departments. and i did see department of public works, and i did see shelter being taken away from people. and again, you know, the officers, good people, believed they were following what they were being told to do. so i don't know how we -- how we thread this needle where there's a lot of public outcry about the homeless crisis. but we're taking away from the least amongst us the last bit of dignity, the last bit of humanity, the last bit of shelter. how do we avoid doing this? how do we avoid taking people's shelter from them? okay. maybe commander lozar can start. >> okay. i'll start, but my partners are

coming. they're going to jump in. this is trying to get as many people as possible to get out of the tents and get out of the navigation center, etc. you'll hear tonight from others that will say there's a large waiting list, and there is a waiting list. and it really is a balance. you know, when i hear from a handicapped individual that says i cannot get out of my house and go down the sidewalk because the sidewalk's completely blocked, i have to go into the street. that concerns me for public safety reasons. when i listen to what happened in san diego, with the hepatitis a outbreak where people were getting sick because the camps were unsanitary, that concerns me. there's a criminal element -- again, very, very small percentage. i don't know to get quoted by saying that's what this is, but when there's a little bit of criminal element in the encampments, whether it's

prostitution, robberies, drug sales, we have to address that. so to your point, commissioner -- >> that happens in all of the homes and apartment buildings. >> and the bars. >> and the cities -- >> you asked me commissioner. i just want to be able to go line by line as to what we think about it. >> commissioner hamasaki: i understand. i understand. >> president hirsch: one at a time. >> commissioner hamasaki: let's start with a threshold. in the last year, how many tents has the department of public works and the police seized from individuals? >> i think the last count -- >> president hirsch: we need you at the mic. >> larry stringer, public works. the last count for the year that i remember seeing was 73 total. i think that was actually presented to the board -- [gavel]. >> president hirsch: come on. >> i think that was presented

to the board for six months. i can get you that data, but that's the number that we presented to the board when we presented earlier this year. >> commissioner hamasaki: so let me ask you this question. this is to both the d.p.w. and the department. do each of you track each time you see somebody's tent? >> yes. >> commissioner hamasaki: department? >> yes, we have a -- [inaudible] >> -- hsoc d.p.m. >> commissioner hamasaki: so you can give us a report when you come back. and again, i think that's not consistent with, i think what the concerns i've heard and i think our next presenters will probably address, but --

>> commissioner, i'm going to say -- >> commissioner hamasaki: go ahead. >> you asked for tents that were seized. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. i should be clear. seized and tags. >> president hirsch: come on. >> we have bag and tags, and then tents that are seized on citation. >> commissioner hamasaki: but what i've witnessed is them throwing them into garbage trucks or in the back of a truck that aren't in any way bagged and tagged, to use the term. >> you would have to give me specific examples. >> commissioner hamasaki: so you're saying that d.p.w. never seizes items and disposes of them without bagging and tagging them? >> if they're asked for disposal and it's garbage and abandoned, we pick up garbage

all the time. >> commissioner hamasaki: that wasn't my question. >> okay. so the question -- if we have a bag and tag that we're asked to do -- >> commissioner hamasaki: so if someone -- the department, an officer says hey, we've got tents out on 18 street, come out there, what happens? >> it depends, occupied or unoccupied. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. so say it's occupied, and somebody says, this is my tent, this is my home, i don't want to leave? >> the most we're going to do is clean it up and ask them to leave the sidewalk. we're not going to seize their tent. >> commissioner hamasaki: commander lozar? >> there are more special circumstances than in the last six months where we just tell individuals please pack up, and we have to clean the sidewalk and cleanup your encampment and off they go. they're not required to leave,

but they basically go somewhere else. and that means that we're not seizing it. that means that we're not bag and tagging it, we're just telling individuals, please clean this up and we'll help you throwaway anything you want to discard and go from there. that's happening, as well. >> commissioner hamasaki: i guess, this is kind of anecdotal. this is hard to say without having real numbers. does anybody have real numbers that say for every interaction, this is what happened? >> so we do have reports of the bag and tags that we have on a monthly basis. we also have a report of any tents that are seized as evidence as a result of a citation. >> president hirsch: and we can get those reports. >> yes, and we can provide those for you. >> commissioner hamasaki: and then from the department's side, so somebody goes out there, somebody doesn't want to leave -- and i understand that -- we've talked about that. there's a process. if they don't leave, you can

