[applause] >> let's give another hand to the lightning singers, the red women lightning singers. there are three people i want to think as we close. first, nicole, the senior adviser to the mayor for helping us put together today. give us a wave. secondly, and finally i want to thank elise of the the department of the status of women. please waive. she held -- she helped put all of today's logistics together. i want to thank all of my staff at the department. please join us for a very large group photo which we want to do really quickly. everybody come on up.

francisco. >> my name is fwlend hope i

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

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

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

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

hosting us and i am pleased to be joined here with a number of our leaders including my partner in these initiatives, supervisor mandelman as well as our new district attorney. and members of the task force. i just want to thank all the members of the task force who participated in this process. i think supervisor mandelman and i had a conversation when he and i talked about this task force and what he wanted to do with it , and he said specifically to me, i don't want to do a task force that does a report that just sits on the shelf and that is really what i am excited about. and implementing the task force this force this year, we have recommendations that we are not only working to implement, but we are going to see hopefully real results as a result of the amazing work that the task force has done.

we know that in san francisco we have a serious problem with meth use. in 2018, over 126 people died of a meth overdose and the number of overdose deaths from meth rose over 500% in the last 10 years. meth use is a public health and a public safety issue in our city. we know that meth is not only providing substance use challenges in san francisco, but we need to make sure that we have a citywide approach to address the combined challenges of substance use, mental illness , and homelessness in particular. and that is why, along with the department of department health, we announced a comprehensive plan for those who are most in need of mental healthcare and substance use treatment entitled "urgent care s.f.." with this, we include building a

new system of care coordination, outreach, and lower barrier services, and harm reduction designed to meet the specific needs of the 4,000 people who we know our dual diagnosed. several of the meth task force recommendations are prioritized and urgent care s.f. in february this year, we combined this task force under the leadership of supervisor mandelman with three goals in mind. to decrease health risks for people under the influence of meth, to identify best practices for treatment and service options, and to reduce the negative medical and social impacts of matthews for all san franciscans. over the past six months, the task force has met to understand the specific challenges that meth presents for our city and to develop recommendations that would help address this issue. and the report issued today

details the findings as well as 17 recommendations. several of the recommendations go hand-in-hand with our goals around urgent care s.f., which include creating a meth sobering center, strengthening our mental health and substance use crisis response, increasing the availability of safe indoor spaces such as drop-in centers, shelters, and navigation centers , expanding case management and wraparound services, and expanding availability of treatment beds at multiple levels. some of these recommendations, it's meth sobering centers, are new efforts and we are working to implement those well several build upon the work that is already underway. by creating a trauma informed sobering sight for people who are under the influence of meth,

we will have a place where people can go or can be taken td where staff will be responsibly trained to help them. in addition to creating a safe place for people to sober up, the center will be a place where we can connect those individuals to services. the department of public health is currently exploring locations for the center and our plan is to have at least one of these centers open within the next three to six months. we have already taken action on a few of the recommendations that were mentioned are -- earlier. in september we announced a partnership with tipping point community to open up another 14 hummingbird psychiatric west -- respite beds. we also announced a plan to expand the hours of the behavioral health access center, to increase the availability of safe indoor spaces and help those who need it get connected to care. we are also making progress on

adding another 1,000 beds to our behavioral health treatment system. we have already funded 212 beds in the last year across the continuum of harm reduction treatment and recovery services. the issue of meth use also connects with our efforts on expanding conservatorship in san francisco because the new conservatorship allows us to extend the benefit of care to treatment, to people with mental illness and substance use disorder. we know that among people with at least psychiatric hold halls, nearly nine in the 10 are users of meth. and as we work to implement a successful conservatorship program, it is important we understand the overlap between matthews and eligibility for conservatorship. we are making progress and we know that progress is not moving fast enough, but we need to be

responsible in how we coordinate the right systems so it actually delivers the results we need to have an impact on what we see out on the streets every single day. it is one of the reasons why i hired the first ever mental health reform director this year to really analyse the system, to find out what the challenges are , and to work on solutions. there's not one solution that is going to get us to a place where we need, but we see the problem, we understand the challenges, we understand the data. the data is going to help to inform the decisions that we make so that we can get real results. we are making progress and one of the recommendations of the task force was to strengthen our mental health and substance use crisis response. under urgent care s.f., we will add more behavioral health resources to accompany police

