i'll remind guests today to speak slowly into the microphone to assist our captioners and interpreters. the agenda -- [inaudible] >> media services, can you assist?

okay. good afternoon, everyone. thinks the mayor's disability council public meeting. friday, february 21st. a reminder to all our guests today to speak slowly into the microphone to assist our captioners and interpreters. the agenda is as follows. public comment. initial public comment is open to all items not on today's agenda. but within the jurisdiction of the mayor's disability council. we welcome the public's participation during public comment periods. there will be an opportunity for public comment at the beginning and end of the meeting as well as after every item on today's

agenda. each comment is limited to three minutes. to address the council, please complete a speaker's card available at the front of the room, or approach the microphone during public comment, or call the bridge line at 1-415-554-9632. the clerk will handle requests to speak at the appropriate time. council will respond to inquiries after the meeting to commenters providing their contact information. co-chair report. report from the director of the mayor's office on disability. our first presentation is presented by mohcd. there will be time for council questions and public comment. there will be a 15-minute break

after the first presentation. the second presentation access to city employment, the ace program, is presented by the department of human resources. there will be time for council questions and public comment is welcome. then there will be time for open public comment. correspondence to and from the council. council member comments. and announcements. and then the meeting will be adjourned. >> good afternoon, i'm helen pelzman, i'm co-chair of mayor's disability council and both myself and stephen herman serve as co-chairs of this council. this is my first council chair experience, so please bear with me. thank you.

>> co-chair pelzman: good afternoon, and welcome to the mayor's disability council, it's friday, february 21st, 2020, city hall is accessible to persons using wheelchairs and other assisted mobility devices. listening devices are available and our meeting is open and sign language. ask staff for any additional assistance. to prevent electronic interference with the sound system and respect everyone's ability to focus on the presentation, please silence all phones. the mayor's disability council public meetings are held on the third friday of every other month, although that is changing a bit since we have now increased our meetings from 6 to 9 annually. please call the mayor's

disability council for further information or request accommodations at 1-415-554-6789. or by e-mail at mod@sfgov.org. thank you. we're starting this morning -- excuse me, this afternoon. what did i forget? >> reading and approval of the agenda? >> oopsy. >> co-chair pelzman: okay. do i read the agenda? or is the agenda submitted? is there approval of the agenda? is that how this works? roll call first. okay. let's see. roll call taking from the front

page. herman here. pelzman here. madrid. marshall-fricker present. senhaux? sorry. she's not present. orkid here. smolinski? here. williams here. yu present. and we have a quorum. so reading and approval of the agenda -- we've already done that. so item -- do i even -- is there public comment? >> there is one public comment. just step up to the microphone. are you jennifer?

you're jennifer? welcome, jennifer. >> i am the integrator at the community campaign. have you noticed that sidewalks get lost around construction sites? have you noticed that san francisco departments are not enforcing safe pedestrian passageways around construction zones? we have to create a search party for sidewalks.

the sidewalk search party has been meeting since may 2019 on making sure temporary pathways around construction areas are accessible for all types of ability. now we are taking to the streets. i want to invite you to the sidewalk search party action. on wednesday, march 18 at noon. we are meeting on the corner of 12th street and south van ness across from the paratransit. we will provide you with rubber ducks. everyone should download the 311 app onto their phone before coming to the action.

311 also has a website, or you can call to make a service request. if you call, remember to mention seeing rubber ducks at the sidewalk. to stay updated, please join our search party facebook group. we hope to see you on march 18th. thank you for your time. >> thank you for that. it sounds like a fun event. >> we hope you come. >> and just speaking from my own experience, my current -- my road is completely torn up right now. so i feel your pain as well. all right. now what? >> co-chair herman: anybody else? >> anybody else commenting?

>> co-chair herman: did you submit a card? >> i have not, i can do it if needed. >> co-chair herman: it's okay. >> i'm linda, cofounder of vitality health. a mobile social support platform for people's health, caring and wellness journeys. what we do is create personalized circles of support around our users, their loved ones and community. i'm here to share that vitality is actively recruiting for research participants for beta testing and support for our ongoing development of our platform. more specifically, to solve specific issues around aging and disability in the city of san francisco. i am from here. and hope to be able to help solve some of the specific issues coming up here today.

i can be reached at info @ vitality.co. i can also be reached by phone at (415) 494-7926. you can also text message us at that phone number. thank you. >> could you spell your name for us? >> absolutely. minda and last name, aguhob. and our website is vitality.co. thank you.

