i'm saddened there' there's a hg crisis. my office is two blocks from the proposed lot. so i see the unhoused folks around here and i would much rather we house and serve them than to leave them outside which seems obvious. i want to remind those of us worried about safety that homeless folks causing violence is a myth. they are often the victims rather than perpetrators. so remember the humanity of the people in our communities who have the least and who can get off the streets for good with our support. please do not delay the vote on this proposal as helping our homeless neighbors is one of the most you're gent need urgent ne. thank you. >> thank you. >> our next speakers will be

rebecca robbins, frank chen and i have an andrew, i think it's gulliver. please come up. >> i've been in san francisco for 16 years and a homeowner for ten. i'm a community activist on a local board. the rhetoric of intolerance at this meeting has saddened me greatly. every human being deserves a home and food and san francisco is not a gated community! no neighborhood is a gated community! no human being is illegal! property values will not be affected by this nav center. we have a substantial homeless population. my property value has continued to rise at the same unsustainable level as every

property in san francisco. no children have been harmed by the homeless people in my neighborhood and the city is not a gated community. we do not get to choose our neighbors. there are gated communities around the bay. anyone is welcome to live in them where you can choose your neighbors. the preoccupation with the danger of drug addicts is a classic summary. i know many people in recovery who have been fortunate to have safety nets through their family, their friends or religious communities and who are able to maintain housing because of that. not everyone is so community. it is a callus, rhetoric to fear monger around addicts in the greatest need of support.

this approach reminds me of the liberal friends of my grandparents from when i was a child who liked nice, gay, people as long as they were members of other families. thank you. >> my name is fratching che fray at south beach. i think we have two today to help the homeless. i have heard passionate speeches to vote yes or no and at the and having a hearing is to get something done and we know we have a severe homeless problem and something needs to be opportunity. we know a navigation centre would not be successful without

strong community support. i have seen the process of negotiations going on and i'm ie to work out a win-win situation. a simple no vote will kill any opportunity of a cro compromised nothing will be accomplished at the end. thank you. >> thank you. >> i am here to support the navigation center and i work in the valley. like many others, i'm here to support the navigatio navigatior and i would vote to approve it. it's to reuse a parking lot that's housing cars instead to keep people safe and off the streets.

i strongly encourage you to support this move. i appreciati appreciate that sur haney came out to support this. you don't have authority over this, but i would encourage you to come out as well as other neighborhoods around the city. further, i appreciate the fact that the city is thinking a little bit about the security and neighbor policy to ensure this navigation center is as good as some of the others. i think it's important the city do that because with the volume of -- with the number of folks homeless or experiencing hopelessness in san francisco today, we need to encourage these facilities to be expanded city-wide and also to build supportive housing and other types of housing to get folks off the streets, but today, i encourage you to stick with the will of the people. the voters voted to vote proposition c to fund homeless services p i encourage you to

support that vote and fund -- i'm sorry, support that vote and approve this navigation center now. thank you. >> hi. i'm a 26-year resident and one of the people who got two death threats and i have been called a racist, a classist. i was told we want to ask you to kill yourself and i fucked your father and my father is dead. apparently hate does have a home on the other side. that is not cool. this entire thing has been twist. ed. mtwisted.

we have some concerns and if we have concern, maybe it's because we've been chased down the street. maybe we've been assault. we've repeatedly run into situations. i've helped homeless people get off the street. i am not a racist. and i'm angry. the media has turned this all around against us. we ask you to engage us, talk to us, if we do have concerns, at least let us have a voice. we are not against helping the homeless. so let's stop with that false narrative. >> my name is ryan rucker and i've lived in san francisco for about four years. i think a lot of the conversation is definitely needed around this problem. and i have actually spent some time in some homeless shelters

doing some work and volunteering, playing monopoly witknowmonopoly hoping to learne about the housing shortages. one thing i don't think has been mentioned at all is that when you play monopoly, it turns out the spot that has the strongest straw is jail. and i think while we want to talk about these things with the expectation that things will get better with another navigation centre, it's just important to understand that things could always get worse and understand that realization and now, i'm not necessarily for or against the navigation center, but i will say that one thing about this is that it's proven study after study after study that

this will disproportionately affect those who are young and those who are black and just keep that in mind when the decision is made. thank you. >> good evening. i'm a member of the latino democratic club and have lived in the bay area for 11 years and in san francisco for five years. i would like to share a couple of stories about my experience with homelessness and homeless people in san francisco over the last year or less than a year. actually, last two years. two years ago, i was in -- i had the opportunity to go to a community outreach meeting that was run by hilary ronan's office, supervisor of any district, district 9, on the