on-call through our 311 system so that our police department is working hand-in-hand with one of our street medicine team workers so we can again provide people with care and get them into one of our sobering centers if necessary. we will take action on the recommendations to expand case management and wraparound services, specifically by reducing the patient to provide a ratio so that we can really get the kinds of results that we need, adding staff to handle the additional cases is also critical, and our next steps include taking action on these recommendations. my office will carefully review the other recommendations included in the report and determine which one will move forward and which ones will be incorporated into the work we are already doing with urgent care s.f. i want to thank the members of the task force for dedicating so

many hours to this work, this very critical work. the report and set of recommendations will be extremely helpful as we move forward to address meth use that is hurting so many people in this city. i now have the pleasure to introduce the person who has really been leading on this charge, supervisor mandelman is the person who came to me about this issue early on to talk about the challenges that existed. he knows that i care about opening safe injection sites and that has been a focus of my administration and i am really optimistic that we are closer than ever before to getting there, but he really highlighted the fact that we are seeing the number of folks who are dying on our streets with methamphetamine increasing significantly, and so he has been the leader on shining the light on this issue

and i am hopeful that because of his leadership in this work, we can take these recommendations to the next level so we can see a difference and we can help save lives. ladies and gentlemen, supervisor raphael mandelman. [applause] >> thank you, madame mayor. thank you for your commitment and persistence in making the changes in the city that everyone agrees need to be made, and for your fortitude and making those changes that are necessary, but not everyone agrees need to be made. san francisco has a meth problem i think we all know it. we all see it on our streets, in our hospital emergency rooms, in our jails and too often in the growing list of san franciscans dying from overdoses. among homeless san franciscans who have died on our streets, methamphetamine was the most commonly present substance showing up in 47% of deaths.

now this is not the first time san francisco has engaged on the issue of meth and its impacts in our communities. it was nearly 15 years ago that then then mayor newsom and supervisor dusty convened the city's first meth task force focused on its impacts in the queer community. i know there are some veterans of that effort here in the room, some of them were part of the task force. the task force, that task force didn't important work and helped lead innovations and modelled the response that our task force has studied and i think it's really appropriate that we are here in this aids foundation building. thank you for your work and thank you for giving us or a thomas and make, where is make? there he is. laura is back there. okay. they made such important contributions to the task force but have been doing amazing work

on drug policy and helping folks out for many decades, a couple decades. i will stop before i get in any more trouble. [laughter] this task force and the report we released today is not really the beginning of a conversation, and it's not certainly the end of the conversation. it can't be. i believe we have made important contributions to that conversation. today, meth addiction is still very much a queer issue in san francisco, but as me know, and as the report documents, it is also a public health crisis that threatens the safety and well-being of vulnerable residents across the city, in every community, and threatens those communities. the report contains 17 recommendations and we can't go into each and every one of them here. i want to highlight a couple of them in particular. the first recommendation is to

create a trauma informed sobering sight with integrated harm reduction services for people who are under the influence of methamphetamine. drug sobering centers were the task force's top recommendation. across a spectrum of participants, whether law enforcement, service providers, people with lived experience, everyone agreed that we need places that are not psychiatric emergency services, that are not emergency rooms, and that are not jails for people who are meth intoxicated or in a meth -induced psychosis. safe space for them to be and it leaves the communities from which they came safer. this is something we must do and i am so grateful to our mayor, her team, and dr. colfax for their commitment to making this happen on an expedited timeline. the second recommendation of the task force, which also, i

believe it was the second-highest recommended recommendation, was to strengthen the city's interdisciplinary behavioral health crisis response. i hear almost every day from constituents who are seeing folks in distress, folks in psychosis pretty much every day and they have no idea what to do , who to call, how to get a response. they call 311, it doesn't work. they feel nervous about calling the police, and so what the mayor recognizes and what has worked its way into urgent care s.f. and what will be moving forward are other responses so that san franciscans who are seeing neighbors and distress have a number they can call, and app they can dial, and they can get, in realtime, an appropriate response it isn't necessarily the police. if you need a police officer, the police need to be there, but ideally, it is not the police. so that is something that i think will change lives, both for folks who are in crisis, and for the communities in which those folks are living.

