was addressed, in that meeting, was the public safety power plant that is coming forward from pg&e. i know this directly impacts, along with many hazard and climate concerns, but especially power degeneration impacting people with disabilities. this is to let you know that there will be follow-ups specifically on this issue. i highly encourage council to prioritize learning more about this process and what we can do as a city to support informational efforts, in the event to an unanticipated power shut off. that is all i have for today.

>> thank you, nicole. let's go on to our first presentation. it's an informational item by scott walton, manager, navigation center and shelter programs, department of homelessness and supportive housing. welcome to the council. >> thank you. it is an honor to be here. this item has been one we have been trying to get on the schedule for a number of month. i was presented some months ago with a series of questions about the council had for the department of homelessness in supportive housing regarding our emergency services which include emergency shelters and navigation centers. i'm going to do a brief overview answering some of those

questions, but also saving time for your questions on top of that. first to just give you an overview of what is included in our emergency services. we have an adult emergency shelter system that serves adults that do not have custody of minor children. we currently have nine sites with 1203 sleeping spaces. of those, 574 are beds that are accessible 24 hours a day. another three and a 40 beds are accessible, much of the day and when they are not accessible there is a rest and recline area we do have just under 300 beds that are in sites that are only available to us to use for shelter, at nighttime. placement in our shelters is done by reservation, and we have

four reservation centers, and resource center sites that are available. 311 has an information, and also 311 operates a waitlist for the people that are interested in getting a 90 day reservation. that way we treat all users of the shelter system equally. people do not have to stand in line, they simply call 31 want to get on the list again when it is their turn they are given the available shelter reservations choose. for the clients and individuals who are experiencing homelessness who are also receiving county adult assistance program benefits, they get access to shelter as part of the benefit project under the cannot cash legislation passed in 2,002. they get their shelter reservations from the county adult assistance program office @ which is located at 1235

mission street between eighth and ninth streets. along with our adult emergency shelters which by the way also includes one shelter that targets traditional -- transitional age youth between 18-24. we also have a family emergency shelter system. our family system serves any adult or adult couple, adult family that has custody of minor children. we have 59 shelter rooms for families. we also have 100 beds in congregate settings. placement in the family shelter is through our family access. again, that information is available through 311. what is exciting to say is that we have sufficient shelter beds that no unsheltered family

should have to be on the streets area they have a choice of going first to a congregate site and then being slated into a single room site. unfortunately we do not have that in our adult system. but our family system we can say that we can offer shelter immediately to any unsheltered family and we work closely with the san francisco homeless outreach team which is part of our department. we work with 311. we work with the san francisco police department and others who do outreach on the street to make sure they are aware of this opportunity for unsheltered families. finally, about 4.5 years ago we expanded our shelter system with a new model that goes under the name navigation centers. we currently have five sites open, and we have 494 beds, in those programs. those programs serve adults,

they are not serving families. placement into navigation centers is by referral from specific organizations. the homeless outreach team can place people. we have now introduced programs in our department called, coordinated entry, where all people are assessed the same way related to their history of homelessness, their vulnerability and their barriers to resolving their homelessness. that helps us determine who gets offered permanent supportive housing and in the case of the family shelter system it helps to prioritize people into our family shelter single room stays. that is also a process used to place people in our navigation centers. if we've identified and unsheltered homeless person who is a priority for housing placement we want to get them into a safe space and also a

place where we can work with them most effectively and efficiently to get them into housing, which resolves their homelessness. finally we also work closely with several programs, the homeward bound program, the police department, homeless unit that works with people on the street. they also have the ability to place people into our navigation centers. that is a brief overview of the current status of our emergency services. i am very pleased to say that mayor breed issued a may oral initiative last fall that supports us to add 1,000 additional shelter beds and 500 supportive housing units between last fall and the end of 2020. we are in that process of expanding. we have done some expansion already.

