>> i moved into my wonderful, beautiful, affordable housing march 7th. i have lived in san francisco since i was two-years-old. i've lived in hunters view for 23 to 24 years now.

my name is vlady. i use titus and i am the resident commissioner for the san francisco housing facility. from the very beginning, this whole transition of public housing and affordable housing was a good idea. but many, many residents didn't think it would ever actually happen. it's been a life changing experience. and i'm truly grateful for the whole initiative and all those that work on the whole sf initiative. they've done a wonderful job accommodating the residents, who for many years have lived in delap tated housing. now they have quality housing. i was on a street where the living room and the kitchen and

stairs. it wasn't large enough to accommodate. the children are grown. i had the accomplish of having a dishwasher in my home. i really like that. [laughter] i really like not having to wash dishes by hand. we still do it from time to time. the mayor's office has been a real friend to us, a partner. we know that our city supports us. i love san francisco. just to be able to stay in my community and continue to help the residents who live here and continue to see my neighborhoods move into new housing, it's been a real joy. it's been a real joy. francisco. >> my name is fwlend hope i

would say on at large-scale what all passionate about is peace in the world. >> it never outdoor 0 me that note everyone will think that is a good i know to be a paefrt. >> one man said i'll upsetting the order of universe i want to do since a good idea not the order of universe but his offered of the universe but the ministry sgan in the room chairing sha harry and grew

to be 5 we wanted to preach and teach and act god's love 40 years later i retired having been in the tenderloin most of that 7, 8, 9 some have god drew us into the someplace we became the network ministries for homeless women escaping prostitution if the months period before i performed memorial services store produced women that were murdered on the streets of san francisco so i went back to the board and said we say to do something the number one be a safe place for them to live while he worked on changing 4 months later we were given the building in january of 1998 we opened it as a safe house for women escaping

prostitution i've seen those counselors women find their strength and their beauty and their wisdom and come to be able to affirmative as the daughters of god and they accepted me and made me, be a part of the their lives. >> special things to the women that offered me a chance safe house will forever be a part of the who i've become and you made that possible life didn't get any better than that. >> who've would know this look of this girl grown up in atlanta will be working with produced women in san francisco part of the system that has abused and expedited and obtain identified and degraded women for century

around the world and still do at the embody the spirits of women that just know they deserve respect and intend to get it. >> i don't want to just so women younger women become a part of the the current system we need to change the system we don't need to go up the ladder we need to change the corporations we need more women like that and they're out there. >> we get have to get to help them. >>

good morning, everyone. the meeting will come to order. welcome to the july 8th, 2019 meeting of the rules committee. i am supervisor hillary ronen, seated to my rule is supervisor shamann walton and seated to my left is rules committee member supervisor gordon mar. and we are joined by board president norman yee. there is translation for this meeting. [speaking spanish]

supervisor yee. >> supervisor yee: speaking alternate language] okay. >> supervisor ronen: one correction. only translation for item 2. [speaking spanish] >> supervisor yee:. [speaking alternate language] >> our clerk today is victor young. and i'd also like to thank jason and leo from sfgov tv for staffing this meeting. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> clerk: please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices, complete speaker cards and copies of any

document to be included as part of the file, should be submitted to the clerk. items acted upon today will appear on the july 16th supervisors' meeting. you can please read item number one. >> clerk: reading item number one. change the name of the aging and adult services community living fund to the disability and aging service community living fund. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. president yee, did you have any opening comments? >> supervisor yee: sure. well, as everybody knows, we have a department in the city that helps to support our resident, as they age. our society in general glorifies and capitalizes on the idea of youth, when the reality is

growing older is really a part of life. and every single one of us will experience age going, if we're lucky. we have a special department that helps us, age with dignity. this department helps more than 1 in 4 san franciscans who need support, as they grow older. what most people don't know is this department does much more. it is also the home for services and resources for individuals who experience disability as well. in in 10 an san franciscans experience disabilities. in 2010, over # 4,000 san franciscans who experience disabilities. the department of aging and adult services is the primary agency tasked with providing social safety net services to

adult with disabilities in san francisco. however, the department current name does not effectively communicate this role in our community. this -- it is unclear that the term "adult" is intended to refer to adult with disabilities. this was a very -- this has a very real impact on our community members, who live with disabilities. they don't know that this department and all of its resources exist to help them. changing the department's name to include the term "disability" will more accurately reflect its role and guide community members to reach out to the department for support. therefore, i introduced a charter amendment that will accomplish the following. it would change the official name of the aging and adult