there's a third recommendation that is buried way down there. it is item number 17. it is actually really important and it is strength collaboration -- strengthen communities -- communication and collaboration among city agencies and providers. i want to highlight this because it is the reason that dr. bland exists. i want to thank mayor breed for creating this position, for recognizing the need to look across city agencies, to look to our nonprofit partners, to bring folks together to get out of the silos and to have us working together towards common destinations and towards getting care to the people who need it. we can do this. i don't want to steal dr. colfax 's thunder because i think he may say some similar things and i will -- i will say again. we know we can do this because we have done it before. the san francisco model of h.i.v. care was innovated by a

city that had been abandoned by the federal government to deal with really challenging public health crises here at the local level and although we were angry , and many of the folks here protested the federal government's inaction in the department of public health, and other city agencies, and in our nonprofit partners, we innovated and we created a san francisco model of care that has now resulted in new h.i.v. infections dropping below 200 for the first time. that is amazing. we will get to zero, but the fact we were able to do it there gives me hope we can do it here with our behavioral health services. and dr. bland will get us there. thank you, again, mayor breed for all of your work and all of these behavioral health issues. it can't be done in a day, but you have not rested a day since you have started. i am grateful for that. i want to thank my cochair, i want to thank the d.p.h. staff

who work so hard on running these all of the members to do such extraordinary work in your work lives and to go above and beyond every day but who gave us the wisdom, the expertise, the experience to come up with the report that i think really does make a useful contribution to the conversation. i am excited. thank you. [applause] >> i also want to take the opportunity to thank and recognize a commander who is joining us from the police department, as well as brent andrews from p.r.c. some amazing community partners. we have two more speakers and at this time, i would like to ask dr. grant colfax, the director of the department of public health, to say a few words.

>> thank you. i think before i started, you announced i was going to be cochairing the task force. [laughter] >> i am really pleased. it is great to be here with so many colleagues and friends and having worked on this issue for several decades, i think this is an amazing day as we move forward with recommendations. the health department, with so many did -- was only partners in the room, we do big things. this is one of the next big things that we are going to do. i want to thank mayor breed for her leadership in this and my cochair supervisor mandelman, and all the members of the task force, and the public health team that really helped move this forward. and i think very importantly, the people who are living or in recovery with meth addiction because i think that their voices in the room, the courage they show to coming forward, ensuring what needs to be done in helping us come up with solutions is really, really key

to us moving forward. i'm committed to ensuring that the recommendations of this report are implemented. we did that with h.i.v. and we will do it with this. we can get this done. i also think it is important that while we think of meth as a substance addiction and having very concerning health consequences as a result of that , including overdose, we also have to frame this in the broader context of health and wellness. that has had effects on strokes, it has effects on cardiovascular health. we know the documentation on the h.i.v. so providing a broader contextualized approach to how we address people who are using meth, meet their needs, and people who are at risk is really key. this is an evident -- evidence-based community informed report that will save lives. i think sometimes when we issue these reports it is really important to remind ourselves of that. it will save lives as we

implement. it will also improve the quality of life for all san franciscans where -- we are all affected by the meth epidemic and today we're coming together to do something about it. i think i want -- one of the key things that stood out in the task force is that san francisco is a city of compassion and we are driven by the conviction that all individuals deserve an opportunity to achieve their health and wellness goals. we courageously demonstrated leadership on so many friends. i said we would do big things from our approach h.i.v. to implementing healthy san francisco, to implementing the affordable care act, our approach to hepatitis c, we can do this going forward. we know that lives are being lost to meth today and the people struggle with this destructive substance -- half of

them come voluntarily seeking help. they begin to provide summary and will free up valuable space and resources to treat more people in our city's emergency rooms. we can make changes to the system that will make a difference. we have operated a sobering center. we will build and what we have learned from that to implement this sobering center and others. we have heard stories of hope, learned about promising treatment and dug into the data that talks about the problem. we will continue to do the work. we need the community and all of you to improve san francisco and

take on this danger to our families, friends and neighbors. together, we can and will make a difference. >> thank you. now a few words from mike from the san francisco aids foundation. >> thank you. thank you very much. i'm a little bit nervous. i will read my statement here. i want to comment. i agree san francisco has been courageous. i'm very passionate about the work we do at this project and we have been working with meth users for over 15 years. i am a member of the task force and i was a member of the last task force years ago and the director of the foundation.