we have about 750 additional beds we are trying to add to the system now. in addition, the mayor has provided her support behind our department strategic framework. that framework is available on our website which that address will be added to the screen. the strategic framework is really our department plans for how we will address and reduce homelessness here in san francisco. it also clearly state what we need to accomplish that. the 1,000 bed goal was part of our strategic framework. the mayor has endorsed that and given us a timeline to do that. but we have other solutions in that framework because no one

solution will solve homelessness for everybody. our strategic framework also includes the implementation, which we now have implemented coordinated entry for families, adults and transitional aged use 18-24. what is really empowering is that somebody who is 18-24 who may have a child can be assessed in either the conditional aged youth assessment, or the adult assessment. we have individuals and families expensing homelessness that moved back and forth with these populations @ and these three assessments work in a coordinated fashion. the mayor is also very supportive of our other system change efforts which includes expanding problem-solving. we have long known that permanent supportive housing is one of the best, or one of the

effective solutions to someone's homelessness. our city and county cannot provide permanent supportive housing for every person expensing homelessness. we are expanding other problem-solving efforts, short-term subsidies, one-time assistant efforts, and so forth to help people end of their homelessness, if they are not prioritized for placement and supportive housing. finally, one of our departments significant transitions that the mayor has also been supportive of it as a full of what we call the one system online navigation and entry system that is a single database prior to this department being created which we celebrate our third anniversary next month in august. we had a 15-17 databases across our different programs.

we are in the process of trying to draw those into a single database. therefore if somebody touches an emergency shelter system and later goes into, applies to, or shows of her rapid rehousing we are able to not have to ask them for all of their entry data again and also we have a better sense of their history which helps us serve them better. those are some of our initiatives. some of the questions i was asked to address is how are our emergency services working to be as accessible as possible? we have, in our shelter system, accessibility, although not every part, of every shelter is fully accessible. in order to have all of the beds we have, we do have some upper bunk beds. we do have some shelters that are only open overnight, and we can only offer mats on the

floor. because we have to set up and take down the shelter every single day. therefore we have set up systems that have allowed us to offer the appropriate placements to people as they are available, and that is done through our resource centers for the adult emergency shelter system. we also have some sites that are not on ground level and do not have elevators. we have the majority of our beds are fully accessible. unfortunately, as i've already stated, some of our shelters are not open 24/7. this is not a desire of ours, this is us trying to have as many shelter beds are not wanting to give up any of the shelter beds that have been active @, many of them a longer than i've been involved which is 15 years. so that we don't lose beds, but we are in the process with all of this new effort to make sure beds are fully accessible, sites

are fully accessible. we utilize a system of trying to meet people with their needs, transferring people as necessary , letting people select which shelters they want when they are on a weight list, doing our best to meet those requests. the one thing that has helped greatly, and i too want to recognize, joanna, for a program that is offered to all staff people of the adults and family emergency shelter systems and navigation centers about access to emergency services for persons with disabilities.

this training we worked closely on when we first implemented it, teaches the staff of our providers. most of our sites are run by a nonprofits. it teaches them how to address, recognize, respond to requests for accessibility and how to best coordinate with our office when the site cannot accommodate. what i am pleased with it is since we have introduced that we have seen a great reduction in the number of complaints and issues raised. we still have a great relationship with the mayor's office on disability to address any concerns that do come up. some specific accessibility questions i was asked to address. our attendance allowed to help people with disabilities in shelters? we have the basic fundamental operational need to say that people must be able to self-care

although that self-care can be done with the help of an attendant. i shelters are not in the place to offer that assistance themselves, nor can they immediately provide connection to that kind of service. but, we worked very hard to help people access in-home support services and the like. but we do need to ask people have some ability to self-care, even if it is with the assistance of others because of the nature of congregate settings on the number of people that are in one program with a limited number of staff. we also work very closely with the department of public health to help identify how we can resolve issues. they provide staff to our clinics that are in some of our site and help assess people. they also work with hospitals to make sure hospitals understand

the level of ability that is necessary to be placed in one of our emergency shelters. if somebody does not have that ability that we work with the department of public health @ to try to identify other levels of care. what we do know is that we can allow somebody who has an import services worker, we can allow them access to the shelter to assist. i was asked how many shelter beds are needed in the city in order for everyone who is homeless to not be homeless? we know from our point in count which was done in january of this year, there were about 8,000 people expensing homelessness and about 5,000 of those people identified as being unsheltered. we do not today have enough shelter beds for all of them. as i said, we do have enough to

offer family immediate placement. but for adults, we do not. we are working to expand those thousand beds. our reason for setting part of our strategic framework was not was not a standalone. we are also trying to expand our housing and our problem-solving to help address this. in at five-year strategic plan we hope to end family homelessness, transitional aged youth homelessness and reduce chronic homelessness with adults by 50%. i was asked specifically to address rules and issues with pets and service animals in our emergency services. service companion and support animals along with pets, in the facilities are welcome in some facilities, we do not have --

