>> good morning, everyone this happen this is the regular meeting of the budget and finance committee. i am the chair of the budget and finance committee. our clerk is ms. linda wong. i would like to thank sfgov tv for broadcasting. >> clerk: please silence all electronic devices. any documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk. >> thank you, ms. wong. could you please call item number 1. >> clerk: resolution authorizing the director of property to sell up to 550,000 gross square feet of remaining transferable

development rights ("tdr") previously authorized from the war memorial complex, located at 301 and 401 van ness avenue, at fair market value; >> we have the director of department of real estate here. colleagues, you might remember that we continued this item. so we haven't heard a staff presentation or the b.l.a. report. >> good morning, president fewer, supervisors. if we can go to the slides. thank you for letting me speak this morning. i am here asking for our reauthorization to sell the second tranche or part of transferable development rights from the war memorial. in january of 2014, by resolution 16-14, the board of supervisors authorized the director of real estate to sell 1.1 million units of t.d.r., or

transferable development rights, divided into two tranches or parts of 550,000 units each. as you know, t.d.r. is unused development rights from historic or architecturally historic building that can be transferred to a developer to increase that developer's allowable gross square foot area for their property. t.d.r. can come from c3 zones or p zone sincere associated adjacent to c-3, but t.d.r. can only be used in c-3. we have sold the first tranche of t.d.r. pursuant to the resolution and are before you seeking authorization for the issue and the sale of the second tranche. when we first started this process back in 2014, the t.d.r. market was very soft. it took until 2017 for the market to reach the price point

set by the board of supervisors as the floor, which was $25 per square foot. as you can see on this slide, since 2017, the market for t.d.r. has grown and is very robust. this is a list of all of the transactions that have been sold and closed to date. you can see both the city as the seller, the buyers, the projects that those t.d.r.s were ultimately assigned to, the units that were acquired, the price per square foot, and the closing dates. you might notice the unit count is slightly below the 550,000. that's because we have one last pending transaction. you can also see that the revenue generated is $13.7 million. that is a gross number, not net or transaction cost.

in order to maintain the strong and consistent pricing schedule and to encourage buyers to commit to t.d.r. purchases early, we have developed a discipline pricing schedule. under this pricing schedule, the units for t.d.r. increased $2.60 every six months. you can see here the pricing schedule, starting from the floor of $25, going up to $45, which would be in june of 2022, subject to market conditions. the idea is that we announce to any potential buyers what this schedule is. we keep strict discipline to the schedule. that encourages about buyers to commit early in order to avoid the price increases. some of the benefits is it incentivizes the buyers to lock

in early. it also guarantees the availability of t.d.r. as they lock in their commitments early. it allows potential buyers to calculate with certainty the cost of their t.d.r. purchase when they're calculating their financing for the overall projects. the advantage to the city is it gets us early commitments and it also allows us to demonstrate to other potential buyers that t.d.r. is, in fact, selling at our current price. the use of t.d.r. proceeds under the resolution, the net sales which are gross proceeds, less taxes, escrow, commissions, other costs, are used exclusively for the rehabilitation and restoration of the war memorial complex. it also can be used to pay down the debt service that was issued for that purpose. we anticipate that the gross proceeds from the sale of the second tranche of t.d.r. to be approximately $6.5 million. that concludes my presentation.

i would like to thank mayor breed and supervisor brown for their leadership and sponsorship of this legislation. i would like to thank the b.l.a. for their hard work on this item. i concur with the b.l.a.'s recommendation, and i am available to answer any questions you may have. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. >> yes, in 2014, the board approved legislation allowing the sale of transferable development rights from the war memorial complex of 1.1 million square feet. at that time, they required the city to come back and get approval for the second half of that amount of 550,000 square feet. in terms of the -- actually what has happened in the past, the

city has -- if the city were to sell the 550,000 square feet, the estimated price at this point in time is $30 per square foot, so the proceeds would be $16.5 million of gross proceeds. this amount would be used to pay down existing debt on the war memorial complex. we do recommend the legislation be amended to set a minimum price for the t.d.r. sales of no less than $25 per square foot. that's the amount that was being sold through 2018 of existing t.d.r.s and to require a written report back annually on the sale of t.d.r.s. otherwise we recommend approval of the legislation as amended. >> thank you very much. it's open to public comment. any members would like to comment? seeing none, public comment is now closed. so i'd like to make a motion to adopt recommendations of the