>> any other public comments? then we will -- we have a co-chair report? >> co-chair herman: i don't have anything. >> co-chair pelzman: i don't either. we can move on with our agenda. our first presenter today is maria benjamin, the deputy director of housing and community development. the presentation will be addressing accessible housing for people with disabilities. hi, maria. >> good afternoon, commissioners. again, my name is maria benjamin. i'm so happy to be here. we were supposed to come earlier this year, so i'm glad to be here now, and to provide

information about the affordable housing units that the mayor's office of housing and community development is sponsoring. there are part of those tornup sidewalks are because of new construction of affordable housing developments. and there are the mayor's plan is to have 10,000 new affordable units by 2025. we are well over halfway to make that goal. in fact, we're close to it now. and so that's the good news. there are -- affordable housing comes to -- city-sponsored affordable housing comes from different places, right? so we have affordable housing that comes to us through inclusionary -- the inclusionary ordinance, where a developer,

it's the law here that the developer either includes the units in a new building, or they pay a fee. and what the mayor's office of housing and community development does with the fee when they pay the fees, we take that money and then we turn it around and lend it to nonprofit developers who build 100% affordable housing. and in that 100% affordable housing, we have a requirement to provide accessible units. mobility and communication units. in the inclusionary buildings, we call those bmrs, below market rate units, in those buildings, those are in privately owned buildings and they do not have a requirement to provide mobility and communication units in those buildings. so what i'm going to talk to you about today is the affordable housing units that are in the

multifamily buildings that we call 100% affordable buildings. in those new construction builds, new construction codes say that 5% of those buildings have to -- the units -- have to be mobility. and 2% must be communication units. we double that as a requirement. and we use tax credits to help fund those buildings. and so our requirement is 10% of the new units need to be mobility and 4% have to provide communication and -- communication units. all of the units in a building, in 100% affordable building,

must be adaptable. all of the units must be adaptable. but only 10% and 4% have to actually have full features in it from the jump start. we also have been rehabilitating units through the -- red stands for rehabilitation rental assistance -- thank you -- demonstration. i'm glad you're here. [laughter] we also have been rehabilitating units that were formerly owned by the san francisco housing authority, public housing. those units, we call it rad, there are over 3500 of those units we have rehabilitated and they're in very old buildings. when we rehabilitated them, we

had the requirement to make 10% of those mobility and 4% communication, however, they're very old buildings. some of them don't have elevators. and so we received a waiver on that 10% to go down to 5%, which is to be able to make 5% of those mobility and 2% communication. we were very successful at doing that. 27 of the 28 buildings that we rehabilitated reached that 5% mobility in the rehab. and we were able to make the regular standards of 4% communication units in those rad rehab buildings.

shifting gears. in our marketing of opportunities, i know that's mostly part of my presentation here to you today, is to talk to you about how those units that i mentioned are going to be marketed. okay? and how we ensure that they're really going to the people they were intended to go to. the marketing is key. since 2016, we have devoted -- we've made so many improvements since then. the dahlia system, database of affordable housing listing and information, that's the system i'm going to talk you through and walk you through. that system is only part of the changes we've made since then.

we've also really standardized the eligibility criteria in some of the buildings. you could go -- if you were looking for affordable housing, you can go to one building and they'd have one set of criteria and one application and different and then you go across the street, if it was another nonprofit development, they have a whole another set of criteria and a whole different process, and we have completely mitigated that and made one process here in san francisco. one process, one application process, one way of resident selection, and we have resourced the -- the mayor's office of housing and development have resourced our ability to monitor and track and make sure our non-profits are actually doing what -- what we intended them to

do -- for them to do. we have staff that ensure that they're conducting targeted marketing activities to community groups where people that need those units, people with mobility impairments, communication impairments can get that information where they're going already. we're sure that the developer is sending information to those folks. we also ensure that they are appropriately reporting to us at the onsite of a building. on site of a construction of a building exactly which unit is mobility-enabled and which units are communication units. they put those into the dahlia