where we can accommodate we always do. we consider transfers were possible and what we rely on is that the owner of the animal is in control of the animal at all times because these are congregate settings. we rely on the person for their care and control and what i am pleased to say is that our navigation center model which tries to be as low threshold as possible is open to pets as well as companion and support animals. i was asked to address the question, what is the protocol if a homeless person's animal is aggressive, or? as i said -- -- or a threat to others? we require the owner to be in control or provide control over the animal. if the pet is aggressive, jumps

up, bites or knocks people down, we address that with the owner. at times we have had to tell that person their reservation does not have to fozthree, but that animal cannot be present in our facility. we work with control to try to address these concerns. we do have to look at the safety for all participants in our facilities. that is a lot of information. i have more, but i was asked to leave time for your questions. obviously what we don't get to today, we will look for other ways to provide further information. i do thank you for this opportunity, because our relationship with the mayor's office on disability has been really critical for us to effectively make our systems as successful as possible. >> thank you for that

presentation. stay right there for a few minutes. that was a lot of information, you are correct. we want to stay in touch with you after the meeting. people can approach you if necessary. that would be great. i want to go to my councilmember colleagues. do any of you have questions for our presenter? >> yes. >> i will keep this a. thank you for your presentation. that was a little bit overwhelming. that was a lot of information. 4311 that is not accessible for deaf people. you need the full phone number with the air code just so you know. 311 does not work for deaf folks. another question i had or

comment is the lack of communication. do you know of any person who is killed with sign language. i'm not talking about someone who has a minimal or beginner sign language skills, but someone who is fluent in sign language so if there is a deaf person who is there, like how they can get the care. for example a social worker how did they get housing. i know the process can be very overwhelming for a lot of people. there is a lot of different systems that you have to go through in order to get the housing sometimes. to have one person that they connect with who can understand, i do understand and know there is a lot of homelessness and people who need services right now. however, i do understand the challenges that come with it. i do understand it is a first come, first serve system. since the number of people with disabilities is smaller than other homeless folks, how do we make sure they can be a priority

and get the services they need? also, how do they get interpreters as well? that is the other portion of that as well. >> thank you for the comment about 311. i will make sure to add the phone number for tty and access to other presentations in the future. in terms of access and interpretation. we have limited access across our entire system. what i would encourage any adults or family to come forward as go to one of our access and make their needs known and we will work to try to provide the interpretation they need. you mentioned housing, which i did not speak a lot about, and that is very involved for filling out an application. there may be times when we seek

something more than just using interpreting services such as tty. to assist a somebody an application, we do try to provide materials in a variety of different parameters, and we use language lines and tty. but we do not have, sign language interpreters at every site. we would encourage people to let the need be known and we will do our best to respond as quickly as possible. and assist them through that process. thank you for the question. >> we have those same concerns and regardless of the percentage of disabled or challenged individuals in our population. we want to serve everybody equally. it is a matter of looking for the best place to do that. >> thank you.

i have one more. most people do not use tty anymore. the technology has changed. most people use phones. anyway, just wanted to let you know that tty is an older technology. >> we have found -- with cell phones and so forth, if people have the ability to read, it is a really quick way to communicate. we are trying to move our processes forward, and provide as much accessibility, we have funding that is always a challenge, especially when we are trying to add as many new beds as we are trying to add. i think you for bringing this forward. >> do we have any other council members who would like to -- >> councilmember madrid and then mcdonald afterward.

>> thank you for coming. i just want to clarify one thing , if someone came to you guys -- without any support, did you say you would send them to public beds at hospitals? i just want to clarify that. >> one of our basic transit was again is that people in shelter must be able to self-care, must be able to handle the functions of daily living without the

assistance of the shelter staff. what happens is people come sometimes and are sent to shelter and they expect their shelters to handle wound care or administer administer @ -- medications where people will lay down in bed and not be able to get back up. these are not skills that we have trained our shelter staff to do, because that is a higher level of care. therefore, when those things happen we sometimes have to rely on 911, and make an emergency call. sometimes we have to find out who referred them to the shelter and contact them and see if we can resolve the issue. at times we use dph to help do an assessment. because there may be some medical care that will help the client, though the individual become more self functioning, and we work with that. when you have our larger shelters which have 340 people