b.l.a. if we can take that without objection. thank you very much. and then i'd like to make a motion to move this to the full board with a positive recommendation, not because you accidentally called me the president, but because you have been so generous with your expertise and time during this week to actually have these in-depth conversations with our office. thank you very much. i'd like to move this to the full board with a positive recommendation, if we can take that without objection. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. madam clerk, can you please call item number 2. >> clerk: item number 2 resolution approving the 2019 grant application for the united states department of housing and urban development continuum of care program with an amount not to exceed $51,175,386; and fulfilling the board of supervisors review and approval process for all annual or otherwise recurring grants of $5,000,000 or more. >> thank you very much. this is gigi whitley. >> yes.

i am the deputy director for administration and finance for the department of homeland supportive housing. joining me is our colleague who is our legislative affairs manager. i'm here today to present this resolution asking your support so that the department can apply for the 2019 continuum of care grant to h.u.d. in the amount not to exceed $51 million. the next slide shows you h.u.d.'s general guidelines. it was to propose a community-wide commitment. the majority of funds go to our non-profit competitors that is heard and vetted through our local homeless vetting board. it's promoting access and affecting the utilization of

mainstream programs by homeless individuals and families and optimizing self-sufficiency. slide 3 goes into what we're asking annually through this competitive process. it's released annually by h.u.d. the note came out in july and it's due at the end of this month or beginning of october. san francisco receives the fourth-largest award in the country, behind new york, los angeles, and chicago. as i said, the majority of the funds go to our non-profit partners, many of those agencies who also receive local funds through the board of supervisors that provide permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, supportive services, and other critical interventions. this allocation actually went through this committee as part of the budget process. so you've already appropriated these funds, should we be successful in getting this award

amount. we're now of course required to come before you and ask for your authority to apply for the funds and give you a little more detail about what the local board has recommended. in slide 4, you'll see that there are two tiers of funding. $44.8 million and c.o.c. funds, those are grants to partners. there are also new bonus projects. we work closely with our partners at the mayor's office of housing and community development, as well as our non-profit housing partners to identify those housing -- affordable housing, permanent supportive housing projects in the pipeline, which would be eligible and competitive for c.o.c. funds. there's $2.2 million requested for those projects. this year there was also a request for projects that

prioritize people who are homeless but also escaping domestic violence. so we've partnered there to propose a project for about $1.3 million. finally, the department receives c.o.c. planning allocation which we use to coordinate with our non-profit partners on anything from technical assistance to things like our coordinated entry system. we get those funds annually. it does require a 25% local match. most of those matching funds are appropriated by the general fund in our budget. some of that match is also provided directly by the non-profit provider who is sponsoring the project. this year in coming before you, we've also provided a bit of a cushion. if h.u.d. were to increase the fair market rent rate by approximately 3%, so the

application will be for 4.9685 and $35. the fair market rent increases that cushion so that if h.u.d. comes back with a local fair market increase, we have your authority to spend those funds on those projects that would receive the s.m.r. finally, as i mentioned earlier, this is a process overseen by our local homeless coordinating board that we work closely with. projects selected must go through a rigorous community-led process. we work with a non-profit technical assistance program to lead that process. applicants are asked to apply and ranked through that community process. the lhcb this year posted two funding committees in the spring

of 2019 with providers, both and after the nofa was released. there were a variety of hearings at the local board. we received 69 total applications, 59 renewal projects, four youth demonstration projects were submitted. this was a $2.9 million competitive grant that we received a few years ago. now it's incorporated into our annual funding request which is exciting. six new bonus projects, including the new domestic violence program that i mentioned. then on the next slide you can see the tiering that i mentioned, 64 projects reflected on the tier 1. tier 2, although not guaranteed funding, we've been very successful in recent years getting most, if not all of your tier 2 funds approved by h.u.d. and then the domestic bonus