edge of the soma mission border. i share with my landlord, i'm a renter and i shared with my landlord about this community meeting and he was, to my surprise, in full support of any navigation centers near his building. he owns a building that's 50 metre away from the division circle navigation center. in january of this year, two of my spanish-speaking friends and neighbors were displaced from their home due to owner take-over of their building. for three years i spent time with them on the street singing songs with them from all over

latin america and drinking an occasional beer. they shared about their challenges coming to san francisco and trying to make enough money making cars and paying rent and in january they were displace and for two months they lived out of our neighbor's car. >> was that two minutes? >> yes. >> thank you. >> it goes fast. >> come on up. >> i'm here to speak in favour

of the construction of the navigation center. so i have lived in san francisco for almost four years and in that time, i've come to love the city. i live it's so beautiful and inspires me everyday. i'm sure that's one of the reasons why many people have homes here. but in that time, i've witnessed firsthand, how much worsts thoughlessness crisis has gotten. i work in district 6,. this district and i pass so many unsheltered people and it's truthly heartbreaking a city like this can't take care of its most vulnerable citizens. i'm here to encourage to build the navigation center and would like the city to build many more all over the city so we can make san francisco a great place to live. thank you. >> thank you.

>> good evening. i speak in support of the navigation center and i hope you vote to approve it. i'm here with the democrat club and everyone made some fine arguments. if you're on the fence, i urge you to what is cast in bronze at the statues of liberty and it's a reminder to all of us that america is the elsewhere to learn and the last part gives me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free and your teeming shore and send these homeless, i left my lamp beside the golden door. america is where we help homeless people. it's where everyone has come for a place to live and to be free. so i urge you to live by what's cast in bronze on that statue of

liberty and vote for this homeless shelter. >> next. >> good evening, commissioners. i'm one of the cochairs of the lbgt democratic club in san francisco. we're one of the longer clubs in san francisco since 1971. and we have members of our club who work andly in the district and in this neighborhood. i want to take just a step back. there's been a lot of detail discussed throughout this hearing but i wanted to talk about how we got to this crisis generally. i mean, this is a huge problem, a bigger problem, of course, than just san francisco. this is a state problem. this is a national problem, fueled by economic and equality, skyrocketskyrocketing are rents.

the question is, what are we going to do about it? what will we do as a city and what is this commission able to do and, of course, going to do? lgbtq people find themselves -- we find ourselves still facing rejection. of course in san francisco, in parts of the bay area, we may forget that but we have to remember that san francisco is the beacon of help and in order for the city to be that way, we have to address our homelessness situation, the lgbtq poo peoplee part o30% of the people and so well-meeting people talk about crime and concerns about crime. that's a fair concern. however, homeless people are by far more likely to be victims of crime. if we have people on the trees, they'lstreets, they'll be targer

crime. families at risk of experiencing homelessness need access to navigation centers. please support the navigates center. thank you. >> good evening, commission es. i'm michael chen in district 2. i'm a san francisco resident. recently, a hospital opened up near me and you know, it's a big hospital with 270 bed, two emergency centers and hospitals are sort of like navigation centers, both essential services, help to care for the needy and get people in the residenresidences the help they. i support the center and i think it's our moral duty and responsibility to care for people who live in our city and personally, you know, got

forbid, but we're all a few miss mistakes from becoming destitute and i would hope if i were in that situation, the city would care for me. >> sarah boudrou, deanna serma, and ira kaplin, if you're out there. i'll say it again, sarah boudrou, deanna serma -- people are coming in now. they have the cameras out there. come on up.

>> i'm sarah and i hope we see a navigation center soon but i want to express my support for the navigates center on the seawall. we agree there's a knee for neer housing and shelter. i'll keep this brief. i don't want to repeat. not only is are a need for more bed but from listening to folks with real experiences near cure current navigation centers work. >> hi. i'm deanna and i'm a san francisco resident, occasionally

work just down the street and i support the navigation center, the approval right now. so i want to keep this in perspective, this center will only help, i believe, 4% of the existing hopeless population. that means we need go through this whole scenario 25 times to help everyone. so that's 25 -- we're saying doing this 25 times is more important than helping people now and i want us to remember when we're making this decision that please temporar remember ts about prioritizing people, human and our neighbors. i want to say what my sister wrote, she couldn't be here. she said, my name is laura and i'm kid go to daycare a short walk away from the navigation site. i'm not worried about it. i'm worried in the absence of shelter, the people waiting are on our streets.

my 1-year-old twins went to a daycare and would encounter someone in the elevator every morning. people are suffering and our children are watching. i can't think of anything more efficient than this. we must do better and the mayor is leeing the charge, do what san francisco elected her to do. the navigation center will improve the experience of children and everyone else all over our center. please vote yes. think of the children and build the shelter. thank you. >> thank you.