in a building, we cannot have the staff responsible for assisting everybody in and out of bed. they are not trained with the proper skills to do that, nor do they have the time to do that when they are trying to monitor the structure for everybody. we don't just put them out on the streets, but we do have to call in emergency services many times, because these people are not able to function. if the staff can assist in simple ways, sometimes somebody who has vision impairment, walking the path away from their bed, to the bathroom, or so it is closer to the bathroom may be sufficient assistance. but if those attempts do not work that we have to contact our partners in the city to say we are unable to care for this person in the setting. there is no one single answer. we try to treat these on a

case-by-case basis. this is one of the great challenges we have across our shelter system. less so in the family system, because generally if someone needs that kind of assistance, the other family members can provide. in the adult system, people are on their own and do not have somebody identify to help them. we cannot assume that. and we have to help with another kind of resolution. >> the last question i have is -- [inaudible] >> when people go to make reservations we generally assume

that they can self-care. if they have questions, and they need someone to manage the medication, they will tell them this is not a provider that can do that. but, what happens is, you know, we take an approach where we try to provide people the service, and only when it shows that they can't provide it, they soil their beds several times in a row, or they are not able to self-care, they cannot get up and down when they are in the shower, in the bathroom or on their bed, these are things we have to address because we do not want them to be injured, nor do we want the problem to exacerbate our ability to manage the overall shelter. it is not an automatic denial. that is why we rely on the assistance of public help to assess what might be solutions for these individuals. we try to educate the hospital

system when they are releasing a homeless person to help us determine can the person handle functions of daily living required to manage in the shelter. these are not simple answers, because we deal with each person individually. we do have a system where we treat everybody fairly. if it's the only bed that is left when you're out a reservation station is an upper bunk, and you cannot access that , we contact the shelter and we try to swap someone out. we cannot hold beds, any bed that is not claimed it will be released for one night use, even if the person can return tomorrow night for the reservation. >> thank you.

>> i appreciate the limitations of what you can provide, and, there is a long way to go. i am concerned about those with disabilities who cannot meet the criteria. i mean, this would have a chilling effect on them, even seeking shelter. if they know they are not going to be accepted. if they know they can't do the care they have to, what happens? there has to be a whole population of people. i mean, there is a level of sophistication among people who are homeless. they know what they can access on what they can't access. >> it is a great question. it is something we also struggle with. i've artie mentioned that we try to work with our other city departments because our department is not funded with any sort of board care, partial

new -- nursing care and so on and so forth. we try to communicate smoothly with them. another factor is, as you know, disabilities are very wide ranging and our shelters are basically congregate settings. there are people who cannot handle a congregate setting. there we have some solutions because our homeless outreach team, some of our navigation centers may offer lesser spaces, fewer people. or, individual rooms that are not housing, they are a temporary program room. so, we have some of those options. again in even in those settings, the person needs to be able to handle their daily toileting needs, and so forth. because we do not have the kind of bedside care that comes with it. we don't say that these people

don't deserve it service. we are saying that our department has limits of what it's focuses. we need to partner with hsa around in-home support services and aging and adult services and dph with their medical services and their various levels of treatment and the options they have. then we create a better city response. to that end, our board and aided entry effort is helping to identify that. we recently reviewed our coordinated entry with dph and they were saying yes, the people we are prioritizing are the people they would prioritize. that validates our assessment tool. the people who may need more care in an emergency setting may also need more care when they go to housing. these are people we may need to work with beyond our department. i am not surprised that when

somebody has issues tied to their life, but if homeless is one of them, to assume our department will take on their issues, that is not the reality. as you state, we need to make sure as a city and county we are i think you for the question. it is important that we continue to struggle with those cases. i do want to say when those cases come up on a case-by-case basis, that is how we often develop ongoing a better going forward. >> they have to have the ability to identify location. >> they can't go to the shelter -- >> if the person has in-home support services we can communicate and then they can access that care in a shelter, or a navigation center i don't

believe they can provide in-home support services to someone who is on shelter. there needs to be an address or location. >> this seems to be a self-fulfilling problem there. >> part of our solution is the homeless outreach team. they are out on the streets throughout the city to try to deal with, and identify, who is not accessing services. that could be a choice, or as you say it could be somebody who has decided the services can't help me. what we try to do is figure out what can help them. and maybe reacquaint them with the services that can work for them. it is a joint effort, and then it has expanded with cooperation across city departments that is known as the healthy streets operations center. that involves public health, our department, public works which

