kind of

need to fit those services, as well as provide trainings and constantly evaluate those services. of course, i went out and try to find housing services that were adequate for me, however some of us aren't on top of the everyday experience of being just -- just trying to survive in the bay area, trans people are also faced with mental health issues. we are also living with h.i.v., we are also -- we have so many barriers. in order for us to actually make the services more accessible to us, one good way of doing that is the evaluation process, the trainings, as well as providing rental subsidies to trans people , and making sure we are actually accessing those services. and those housing organizations,

they're not really hiring ass, and therefore, we are probably not on their priority. >> thank you. [applause]. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm the director of programs that open house. we are the only organization in san francisco whose mission is dedicated to serving and supporting lgbtq older folks in our community. lgbtq seniors comprise about 12% of the senior population in the city. open house serves 2500 of those seniors every year. lgbtq organizations are supposed to serve everyone, but unfortunately, as evidenced in the dignity found equity analysis, not every general organization serves our community. lgbtq seniors are two to three times less likely to access services as compared to street seniors, and we need to look for

more work for seniors accessing services. they had a contract with the sitting county to provide training for providers, so we are very pleased to see that they have been most successful in collecting sogi data. the more we know about every lgbtq older folks, the better. we want to encourage the city to hold our contractor providers accountable to collecting this data, because data tells us where we should put our resources, and we know that lgbtq seniors and our transit seniors especially are not accessing services that they deserve to access, especially transit seniors who sparked a revolution in our city, and they deserve to live with dignity and respect in a safe and affordable house. we wholeheartedly support the our home -- i would trans home s.f. we look forward to partnering with our home s.f. as well as the city to continue to do this important work. [applause]. >> thank you.

next speaker, please. >> hello, i work at the q. foundation. just observations of what i see, is that all the departments, when they came up, they admitted they did not have all the data, they hit it with a bunch of bar graphs of confusing information. here that they actually expect the data to be better than what it is without having any evidence, and are already a year behind and getting this data. so what i see is that, like, i want to request that the difference in the department his not take it as an attack on them , and that this is not a chore, and it should be a priority because if it is not a priority for each departments, then it just says that? are people and trans people

don't matter as much. and also, i want to say cherry picking a few organizations, i appreciate that they exist, that but that doesn't mean that the underlying issue isn't there. but hearing a lot of reasoning was, oh, they speak cantonese. i am muslim, i speak arabic, i'm from a different country as well as from this country, i am queer , that is all possible, so there are queer people of all ethnicities. if you are just -- if you're not trying to get that information, you will never know. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. thank you, board of supervisors and esteemed colleagues. my name is martin, i'm here

representing myself, several organizations of my network, and also the trans community. i'm supporting our transit homes s.f. and hoping for rental subsidies, increases in the inclusion, a safety, and establishing dedicated housing programs. i will tell you a little bit about my story. when i moved here in the mid- 1990s, almost immediately, my landlord found out i was trans, and i was locked out of my apartment. i was told i couldn't come back. i was able to come back once to get my stuff, and then i was couch surfing for a very, very long time, looking for someplace that i could actually afford to rent and also be part of, and luckily i had my transgender community behind me, helping out , giving the places to sleep

and really working to help me find my place. it is over 20 years later and we are still doing this, we are still looking for data. i know data-driven stuff is wonderful, but he really needs to happen, and excuses like we need to train people, it needs to happen, and there are no more excuses left. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. [applause]. >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is seth. thank you for having this hearing. i represent myself as a community member, and i work with the department of behavioral health in the office with transgender initiatives. there are a number of nationwide surveys that have state breakouts with statistics on housing, discrimination, violence, and inequitable

opportunities for trans people at large. as a member of the transgender community, it is really important to me as a stand in my privilege to speak on behalf of those who do not have the privilege that i have. i have been able to attain higher education, i have been able to attain housing, and even in my own experiences of being evicted from apartments that i was renting, and still being able to find more housing, i know my trans brothers and sisters don't have this opportunity. some statistics. in the state -- in the sitting county of san francisco were nearly all 30% of homeless identifies as lgbtq, unless -- and closer to 50% are less than 25. when we look at the survey that came out in 2015, similar proportions the people were homeless. 30% of homeless -- trans people were homeless in their lives. nearly a quarter experience housing discrimination which asked -- included eviction and denied housing.

eleven% were homeless, it in the last year because of being trans , and a quarter of those homeless in the past year avoided shelters because of fears of mistreatment. as you have heard from a number of people here already, the mistreatment in the shelters are really, really, really a serious problem, and the housing crisis in san francisco is equally a crisis. it is a constitutional crisis. as a leader of lgbtq rights and community here in the state of california, we have a responsibility to stand up for this population. please provide rental subsidies to support trans individuals at risk of losing their housing and increase trans inclusion in safety in the shelters and existing housing programs. >> thank you. next speaker, please. [applause]. >> thank you. my name is rebecca and i'm with the san francisco lgbt center. i want to thank supervisor mount lemmon and his cosponsor for the opportunity to look at sexual

orientation and gender identity information in the city and county. there's very little information about our community. what information we have shows their significant discrimination in almost any category you choose to select, and what we are beginning to learn from the city is the city is not adequately serving our community i want to -- there's been a lot of great speaking so far, i'm not going to repeat what folks have said but i have a couple of suggestions and a couple of asks for what we need. one is to continue collecting the data. we need to understand what the needs are in the community and understand how city services of meeting those needs. i want to suggest that that data be disaggregated. we talked about the diversity within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community. i can tell you right now that those communities are not served equally and i think we need to understand that and understand issues like race and immigration status and how those things impact the services that folks receive. i want to really put out a

strong statement of support for our trans home, and for the transgender ask. i think clearly we are not serving the transgender community in our city. i want to really support the approach on having an equity plan. i think it is important for us not to just understand the data, but really understand how equity is happening in the city and who is getting saved, and how well we are getting served. i want to talk about accountability and action. too often we hear, i myself have heard, why do we need specific program when we have general programs? clearly general programs are not serving the lgbtq community, and we need an action plan that holds the city accountable. we say we are the city who has conquered these phobias and i want to see that an action. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> hello. my name is luna. i'm a service provider within

san francisco charge at trans community. i have held a number of positions, but i wanted to talk today in favor of san francisco being able to take this step in supporting transpacific housing -- trans- specific housing. for years, i was a case manager in 850 bryant for the incarcerated trans women and gender nonconforming individuals in my experience of working with incarcerated trans individuals, the rate of trans women in jail who have been homeless within six months of them being in jail was 100%, literally every trans women and gender nonconforming individual that i worked with prior to being incarcerated experienced homelessness in the city. i think that we need to look at the ways in which these issues are intersecting