services commission to the disability and aging services commission. it will change the official name of the department of aging and adult services to the department of disability and aging services. and it will add qualifications to three more commission seats, so that one commissioner would be a person who is 60 years old or older, one would be a person with disability, and the last would be a person who has served in the u.s. military. i want to thank my colleagues for their support, especially supervisors haney and fewer, for their early co-sponsorship and i look forward to getting this on the ballot and to the people in november for them to vote on this really something that needed to be changed a long time

ago. the department's directorship sheree is here to answer any questions that this committee might have and perhaps we have -- we could give her a couple of minutes to speak on this topic, as her department was instrumental in bringing this needed change to my attention. thank you. miss masan. >> good morning, chair ronen, supervisors and president yee. president yee, i want to thank you so much for introducing this item. really appreciate it so much, that i actually came in off vacation today to address you. it's a really important issue for our department. the department was founded in 2000. and essentially programs were brought together to serve people with disabilities and older adults, without really getting any funding to serve people with disabilities. before that we were the commission on aging. and all of the funding was really focused on older adults. and it's been really hard over

the number of years that i have worked in this department to really make people understand that people with disabilities actually are served by our department and it's also been hard to figure out how to fund some of these programs, until the dignity fund came around. so we've heard for years from disability communities that people don't know -- that they get services from us and that they can. and when we did the dignity fund community needs assessment a few years ago, we had all of these forms and focus groups and we did a citywide survey and we really heard from communities that they don't understand this and that they think of this always as serving older adults. so we did a little research to find out what people really want to hear in the title and how they -- how they will know that we serve them. and using the term "disability" in san francisco really seems the best way to go and what people resonate with. so that's why we're bringing this forward. it unfortunately has to go on

the ballot, in order to change it. and there's really no other option to do it correctly. so it's also really important to us right now, because the human services agency is going through a rebrand. and we're really thinking about our communications, we're thinking about collateral materials that we're going to put out, our business cards and all of that. and it's really good timing for us to think about the name change and how the department fits within the overall human services agency. and then the last thing i think is this acronym essentially allows us to allow ourselves to call ourselves doss, which is what we call ourselves. it just makings it easier in terms of staff and thinking about the community and how people refer to us. so we'll lose an "a," it won't exactly be doss, but we'll continue to call it that. if i -- i can answer any questions for you. row wonderful. thank you so much for coming in from your vacation to be here and share this with us. i have to admit, when i first

saw this, i didn't realize the importance and and i thought, wow, to put this on the ballot for a name change. really, are we going to do that? i completely understand it now. it does seem very, very important. and if i can be added as a co-sponsor, i would love to be. and really grateful to you for all of your work. >> thanks. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. supervisor walton? >> supervisor walton: one, thank you for your statement and presentation and coming in. supervisors yee, haney and fewer for bringing this forward. if you look at the site on the department of aging, it says our agency delivers a safety net of services and public benefits that are designed to meet the unique needs of low-income individuals, children and families, older adults and adults with disabilities. and i think it's important for the mission and the vision to match also what the title is and what the name is. so i appreciate that.

this is an important community we serve. and to your point about being able to fundraise and also support programs that focus on providing services for our older population and population with disabilities. i think that piece is important, too. so again for a while i was always concerned about having to go to charter, but definitely understand why we would do this. i would love to be added, too, as well, supervisor yee. >> supervisor yee: thank you. row wonderful. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> supervisor ronen: we will open this item up for public comment. if any member of the public would like to speak, please feel free to line up to your right, my left, and mr. wright, if you want to start us off. >> it's a good program. but there's some confusion as far as your announcement about the program. you need to highlight that if there's an age requirement and you talk about people with disabilities, you say 1 per

