>> chair fewer: hello, everyone. [gavel]. >> chair fewer: hello, everyone. i am sandra lee fewer. the meeting will now come to order. this is the june 24, 2019, meeting to the budget and finances committee. our clerk is mr. john carroll, and i'd like to thank sfgovtv

for broadcasting this event. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> clerk: yes. please be sure you silence any cell phones or electronic devices. any documents you need to present should be given to me, your clerk. >> chair fewer: thank you. mr. clerk, will you please read items 1 and 2 together. [agenda item read] [agenda item read].

>> chair fewer: thank you very much, mr. clerk. i would just like to start this meeting by saying thank you all for coming today to come and give us public testimony about where you think your public dollars should be spent, and your priorities to where the public dollars has been spent. for the last two weeks, we've been hearing from city departments on their plans to spend public dollars, and now it is your turn to tell us where you think we should appropriate these moneys. i want to thank you for your time. i know that many of you will have to wait a while to speak, and we are not doing speaker cards today. everyone can just lineup. we are prioritizing people who have disabilities, people who are seniors, and those with

young children to speak first, and i hope you will accommodate that. otherwise, we look forward to what you have to say. remember, there is no sounds allowed from the audience. if you agree with the speaker we ask you to use your supportive fingers. once again, public, thank you for coming out to educate us, your legislative branch of the san francisco government. without further adieu, let's start public comment. everyone will have two minutes to speak. our clerks will assist in bringing people up to speak with just lining up today. we are not requiring any speaker cards whatsoever. welcome to the chambers. okay. let's start. >> thank you, supervisors, for having me here. i'm andrea.

i'm with coleman advocates for children and youth. i'm here in support of the immigrant parent voting collaborative. we are educating our immigrant families to go into the schools and have a say on their child's education. sorry. sorry. my son's there, and he has a phone. sorry about that. yes, but i am in support of immigrant parent voting collaborative. there was a budget that was approved, but we're asking for the full amount of 250. we have a lot of -- a lot of our communities that need the support, that need this information, that need to be able to have the proper information so they can be safe in their communities and also have a say in their child's education and who and what -- the decisions that are made about them. so i'm here and just advocating for that and just making sure

that the urgency is there, right, the importance is there, that their families need the support, and they need us to be there with them and supporting them. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> >> -- johnson. thank you for letting me be here to say what i need to say. i my coffee cup, i put budget justice. let me turn it around. and people say, why did you put it on your coffee cup? because we're always so hot to talk about affordable housing, we're always so hot to talk about senior displacement and all these other things, and then, we get cold. my thing is let's stay hot. transitional age youth development and job skill training should be on the budget. i think affordable housing and

people with disabilities should be in the budget. i think health sf -- mental health sf is what we're calling it, i think that's good because if you have mental health, you can work on getting a job and work on staying together. so let's say hot, and other than that, just thank you for the chance to say something and for giving me the chance to say it. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning. i'm judy garas, and it's great to see you. i'm speaking for the inner sunset senior program. we started last year in october. the inner sunset, as many of

you may know, has no community center, no senior center, nothing. we have coffee shops and restaurants and bars. that's what we have, and we have some really great organizations like sharp, aspn, and valley community associates, so we've got all three of them. at the time, supervisor london breed set aside funds, and supervisor vallie brown continued the tradition. first of all, we have to rent space. there are two churches with large community halls. one of them came forward at a little over twice what we had budgeted for the rent. the other came in at twice what we had budgeted for rent.

we had to promise we had 15 people. the first day, 35 people came in. we rarely have fewer than 45 or 50. that's a lot of seniors with disabilities. it's a large crowd. we want to expand the program in the coming here to three days a week, we want to be able to offer more activities for seniors. it's a similar program that's in district 7, that there have been programs funded there. the cayuga program has been funded in district 10. we are beyond our expectations, and we do need more money to keep going. it's a free program for seniors -- [inaudible] >> so good to see you.

>> chair fewer: thank you. >> clerk: next speaker, please. >> chair fewer: mr. wright. >> all right. i'm ready to start now. the best way to provide housing and take care of the homeless problem in san francisco, you got 8,011 homeless people. i come across this transaction deal for $57 million to build 144-unit apartment building complex that's three stories tall. you build nine of these for less than $500 million. nine times three is 27. you built an apartment complex on the property that's on my right. on -- property like the one that's on my right.