ranking that won't affect it here. if it's funded, it will be funded separately. that really concludes my remarks. i'm happy to answer any other specific questions. i want to thank the b.l.a. for their hard work on this and quick turn around. we are in agreement with the b.l.a. including their suggestion to correct a typographical error. >> thank you very much. >> this resolution approves the grant application for h.u.d. funds for the continuing of care. table 1 on page 3 of our report summarizes the grant application. it was also summarized by ms. whitley and her presentation. the total application amount is $51.2 million. there are matching funds of $12.8 million from the city. these are general fund moneys. they were appropriated in the budget for the homeless in

supportive housing. we do recommend an amendment to the legislation to correct a clerical error and recommend approval as amended. >> thank you very much. colleagues, any questions or comments? let's open this for public comment. any members of the public would like to comment on item 2? seeing none, public comment is now closed. i have one question about the domestic violence project funds. will those be directly dispersed to non-profits? >> so the -- yes. yes, it's the asian women's shelter non-profit that applied for rapid rehousing program. we're really excited about this project and hoping that we get the funding to get it off the ground because this will be permanent housing rather than predominantly shelter. >> and they do good work. so i would like to make a motion

to approve the technical amendment by the b.l.a. i make a motion to move this to the board with a positive recommendation. we can take that without objection. >> clerk: item number 3: resolution approving the fifth amendment to the contract between the city and county of san francisco and heluna health to provide comprehensive outreach and case management programming to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness in san francisco known as the san francisco homeless outreach team, to extend the contract agreement term for an and to increase the contract amount by $15,367,886 for a total contract amount of $39,133,942. >> good morning. >> good morning, supervisors. jeff kasitski with the department of homeless and supportive housing. our team was established in 2004 under the department of public

health. their goal is to provide outreach and case management for hard-to-serve individuals who are experiencing homeless. services are currently provided under a contract with a non-profit organization, heluna health. they're operating under an r.f.p. that was issued in 2014, which is valid for ten years. they provide outreach and case management services seven days a week on two shifts. the outreach staff work in small skill teams of two, supported by supervisors that are designed to work in specific neighborhoods that are actually based on police districts. outreach teams have a goal of engaging with five to 10 clients a week or 20 to 40 a month. the case management team has a case load of 15 to 20 high-needs clients each, who are oftentimes staying in a stabilization unit or a specific shelter bed to better serve those individuals

and get them connected to behavioural health or other medical services they need, as well as to housing. i should also point out that there's really two other parts of the h.u.d. team. one is we have a number of special contracts with bart and muni as well as with rec and park department and the library, in which we are providing specific services under contract to those entities. again, all of this is provided by heluna health under the same structure, but we have that group as well as first responders. they are responding to concerns and complaints that come through our dispatch. they are also available two shifts, seven days a week, but it's a relatively small team. it's really four different programs built into one. a big part of what the team does and what's really important about their work is they're developing relationships with

people that they're getting to know. this sometimes takes time. to have somebody you don't know come up to you on the street and offer you assistance isn't necessarily going to be -- responses are going to be mixed. thanks to the very skilled homeless outreach team, we have about a -- depending on the month, but roughly a 60 -- about two-thirds of the people that we encounter will accept services. those numbers are much lower with the first responders teams, who are going out to respond to people who have asked for the team to go. they have a much lower uptake rate, as oftentimes those clients may not be interested in services at that time. also oftentimes don't know those team members who are on the first responders team. we work very closely with the department of public health street medicine team to address any medical issues that come up. they can call on assistance from the street medicine team run by

a doctor and they work with hsh staff and getting access to services that we provide. currently in this amendment that we are putting forward, the fifth amendment to the contract, we are increasing staffing by 15 positions in order to address the growing number of people who are on our streets. that will bring us up to a total of 86 f.t.e.s in fiscal year 2019-20. heluna health has done an outstanding job at filling vacancies. we are roughly now at 86% -- we're staffed at about 86%, so less than 20% vacancies right now. some of the other issues i think it's important to point out, so under the current budget, we will -- the proposed budget, i'm

sorry, we will have 47 outreach workers. 15 -- and 21 case managers who will be out working in the community. we've also restructured the team. we've worked closely with the controller's office a few years ago to restructure how they operate. one of the things we've done is create lead team members who are supervising some of the outreach workers, rather than having one supervisor have to supervise 15 or 20 # people. it's now in smaller groups so people are getting better support and provides promotional opportunities for the workers. we also have increased compensation for the homeless outreach workers. currently we provided an average of 12% increase in this new amendment. we're looking at a range for outreach workers and case managers roughly between -- i'll tell you exactly $49,044 up to