system so that the public can see which units are identified as mobility and communication units. we also ensure that each resident selection criteria has reasonable accommodation information. how does somebody make a reasonable accommodation request? if they live in one of these buildings or they're applying to one of these buildings. and grievance policies and procedures. we have the capacity now to actually look at those things before people are applying for housing. and so we link the resident selection criteria to the application so people can see before they apply what they're getting into. i'm going to actually walk you through -- sonya is helping me

here -- there we go. -- a dahlia application. actually, take me to the link. there you go. we're going to go away from the power point for just a second. i think you have to actually click open. yeah. dahlia is helping folks across the city with one way of applying and one application. and a shorter application. we're not requiring all of the income documents and all of the other documents that we used to require up front before somebody even had a chance in the lottery. we were requiring all that. that is no longer.

so -- can you just show them the home page? that's what dahlia looks like. you have the opportunity to apply for either a rental opportunity or an ownership opportunity. if you click on the ownership, there are several ownership opportunities available right now on dahlia. they range in price. that one on top i guess is $187,000 all the way up to $599,000 available to different income eligibility requirements. >> maria, i have a question. sorry to interrupt your presentation. could we see what one of the units looks like? >> on the inside? >> exactly. no. and i know that emily from digital services came and did a presentation and let you know that is in our pipeline and it

hasn't happened yet. it hasn't happened yet. currently the system can only have one picture, so folks actually have to go to the buildings during the open house or info sessions to be able to see the interiors, but it is on our pipeline of adjustments that we're making to the dahlia system. we have so many things that we want to change with that system. we're very blessed, we're very happy we have it, and it's not complete yet. but that is one of the things that we have on our list of amendments to make to the system. >> i was the one that asked for the images and we asked in september of last year. >> and it might be not until next year that we get that amendment made to the system. we're working with digital services. we have a team of folks -- we haven't contracted dahlia out to

another contractor or vendor who can, like, zip up things. we're working with the department of digital services and they do have dedicated staff to dahlia. we have come a long way from the -- just the application. and then we added -- and the reason why -- another reason it's taking a long time is because we're not just creating a system and saying here it is, use it. we're creating a system piece by piece. and we're saying here's this piece, use it. what do we need to do next, public? what do we need to do next? we take this information and we fix it. and then we put out the next piece. what do we need to do next? it's millions and millions of dollars to create a system like this. we don't want to create it without public input. but it's taking a long time. it's taking a long time to make some of the amendments we need

to make. so i understand and i am aware that you asked about that in september. and we had put it on the list before you even asked about it. and it's for many reasons, sometimes you look at the outside of a building, oh, great, i wanted to live there, you go through the hassle of applying and you get there and the unit is so small, or it doesn't meet your family's needs, so it really is on our list. it is a priority. it's just taking us a while to get there. >> thank you. >> yes, i want to go to the rent side. every week there is an available rental unit on dahlia except this week. so i can't show you an active rental unit. but we're going to show you the -- one of the units that has recently closed, that recently

had a lottery, that has mobility and communication units in it. and the -- if you create an account on dahlia, you're able to go back in and look at the lottery results. you get your lottery ticket information right away. right after the lottery, you're able to see how you did in a lottery. it's a big improvement from the past. so this lottery happened, oh, a while ago. and when you are applying, you will see that you can get the income information about the unit, like how much the minimum income is, how much the maximum income is for the units available. it also shows you that there are accessible units in the listing.

on section 4, and it says -- i can't read it, it's too small -- in this building, there were three mobility units and six communication units. other way around, sorry. of course. and it lets you know -- in the application process, when you're actually applying, it asks you the question. if you're in a certain unit -- when you're looking at a unit, if you're interested in a particular unit, it will show you that unit is accessible or not and what kind of accessibility it is. so if you're income-qualified for a studio, you click on the studios and it will show you all the unit numbers of the studios

that are accessible and what type of accessibility they have offer. that one, you see the mobility impairments on unit 283 and 302. because i can't show you an application, i can't show you the questions that we ask before -- while someone is applying. but here on the slide, do you need any of the following ada accessibility features? and then folks can check the ones, all of the above, or none of the features that they need in the application process for the lottery. oh, boy. we have all of the policies and procedures about how we monitor the lease, how the lottery --