seize their tent legally. >> well, if they don't leave and we have shelter for them, we've confirmed that we have a place to bring them right now, drive them in a police car over to the navigation center. the individual says no, i'll refuse to leave. i'll just remain, and they've done that many times. we fail to convince them, then, the officer has the option of issuing a citation, seizing the tent, and making a court case out of it. what we're not talking about is the many circumstances that the officer will say, can you just clean it up with me, can you just pack it up. and in most cases, they'll say officer, no problem. we'll do that. and then, the officer will say, do you know where to go to get a hot shower? do you want us to contact a hot

team member? those are the conversations happening on every interaction. >> commissioner hamasaki: let me ask, can you seize their shelter if they're not willing to go to a shelter. are these one-night shelters where they can only bring a bag and they have to leave their belongings behind or is this something a little more substantive where they say hey, it would be good to get off the street for a longer period of time. 'cause i can see that if your life is in a bag and tents. i've dealt -- being in criminal defense, we've dealt with the shelters -- i mean, i have since the beginning of my career. and from, you know, ptsd to mental health reasons, people have a hard time being in those

one-night shelters where they might feel exposed, where they might have some mental health issues that might provide challenges for the shelter staff. >> so the department of homelessness and supportive housing thankfully has provided the sfpd with 15 seven-day stays at the navigation center. but lately, we were provided additional beds for providence in the bayview for one-night stays. and the officers were reporting that not only individuals did not want to go, which is understandable, abecause you have to cleanup all your belongings for a one-night stay, but the officers didn't think it was fair for just one night. so we backed away from providence, so the police department's not involved with providence just in the last two or three weeks. hirs

>> president hirsch: commissioner, i'd like to move on to some other commissioners. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. when i'm done. so would the seizure not occur with the one-night offer? >> so these are policy discussions for the chief and for us to probably have offline. >> commissioner hamasaki, we're definitely open to suggestions, and we work as a group -- as a policy group. every week or every two weeks, we meet, the department heads, and discuss polishes. i just want to emphasize for the first time in anybody's memory in the city history, all of the departments that have a stake in this are working together. we know that it's a work in progress, but we are trying our best to do this compassionately, humanely. i know it's not a perfect solution. you'll probably hear from many tonight that point out many

flaws. but the bottom line is people are dieing on the streets, and we as a city have to do something, and we've figured it out that we're better off doing it collaboratively. it's not perfect. everything that you have recommended, we'll take back to the policy heads and discuss it, and we will take it to the department heads. i just want to emphasize that we do our best to do it compassionately. >> commissioner hamasaki: and i acknowledged that in the beginning. i just wanted to identify the concerns that have been raised with me since even when we first spoke about this issue. i'm almost done, president hirsch. >> president hirsch: all right, please. because we have a lot of questions and a lot of commissioners. >> commissioner hamasaki: well, i think this is a good point that the chief raised. there are people dying on the

streets, and they're likely to die without shelter. so i'd like to reinforce the idea that we do need to address this issue, and i do understand the citizens' concerns. i share these concerns, but as the chief said, we need to make sure that this is done in a humane way. >> president hirsch: commissioner dejesus? [inaudible] >> commissioner hamasaki: i understand, bob. do you support this policy of taking away tents from unhoused people? anybody that supports this policy of taking away tents from unhoused people, just raise your hand. okay. thank you. >> president hirsch: thank you. commissioner dejesus. >> commissioner dejesus: i know i wanted to say, we're taking a long time, but we waited four