$68,103. the supervisory staff working for heluna health are making between $70,000 and $75,000 a year. both have been increased in order to help with retention and to be able to fill positions, which again has been going much better of late. so specifically the contract amendment that we are currently asking for will increase the overall contract by $15,378,386 to an amount not to exceed $39,133,943. we're seeking a 17-month extension of the contract from november 1, 2019, through june

30, 2021. i think some other things that are important to point out is that we are also changing the service objectives in this contract. what we'd received from the department of public health was the outcomes were much more hire outreach workers and have them do outreach. we're putting in much more specific outcomes into the contract. we want 90% of all the clients that they encounter will engage in what we'll call a problem-solving discussion, which is trying to get people connected to one-time support, whether it's homework-bound or reconnecting people to family and friends in the neighborhood. sometimes it's mediating with a family member, et cetera. we want 80% of all the clients receiving case management services will be identified as high-priority clients in our system. we want 40% of those involved in

case management and other benefits. we're putting in more service objectives than have existed in the contract before. these line up very closely to our strategic framework. >> thank you. any questions or comments from my colleagues? seeing none -- should we hear the b.l.a. first? could we have a b.l.a. report first, please. >> the proposed resolution approves the fifth amendment to the existing contract between the city and heluna health for s.f. health services. this amendment extends the contract to june 2021 and increases the contract amount by about $15.4 million. if you look at table 1 on page 6 of our report, you'll see in 2018/19, contract expenditures were $5 million. the budget going forward is about $8.5 million. as was said, this is expected to be for additional staff in terms

of case managers and outreach workers and wage increases for those staff. our understanding is the contract has had a hard time hiring and retaining staff for these services. we do recommend approval. >> thank you very much. colleagues. >> i do have a few questions about the contract and about the -- actually, some of the stuff that you said. at the very beginning of your presentation, you talked about outreach goals and metrics that are there. i think you -- can you repeat what you said about the number of engagements that you expect of the team -- >> of per -- >> per week or something. >> yeah, per team, i believe

that it is 20 to 40. but we do have a -- let me get for you some more specific data. you'll have to excuse me. i'm going to have to pull this off of my phone. >> that's okay. >> i'll give you a -- what the h.u.d. team does, the outreach team does on any given month. this is pretty typical. in the month of june in which they had -- they engaged with 1,194 people on the streets. at that time 741 of them, 62%, that month accepted offers of assistance. 38%, 453, declined offers of assistance. again, if you broke that down even further, you would see the outreach workers that are not doing the first response work have a higher, closer to a 75%

acceptance rate. >> that's where they're targeting particular folks, rather than just going out? >> well, no, targeting folks who didn't necessarily ask for help or don't know the team members who are responding to either a 311 complaint or another concern that somebody brought forward. we have a much lower rate of acceptance when the encounter is of that nature. but overall we generally in an average year are seeing an acceptance rate of about two-thirds, a little bit lower in the month of june. i think you probably also want to know of the great reports we get on a regular basis, what did that lead to? of the people who did accept services, we make multiple referrals of services. so of the people that we encounter, the 700 or so, there were 1500 referrals to various services, that we go ahead and

track to see if those referrals led to successful encounters. in the month of june, 205 of the individuals we spoke to engaged in a problem-solving conversation or went to one of our resource centers or access points to engage in services. 375 accepted other types of assistance. i can break that down for you. so 155 of them accepted offers of shelter. two went into stabilization units. two went into -- i'm sorry, 10 went to behavioural health or substance use treatments. 26 accepted offers of medical assistance. 20 were connected to benefits, whether it was food stamps or cap or social security. >> that's over the course of how long? >> one month. >> one month. i mean, i've been looking at a lot of outreach data from my district over a number of