>> my name is ira kaplin. i hope you support the navigation center. we need to take care of the least among us, but also, this was the port commission. the agenda item before you is a memorandum of understanding on executing a two year, eight month lease and so your role is to be good stewards of the port to approve or deny this mou. some people have said that you're not getting market rents

and we all know that it takes ten years and a vote of the general public to build something like that on the waterfront. so you're getting a good value, there's a clear public purpose. the local supervisor supports it. so not only is it the right thing do morally but the right thing to do on the merits and so i would urge you to support it. thank you. is there a josh ramirez? morgan cohen? >> good evening. i'm joshua r ramirez. i'm here to express my support for the navigation centre and say that the navigation center

ought to be voted on today and built asap and that's the result of value judgments i have made. i'll clarify what my value judgments are. i think a person's right to sleep in a bed with a roof over a head is more important than a parking spot. i think that the overextended processes by which wealthy owners, could reject bike lanes and navigation centers, that is less important than the fact people are dying because of these things. i'm the child of an immigrant from al salvador and she came here in the middle of the civil war and a plausible threat of death, she came here to the united states for refuge. i came here to san francisco for

refuge. there are many hundreds, thousands of lgbtq children coming here for refuge and they don't have networks. they've been alienated by their families. i have a job and there's no system in place for these lgbtq kids to go to to find support without these massive bays navin centers. i'm honestly quite tired of the talk of delay and further process and further conversations and input when the months and years between now and then and hundreds of people are dying and it's completely preventible. that's all i have to say. thank you. >> thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. i think a lot of people have made a lot of different points here today. this is clearly an important issue that so many people care about. all i want to say is

commissioners, i urge you to not underestimate the gravity of the decision you're about to make. being on the wrong side of this will not only set bad precedent but make our city of the laughing stock of the nation. we're willing to raise the money but do not have the heart and compassion to being human means. thank you. thank you. i've got two more cards here. we have to have them in here.

>> since you're out there, we have. (names read). come on in.

>> good evening. i live in the castro. i'm here to urge you to support the navigation center tonight and not to delay it any further. 200 unsheltered people in san francisco die every year on our streets and we've heard a lot tonight about oh, we should tweak this or that and maybe it's 150 beds or 132 beds, but we need to move forward with a good solution and not wait years to study for the absolute most perfect solution while our brother and sisters are dying on our street. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> aaron vanderbar,

siri vastabon. keep going. joel madina, keith mosa. melanie abrams will be up next. >> i'm keith mosure, i am hear e to support the center. when i say, yes, it's in any backyard, yes, this is when it was an experiment and i can't tell you how long i've lived neb next to it because i do not know. it did not impact the neighborhood.

it was clean, quiet, totally unassuming. so when people are scared of this, i think it's overblown. you have a real emergency on the streets of san francisco, if you collapse, we'll stop heaven and earth to save you and send a highly professional team to save you. if you die on the trees slo thew enough, we do enough. i hope you support this one and i hope you provide housing for people and not cars. >> thank you. >> aaron?

>> ili live in russian hill andi would like to speak in favour of the navigation center and we have a housing shortage and a lot of people looking for shelter and i think the city has an obligation to create exits of all shapes and sizes, since there are people with different circumstances for how they got into that situation and so we're fortunate enough to have the opportunity to have this space

and create that infrastructure and support and i would encourage you to help the city follow through on that mission and fulfill that need. thank you. >> thank you. >> aaron reynolds. >> i am a resident of district 6. i was born and raised in the soma district and continue to live there until this day and i'm a board member of the united democratic club. i'm here to stand in support of this navigation center. this has been a neighborhood of diversity and change and that change is needed to adapt to the increasing needed of the city. increasing needs of the city. i want to thank you for your leadership on this effort. navigation centers are proven to

make a positive impact. to the community members. it's imperative, it's imperative that this project does go through. now in ten or 20 years, we have to ask ourselves, what did we do to make a positive impact to help city and the residents and the community? you know, we can look back on this moment, task this project and count this as a step in the right direction. thank you. >> thank you. jose gonzalez and she alslena?