it was funded in 1997 by michael seaver and served by gay and trans men who have sex by men and some trans women who have substance use concerns, including challenges with the use of crystal meth. it was founded as one of the first programs and as a result of one of the first treatment on demand recommendations over 20 years ago. our program allows participants to enter at all levels of substance use, misuse, and/or dependence. for a first 10 years, the project's focused our work specifically on substance use services and treatment solely within the intersection of meth -- matthews and h.i.v. transmission and infection. at its conception, we were seen as radically different than the care offered at most substance use counseling and treatment programs due to our harm reduction approach.

thanks in large part of the funding of the san francisco department of health and the san francisco aids foundation, many donors and other funders, we remain strong and have expanded our substance use services including our low barrier and free harm reduction services offered through our innovative harm reduction center on sixth street and in san francisco's does san francisco soma district and other locations in the castro. we recently started our program to offer our evidence-based continued seat management that serves meth users beyond services for gay, by, and trans populations to nongay identified meth and other stimulant users. as it is called out in the task force recommendations, the san francisco aids foundation has been working to expand all easy access services. we have been expanding our program in partnership with our other behavioral health efforts and other treatment in support -- and support providers throughout the city.

we offer low barrier overdose prevention and substance use counseling and support injection and noninjection drug users in the streets and other drop-in services. i am proud of these recommendations. it they recognize what our vision has known all along. at the aids foundation, the substance use programs expect all methods to get help with meth concerns and other substance use concerns. we will continue to dig deep and innovate along with the city and other departments to effectively offer the type of low barrier and other support and treatment services and outreach recommended for enhancement and expansion at the task force recommendations. at the aids foundation, i

applaud mayor breed and for their support to support a task force. it was charged in larp -- large part to recommend ways to improve our system of care or substance use on our streets. the san francisco aids foundation and our c.e.o. look forward to partnering with the city to realize the vision of the task force recommendations. i believe when we accept drug users without stigma, and in a state -- and in all states of health, mental health, and

substance use and misuse, we have nothing to gain but vast improvements in serving all residents with substance use concerns to improve health and functioning. low barrier services like those recommended today offer particular improvements for community members not ready for more intensive or traditional treatment options for easy access service options, support, drop-in centers, case management , more accessible substance treatment and supportive policy on all levels of healthcare delivery. thank you and please join with us to support the recommendations put forth today. [applause] >> chair peskin: -- >> thank you. and another great partner in this effort he will say a few words is what andrews with p.r.c. [applause] >> it is wonderful to be here. i am just looking down the line here. thank you for allowing me to be

part of the analysis and the processes. you are my mayor and i support you fiercely. we have known each other for years. thank you for leadership. you and i has -- have to find a new place for dinner. when the man was speaking, i all i could think is don't say that don't say that because that is in my speech. he will just hear that one more time. [laughter] i want to thank the mayor and the supervisors for understanding the importance of convening the methamphetamine task force. as we seek to address the critical issues of the day, homelessness, mental health, and substance use issues, we could not have achieved that successfully if we didn't fully

address the growing crisis of meth and its effects that it is having on our community. over the past eight months, the task force came together with a shared goal of seeking to decrease health risks, identify best practices and reduce the negative social impacts that they are having on san francisco under the 17 recommendations, the creation of the sobering center is key among them. rather than being an opportunity to take someone to the psychiatric emergency services, the sobering center would provide an appropriate alternative, giving them access to outpatient services and other community-based mental health and substance use treatment services. it understands the value of an effective program, as many of you know, in partnership with the city, thank you, mayor, we are in partnership with the city