how we go in lottery rank order, how the city's housing preferences inter-mingle with the mobility, with the distribution of the mobility and communication units, and that's all in the procedures manual on our website. it's also -- we are absolutely going in lottery rank order, but there is more. units that are -- have the features, mobility and communication features are not offered to people unless they have indicated that they have the need in their application. our project sponsors fill all of the -- all of the units in lottery rank order and should there be someone that needs that

unit in lottery rank order, they would offer a mobility unit to them. but they wait until the end to fill those units. if no one with a higher ranking lottery number indicated they needed a mobility or communication unit, then those units are all to the end of the leaseup. then they filter those applications for folks that did indicate it. and they go directly to the people that indicated need to offer them those units. so, none of the units that -- since 2016, since we've had this system, none of the units that were -- that are mobility or communication have been offered or inhabited by people that don't require those functions.

not only are we monitoring that lottery process, that lease-up process, but we're also monitoring after the lottery. i'm sorry. i want to make sure i'm covering everything here. say no one on the list said they needed a mobility unit and they have 10 mobility units, they would then go back up to the top of the lottery and offer those units to somebody who doesn't need them. mind you, this has not happened, but they would do that. but that person signs a special lease. their lease says that if someone presents themselves that needs that mobility unit, they must be

transferred to a unit that does not have those special functions. we also monitor the documentation for accessible units. so, you know, if someone presents themselves and there is clear mobility issues, there is no need to require them to submit documentation. if the mobility issues are not clear, then we ask for documentation. we want to make sure that people who really need the units are using them. and sometimes someone will check on their box that they need a mobility -- full-featured mobility unit, but all they really need are grab bars,

right? so we are monitoring to make sure that our project sponsors aren't giving those full-feature units to somebody who just needs grab bars. all of the units are adaptable, so, we're making sure that a building owner puts someone who just needs grab bars in a regular unit and adapts that unit for that, so that we're not wasting that full-feature unit. we are also monitoring wait lists. okay, so this is a new function for mocd as well in the last couple of years. it used to be wait lists for affordable housing. man, you could be on a wait list for 10 years and never hear a thing. and that's not the case anymore. after the initial lottery, we

create a wait list for the project sponsors and we filter that wait list by the folks that have indicated they need mobility or communication unit, so that if one of the units becomes available, they go to that wait list instead of the general wait list. and they do it in lottery rank order. they offer the units in lottery rank order. and they -- they use that wait list to fill every vacancy and then they turn the wait list into us on an annual basis. something we didn't require before, so we can ensure when we're looking at their annual monitoring, we can say, oh, yeah, they had a vacancy this year, it's a mobility unit, did

they fill that from that list or that list? it's very easy for us to monitor it ongoing. they are required, our project sponsors are now required to open their wait lists through the dahlia system so we can better manage all of the units in the portfolio, so that people do have a chance to get on those wait lists. it doesn't mean that a wait list -- if i've been on a wait list for eight years, it doesn't mean that i'm going to be off the wait list because my project sponsor is now doing a new wait list. project sponsors are required to update their wait lists on an annual basis. they send out something to everybody on the wait list that says, do you still want to be on the wait list? if they don't hear back from them, they remove them for the list. if they do hear back from them, they keep them on the wait list. when they refresh the wait list, they put the new people on the

bottom. people have a chance to get on a wait list. they may be on a wait list for many years. once you get in, i wouldn't leave one once i got in, so turnover is slow. but at least the opportunity to get on that list is there. one of the other exciting things, we talked about dahlia and how we're adding functions. one of the functions that we added that we felt like is a real plus is the partners lease-up portal, because we were on spreadsheets before, the developer, the project sponsor, when they were doing the lease-up we were looking at a spreadsheet, now it's all in sales force. all of this that i'm talking about is so much easier to monitor and it's easier for the partner, the project sponsor. their mission is to do affordable housing. they want to put people in the units that need them, but it's hard to manage it.