or five months to have this scheduled. i know we may be taking a little longer, but it's our opportunity to have both of you here at the same time. i want to thank everybody here for being here because it's a complicated issue. what it comes down to is what commissioner hamasaki's talking about. if they refuse a one-night stay, they lose their belongings and their tents, and that's a high price to pay, especially with the winter we just had. so bear with us as we ask these questions. i'm sorry. >> i'm sorry, commissioners. e.m.s. captain. president and commissioners and chief, so this whole operation is done in a very thoughtful way, and we always try to offer those of our members that are living in the tents on the streets, we offer them emergency seven-day beds at the navigation centers. the navigation centers allow folks to bring their tents with

them, to bring their belongings, to bring their partners, even their animals to come inside, to live inside, where we can connect them to medical care, case management, things of that nature. so we do give our community members that are suffering on the streets inside of tents, we give them the opportunity to do that. so both e.m.s. 6 and the police department have the ability to give someone a navigation place to bring all their belongings, so we're not taking their belongings away from them. we understand that's an important part. >> commissioner dejesus: no, that's an important part. i'm responding to what commander lozar said, that under the 647 e, that he offers them one night, and if they don't take it, they confiscate it. i'm not saying that to be

tough, because i don't want to impugn on your integrity or heart or hard work. but when it comes to the department, i do want to ask some questions that are pretty pertinent. if you could bear with me, and i certainly don't mean to insult anybody. with that said, i want to talk about data. when you were here in february, i asked you how many citations are given to the homeless, how many of those citations do the district attorney prosecute, and how many of those citations you gave got their equipment back. and i think offline that you told me that you don't have that data. we don't -- if you -- can you tell me how, on a monthly basis, how many citations have you given to the homeless, how many citations the district attorney actually prosecuted, and how many of those people who have their tents bagged and tagged actually got their belongings back. >> so you have my word that we'll go back and do our

homework and supply you with any information that you need, any data that you need that we have. thankful for the controller's office who's helping us keep on track. the one example that i gave about the 73 citations from september to may, the district attorney charged 47 of those cases. it was kind of a pretty high number, comparing the amount of citations we issued. i will also say that in a case where we seize a tent as evidence, when the case is dismissed, the individual has the right to come back and pick up their tent, but for some reason, we're not seeing them come out to the storage and get their items. >> commissioner dejesus: so what you told me offline is most of it is destroyed. they don't come get their property back. >> no. we explain that they can come back and get their property. if the case is dismissed, we tell public works that it's a

bag and tag, and they can come back and get their belongings. >> commissioner dejesus: no, but i'm saying that the property is destroyed. >> so after 90 days, in the case of bag and tags, we do. we have something like four or five containers of stored goods. at the end of 90 kaydays, thos are disposed of. however, in those cases, we get word from sfpd that the cases are dismissed, and they can come and pick them up, and after a certain period of time -- >> commissioner dejesus: what's the percentage? >> i don't have the number, but i would say it's relatively high. our experience is that usually they don't come and pick up their belongings after that. >> commissioner dejesus: that was my point. they normally don't. so i'm looking for data. how many are you taking, how many are being destroyed, how many are charged? that number is going to help

us, it's going to help the homeless coalition, it's going to help the city understand how effective this program is. i have more questions. do you want to answer that? >> so we have good data on the belongings received and how many come to retrieve them. >> commissioner dejesus: by the way, on saturday, when i was preparing for this, i didn't see this in the packet. was it there? >> no, it came late. >> commissioner dejesus: okay. i thought i was prepared for today, and for some reason, it just came today. okay. i want to know if there's any data, whether hsoc has reduced the citation of homelessness. >> in tonight's presentation, we show the reduction in arrests, reduction in citations. the calls for services by the

public has gone up lately. we're hovering at about 650 pending calls for service through 311 at any given time right now in san francisco related to this issue. >> commissioner dejesus: so do we have hard data or a congreggate of percentages? that's where i got confused during the presentation. is it an actual percentage or gone down 5%? i didn't have a chance -- >> there's public data available about police incidents and what's happening, so we use that information? we also are tracking -- the officers in the field are -- i shared that in the slide in the last slide i shared, the officers in the field are sharing their engagements. we don't have hard numbers from

that force. we have other methods that the police department have been using, but there is some amount of data from the last year or so from the police officers themselves, so a -- an aggregate of police department data and what we know. >> commissioner dejesus: thank you, miss controller. with you do you know -- >> so we have been working with the police department on new forms. the new version of the form -- they had been tracking engages. we tried to develop forms most people were asking, and that went live the beginning of this month, so we won't have data until a couple of months from now until we start to aggregate and compile it?