on hummingbird place. it is a low threshold barrier removal navigation center located on the campus of zuckerberg general. this innovative general program addresses the cross-section of substance use, mental health, and homelessness. with many people transitioning into one of our nine residential treatment sites. sometimes they have been there only for their very first time. they have been on the street this long. they have made the decision for themselves. this homelike environment when someone is off the streets and feeling safe, and supported with three meals a day and shower facilities, and a homelike environment and a beautiful -- i call it nature therapy. when you are able to be off the street and out of duress and finally make that decision for yourself, that you want to show up for yourself and live a life of dignity. i know we can do that. one out of every four individuals that comes through comes into treatment. these programs are effective.

it is clear that when we come together with our shared values leading the way, there is nothing that we cannot achieve. i'm pleased to be part of the process and look forward to partnering with the city and the limitation of many of these implementations from the task force. i want to thank the mayor, supervisor mandelman, dr. grant colfax. i am looking forward to partnering you. i want to acknowledge the many nonprofits who are in the room and across the community. it is across -- it is reason why we are able to apply this system of care. thank you. >> thank you. last but not least, i would like to say this is not a new challenge for our city. when we think about even going back as far as 1960s, the heroin epidemic, into the 70s and the 80s with a crack at get -- epidemic all of the drugs

sadly that have really destroyed lives and destroyed communities and destroyed families, we know that we can't just turn a blind eye. we have to think about ways in which we can make sure that providing help, providing support integrated into what we do in our medical system. it has to be something that is accessible to all people and not just those who couldn't afford treatment. i have been out in the community on a regular basis. when i talked about safe injection sites, it is interesting that whether it is a wealthy neighborhood, and in between or poor neighborhood, i always have someone who walks up to me and tells me about their child, about their friends, about their family member, struggling with an addiction. none of us is immune to the struggle. it could be anyone of us. it could be any one of our family members or friends. i do think it is important that

we have better access to treatment on demand. that we have better access to supportive wraparound services and they may not accept it on the first, second, or third time , but we have to make sure that regardless, it is available , it is accessible, it is easy to get to. and that is why we need to start looking at how we provide services for those struggling with substance use, for those who sadly are struggling with mental illness. we need to look at a new way of doing things so it is naturally integrated into our medical system in a more comprehensive, responsible way that has a tremendous impact on people's lives. that is the goal of what we are trying to accomplish. using data, using medical experts, using nonprofit organizations, working together with the city to provide something that will effectively deliver so that we can see a difference and we can save lives

that is the ultimate goal and i want to thank each and everyone of you for your work on the task force and all that you do to help us advance the goals of what we need to do to make san francisco a better city for each and every one of us. thank you all so much. we spoke with people regardless of what they are. that is when you see change. that is a lead vannin advantage. so law enforcement

assistance diversion to work with individuals with nonviolent related of offenses to offer an alternative to an arrest and the county jail. >> we are seeing reduction in drug-related crimes in the pilot area. >> they have done the program for quite a while. they are successful in reducing the going to the county jail. >> this was a state grant that we applied for. the department is the main administrator. it requires we work with multiple agencies. we have a community that includes the da, rapid transit police and san francisco sheriff's department and law enforcement agencies, public

defender's office and adult probation to work together to look at the population that ends up in criminal justice and how they will not end up in jail. >> having partners in the nonprofit world and the public defender are critical to the success. we are beginning to succeed because we have that cooperation. >> agencies with very little connection are brought together at the same table. >> collaboration is good for the department. it gets us all working in the same direction. these are complex issues we are dealing with. >> when you have systems as complicated as police and health and proation and jails and nonprofits it requires people to come to work together so everybody has to put their egos

at the door. we have done it very, very well. >> the model of care where police, district attorney, public defenders are community-based organizations are all involved to worked towards the common goal. nobody wants to see drug users in jail. they want them to get the correct treatment they need. >> we are piloting lead in san francisco. close to civic center along market street, union plaza, powell street and in the mission, 16th and mission. >> our goal in san francisco and in seattle is to work with individuals who are cycling in and out of criminal justice and are falling through the cracks and using this as intervention to address that population and