months, and i've -- i mean i think one of the questions for me -- as for some of the folks in the impacted neighborhoods, business owners, and residents has been what is the content of these engagements which you've provided a little more detail. it doesn't -- i guess there are many ways for us to spend money on homeless and outreach. it is not totally visible in my district how hot dollars are getting spent and if they are -- frankly, if they're worth the money. i think the jury's out. i'm not -- i haven't come to any firm conclusions about that. but i do think if an engagement

is merely a conversation about problem solving that results in a referral for drug treatment that may be accepted and an individual may do something with it or not, as opposed to $7 million more a year being spent on intensive case management or something else. i have -- i do have questions about the value of this particular service and the -- and whether it is actually moving us closer to getting folks on the street, particularly the 4,000 seriously mentally ill substance-using folks kind of -- not just getting a referral, but actually getting treatment, going through a treatment program, having an outcome. it's not intensive case management in the sense that you

are assigned to individual x. >> no. so approximately -- so of the 86 staff that we're proposing, approximately 25 of them are provided case management to very high-needs individuals carrying a case load of -- >> over time? >> at a time. >> but over time. you will see that person and -- >> a team member will refer somebody on the street who needs intensive case management to the case management team. so again, there are four different services being provided here. the outreach work of those encounters that i just mentioned is done by about 40 or so staff currently. so a relatively small number of staff serving the entire city seven days a week, engaging with over a thousand people on any given month. some of those clients, as i mentioned in the outcomes, get referred to our case managers who are serving the sickest and longest-term homeless.

one thing i will say, and i understand the public's frustration about this, but they only see -- our successes are invisible. so the people who we are able to assist are the people who are coming indoors, into our navigation system, our shelter system, getting case management out of a stabilization unit, getting connected to substance abuse or behavioural health treatment. so of course it may look to people like the quality of these encounters is not what it should be and why are we spending our money. i would argue that over 500 people who the team were able to meaningfully connect, not just refer, but make sure they got connected to services would beg to differ with you. >> and that's the number over a month or a year? >> yes. >> over a month 500 people wound up in a shelter? >> no, 500 people were connected to one of those services that i

mentioned. >> repeat that, please. >> the services again are getting people connected to problem-solving or homework bound or getting assessed in our coordinated entry system or going to a research center or a drop-in center to get access to a shelter bed. these are just the outreach services, not the case managers. the other services are shelter services, navigation services, stabilization beds which are single-room occupancy, single-resident occupancy units, connection to mental health services. by that, meaning they have seen a doctor or are in treatment. not just that we told them to go to the doctor. getting benefits, getting substance abuse service or medical care. >> so any of those would count for the 500 successful? >> yes, that month -- no -- we consider a successful encounter -- >> no, successfully connected with a meaningful -- whatever the higher level of engagement

would be. >> every encounter is is a potential for somebody to get better and get connected to services. again, there was approximately 1200 encounters in june, 741 where the person actually wanted to engage. of those 741, all of them were referred to multiple services, but we know that 580 exactly of them actually received some type of service of those that i listed below. so the team members are incredible human beings who are doing an amazing amount of work under difficult services with a very challenged population. i think that what is important to understand what they're not designed to do is they're really not designed to address -- is i'm not at all saying we shouldn't be addressing this, they're not addressing quality of life concerns by people not experiencing homelessness. they were designed to do

outreach to those on the streets of the neediest individuals in our community which, unfortunately, there are very many, to develop relationships with them, and to get them indoors. when they do that, it does improve the quality of life and i hear a lot of people questioning their efficacy for that reason. but when you look at their efficacy of getting homeless people indoors and connected to services, they're literally performing miracles every day. it's not miracles in that it's fantastical, it's done through incredibly hard work that's both challenging, but also draining. >> supervisor stephanie. >> thank you, chair. i just want to say something on the last comment because i understand that what you're saying to us is that the homeless outreach workers are not really designed to deal with the quality of life issues that we receive calls on every single day, that 311 receives calls on