is out on the street all the time, san francisco police officers and they have a great number of homeless and focused or trained officers. departments of emergency management. we are trying to coordinate problem-solving that crosses departments with particularly unsheltered individuals. >> you may have said this and i missed it, but what is the priority system for? i remember you talking about the priority system creating it into housing, and that type of thing. what are the priorities for getting into the shelters? >> for the adult shelter system, anybody who asks we try to give them a shelter bed. >> if you know there is more need, then there are beds, is it just first-come, first serve? >> for the adult shelter system, it is. whether disabled, or not, you get on that list when you rise up, you can get a 90 day

reservation, which also you can extend for an additional 30 days by simply asking. while you are waiting to rise on the list, we have resource centers that can provide those one night beds for people who do not claim their bed tonight. in our family system, since we have enough congregate beds for everybody, we use the assessment to determine who is going to get the individual rooms, because they are the most acute area. >> i understand. thank you. >> just hanging onto your question. thank you, and again i imagine what you are describing, it is a tough job, to say the least. trying to balance all of the needs. my question is, and i heard you say this twice. your department is trying to treat everyone equally. i would suggest that folks that are homeless, with physical

disabilities, are rightly a little more vulnerable. and as deserving of a navigation center, or a congregate area that may be set up for them. that can provide that extra help getting in and out of the beds. is not a consideration? is not a bigger nut to crack it another day? >> it is a wonderful question and there are two parts to my answer. when i said we want to treat everyone fairly, it means everyone has equal access, coordinated entry assesses everyone the same way. you are more likely to rate high enough for permit in support housing placement when you have challenges that include vulnerability and barriers to housing. what you are asking about, is are there special shelters or navigation centers that help?

when i talked about five navigation centers that is from our department. the department of public health has opened up hummingbird, which is considered part of the city's six navigation centers. it does offer some mental health assistance and some medical. when we provide clinics where people can be assessed, and gets, you know, medical assistance but it is not a care facility. hummingbird has a little more built-in care. that is a challenge that the city is trying to address. it is not our department's expertise to offer medical care. when we offer clinics, we will build the clinic but we have to partner with dph to provide the staffing through street medicine and shelter health staff. we are aware of that. also dph operates the medical respites, which is a shelter step down from hospital. they have expanded that in recent years.

those are outside of the department of homelessness and supportive housing. we coordinate with them, but we do not run them. we do not do placements in them. we can talk to the department about individuals that we are concerned about who end up being placed by department of public health. no one is ignoring this population, but we are very focused on our charge to reduce homelessness in general. in part of that when we identify people that we can't serve with our programs, we raise it to the city who have some of the expertise to do that. >> any comments -- >> to the chair, can i -- >> i'm going to get to staff.

i just want to compliment you for the work you are doing. i do some work with and for ihss. i am delighted to hear that public authority or people you are working with. i know they do have quite a large number of providers. some of them are on-call providers which i think would be the ones to come to your centers and facilities. it is great that you are doing that. nicole, what do you have for us? >> thank you very much. thank you for your presentation. i wanted to offer briefly the mayor's office on disability would be happy to work with you, especially around technologies that the city is using for

communication. that is one of the takeaways from some of the council comments. i think we have some things i can work a little better, than what we are using right now. another thought that i have, is maybe we can work on a way to think about how to talk about our coordinated entry approach, specifically for folks who have disabilities, or are a little more vulnerable in a way that is more visible to folks. i know we are addressing things case-by-case. i also think that we can work towards some centralized messaging about our process that might help folks understand questions like the ones that have come up today. >> thank you very much. we welcome that. as i say we have had a great partnership between our two departments. prior to this department coming three years ago, when i worked for hsa and the department of

homelessness, we were in touch regularly. it's always been very helpful. i also want to thank you, because when we are faced with a particular accommodation challenge, i've often called the office and said "have you encountered this? ". that is our best teamwork to try to address this. i think you. i will have the appropriate people follow up with the technologies and the warden aided entry message. >> thank you very much. >> anyone else from staff? >> i would like to thank you for making your presentation. that is all of the questions we have for you. you can take a seat, if you like area now, we need to see, i understand there is one public comment card? >> yes, sorry.