>> it's not great that district 6 has sheltered along with district 9 and 10 has sheltered so much of the load. if we wait to find the absolute perfect position that will not bother anybody, more people will die on our streets. lead lead by example and take bold action to confront this crisis and approve this shelter. thank you and have a great evening. >> thank you. >> i live in the belk street and

i think it's very important that i hope it gets built. the only caveat i have, i think it should be larger and the homeless crisis, i think, is extremely urgent and it's humane people one of the wealthiest cities of the world are living off the streets and part of the problem is the stigma that losing your home is a criminal, makes you dangerous, makes you filthy. when the fact is that homeless people are more often victims of crime rather than perpetrators. i think one of the problems the -- you know, we make assumptions of who the other is and i have met people -- one of my coworkers lost her home once. she's an immigrant and i think,

like, humanizing who homeless meahomelesspeople are are very . we talk about the hopeless. hom. they're the victims of the most awful circumstances. in a city there's so much wealth, i think it's inhumane to have a crisis like that. i'm proud to live in san francisco but i'm not proud of this crisis and i want to be part of the slews. thank you. solution. >> thank you. >> good evening. i'm a resident of san francisco. born and raised in bayview point. i'm here to raise up the point of experience of homeless in support of the native gays center. navigation center. on any day or night, there are 15 youth and this is an additional support to be

available not only to adults but youth and i think it's a crisis weigthat we need to address in e city. it has been very difficult to return and i move away for a period of time and so to rush anreturnand to see what people experience and find support and i think this is yet another one and i'm in full support. thank you. >> next. >> i've lived in san francisco for almost ten years. i wasn't born here but this is my home and i care deeply about the humanity of everyone who resides here. i urge you to support the navigation center. homelessness is an urgent issue and needs urgent action. this 200 bed center won't solve

the mastiff problem w problem bp we need to take. >> good evening. i live in district 10 near the navigation center and there's thousands in our city that are forced to sleep outdoors at night. this is not a good situation and you could use them to help that. i ask you to do so. i wanted to add quickly, our homeless neighbors have been parts of our neighborhood for many years and given our wealthy this city is, it's our duty to help them back on their feet.

aaron reynolds. good evening, i'm an oakland resident. this is part of the western district 6. as an o absoluter kland resident, my voice in addition to the working class to maintain a grasp on san francisco as a whole. we're all a part of the larger community. the problem won't go away. we have a housing and particul particularly a homeless crisis. for those of you in opposition

who identify as progressives, i urge to dig deep and think what it means to be a st. troy city. do not let the imperfect get in the way of the good, thank you. >> thank you. >> my name iserin reynolds and i would like to add support to the navigation center. this is a problem to everyone who washes o walks on the stree. this is a problem we need to address. thank you. >> at this moment, i don't have any more speaker cards. if anyone else wantse wants to ,

come up to the mic. >> i work in d6 and i'm here to speak in favour of the navigation center because i understand one of the biggest challenges as a city is homelessness and housing. we have an incredible housing crcrisis and when we find a plae to build a transitional housing for our most down-trodden citizens we need to do that without delay. actually i went to the last two meetings that were organized for the navigation center at large and i had written a whole speech and excited to read it out. what everyone has hit every point that could be made. the only point, there's an point in d6 and we need to house all people without delay. if you have delaying the vote is delaying justice.

>> i live in district 10. i live close to the navigation center at 128 bayshore. this makes the neighbor better shelfishly and it means when i walk or bike by it everyday on the way to work, fewer people are suffering and means the neighborhood is cleaner. aside from the self-ish reasons, it makes me feel good because it's providing a sanctuary for people and a place where they can get their lives right and safe place to sleep at night. when i talk to people on the 9 bus, they testify how much of a difference it's making. it makes my neighborhood safer and cleaner and a more moral place. so i hope that the residents here who live near the proposed lot and i know they will see the

navigation center serves to clean up the streets but provides what is needed and a solution to the homelessness problem. thank you. >> thank you. >> next? i'm here to urge you to support this navigation center and say yes. we need this one, because no matter where a center is proposed, there will be a loud, angry and vocal minority who will come out to oppose it until our broken approval processes are fixed.

the waterfront is also theirs and this is disappointing because i san francisco as a progressive city and that would not let the most privileged citizens veto shelter to the least shelter citizens. so please vote yes on approving this shelter today. i just wanted to note that the action organization has a petition in support of the shelter and it has 422 signatures. the majority of whom live in d6 and that petition is emailed to you right now. thank you for your time.