every single day. so we are in a position of approving a contract wherein our constituents think that is what this does. i think we need to be obviously very clear on what our expectations are of the team, and in being clear we would then communicate that to our constituents. i feel like the contract doesn't really provide the level of detail that you gave in your presentation, doesn't have the metrics for success as you described or really define success as exiting homelessness. and also i want to follow up supervisor mandalman, you expressed this question about getting connected to a shelter. i'm wondering if we drill down

and find out whether or not those 500 have exited homelessness. >> well, i think that's to some degree an unfair metric to place on a contractor who's doing outreach work. we do have metrics on the people we are providing case management services to, but the city operates a fairly complex system of care for people experiencing homelessness that ranges from outreach to medical and other services to temporary shelter to permanent housing to moving on initiatives. we -- to problem-solving, to prevention and diversion services. the system all needs to work together and you can't look at any one part of it and say they're failing because that client didn't exit homelessness. we need to look system-wide and say does the system need to help people exit homelessness. we have the data available to us on a monthly basis. i assure you that without all of those parts of the system, the

outreach system, the shelter system, and then also of course the housing, we would not be as successful as we are helping over 200,000 people permanently exit homelessness and providing shelter and services to people every single day. so the system needs to be judged at that level, but i don't think a particular contract could be held to that standard or should be. it all needs to work together which is why our department was created and why we have the tools to look system-wide as what we're doing. >> okay. i understand that. we are approving a contract extension for millions of dollars and we have to answer back to our constituents that we are doing it in a way to help not only those housed on the street, but to improve the quality of life of san franciscans and those who visit the city. we're in a difficult situation

with regard to that. also i feel in reading the contract and everything that we experience on this side it doesn't really address or stipulate what the hot team is supposed to do and how it works with the police department and other homeless services. why i bring that up is again it is setting expectations for the public on what the city of san francisco is really doing and the team is really doing. as we have been around, i feel that there's a lot of misconception about what the hot team really does and how it works with all of the departments i just mentioned. i don't know that you've defined that in the contract. maybe if we create some type of

m.o.u. with the departments so we understand how the hot team works with all these other things we're trying to do. >> i would say a couple of things on that. the team is a private non-profit organization, whereas they do partner with other staff from other non-profits and city departments as well. they operate independently as an independent organization. i would direct you to the document that outlines how the different departments operate. again, i also want to point out that meeting the needs of people who are struggling on our streets and experiencing homelessness is not mutually exclusive from improving the quality of life. i would argue that the best way the team can improve the quality of life in our city is to be supportive in achieving their mission. because as our own data shows,

when the hot team is responding to one-off complaints that are coming through, they are not as effective as when they develop relationships with people. i also want to add, and this point is extremely important and having been an outreach worker early in my career, the only currency that you have out on the street is your relationship to people who are out in the community and out on the streets and often in lower-income neighborhoods. you need to develop a rapport and a relationship with members in community and you do that by engaging with them directly. we honor our relationship with the san francisco police department and department of public works and others. they have been great partners. the reason we don't necessarily travel with them, rather, we coordinate with them is because our outreach workers are much more effective when they are seen by members of the community

as focused on addressing the needs of homeless people. again, that leads to the best way that we can answer your constituents' concerns is to meet the needs of people who are experiencing homelessness, is to meet people who are experiencing homelessness where they are, that responds to them. because at the end of the day, that kind of relationship building gets the challenging to serve clients and get them off the streets. i have been doing this job for a few years and with the city since the late 1990s. i have seen miracles, people off the streets who have gotten off the streets. many people experience horrible trauma as youth. one person in my mind is a gentleman who experienced

horrible trauma serving our country in afghanistan. thanks to the hod team, after four or five years of work, we can help these hard-to-serve individuals indoors. compels people to services, unless they are suffering from profound mental health issues, is not going to work. i do support sb-10-45. and i think for a small number of people it will be a game-changing program for them. but i think for most of the people who are experiencing homelessness who all are suffering at some level of trauma and all are suffering from some form of ptsd and having lived out on the streets and struggling. that is envisioned by the department of public health and inherited by us. it's a national model that's been replicated all across the country. the way they do their business i