the racial disparity we see. we want to focus on the mission in tender loan district. >> it goes to the partners that hired case managers to deal directly with the clients. case managers with referrals from the police or city agencies connect with the person to determine what their needs are and how we can best meet those needs. >> i have nobody, no friends, no resources, i am flat-out on my own. i witnessed women getting beat, men getting beat. transgenders getting beat up. i saw people shot, stabbed. >> these are people that have had many visits to the county jail in san francisco or other institutions. we are trying to connect them with the resources they need in

the community to break out of that cycle. >> all of the referrals are coming from the law enforcement agency. >> officers observe an offense. say you are using. it is found out you are in possession of drugs, that constituted a lead eligible defense. >> the officer would talk to the individual about participating in the program instead of being booked into the county jail. >> are you ever heard of the leads program. >> yes. >> are you part of the leads program? do you have a case worker? >> yes, i have a case manager. >> when they have a contact with a possible lead referral, they give us a call. ideally we can meet them at the scene where the ticket is being issued. >> primarily what you are talking to are people under the influence of drugs but they will all be nonviolent. if they were violent they

wouldn't qualify for lead. >> you think i am going to get arrested or maybe i will go to jail for something i just did because of the substance abuse issues i am dealing with. >> they would contact with the outreach worker. >> then glide shows up, you are not going to jail. we can take you. let's meet you where you are without telling you exactly what that is going to look like, let us help you and help you help yourself. >> bring them to the community assessment and services center run by adult probation to have assessment with the department of public health staff to assess the treatment needs. it provides meals, groups, there are things happening that make it an open space they can access. they go through detailed

assessment about their needs and how we can meet those needs. >> someone who would have entered the jail system or would have been arrested and book order the charge is diverted to social services. then from there instead of them going through that system, which hasn't shown itself to be an effective way to deal with people suffering from suable stance abuse issues they can be connected with case management. they can offer services based on their needs as individuals. >> one of the key things is our approach is client centered. hall reduction is based around helping the client and meeting them where they are at in terms of what steps are you ready to take? >> we are not asking individuals to do anything specific at any point in time. it is a program based on whatever it takes and wherever it takes. we are going to them and working

with them where they feel most comfortable in the community. >> it opens doors and they get access they wouldn't have had otherwise. >> supports them on their goals. we are not assigning goals working to come up with a plan what success looks like to them. >> because i have been in the field a lot i can offer different choices and let them decide which one they want to go down and help them on that path. >> it is all on you. we are here to guide you. we are not trying to force you to do what you want to do or change your mind. it is you telling us how you want us to help you. >> it means a lot to the clients to know there is someone creative in the way we can assist them. >> they pick up the phone. it was a blessing to have them when i was on the streets. no matter what situation, what pay phone, cell phone, somebody

else's phone by calling them they always answered. >> in office-based setting somebody at the reception desk and the clinician will not work for this population of drug users on the street. this has been helpful to see the outcome. >> we will pick you up, take you to the appointment, get you food on the way and make sure your needs are taken care of so you are not out in the cold. >> first to push me so i will not be afraid to ask for help with the lead team. >> can we get you to use less and less so you can function and have a normal life, job, place to stay, be a functioning part of the community. it is all part of the home reduction model. you are using less and you are

allowed to be a viable member of the society. this is an important question where lead will go from here. looking at the data so far and seeing the successes and we can build on that and as the department based on that where the investments need to go. >> if it is for five months. >> hopefully as final we will come up with a model that may help with all of the communities in the california. >> i want to go back to school to start my ged and go to community clean. >> it can be somebody scaled out. that is the hope anyway. >> is a huge need in the city. depending on the need and the data we are getting we can definitely see an expansion. >> we all hope, obviously, the program is successful and we can implement it city wide. i think it will save the county millions of dollars in emergency

services, police services, prosecuting services. more importantly, it will save lives. >> usf donates 100-120 pounds of food a night. for the four semesters we have been running here, usf has donated about 18,000 pounds of food to the food recovery network. ♪