now they're in the portal and they can see it comes up, it pops up. so if they have staff turnover and their new people didn't know there was enough accessible unit, it pops up when they go to lease out that unit, hey, this is a mobility unit, use the mobility list. so we're making strides -- slow, but strides to really strengthen our ability to monitor what is happening in our portfolio. so our portfolio. since 2007, july, 2007, we have opened 74 wait lists, 74 buildings have opened their wait lists. there have been -- i'm sorry, 74. yes. there have been 154 mobility units -- sorry, a total of 228 mobility and communication

units. 154 new projects. and you'll see on the slide, some of the buildings are built with combinations of mobility, hearing and vision units, so some of them have just hearing units. some of them have hearing/vision units. some of them have mobility units and some have all three. >> excuse me. i'm a little confused. >> yes? >> so the open wait list number refers to the buildings? >> yes. i'm sorry, it's the units. i misspoke. there were 74 mobility or communication units -- pardon me -- 74 mobility and communication units opened through wait lists. >> so 74 units became available? >> mobility and communication

units. >> okay. and then under the new projects, those numbers -- your new projects include 154 new accessible -- >> yes, and they're broken down. >> and those are in new buildings? >> yes. sorry. i did confuse you, i'm sorry. >> co-chair herman: so the total number of units is 228? >> yes. that have come through the dahlia system >> and available now? >> no, since 2017. those are all housed by people that need them. >> so they're taken? >> yes, those are. we have a total in our portfolio that ranges in buildings that were built in the mid 1800s to 2017. we have 317 buildings. and there are over 24,000 units,

total units. not all mobility and communication units. and as you can imagine, building codes have changed over the years since the mid 1800s. most of our buildings were built in the latter half of the 20th century. and some have been modified, some have been partially modified. when they were modified, they were modified to the code at the time of the modification. not necessarily the building -- the code that the buildings after 2016 were modified to. so the data we have on that -- on those buildings is unreliable. it's unreliable for a lot of reasons.

first of all, it's self-reported by the project sponsors. and it is -- the units that -- they're reporting units that don't necessarily meet the current standards, but they're saying that they have these accessible units. and they're reporting accessible and adaptive units. they're not distinguishing between the two. they're also reporting people. like if they have somebody that they know is in a wheelchair in their unit, they're saying, yeah, yeah, we got it. but that unit might not be accessible. so we have some work to do. part of the work that we have started to improve this

situation with those buildings is to continue to require them to come in to the dahlia system to open up their wait lists, because at that time we're able to document exactly what unit is what, whether it has been adapted or whether it's a full accessible unit. they get mad at us, because we make them go and actually look at the unit and document that, but we need that information to be able to report to the public what is in the building. when we find that a tenant in a unit that is a full accessible unit does not need the unit, then we ensure that they are in a lease that says that they have to move if someone presents

themselves. a lot of the buildings also will do -- >> excuse me, we need to ask you to wrap up in like five minutes, because we need to provide time for questions. >> i'm almost done. >> perfect. >> so we're ensuring that they are doing those transfers if they need to do the transfers and that they are documenting the units. we need to ask better questions, right? we need to ask osponsors how may requests have they received for an accessible unit in a year and how did they fulfill that request? because we need to know what the universe is. and how many requests for a

modification have you and how many units have you adapted? and are you fulfilling those requests as they come to you. so those are lessons that we've learned and that we're always trying to improve the -- the information that we can give out to the public to strengthen our more monitoring of the buildings. and we would love to partner with mod more and when everybody finds a unit, if there is somebody reports that, hey, you know, this unit is not adaptable, they won't do this for me, people do come to us and we definitely follow through and definitely will investigate as we can. we also, you know, the wait list thing, if buildings are opening

wait lists, we find that some sponsors might open a wait list without our information, without notifying us and we get that information as well and make them hold up. you have to do it the right way. we make them go back and go through the process so that we can identify units in the process. that's my presentation. i'm happy to answer questions. >> co-chair pelzman: thank you for that. i have a couple of questions and i know my fellow council members do as well. so i really appreciate that presentation. my first question is, how many disabled individuals are waiting to get into an accessible unit? do you have that number? >> no. >> co-chair pelzman: a rough estimate? >> no, we don't have that number

for even the general public of how many people are waiting to get into affordable housing. i can tell you how many people are applying, you know -- >> co-chair pelzman: i mean on the wait list, who are identified as needing accessible housing. >> yeah, for sure. on each wait list, yes, absolutely. we can tell you by building. >> co-chair pelzman: could you provide us with that information? >> we can provide that for you through the dahlia system for sure. >> co-chair pelzman: that would be great to know. i'm curious what your marketing efforts are? what they are? what you're doing? >> we require -- one of the newer requirements is that, how about putting a sign on the building? there are affordable housing units coming.