the weone on the left is being built for $57 million. we need to build these to take care of the homeless program and the people that need mental services as far as the health department is concerned. here's prove that the mental health services department -- sf viewer. here's prove that the mental health services got a shortage of beds, and another reason why my response is true and correct. and statistics why you have a shortage of beds of the people you want to help has got a combination of physical and mental disabilities. here's how you have 8,011 homeless people out on the street and the rate is increasing. there's an article that says you need $12.8 million, and

there are 8,000 people homeless in the bay area. there's a person that's out on the street that's been moved and ain't got nowhere to go because they don't have shelter beds. the mayor had an $88.2 million deficit. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. my name is steve, and i'm deaf, disabled. i want to thank you for inviting me hear for our comment. i want to say we need a better solution for public housing. we have needs of people that do not have housing, and we should also have new apartments around in san francisco. there's not enough housing for

us senior citizens, as well, and we need to expand upon that to improve that. many people who move out and buildings who are left have a can't should be left livable. there are a lot of vacant that can be used as spaces, for well. we need places where we have rooms where we can also have facilities to meet, and they can also be some small neighborhoods of housing that i've seen. maybe as an idea, we can provide those. that would be nice, but we need more modern housing.

maybe to make it affordable, to keep it smaller, but we need more housing, even if that means smaller housing that provides all of the living comforts, and we need to improve san francisco for everyone and not have so many homeless people. thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. thank you very much for having us here. my name is marcus, and i'm here to talk to you about a line item that was recent cut that would be funding a myriad of

native american events and concerns here in this city. and i find it to be remarkable in this city that can do so much for so many people that we have to come and do oppression ceremonies. indian people are one of the poorest demographics in your city, and rumor has it that that line item was cut when one board member intimated that there weren't enough of us around to make it worthwhile. i certainly hope that that's not true, because we are here, we are alive, we are vital. we hold powwows, we hold get togethers, we hold artistic events in yerba buena gardens and we need your hoelp to do

this. $100,000 may be a drop in your bucket, but to us, it's huge. if you can remove a statue, listening to the voices of the indian people, if you can change columbus day to indigenous peoples day, surely, you can put your money where your mouths are, certainly you can fund our events in this city, and that's all i'm asking. thank you for your help. >> chair fewer: thank you. next speaker, please. >> thank you. my name is betty trainer, and i'm with senior disability action and also the community living campaign, and i want to express our support for the budget justice coalition asks. in particular, ones for seniors and people with disabilities. i'll mention just a couple. the dementia daycare programs are really important, and also,

the community connector program that our first speaker, judy goddess spoke about. this basically keeps seniors in their home. it helps them, those that don't have a support system, and it helps them have a support system, so we need to keep that in the budget, budget justice. the other thing i'd like to talk about is expanding rental subsidies for seniors and people with disabilities. this is a good-size ask, but an important, valuable ask. we have so many seniors that just can't pay their rent or there's an emergency situation. they get behind for whatever reason, and we need these rental subsidies.

and the other subsidy, which is a program introduced by supervisor yee, would provide $500 million in rental subsidy for senior buildings. and it would be so necessary for our seniors that just can't afford the so-called affordable rent. so please consider that. my last one is a real quick one. it's not necessarily for seniors, but it's the red stone labor temple ask -- to save the red stone. that's a community center at 16th and capp. supervisor ronen -- [inaudible] >> hello. i'm here on behalf of my roommate, edward. he had a stroke last year.

i'm on social security disability, and he had two jobs. we had to cope with a rent increase of $900, which almost $3,000 a month for our cabin or cottage. he had a stroke in september, and we were desperate. he ended up in the hospital in a coma. he was paralyzed. all his income had stopped. what do you do? you don't have enough money on social security disability to pay. thank god i had an angel watching for me. q foundation with radco was able to pay the back rent as well as helping us keep the house, the cottage, which when he does come home from the hospital, because without the rental subsidy, we would have been homeless. this is very important that you

do maintain subsidy rentals for people, whether they're in an emergency or they're homeless. we all need support, respect, and the miracles that come with that. thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. lauren tedi. i'm have district 5, and i'm a member of senior and disability action. everybody knows there's a crisis of housing in san francisco, but what isn't widely recognized is there's a crisis within the crisis. thousands are shut out of affordable housing, including 75,000 seniors, more than of half of whom have disabilities. 75,000 seniors who are prized out of affordable how's -- priced out of affordable housing because their income is too low. so i'm here to particularly

support president yee's request to establish and fund a $5 million pilot program to provide long-term assistance to seniors shut out of senior housing. the senior housing that's being built and senior housing that will be built under the ballot measure for the housing bonds -- the affordable housing bonds, the alternative to president yee's senior housing program is more and more housing seniors. i refer you to the just-released community housing engagement survey of the mayor's office of housing with the office of economic and workforce development and the planning department. that survey that just came out confirmed the number one request of community members all throughout san francisco is affordable housing and city assistance to reduce the cost

of housing. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello.