think is best practice. i think there's a whole other set of issues related to quality of life and enforcement of those law laws. i believe those issues need to be separated to some degree, but understand the 1100 people we provided services to were brought indoors or if they were having a bad day were calmed down. we give people out what we call healthy streets cards to remind people on the streets that they have a responsibility to try to be as good neighbors as they can. they do all those sorts of things. if there's some other thing that needs to happen in the city to address quality of life issues, i would argue that that should be added to the work that we're currently doing, because the work that we're doing is really critical in serving these individuals who are extremely challenged on the streets. >> okay. thank you for that. and i absolutely agree that the

hod team is performing miracles. and one on one building relationships with people who have experienced homelessness and addiction before, having that commonality is the best way to help somebody. i absolutely agree with that. where i'm struggling is that i don't know what to tell my constituents in terms of how does the team work in district 2, how do they work on union street, filmore street? i've been going out with the team and the police department just to look at the street and actually make contact with some of our unhoused individuals. we've actually made some good contacts. just yesterday i was with some of the colleagues on filmore street, and it was good interaction and communication with us and the police being able to tell a lady that this alley is a place where people

are often found. i don't know who exactly she called, but she was able to let someone know that this is what district 2 is experiencing. i feel i need to know what i can tell my constituents because they don't see anybody out there. >> i mean, how the team works across the city is the same. we have -- the outreach team is divided up by police district. we assign our resources based on the number of unsheltered people in that district. district 10 has 20% of the unsheltered homeless population. so we try to make sure that 20% of our outreach time that we put in any given week is dedicated to where people are. every part -- every neighborhood of the city has a h.o.d. team member to work in that district.

if i thought, frankly, that adding another 80 outreach workers and putting them in the districts would make a significant difference in quality of life issues, that's what i would propose. we are proposing a modest increase of 15 staff that's we believe that's the resources we need to achieve the many goals that we have. but your district has h.o.d. team members assigned to work there. it's not always going to be the same people. they're dispatched there. if there is a complaint that comes in with 311, we have a community responder team that is also available if the district 2 staff or the terabal station assigned h.o.d. team members are otherwise occupied. >> one more question before i turn it back over. you said something about if our constituents call 311 and someone responds and makes a contact with an unhoused individual or someone that is

experiencing an issue, that is not really the best way to go about getting that individual the help he or she needs. i'm wondering what then is when somebody calls 311. >> that still remains the best way to do that. i would encourage you to visit our center. >> i did visit it. >> we have all the calls coming in. most of the time it's open for most of the key departments. we are triaging those calls that come in. if someone makes a 311 call and client -- we see a client is in distress, somebody is out yelling in the street, we're going to say, okay, let's send the d.p.h. team or h.o.d. or fire or police. so the best thing to do is to call 311, but to understand somebody calling because a person is sitting down in a

doorway or sitting down on the sidewalk and maybe seems like they need help but isn't is an emergent situation, we're going to respond first to situations in which clients are in desperate need right in that moment. if we see a child, especially an infant, those calls get prioritized right away so we can make sure that that family can be brought into a place of safety. if we see someone having other kinds of distress that maybe don't warrant a fire or an ambulance or a police response, we will prioritize those complaints. we're looking every day, literally every hour from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. seven days a week what's happening with all these calls and doing our best to respond with priority, which is a much better approach than had been taken previously, which is nobody was communicating with

anybody. now we are communicating between 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. seven days a week on each individual and each call that comes through. one of the most important things we do is we have identified the highest-needs individuals in our city that are struggling to get indoors and with housing. and we are working with other agencies to protect people's privacy rights to help those individuals come indoors. if we need help from fire or police, we're able to get that. at the end of the day, we're helping -- for every person we help -- for every person that we're helping get off the streets, there's three newly homeless people, nearly 6500 newly homeless people in 2018 alone. it sometimes feels we're shovelling water or not making the progress that we should, but we are providing critical or important services to, like i

said, 12,500 people every single day in the city. most of them, formerly homeless and in housing, and many of them receiving outreach encounters or other assistance, the team is part of a largest system of care. [ please stand by ]