that will be spread across the incidents or responses that the hsoc linking officers are engaging in. we're also exploring whether homeless officers in general would use them, and we also use them in hsoc-related operations, like hsip that dea deanna talked about earlier, for different interactions in the field and what happens with them. >> commissioner dejesus: thank you. you're a person with numbers. let me ask you another question. i'm going to try to stay on the data part of it. it might be awkwardly worded, but what percentage of responses to the encampments of people by hsoc is there aa department of public works or outreach person present or is

it just a police officer on every single one? do we have that data? >> so the way it works right now at hsoc, our encampment resolution team comes together to look at any team with six or more tents, and they organize outreach to those encampments. so with each of those that are identified in the quarterly tent counts, we first do outreach with the outreach team and public health. that's where we do health fairs and where there is going to be an encampment resolution, we try to go in and offer people services initially? and if we don't provide services at the same time that the police and public works are clearing encampments. it's a separate -- it's a separate process. >> commissioner dejesus: so that is our understanding that when they actually come and clear it, there's not actually a homeless person present.

go ahead. >> part of the new forms of data being developed involve some of the comments made earlier in our presentation about how officers interact with hsoc itself during their engagements, which they will call hsoc to request support when they have identified someone who wants that type of support either from h.s.h. or d.p.h., and they speak with the liaisons on-site to determine whether they can dispatch or triage something for that person immediately. deanna mentioned the process that occurs when an officer links someone to hsoc, they are addressed through those processes? so as our data gets developed, we will have a better sense of how officers are attempting to link specific individuals with care at hsoc and individually

what -- and what care individuals started to receive, so that piece is still under development. >> commissioner dejesus: i guess what i was getting at is when d.p.h. goes in and confiscates, and there's not a homeless person there, if the police or somebody finds someone who is interested in services, they'll make that call and they'll come in. and that's what we're hearing, the police are doing actions, and they're connected with you, but it's not necessarily in conjunction, at the same time. okay. that's -- i want today clear -- i wanted to clear that up. couple more data questions, and then, i had a lot of questions. i'm not sure if you had it in your presentation, because the first time i saw it was tonight, what are the data or the outcome of the data of the

one-day stays, seven-day stays, or 30-day stays to get people off the streets? >> just for clarification, before carrie answers that question, as i mentioned earlier, we, the police department saw that the one day it wasn't effective. we didn't feel like it was fair for people, and we stopped -- we stopped taking individuals to providence a couple weeks ago. we were given five beds, and then, we said we don't want the five beds. we'll stick to navigation -- >> commissioner dejesus: that's recent. >> that was in the last two weeks. we ditched providence and said we'll stick to the navigation center. >> commissioner dejesus: because when you were back here in february, with a one-day stay -- >> it doesn't work. >> yeah, for the one-day beds we had very few people

interested in those beds, so the numbers are too small to draw much from? for the seven-day beds, we've found that most people are not engaging with services during a short stay? however, a lot of the people -- so if hsoc, if the police or public health or h.s.h. identifies someone whose priority status, who's actually going to be able to move to housing, they are put in a priority status bed in a navigation center? and so they don't actually go to the shorter-term beds. so i think it's -- i mean, it's kind of always going to happen that if someone's in a priority status bed, their outcome is more likely to be positive and that the seven-day beds are typically the people who are not in priority status, so unlikely to be able to move to supportive housing. so the outcomes are not -- we haven't seen a lot of people move from a seven-day bed to