that's a newer one. but for these specific units, we require that project sponsors reach out to independent living resource center, to lighthouse for the blind, visually impaired, to support for families of children with disabilities, and then any other groups within a neighborhood that might provide -- that do provide services in that community. in addition to those, they must reach out to at least 10 other community organizations serving the community where the building is. some of the more traditional

avenues of advertising for vacancies. >> co-chair pelzman: is this marketing campaign out of your offices? >> no. it's done by the developer, by the project sponsor with us monitoring it. >> co-chair pelzman: okay. and let's see. >> we're also looking to -- out of our department, we're looking to do bus and transit posters with the dahlia information and about how to apply. that hasn't come yet, but we're working on making that happen. >> co-chair pelzman: thank you. we have co-chair stephen herman with a question. >> co-chair herman: okay. i actually want to thank you for your presentation. it was very informative. i want to make a couple of statements first and then ask a question. is there a way -- i would like to see us link your marketing

procedures to the website for m.o.d. i'd like to be able to do that. or d.a.s. website. that's just a statement. >> sure. we can work with nicole and see. >> co-chair herman: yeah. i would like to know -- i'm hoping that there are subsidies for older buildings that want to do modifications. if you could provide us with, at some point, some information about what subsidies are available to building sponsors that may want to change an apartment? we had a public speaker at one of these meetings and he said he is in a building where he has to crawl to his door to get to -- because it's inaccessible, he's in a wheelchair. so if there is an owner who wants to update, if you could

inform us about what subsidies are available for owners to accommodate accessible needs, that would be helpful. and then i would -- this is the question. do you have any numbers that you can share with us on how many disabled or mobility-needs or communication-needs have been filled within the last year? or within the last six months? either one. >> sure. >> co-chair herman: could you do that today or do you not have that information? >> this is melissa. >> co-chair herman: hi, melissa [laughter]. >> melissa is the staff person that monitors all of the lease-ups of these buildings. and she has to go -- we have to go to print out that information. we can do it. >> co-chair herman: yes, i would like to see that information. so if you could provide that for

us. placements within accessible units from your list, i guess, your wait list or lottery list, how many within the last six months or the last year. >> sure. >> co-chair pelzman: next we have helen smolinski. >> council member smolinski: thank you, helen and thank you for your presentation. two questions. do you know the average time somebody spends on the wait list? and would you also happen to know how that compares to the average wait time of a person on the wait list who requires accessible housing? >> it's building by building. so i can't -- you know, i can give you the average, but some buildings might go faster than other buildings. depends upon the location, the

size of the units, all those things. >> council member smolinski: you had mentioned years earlier. >> it is years, but -- it is years, but if you need an accessible unit, you are going to move faster at initial lease-up than the general public because we are making sure that a project sponsor goes down that list until they find you. and so, while being on wait list is being on the wait list and it just depends on when people move, getting that initial unit is much shorter sometimes for people who need these units. >> council member smolinski: okay. follow-up. why is it only applicable

initially? >> well, because there are more units available. there are -- you know, 10% of the units are set aside for mobility. 4% of the units are set aside for communication. so you know, you're -- we're prioritizing filling those units for people that need them, so we'll go down the list until we find them. on a wait list, somebody who is in one of those units has to move. >> council member smolinski: and then it's subject like all the other units -- >> no, no, no, we still go to the list of people that need them. >> council member smolinski: right. >> but like i said, if i was in one of those units -- >> council member smolinski: right, people like to stay when they get in. sure. lastly, a point of clarification, you had started out by talking about public

housing versus the all affordable housing that your office oversees. versus private buildings, privately owned. public housing, is that -- what we're talking about is that federal stuff? >> yes. >> council member smolinski: that's a whole another ball of wax. >> whole other ball of wax. >> council member smolinski: all right, thank you. [please stand by] [please stand by]