1,000 people have disabilities. i object to that. you have approximately 8,011 homeless people out in the street. a lot of those people don't know they have disability, they have nowhere to go, they have to adjust to living on the street. that's called an adjustment disorder. they have anxiety because they're living in transit out in the street and can't get into the shelters. that's called anxiety disorder. a lot of them are suffering and going through a lot of emotional distress, that's called intentional infliction of emotional distress. all of these are requirements of violations and requirements of the disabilities act. and also a demonstration where you should not only include the age requirement to let people know that you don't have to be a senior in order to get these type of services, because you

have the same type of anxiety and disability as the senior. if you take care of the problem, not at the senior age, when they become a senior citizen, they won't be as harmed as well. [bell ringing] >> supervisor ronen: thank you. next speaker. >> good morning, supervisors. marie jobling here representing the dignity fund coalition today. i just wanted to let you know that executive director mick spadden made a presentation. we had a good healthy discussion. we voted to endorse. so i just came to let you know that today. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you, marie. thank you for all your work. next speaker. >> good morning. theresa with senior and disability action. just to let you know that we are, indeed, in support of this, as well as we changed our name from the senior action network to senior and disability action.

so thank you so much for hearing this. thank you so much again, president yee, board. so would like your support. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you, theresa, for all your work. next speaker. >> good morning, supervisors. greg moore representing case coalition of agencies serving elders. would also like to inform you that director mcspadden came and presented to our coalition about this proposed name change. we did not have such a healthy discussion, because we were already pretty much aligned in thinking and we ask you to approve this. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: fantastic. thank you so much. any other public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel] go ahead. president yee. >> supervisor yee: i want to thank you both for co-sponsoring as well. appreciate it.

and i'm sure this is something that the voters will support. and i want to make sure that we understand that when we say people with disabilities, adults with disabilities, there is no age requirement for that. you don't have to be 60 and have disabilities, is that correct? yeah. that's what i thought. yeah. so just want to make it clear that it's -- this is about serving adults that are aging, seniors and people with disabilities. not necessarily have to be seniors. okay. yeah. okay. thank you very much. >> supervisor ronen: wonderful. i'm happy to make a motion to recommend -- is that the right language. okay, right. seeing no objection, that motion passes unanimously. [gavel] >> president yee: thank you. >> supervisor fewer: can you please read item number two.

>> clerk: item 2 is an ordinance amending the administrative code to establish the senior operating and subsidyies program to be used to lower rents in housing developments occupied by low-income senior citizens. >> supervisor ronen: president yee. >> president yee: colleagues, the legislation before you today is the result of many conversations we have had throughout the year about how we are going to deal with affordable housing crisis, that is impacting seniors. i want to thank supervisors ronen, peskin and mar for their co-sponsorship on this. as probably we've we've heard over and over again, by 2030, 26% of our population will be seniors. with our aging population, we will need to increase our level of attention and thoughtful

investment to ensure that the older adults can age in place and with dignity. seniors 60 years and older make it up 24% of our population, almost one quarter currently of all persons in the city, who are under the poverty line. the housing crisis is difficult for seniors in a different way. there is a spectrum of challenges that our aging population is facing. i want to acknowledge that this -- people at various income levels, even middle-income household levels. many seniors are living in situations that no longer suit them. they are unable to move because they simply cannot afford market-rate units. in terms of level of care, the reality is that at some point aging adults will need some level of assistance. and there are very ewe forgets

out there -- few options out there. as a city, we need to develop solutions to address this range of issues. today is on affordable, senior housing that the city helps to subsidize. during the housing bond discussion, we learned that our city's pipeline of planned affordable housing units, only 12% are being designated for affordable senior housing. this upcoming housing bond is trying to change that with $150 million, dedicated to affordable senior housing projects. this is the first and it came about because of the working group that focused on senior housing. however, the other piece that we were not able to address in the bond is that when we build affordable senior housing, the units are still not affordable to many seniors on fixed

incomes. many seniors are surviving on fixed incomes, with social security or s.s.i., yet the most -- yet the most affordable housing units are riced at 50% of a.m.i. one person -- what that means is roughly $41,450. seniors make up to three times less than this on their fixed incomes. so they could be making between $12,000 or $24,000 a year on fixed income. this situation is untenable, as more of our residents are retiring and relying on fixed incomes themselves. seniors, who are housing insecure, can spend up to 150% of their income on rent. this is not a burden anyone should have to bear, especially those that have no safety net.