housing. we've seen a few people move to shelter or to another navigation center option. >> commissioner dejesus: do you have those numbers? >> not with us. we do compile those numbers. >> commissioner dejesus: maybe next time we can have them. >> certainly. >> commissioner dejesus: well, then, on the follow up question, what -- yeah, what existing data can we have or can we start keeping records that would better give us the numbers of shelter beds, but i think you just addressed that. okay. fine. so is it deputy chief or commander now? so tell me, how many police officers are assigned to hsoc

and how much police resources are being committed to hsoc? >> so we have 34 officers specifically dedicated at the rank of officer at the healthy streets navigation center. that comes along with four sergeants and two lieutenants, and we have two captains currently assigned to that. in addition, we have approximately 30 officers assigned as homeless outreach officers assigned to the ten district stations. in other words, those additional 30 or so work for the stations, report to the captain, but they're part of our program at hsoc. they receive work from us every single day. they're part of the overall meeting, part of the philosophy and program. so it's roughly 70 to 75 officers working as homeless outreach officers. >> commissioner dejesus: so i know that the president of the board of supervisors has asked us to civilianize a lot of positions, and since we're told that the department is not

leading the hsoc, and so for collaboration purposes, to have a person sitting with the unit, you can have a civilian from the police department sitting with the unit. we don't need a deputy chief or a commander to be the liaison or that person. and the question i have with all those things in here, there's got to be some -- in terms of meeting, making these areas and so forth, there's got to be something where we can civilianize when we have all these other communities asking us for beat patrols, stopping car break-ins and home burglaries. i'm just wondering, can we have civilians in the police department be the liaison lead person. i don't want to mention or salary or anything, but deputies of your level and others, captains and sergeants, be involved with that? >> we can -- we would

definitely, and we have looked at opportunities to civilianicivilian particularly in a command post where appropriate. one of the things that i would like to point out to the commission and particularly to that commissioner in particular, to get this started, i think all of the departments were asked and agreed upon putting people at a level in the command post that can make decisions. [please stand by]

. >> -- has been looked at closely by the city attorney, several city attorneys, and we use that as our guide, the legal standard, to do all the work that we're doing. and the last part of your

question, it's just like the great presentation by the deputy of police accountability that talked about the mediation process. we're going to take advantage of the mediation process in terms of some of this process -- that they're not happy with with regard to police services. >> commissioner dejesus: i just have two more questions. just bear with me. one of the things that we've learned from the homeless issues is there are people out there that have ptsd, people who cannot live in congreggate settings, who cannot be in close quarters with other people, so there's some people who have those issues. i guess i want to know what is

being done for those that shelters are inappropriate, and how often does this alternative service occur in the field? >> yeah. that's a great question, because oftentimes, public health is at the table. if an officer encounters a situation where the person says look, officer, i would like to go to the shelter this evening, but i just don't want to be indoors, etc., that's communication that we immediately get back to public health on, person's name, information, way to contact them, where they normally are, and we try to make that public health warm handoff so we can figure out a way to fix that situation. >> so commissioners, i would just elaborate slightly and say we do have some beds with the hot team to figure out how to deal with individuals dealing with mental health issues.

we also try to figure out assessments with lead or some of our other programs to figure out a melody tdical detox.

>> -- the question people are asking me is what is the justification or privilege fast tracking those on the streets over those in shelter or those who have been waiting? >> i can answer the part about the shelter beds. every night, pretty much every shelter bed is reserved, and those are for the 90-day reservations? at about 4:00, we find out which reservations will not be used, and then, if we have

urgent situations, we can use the shelter beds for one-night stays, and so resource centers always refer to those, the glide reservation center, the m.s.c. south resource center and mission neighborhood resource center refer into those beds, so we took a small portion of those beds and make them available to sfpd for a couple weeks pilot. >> commissioner dejesus: okay. thank you for bearing with us. >> i just wanted to say this. i think this may have been on your question on ptsd. the fact that every officer is trained in crisis intervention and thinking through them. we make sure if they're on the hsoc team, they have to have the crisis intervention training. and the officers that all participate in this, they're all volunteers. they volunteer for this assignment, and if they want to make a change, we make a change for them because this is