♪ >> i'm maggie. >> i'm nick. >> we're coe-chairs of the national led organization. what food recovery does is recover and redistribute food that would go wasted and redistributing to people in the community. >> the moment that i became really engaged in the cause of fighting food waste was when i had just taken the food from the usf cafeteria and i saw four pans full size full of food

perfectly fine to be eaten and made the day before and that would have gone into the trash that night if we didn't recover it the next day. i want to fight food waste because it hurts the economy, it's one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world. if it was a nation, it would be the third largest nation behind china and the united states. america wastes about 40% of the food we create every year, $160 billion worth and that's made up in the higher cost of food for consumers. no matter where you view the line, you should be engaged with the issue of food waste. ♪ ♪

>> access edible food that we have throughout our lunch program in our center, i go ahead and collect it and i'll cool it down and every night i prep it up and the next day i'll heat it and ready for delivery. it's really natural for me, i love it, i'm passionate about it and it's just been great. i believe it's such a blessing to have the opportunity to actually feed people every day. no food should go wasted. there's someone who wants to eat, we have food, it's definitely hand in hand and it shouldn't be looked at as work or a task, we're feeding people and it really means so much to me. i come to work and they're like nora do you want this, do you

want that? and it's so great and everyone is truly involved. every day, every night after every period of food, breakfast, lunch, dinner, i mean, people just throw it away. they don't even think twice about it and i think as a whole, as a community, as any community, if people just put a little effort, we could really help each other out. that's how it should be. that's what food is about basically. >> an organization that meets is the san francisco knight ministry we work with tuesday and thursday's. ♪ ♪ by the power

♪ of your name >> i have faith to move mountains because i believe in jesus. >> i believe it's helpful to offer food to people because as you know, there's so much homelessness in san francisco and california and the united states. i really believe that food is important as well as our faith. >> the san francisco knight ministry has been around for 54 years. the core of the ministry, a group of ordain ministers, we go out in the middle of the night every single night of the year, so for 54 years we have never missed a night. i know it's difficult to believe

maybe in the united states but a lot of our people will say this is the first meal they've had in two days. i really believe it is a time between life or death because i mean, we could be here and have church, but, you know, i don't know how much we could feed or how many we could feed and this way over 100 people get fed every single thursday out here. it's not solely the food, i tell you, believe me. they're extremely grateful. >> it's super awesome how welcoming they are. after one or two times they're like i recognize you. how are you doing, how is school? i have never been in the city, it's overwhelming. you get to know people and through the music and the food,

you get to know people. >> we never know what impact we're going to have on folks. if you just practice love and kindness, it's a labor of love and that's what the food recovery network is and this is a huge -- i believe they salvage our mission. >> to me the most important part is it's about food waste and feeding people. the food recovery network national slogan is finding ways to feed people. it's property to bring the scientific and human element into the situation. >> there are kids and families

ever were. it is really an extraordinary playground. it has got a little something for everyone. it is aesthetically billion. it is completely accessible. you can see how excited people are for this playground. it is very special. >> on opening day in the brand- new helen diller playground at north park, children can be seen swinging, gliding, swinging, exploring, digging, hanging, jumping, and even making drumming sounds. this major renovation was possible with the generous donation of more than $1.5 million from the mercer fund in honor of san francisco bay area philanthropist helen diller. together with the clean and safe neighborhood parks fund and the city's general fund. >> 4. 3. 2. 1. [applause]

>> the playground is broken into three general areas. one for the preschool set, another for older children, and a sand area designed for kids of all ages. unlike the old playground, the new one is accessible to people with disabilities. this brand-new playground has several unique and exciting features. two slides, including one 45- foot super slide with an elevation change of nearly 30 feet. climbing ropes and walls, including one made of granite. 88 suspension bridge. recycling, traditional swing, plus a therapeutics win for children with disabilities, and even a sand garden with chines and drums. >> it is a visionary $3.5 million world class playground in the heart of san francisco. this is just really a big, community win and a celebration for us all. >> to learn more about the helen

diller playground in dolores park, go to sfrecpark.org. please call the roll. [roll called] this is a recreation and park commission meeting of october 17, 2019. welcome to everyone here today. we kindly remind you to turn off electronic devices and take any secondary conversations outside in order for the meeting to proceed. if you would like to speak on any