>> -- that luckily are available in the city but not enforced. i recognize as the root of this issue the government, both city, state, and federal's failure to side with the workers, and this generational degradation of worker rights and our ability to organize in

favor of corporations. the largest corporations in san francisco enjoyed hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits from the federal government, so the money is here. i challenge you guys -- [inaudible] >> chair fewer: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> hi. good morning. my name is lourdes alarcon. generally speaking, i had the help of getting subsidized child care, but i also have to be part of the waiting list. and yeah, i don't want to -- first of all, i want to thank the people representing us today, and i want to acknowledge that because you know how child care -- how important it is for a mother to have, so you don't want to choose between not especially a job and not being -- cannot pay

child -- not accepting a job and not being able to afford child care services. i want to thank supervisor ronen for opening the horace mann shelter. but also, i'm advocating for the waiting list. this is a struggle, we have a lot of many issues. we're not against each other, but i think children cannot wait. they are, like, growing every minute, and they need the investment because that's investment in our future. so we're advocating for child care because that's part of our future but that's also supporting women that need the services in order to make -- develop a better family and have their opportunities for their children. thank you very much. >> chair fewer: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning. my name is mia velez.

i'm a child care provider, and with the consent of the parents of the kids i care for, i asked them to have them here with me, some of them, most of them. as you can see, the kids are over there, climbing furniture, crawling under the seats and things like that. if you can imagine for those of you that are parents, if you had to bring your child here, what kind of work can you do? are you able to provide for your family? are you able to pay your rent if you had to bring your children here to work? so i just wanted to remind you the kind of work that's needed for the people, for the citizens of frisk and united states in -- san francisco and united states in general. right now, i have a waiting list of full paying parents of 50, and i'm not including the parents who subsidized.

we reserve in our program two subsidized seats. we can only offer seats for two families who need care. i can't imagine what those parents who need care are doing right now, how to provide for their kids, and what they're hoping for the future, so i just want you to think about us. thank you. >> good morning. my name is maria jandres, and i'm here representing many mothers, many women, that we struggle every day, and we're not struggling because we want to, we're trying to thrive, do all the things that we have to do, but especially advocating for immigrants mothers that since we are a part of the school district, but we don't know the rights that we have to be part of that school district. and i'm asking here for -- to

support the collaboration for the noncitizens voting because it's important for parents that are involved in their schools with their children to be part of that. but not only be part of that, just coming and drop off your kids. i want my child to be successful. in order to do that, i have to be able to empower myself and know that i can make decisions in the school board, as well. i'm also speaking on behalf of the child care because i've been on a wait list since i was in my second trimester. and until i was homeless, i could not access that, and it's a shame to deny parents to what is a human right. kids should not be in spaces where they are not learning and their development is not getting what they need to do.

so i'm very grateful that you guys are working and doing these power -- these changes, but please, let's support the immigrant families. immigrant families, we are very afraid. people are afraid of speaking up, and that's why i'm not here because i'm not afraid, and i'm going to tell all the other parents to speak up, to fight for their rights. but thank you very much. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is maria lusori, and i'm with the parent advocates. every year, we fight the same fight. we have children in extreme poverty living side by side with our millionaires. we have the highest density of millionaires and billionaires and the fifth largest economy

in the world. we need to grow our economy for our children. our children are only here four to five years. the lost opportunities cannot be rebuilt. if they do not access child care, their learning potential is minimized. when i was a young parent starting parent voices, my first paycheck went to pay for my infant care for my daughter, and i was so sad, i had to call a parent talk line, and they sent me a check, but that only took care of my one. luckily, my parents came, and i had to pull my son out of preschool so they could take care of my infant daughter and my son. meantime, i'm still on the waiting list. my children had to go home to the philippines until i raised

enough money. and finally, i was served and i got the funding because now my children are in college, and i think they benefited by the time they get the funding. so i hope that all our children will get the same child care access. thank you very much. >> chair fewer: thank you very much. >> yes. hi. my name is june bug. i'm with parent voices, and i'm with poor magazine, and i support the justice coalition. we need funding for our children 0 to 5. we have over 2,500 children in san francisco on the wait list, and children that don't have care can end up being homeless. children that don't care can end up with parents without a career, without college education, without economic stablity. cribs, not concrete. my daughter waited on the wait list so long that i had to go

through extreme stress just to get child care for her. my son got subsidy, and even with scholarship, i still ended up paying $200 out of my welfare check to keep us from ending up in poverty. i'm someone who needs child care, i've been through homelessness. all of these issues shouldn't be pitted against each other. there's a way we can look at the budget and make sure these needs get met if we do it in an equitiable way. the amount we need to help children get off the wait list is really large and would probably be at risk of taking money away from other services. so i'm here to ask if we could start doing something in the meantime. and that is at least $2 million because with $2 million, you can help 250 children. thank you so much. remember, child care keeps san

francisco and our children learning. thank you. >> chair fewer: thank you, june bug. [speaking spanish language]