challenging work. >> president hirsch: commissioner brookter? >> commissioner brookter: first of all, i want to say thank you for sticking around and making that presentation. i want to say that all of my colleagues and i are passionate around the issue and we worked as hard as we can to get it right as a commission. one of the things that i want to know that i didn't hear from commander lozar is what's the criteria for joining hsoc? do they just say hey, i want to be on hsoc? are they looking at things in their background? can you just -- >> yeah. so we say we're looking for volunteers. we put out an announcement, sometimes it's word of mouth. the benefit of having a large organization is there's many things that people want to do. officers are interested in traffic collisions or they want

to work plain clothes or on a problem-solving team. well, this group of officers has volunteered for outreach officers knowing it's about helping people, and some of those kinds of things. when someone applies, we look at their d.p.a. history, their internal affairs history, their risk management history, and then, we make sure they're crisis intervention trained. and then, we speak about the type of work that they're about to do and make sure they're a good fit because we don't want an officer on there that is not a good fit for this program. and then, unlike any other unit on the department where we normally require a two-year commitment, we tell them, the day you want to leave, just tell us, and we'll send you right back to your station and we'll pick the next person on the list. because if you're frustrated or you lost your patience or something like that -- we're all human -- you don't need to work with us.

we'll put you back on the foot beat or what-have-you. not to put our director on the spot, but i think the d.p.a. complaints have been fairly low. they've done a great job -- >> commissioner brookter: i do want to echo commissioner dejesus's comments around the data. i'd love to see what navigation

centers and which beds are they coming to, and if they're going back to the city, what areas are they ---to the streets, what areas are they going back to? if we could. >> what i mean by volunteer is asking individual officers or putting out an announcement seeing if individual officers want to do this type of work as opposed to saying i'm assigning you to this whereas you may not want to do this type of work. so we don't want to assign people, we want to get their permission and volunteer to be part of this team and to say no obligations. and then, in terms of the training, crisis intervention,

mandatory. and then, once they join the team, the minute they join the teams, they're participating in the wednesday meetings, taking advantage of every that's bye-bye -- everything that's been presented tonight. so glide's putting on some good training. we want to get the officers over there to get training in that regard. >> commissioner brookter: i just wanted to say that i make sure we're getting the right training. >> absolutely. >> president hirsch: commissioner taylor? >> vice president taylor: i agree with commissioner dejesus, we don't have the answers. there are no easy answers, and i really struggle with this because, you know, we talk about everything that's so important, but there is nothing humane at all about having someone who is in the grips of

an addiction and allowing that person to kill themselves slowly. like, that is the least humane thing we can do as a society. when i talk about being in the grips of a drug epidemic, as a nation, we are. we have people's children and sisters and mothers and brothers who are on the streets in the grips of an addiction, and i feel like we have a responsibility to not just allow people to kill themselves because they're in the grips of an addiction and they're not making the right choices for their lives, so it's really hard. to the extent that folks have solutions -- and we've raised so many things here tonight, and issues. i think hearing disposing of a tent in 90 days, if someone doesn't pick it up, how long should we hold on to it? if people have answers to these

questions, these problems, i'd love to hear them, because i don't necessarily know what the alternatives are. if we have people coming and picking up their belongings after 90 days and others don't, how long should the department hold on to those belongings? we don't have the answers to these things. but it is a really complicated problem. i'm not going to pretend that i know everything, and i just think it's really, really tough, and i think it's important that we all recognize that. and i do commend the department for what you're doing. there are a lot of cities that aren't doing this, and i don't know that you do everything right 100% of the time, but i don't have all the answers. so i want to applaud the work that's been done, and i want to offer people real solutions rather than just kind of pointing at problems because it's all a problem. so i would love to hear solutions just for my own good.