>> thank you. >> good evening. i'm a resident here in d6, just a 15 minute walk away. when i first heard about this proposal for the navigation center, i was excited and i want to follow along some of the word about how residents -- the homeless residents of san francisco, as well. i think something to expand on is that they also deserve to feel safe. i'm excited to see the possibility of an additional 200 or so people feeling safer everyday. i grew up with a lot of privilege. i was able to feel safe most of my life, if not everyday of my life and get a good education, work, support myself, live here in this beautiful part of san francisco. i really want to use my voice to enable others to do the same and provide access that a navigation

center would help. thank you. >> is there anyone else that wants to speak? >> i live in berkley and came here from massachusetts which has a substantial problem with homelessness. but sometimes does a better job sheltering just because of winter conversations. condition. one thing was the level of suffering on the street. i thought of california as a beautiful place and after awhile here, i'm seeing there are many beautiful aspects of it but from the outside, it definitely is a place that needs to add as new resident and visitor and a place that needs to take better care of people that live there. there are positive signs. i walk passed a youth shelter everyday from work and seeing it is a reassuring sign that there

are people who care and trying to make this area a really wonderful place for everyone who lives here and i hope that the residents in this neighborhood will feel the same that they see a small sign of progress in their neighborhood as part of the solution to this problem so that everyone can enjoy the wonderful aspects of living here, thank you. >> thank you. >> my name is melissa and i'm a resident of san francisco. we've worked ourselves into a housing shortage over decades and it's going to feel uncomfortable while we triage and the acute housing needs and plan for this beautiful city. sometimes we say no to projects because we are too small and won't solve a problem and sometimes because they are too big. although there will never be the perfect project, each one moves us in the right direction and

worth echoing again this voice. with silent lips within give your your tired, poor huddled masses to be free and send me the homeless, the tem particulao lift my door. thank you more not becoming numb to the problems facing us and we need to address these issues. thank you. >> my name is wendy hugh. i live in district 3. however, i speak services in district 6. the comments i want to make tonight is about this.

within the last since months, paradise -- 14,000 structures were burned down. we don't question the need to help them or what the extra strategy is. fortunately there are federal dollars to help. san francisco story of home weatherness is more of a fog in boiling water and paradise was not. you never know when you might need help. a $400 million bond to strengthen the seawall as recently passed in the last election. all of san francisco will pay for it. this will help those who are in opposition of saying no to the navigation center. so that's my comment. thank you.

>> being that we don't have any more speaker cards and if you're a first-type speaker and you have not spoken, we're giving you the opportunity to speak. going once, going twice, going three times. i think we did our due diligence. public comment is closed. [cheers and applause] commissioner? >> first, thank you every for coming out. supervisor amy's remarks were very well received by me and i want to thank him and his staff for being here the whole time. i support navigates center and i a motion forward in support.

i believe we should do it without delay. i think we should do something simultaneously but they're not conditions to my support. i think simultaneously we can work on improving the management in oversight and whether it's a third-party oversight or not, i think we should continue that dialogue as supervisor haney has asked and i think we'll have a better product at the end. i believe we should identify alternative sites for a homeless shelter so if we find a permanent use for this site that we could re-elect it. relocate it. i believe we should seek a permanent use for this site and not take the ball off of our overall responsibility to do something long-term for this site. whether we do a direct deal, whether we do an rfp.

at the end of the day, there is interest in the site, the development and business in san francisco has expressed interest in this site and i believe we should do that simultaneously. any site or project that would be approved here would take one to two years to entitle. if this is a temporary site, we can do it all the same and not interfere with our outside objectives and have a temporary solution for the crisis that supports san francisco. i support it and would do it for free but i would accept the staff of a fair market value approach to this as a way to get it done. i believe city agencies do not have to charge between themselves for important things

like this. i do leave it's fair market. >> i will move staff's recommendation in its totality. >> need a second. >> i'll second. >> i need changes to mou we're recommending as staff.

this is from port commissioner brendon. i regret not attending. i understand how important this item is before us and to the items near seawall lot 330. >> how can the city manage this facility and is the city capable

of managing? south beach is unique and its home to thousands of residents and also the host of all of san francisco and visiters from all over the world who come to the 1:30 to the bay and world-class restaurants. this district has been at the forefront to address the challenges hosting new affordable units as well as shelters and services. i understand all of the concerns but i am satisfied with the city's revise the proposal and assurances to operate the navigation center well and support this proposal and i urge you all to support it as well. this shows the city and port team have listened to the concerns and made every effort to address them.

(please stand by)