carol from faithful fools, which i want to hear what that is about. >> hello. thank you. this is my first meeting, it is a pleasure to be here. zach invited me from faithful fools. i appreciate scott's presentation on the department of homelessness in supportive housing. i remember 4.5 years ago, when the navigation centers were first announced, the huge excitement about lowering barriers of her people in the street to be able to come inside everyone wanted to be inside. every wondered how can i get in there? about a year ago, department of homelessness and supportive housing navigation centers, how most people were choosing to leave, or getting kicked out of, i think, it was the one on van

ness. just kind of wondering how this low barrier that is really allowing pets, possessions and partners really changed, for people who are living with disabilities, all of the barriers that come up can make it more challenging. i remember when the department of homelessness was created 3.5 years ago with the idea that it would gather from all of these different departments and there would finally be one place to go to for homelessness. now with -- it seems to be a complete operation. this sweeps they are doing including in on of golden gate, that is generally by the community, a place that people are allowed to sleep at night. having sweeps in front of their that take people's medications, and take people's walkers and

supplies like that. i think, in terms of training for the police, more awareness of people with disabilities, in the training police are getting. eight days ago there were a couple of women in chairs, sitting in front of the many part they had been sitting there weekly for over a year, their therapists and ministers who were just sitting there for anyone to sit down and talk, and the police came by and made the move. when they asked why they had to move, they were told they needed to find somewhere inside to sit so people could join them. that is just an example of homeless resistance services. the idea of forcing people to go inside who may not be comfortable in that moment to go inside, a new strange place to meet with somebody. to conclude, i have been down

there multiple times with people, and even people who are not living with a disability going down to this barren place without clear signage, with barely a bench space to sit to sit for hours, if you get any of your belongings back. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you. do we have any more cards? okay, let's go to the bridge line. are there any people on the bridge line? >> yes, hi. i would like to leave a public comment. >> go ahead. >> thank you. i first want to say, the fact we have only had one public comment on this so far is a problem. this is a problem that affects 9784 disabled people in san francisco. 70% are san francisco residents. we are talking about a large portion of the population. the fact that this was only announced 72 hours ago has made

it impossible for me to include more people @. fortunately, i was able to give a great public comment. i want to say, when scott is done with those rose-colored glasses i would love to borrow them, there is such an incredible disparity between his perception of what homeless services look like in the city on the reality. i don't even know where to start. ihss providers are extreme and hard to get. not available on call, most of the time. i actually am someone who has been on the streets with a ihss provider, extremely difficult to have a provider from support services without. i agree with helen's comment about that being a self-fulfilling problem. if you don't have an address you cannot get a home care provider. if you don't have a home care provider, you cannot get to in shelter. that's crazy. the other idea, that scott said something earlier, some people cannot handle congregate setting, i am paraphrasing. as far as people with severe

disabilities. that is ridiculous. a lot of shelters do not have adequate areas for wheelchairs and people with disabilities. also, this might shock everyone in this room, there is something called guidry. many people, in shelters are extremely bigoted. the staff does nothing about it. i witnessed an african-american being kicked out of the shelter because the color of their skin was upsetting people in the shelter. the shelter staff will just agree with the majority. if the majority is upset about a person with severe disabilities, who has a site seeing dog, or has a different skin color than people. they will get kicked out. the person who is a minority will get kicked out because of the bigotry. i have known someone who has worked in the shelter system directly. i visited him, and his work, and saw the appalling conditions of shelters in the cities and how people are treated like cattle. they are treated like criminals. these shelters require many,

many hours of waiting, superlong lines of ticket systems that are really hard to get into. you have to spend half your day getting a bed, by the time you get there you don't even know if you're going to be kicked out for your disability, or not. we need to come up with a better system for people with disabilities, not just homeless people in general. this is a crisis. everyone -- people that shelters are not trained to handle people with severe disabilities. that's not our problem, go somewhere else. that's ridiculous. people of san francisco voted for to provide a lot more money to solve this crisis. the mayor should be doing something -- solve these problems. we can do something to provide more services of the voters of san francisco have voted for. thank you. >> thank you. anyone else on the bridge line? hearing none. that completes our first item

for today, informational item. very excellent presentation, and lots of good comments. we are running a tad behind schedule. let's see, we have a 15 minute break now. please be back and ready to go for the second half of our >> our presenter today is, i hope i am pronouncing this correctly adrian? executive director, office,

civic engagement, and immigrant affairs. welcome to the council. >> thank you. it is an honor to meet with you today. we have a strong relationship with the mayor's office of disability and director adrienne pon and her staff have been important partners on a great resource to us. i am here to present on the 2020s census. my name is adrienne pon and i'm joined by my colleague, our civic engagement fellow. the 2020s census is fast approaching. we are once again, our our offices once again charged with overseeing the outreach campaign in 2,009, we were a start up operation at the time, a tiny staff of three. obviously with a lot of help from our community partners, and city departments we were able to