>> president hirsch: thank you. i do want to hear from the coalition on homelessness. i do want to hear from the group collectively, whether you give me one answer or a dozen answers, what is the single most intractable problem that you're facing now, and what is your proposed solution going forward? what are you doing to address that issue? and i don't know who or how many people should answer. >> i'll start with mine really quick. sorry. that's how this works. come on. we'll stand, we'll do this together. just resources for the officers. it's a work in progress, but having the beds has been great, but the officers need the tools to do the work. >> president hirsch: which what does that mean? >> which means continuing to work with our partners in city

government. for example, the announcement of the new navigation center in the bayview was important. i know we tried to do the waterfront navigation center up and running. if i had to call one out, that's the one i'd call out. >> sam peaks with public works. i won't take long. i just wanted to elaborate on what he said, the commander or deputy chief or david. i think beds is the number one issue. our frustration being out there, seeing the folks that are out there, you know, in need and not being able to actually help them is probably the main issue from public works' standpoint because we're seeing the same people over and over out there on the street, so i would say beds is probably the main issue. >> president hirsch: all right. so your request would be probably a couple thousand more beds? >> yeah. >> president hirsch: really? it's a start.

>> so i think the commissioners have said it tonight. when it comes to addiction, it's not an easy solution. i think for the department of public health, we want to do as much as we can in dealing with aix did, but we want to meet people where they're at. addiction is a lifelong journey. it's a lifelong journey to be able to come and detox, to learn some new behaviors, maybe a nexus with just unhealthy conditions. so for us, i think it's really important to continue supporting and funding our groups outreach, knowing how to deal with the population, going ahead and meeting people where they're ought, going ahead and creating job fairs, and creating opportunities where people can come in the door and feel comfortable so that they can actually receive treatment and join us with that journey. >> president hirsch: okay. most intractable problem. >> the most intractable problem

is the lack of supportive housing for people who need a long-term solution? we used to be able to refer people directly into housing that was deeply subsidized with services from the street, and we are not able to in this moment because of the number of people experiencing homelessness. >> president hirsch: okay. thank you all. thank you all for your work and for your presentation. the coalition on homelessness, we are ready for your presentation. do you guys need a break or do you want to keep going? [inaudible] >> like, is it at hot down there as it is here? it's crazy.

>> open the door. >> ice cream? >> have to be on your budget. >> i'll do it, at this point. >> we've been looking at the issue of the criminalization of homelessness in san francisco since 2014 in a series of reports. and what i'll be presenting to you today is just the latest -- and across that whole broad area, our main question has been whether or not the

punishment of homelessness is increasing or decreasing and how the agencies in the state need to affect that. so i do want to just commend a number of the accomplishments that we have seen particularly in the wings of the department of public health, the homelessness and supportive housing department. however, we do have concerns of the role of the department of public works and the san francisco police department. and as you are getting out with your questions, we are unclear if we're seeing a reduction in the criminalization of homelessness and living up to what this ninth circuit court of appeals decision, which is still being interpreted, is being accurately interpreted. so what i'm presenting today is

from a series of public record act requests which we gained. and this was all gained at the -- almost a year ago at this time, so some things, as commander lozar pointed out, will be a bit out of date, and we're open to corrections. but i will say that we did present this in october at the local homeless coordinating board in march. nothing was corrected, and i really commend all of you for the questions that you asked for getting data that will help us understand better what the impact of these changes are. so i don't need to go over this because others are. most of the slides are coming from actual government agency documents here. but as many people have said and stated over in more recent documents, the number one goal stated over and over, is this is serviced led, led with

compassion, and the goal is to assist as many people as possible with shelter, services, and housing. there is also a commitment to community engagement that's been involved in this process that they've stated in various places, and our concerns is they're not meeting the adequate goal of assisting the homeless persons, and that is actually decreasing in the actions of hsoc and the sfpd, and they're not reaching communi community engagement. so i'm going to focus on this first point. as you've heard, this is from the agency rules and responsibilities as it was listed from a slide to a police commission in the past. and as you see at the bottom,