>> my name is antonia lopez,

and i participate with meta. i had the opportunity to be a leader for 30 years. one day, it came into action in the collaboration. i had the opportunity to do outreach in the community and to be in contact with many parents about this issue. throughout the outreach, i met and spoke with many parents of immigrants. i met many of them, and i know that they recognize the importance of the power of voting, and there's many parents that value this right, but this is not -- this is not just about recognizing the value of voting but also participating in the school district. our community understands the

value of being able to participate openly and freely. much of their testimonies that i -- that i heard spoke much about the fear that their families were being separated have a conflict of interest, deciding whether they should vote or feel secure. as a mother leader, i would like that they -- that they brought in other resources -- the resources that we have for outreach to be able to clue more families, to be able to incorporate more immigrant families in this process. we need time for doing that and to generate the trust and the

consciousness in providing this issue in order to be able to motivate more parents. my wish is to be able to continue this work and to keep raising our voice so that ultimately it would result -- [inaudible] >> chair fewer: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> happy monday, supervisors. my name's kevin. i work with coleman advocates for children and youth. we work with families in san francisco, adults, young people to transform their school communities. i'm here today to ask you to support the budget coalition demands, asks from the budget as well as the parent collaborative. we are at a time where our families are under attack from high rent prices, displacement, police harassment from the

president and his words. this city took a really courageous step in allowing noncitizens to vote for a school board, recognizing the importance that that process has and families feeling connected to the school community and having a say in what that outcome will look like at the school where their child is being educated. so i'm here to ask you to support the noncitizen immigrant voting collaborative and really follow through on your commitment and make sure that these families get the opportunity to learn about their rights and fully participate in the democracy in the city that is setup to give them a say in their schools. thank you so much. >> chair fewer: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, members of the committee. thank you for this opportunity to speak. my name is arla s. ertz. i'm a resident of san francisco in the district 5 western addition neighborhood, and i

have had the great honor and privilege of living in this wonderful city since 1970, and the only reason i am still here and have been here all that time is because of rent control, otherwise, i wouldn't be able to afford to live here. in october, i retired from my position as a social worker with the city and county of san francisco. i worked as a social worker for many years, serving many of the people whose needs are representing here today. and one thing i can say for sure are the needs outweigh the resources available and even what resources are available sometimes require waiting for a long, long time if anyone gets them if they are still here by then. so i'm here in support of the budget justice requests, and they're -- you're going to hear

from many people today with many different needs from many different communities. i'm not going to pick and choose which ones to speak about, and i urge you not to pick and choose which ones to support because the need is across the board. so i encourage you to take an equitiable approach and a broad approach to support all needs from all communities. i -- just one last thing. i was shocked, shocked to stand here and hear from the ohlone member of this group speaking about budget being cut. let's not forget, we're standing here, meeting on stolen land today, so let's not add insult to injury -- [inaudible] >> chair fewer: thank you. next speaker.

>> hello. my name is kim shuck. i'm the poet laureate of san francisco. i'm also a citizen of the cherokee nation of oklahoma. i am also one of five generations of my family that have lived in this city. and i was appalled to see the native programming budget got cut. for a lot of reasons, i got to hear some nonsense being in and out of this building a lot, and it's not the fault of the people who say it. it's miseducation and it's ignorance. part of the solution is to continue to make possible public events where native people are visible. there are a lot of us here. it is one of the endpoints for the relocation in the 70's. i have had the displeasure to here one member -- not of this board, but of another board,

refer to our member as not looking like an indian. that's serious. the other thing that san francisco is is on the list of cities that have the most murders of indigenous women, which is a big issue these days. it's an issue that's important. i want you to think about that. have a good afternoon. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. next speaker. >> hello, everyone. my name is cynthia. it's an honor to be here and for you to hear my voice. it's very important for me

because i'm a domestic violence survivor, and it's very empowering right now. it's a dangerous situation. we need subsidies like shelters, affordable housing, and to support all of the nonprofits that are currently working, enough subsidies because those are the ones that deal with these kinds of problems. to me in particular, when i was on crutches, two organizations

offered their handout to me with food, a space where i could go. even though i haven't yet achieved the american dream, as an immigrant and as many of us that are here today, we are in a struggle. also as a huge economic contribution to this country, trust -- we are here today for a better future for this country and for our families. thank you. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. next speaker.