this is really a life-or-death situation. the legislation before you today established s.o.s., senior operating subsidies program fund. in this year's budget, we were able to provide seeding for this fund, with a $5 million investment over the next five years. this program would lower the cost of the unit to meet seniors where they are at. instead of 50% of a.m.i. units, units will be set at 15% and 25% of a.m.i. so that seniors on fixed income can actually qualify. so one of the things i want to make clear. those seniors on fixed incomes in the past have not been able to qualify for affordable housing. this is really ridiculous because those are seniors that really need it. our hope is that this program can be used to start bringing

down affordability in senior housing projects, that are currently under construction or in the housing pipeline. i hope that this will inspire a more thoughtful strategy on how we can support our aging population, before it's too late. i do have a few amendments i would like to summarize before we take any questions. so if you could follow. first, on page 1, line 22, i would like to propose adding a clause that states the city's intent to continue funding to s.o.s. program, so that the projects that benefit will be stabilized through future budgets. it has been the city's practice to ensure that subsidy programs will not leave tenants hanging. it shall be the city's intent to continue top fund the s.o.s.

fund on an annual basis for the life of the senior affordable housing developments, that remain restricted as affordable housing and receive funding from the s.o.s. fund. the next amendment is on page 2, line 5. i would like to propose adding a clause to allow the program fund to be used for transition reserves. some of the affordable housing projects require a reserve, so that their investment is assured, that if funding stops, there is one year to two-year reserve to cover rents. the s.o.s. fund may also be used to establish funding for transition reserves to cover future years of the project-based subsidies at a new senior affordable housing development, funded by the city. then on the same page, line 9, i

would like to propose adding a clause, to set a time limit for the initial fund. if the funds are not used for project-based subsidies on projects within five years, these funds could then be used for senior tenant-based subsidies. if initial funding of the s.o.s. fund is not encumbered within five years, of the effective date of this ordinance, the board file number 190684, the s.o.s. fund may be used for tenant-based subsidies for extremely low-income seniors, in addition to project-based subsidies at new senior affordable housing developments, funded by the city. lastly, on page 2, line 18 i would like to propose adding a

clause. the s.o.s. fund shall be distributed in a way to benefit more than one senior affordable housing development, funded by the city. this is to ensure that we spread out our funds so that more than one project is able to benefit. the reality is the need is much greater, but we want to see the program demonstrated at multiple sites. i also wanted to, which is not in there, but i wanted to add -- generally would request that of most of anything new, new funding, that there be an annual report provided to the public and to the board of supervisors to just show the progress. and so that was not put in there. we forgot to do that. if it's okay with doss and m.o.h., i would like to also add that. okay.

with this, colleagues, i hope that i can count on your support for this legislation. and the proposed amendments. and i want to thank the seniors and advocates who have come out time and time again, courageously sharing their stories and struggles. and really it was them that brought this my attention that we need to address this issue. so i don't know if miss madden or -- row before we do that, i think all of us wanted to make some comments. >> president yee: sure. >> supervisor ronen: supervisor mar, do you want to start? >> supervisor mar: yes. i want to thank president yee and the community housing advocates for your work on this really important issue, addressing the needs of our growing senior population and especially low-income seniors and their housing needs.

you know, i have really become more aware of the extra challenges that particularly low-income seniors face staying in their homes, in our communities, in our city. especially a couple of weeks ago, i was able to attend a powerful town hall meeting in the mission district, along with representatives from president yee and supervisor ronen's office to hear really powerful testimony from seniors and the low-income -- especially low-income seniors about the great challenges they face. and also understand better how our current affordable housing programs and are structured in a way not truly affordable to low-income seniors. and so i really came away from that town hall meeting, you know, much more informed and committed to working on these issues with my colleagues, as

well as with the community. and then also even in my district, in district 4, in the sunset district, you know, we have a growing senior population. many of whom are facing housing challenges. i'm currently, you know, working on a potential small sites acquisition, program in the sunset district that is a small apartment building. and they're all low-income seniors in this building, that are facing a threat of eviction and displacement, not just from the sunset district, but from our city. so i think the s.o.s. program is really innovative and urgently important at this moment. when everyone in our city is facing great challenges with the housing affordability crisis, but especially our senior -- our growing senior population and low-income seniors. so i'm really happy to co-sponsor this, along with president yee and other

colleagues. and look forward to working on the implementation and the future of the s.o.s. program. >> supervisor ronen: i'm going to speak in spanish for a minute, because i just found out there's not simultaneous translation happening of the comments that we're making. that was a huge mistake. i so apologize for that. and we'll never do that again. this should be -- all of this should be translated. [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish]

[speaking spanish]

[speaking spanish] >> supervisor ronen: supervisor yee, do you want to make a knew comments in cantonese. >> president yee:.

[speaking cantonese]