it says sfpd engagement as a last resort to respond to criminal issues. however, as we heard in the recent controller report, it listed that sfpd is the first responder to most hsoc calls. and in most cases, the vast majority, there is not a department of public health or a service provider on hand during these calls. when we asked who is in charge of the healthy streets operation center, this is from their own public messaging, but i won't go over it, because as lozar pointed out, he is no longer the incident commander there and it's more collaborative. and as they say, ideally, every encampment and unsheltered person would be led with a social service placement, however, it's an issue we do not have the capacity to respond to the volume of requests. so sfpd and public works will lead. as you've heard, they want more beds. they want this service led, but

we have more sf approximated. in fact when we began the research in 2014, there was on average about 22 homeless outreach officers in the city. as lozar just reported, we have 34 additional officers. that means we have doubled the police resources in addressing the homelessness in that city. the b.l.a. report that reported we were spending $20 million back then, it's probably much higher, and i would point out that that was not the recommendation of the budget and legislative analyst's office. their recommendation was opposite. and despite that, the resources are lacking. as we see in the areas, our goal is no tents or structures in the city. however, public works and sfpd

will not clear where there is a public public encampment resolution in progress. i'd love too see the date -- to see the data on this, but when i was looking at the data between january and august last year, it was something like 5% of the total -- of the total engagement of hsoc where these resolutions, were people were getting offered more longer term care and actual, what i would call meaningful, genuine shelter. >> what does that mean? >> yeah. it's a technical thing. the homelessness and supportive housing department has what they call an encampment resolution team. this is a highly trained team of officers who will go out and work with an encampment over a number of days and find a good place for them. ideally, this is how we would address all encampments, but we

need to put that in perspective of the total calls and the total encampment responses that are -- that are -- that are happening, right? and when there's a lack of that resolution team, it's what we're left at as what was being described today, an officer, a d.p.w. officer is having to address this on their own. >> what percentage is resolved? >> i can give you the exact statistics, but i have them in an article that might have -- >> president hirsch: let's hold questions and we'll have you present and then we'll ask them. >> sorry. >> as you see in this list here, and this was from an official at d.p.w., peter lau, there's no mention of public housing, department of homelessness, or housing and shelter plan for homeless.

so we have this ideal, but in practice, this is not being carried out. this is a tweet that was put out by the sfpd with a, you know, police vehicle with all of these belongings and their messaging is tenderloin homeless officers worked with the t.l. in cleaning up sidewalks and making the community safer that we serve, which gives you some insight into their inception of services. so this is just getting you to understand how the shelter services work. commander lozar mentioned they offer a genuine offer of shelter to homeless individuals, and that is key to the ninth circuit decision, to give a homeless person a ticket or arrest them when there is not adequate shelter.

what's being debated is what is adequate. before two weeks ago, the city was saying adequate is a one-night shelter bed, and i'm glad to hear they realize this is not working. now, my question is, is a seven-day bed adequate? i'm pretty sure the data will show that people are going back to the streets, and i think a big reason people aren't taking the seven-day beds because it's not long enough. people were moving into the mission to get the navigation center beds. what i see happening is the city actually now watering down those services to offer a temporary holding place. and i'm also curious to hear from h.s.h. to say once we get

them in the shelter, they're not engaging with services. after 90 days, you're out back on the street. and so we need to also think about this. and so if you don't go along with that, as commander lozar said -- and i got to go out on 20 ride alongs with lieutenant nevin is there. i think as nevin said, officers are just asking people to moving along. there can be a lot of consequences to that that are negative, as far as people having to shift into unknown territories, people being assaulted upon those moves, having their tents burned down because they're trying to find a save place to live, a lot of turmoil, but that is the regular procedure. but if you're faced with this issue where you're not going to

be able -- you're not going to shelter and you're being threatened with the tent being taken away, and you saw the option of the property being destroyed, you can't move, you're not going to move or you're going to have your tent taken. so here, we list a number of issues that we find that the inadequate services are inadequately offered. [please stand by]