[speaking spanish language] >> hello. good morning. my name is cynthia maldonado. i am the mother of two children, of four years old and nine years old. i am really concerned that they may be considering budget cuts for programs for my children. the truth is that me as a part of the community of low resources, we always need to look out that our children have the same opportunities that other children have.

it's been very difficult for me because my child who is on a waiting list for preschool has not attended it. but thanks to programs like la raza and others, they have helped me help him, and they have helped prepare him for kindergarten. i ask you to please keep in mind our comments and our needs as a community. thank you. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. next speaker.

[speaking spanish language] >> good afternoon. my name is carmen rodriguez. i am a latin mother from -- with a children that are 10 years old, 3 years old, and 7 years old. in particular, la raza has been helpful to me for having support for my family. and with the fact that they are in an education program, i have been also able to enroll them

in other programs, as well. and i would like to see that other families can also enjoy the benefits of these programs like i have enjoyed. like my colleague said before me, it is very helpful for us to receive assistance with food as well as with health care. and i would like to see your support so that many other families can benefit from these programs. thank you, thank you, thank

you. [speaking native language]

[inaudible] >> -- to low-income seniors. let's look at the city's housing portal. this year, so far, there were over 40 affordable housing opportunities. only three of them are senior housing. [please stand by]

the income is usually around 800, we need truly affordable housing area the resources that the city has put into developing senior housing is far from enough. among the low income population, 24% of them, the city only both 12% of resources under senior housing. and now we cannot even reach the threshold to apply for senior housing. at the same time, fund and support program to make senior housing truly affordable to low income

seniors area thank you. >> good afternoon supervisors, member of the committee. i represent affirmative action, we are here to ask that you include our budget requests for noncitizen voting are reachable. we are very thankful for our inclusion in the draft spending plan. there is no doubt that immigrants, no matter what our statuses are that we are under attack. just in the last week, you have seen how the c3 has unleashed a new wave of terror that has impacted our immigrant families, threatening large-scale deportation and major us cities and shooting hours to get we want to acknowledge and thank all of the community members who came out today as a demonstration of political courage and for their ability to release the couch and participate in this civic

activity on the budget process area this is a testament to our work. this is what we are trying to accomplish when we are saying that we connect with the community they are engaged and trust community-based organizations who engage in service provision, community education and civic leader - to be able to overcome the panic and activate their political power. we appreciate - we would like for this committee to fully fund our collaborative that goes towards seven organizations to do this work in a multilingual and multiethnic matter. we have demonstrated our track record serving 60,000 san franciscans in the last year and connected immigrant families to key services. now is not the time to back out of the cities invest for immigrant safety nets. now is the time to honor what we mean when we say we are a century city. we will protect, and safeguard, not just

immigrant life but safeguards as well. >> thank you very much, next speaker please. >> hi, i am a parent to two children living in san francisco. i am also a migrant parent working with chinese for affirmative action. in last year's election, in november,

for their specialist, went to school with the immigrant communities to raise awareness of immigrant voting and to conduct community education. we were able to reach more than 1000 chinese immigrant parents. i want to take this time to share my experience working with immigrant parents.

>> from the. of may to november 2018, as part of our outreach team, the five of us reach out to primarily chinese immigrant community centers and schools to ask wayne voting in the unified school to erect and basic information. especially in the chinese speaking community. more importantly, we wanted to ensure that immigrant parents are aware of the right they have as to get parents engaged in schools, no how the schools of function in school district in their own communities area - - communities.

>> i believe we are aware of the existence of immigrant families in the city. many. chose not to exercise the rights assigned. some of the reasons behind them, i believe, are the same one m - impacting immigrant parents in the unified school district the language barrier, cultural barrier, to name just a few. the more alarming one is what we are in today. our work is not only to educate parents about the right but to empower them.

>> please show your support to immigrant parents and communities across the city - >> i am a parent to three children, i am also a specialist with chinese affirmative action.

>> like we heard earlier, last year i went along with a team of specialists i go to different schools to reach out to different immunity members of the school district to talk to them about the right, and their access, to voting right, as immigrant parent. >> we informed them the right to participate in the school district and to, to encourage them to participate in the

schools, and to care for the community they are in and also the schools that they are part of. >> i am also among them as an immigrant parents. i also get to understand my rights and to be able to fully participate in this effort. i would like to urge the board of secure - supervisors to continue supporting immigrant parents voting collaborative with full funding so we continue to do this work. thank you. >> thank