conduct a highly effective campaign. san francisco was the only county, in 2010, in california to meet and exceed the mail in response rate. today we have much better capacity. but the 2020s census will be even talk -- or tougher. we need to work as a unified city to ensure that all san franciscans are accurately and completely counted by the census bureau. why is the census so important? our fair share of over $800 billion in federal funding for a central needs and services like transportation, education, programs like medicaid, disability support, chair giver programs, special ed. the political representation of voice, and reliable data for planning in supports of the

civil rights law. most important though census is about counting and recognizing all of america's people, not just some, or the ones that want counted, but everyone, it is a sign of our democracy that we all matter to the government that is here to serve and represent all of us. we have a short video. this was produced by the ford foundation. it does a much better job of explaining the importance of the census than i can. i apologize. this is my very first assessable presentation. i want to thank heather, of your staff for guiding me. i did the best i could in a short amount of time. we were not able to download the online version that is captioned of the video. we did provide transcripts. i believe s.f. tv will take care of the rest. with that we are going to start

the quick video. >> every ten years, the census tells a story of america. that three and a 28 million of us, and counting. it tells us about newcomers, and new arrivals. how we are living, where we are going, and what we are learning. from the time of thomas jefferson, the census has tracked growth and change in our country. serving as a pillar of our democracy, transcending party and try. including the census in our constitution marks a turning point in world history. in the hands of kings and emperors, a census has been a tool of oppression, a ledger using property and script script , but the founders lived that model in the head. our senses is designed to empower the government. granting a set political power based on the population of our communities.

census data serves as a basis of a staggering $800 billion in federal disbursements to state and local governments. it is the gold standard of demographic information for businesses, researchers and government. with the 2020s census fast approaching, we have a problem. congressional appropriations have fallen short over the past decade. which will lead to a projected 50% drop in the number of local and regional census offices and a 25% reduction in field staffers. that means many communities are at risk of being undercounted. on the program serving them underfunded. affecting groups, and services all across america. an inaccurate census count has cascading consequences. regions that are growing will not have fair political representation in congress and state legislatures. businesses will not have the data they rely on to expand or refine labor. natural disaster planning and

emergency services are compromised area traffic gets worse. health programs miss the mark. funding will drop for public libraries, school lunch programs and early childhood education. fair housing and other civil rights laws will be harder to enforce. public transportation will fail to meet demands. at the same time we face a technological challenge. the 2020s census is the first day but can be completed online. that could make it easier for many people to respond. but, only if the technology works. experts say an online senses can be vulnerable to crashes, @ and other interference. another challenge is the current political climate which has stirred fear in immigrant communities and a proposed question about citizenship status of being fought by two dozen states, threatens to scare people away from the count.

these are urgent challenges, and we are mobilizing to overcome them. join us. if we work together, we can ensure a fair and accurate census. join us and stand up for the count. stand up to support your neighbor and all of the people who call this country home. stand up to defend fair political representation. stand up to protect economic opportunities. stand with us. stand up for the count. >> council members, just to summarize we with the 2020 census. politicalization of it. for the first time in u.s. history someone who should know and do better has politicized

what has been nonpartisan and just about counting everybody in the united states and its territories. there is always been a historic count of hard to count populations, i will go through that in a minute. mostly communities of color and immigrants. there is a fear factor. even though they have resolved the citizenship question, for the moment, but there is still a year to go. many more surprises to come up. the damage has been done. people are afraid to participate. you add that to anti- immigrant rhetoric and threats, almost on a daily basis, not just to immigrants but are communities of color. to our disability communities, it's such disrespect for america's people. this census is the first time that people can go directly online and fill out the form

electronically. which is great if you have mobile and internet access. many of our residents, in san francisco, as you know are not wired. they do not have smart phones. they may not have computer or internet access. if you have a disability, or you communicate in a language other than english, this would even be harder. the technology used by the census bureau has been underfunded and untested. that also poses cybersecurity risks and privacy risks. finally, we do not know what the u.s. department of commerce is going to do with our private information. although the constitution provides protection for your privacy, we know that census information was misused in world war ii to wrongly incarcerate 120,000 u.s. citizens and residents of japanese descent, who were placed placed in concentration camps.