>> we have discussed this we're talking about one central wait list. we kind of think that right now, it might cause more delays and more problems than it would solve. it's not off the table. it's just not something that we're prioritizing now. >> thank you. i think with the creation of

dahlia and this is like one application. there's movement in the right direction. one of my other questions was around these adoptive units. if i request reasonable accommodation, who is paying for that? >> usually in our portfolio building, the project sponsor pays for that. you're asking for an adaptive unit in a privately owned building, nine times out of ten, that private owner is going to require the tenant to pay for it. >> i thini think i heard. wasn't sure what the parameters were around that. one other questions, you did mention the wait list annually. the person will be notified to see if they still want to be put back on the wait list? do you know if that notification is happening in multiple ways, especially if people have different kinds of accommodation of how they can receive and read

information? >> question asked project sponsors to do that. we ask them to send something in the email, we ask them to send email. we're working on text abilities because a lot of our folks use cell phone more than they would email. some our project sponsors don't have the capacity or ability to send multiple texts out. we're working on that. >> councilmember yu: it sounds like at least two? >> yes. phones are hard because it's like 500 people. they don't have the capacity to call all those people. something they can send out at once. >> councilmember yu: my last question, we actually had someone give a public comment at one of our meetings a couple of

months ago around affordable housing units, minimum income threshold for people who are reto ouretore-- retired or oldel security benefits. when you went over the website, the lowest number that i saw was $2000 a month. what are the options that are available for people who don't meet that threshold. >> not enough affordable housing. what is affordable, right? for many years, affordable housing here in the city was built targeting people at 55% of area median income or 60%. the buildings that offer where you pay a third of your income, whatever your income is, towards the rent, those had huge subsidies from hud or some other

source. those are not built in the same way. rarely you'll see a building like that where people will pay third income in rent. in 2018, there were some adjustments made to the inclusionary program to lower some of the units, to lower and raise -- in this city, if you make 100% of area median income, you still can't afford to stay here. there has been adjustments made both to the affordable housing that's being built through tax credits and also through inclusionary to make a bigger range of wider range of affordability to serve a wider range. it's very disturbing to us as well. the su -- we don't have enough

subsidies. we need enough subsidies. >> co-chair hermn: i'm glad you mentioned you have expedited application process. we're hearing from people that it's complicated and there's two-step application process. if you can combine it to be a one-step process and something that will be easier, would be much more efficient for people to fill out and not take more steps. you don't have to answer that. it's just something i'm putting out there so that you might think about that in the future. the second thing is we got an email, two things.

i don't know if this is true, some people complained, they believe that accessible units are being given to people who do not have mobility issues. i want to make sure that is not happening. >> they are doing it, they are cheaters and forging documentations. because we begun this aggressive monitoring of these units, it's not happening. i don't know what happened before. >> co-chair herman: these are old buildings that are not compliant.

elevators are broken. new buildings are accessible and have units that are usable. many people are on waiting lists for dahlia and section eight in old buildings in are not accessible. can people in wheelchair can be put on new buildings without losing their place in the waiting list? can some units be held with people with disabilities who need housing it instead of other people on the waiting list? we heard that. this person's point is they are being asked to take up units that are in older buildings that don't have tells? that's not acceptable. >> we have another member of the council who wants to ask a question. she's going to be doing it remotely. she's not? okay. >> co-chair herman: just to wrap up, you want to make a quick

comment? >> the challenge we have with that is that these buildings are owned by staff and into entities. to be able to say that you're paying rent to one entity but now another entity has to take you is a challenge. we have not met that challenge. i know that it's a problem. we are working with our elevator rebate program and helping building owners that are old buildings that the elevators are broken down. they aren't fixing the tells to be able to provide them. it's really expensive. >> thank you. i would like to thank you for

your presentation today. we need to move on to the director's report. i also like to comment that i hope i'm speaking for the council and if not, somebody would chime in. we would like to continue working with you in trying to address some of these issues that we've raised today. also, to ensure that our disabled community has an advocate at the table. not questioning whether or not you're advocating for us, i want to put that out there. i love to hear back from you about how we can proceed. >> absolutely. i'm there with you. >> great. thank you again. >> thank you very much. >> do we have any public comments? now we're ready for the director's report.

>> we do have one public comment. >> good afternoon. thank you for the excellent presentation ms. benjamin. early in the presentation, you spoke about the r.a.d. program, which enable lot of the older housing authority units to be renovated. i understand that was 27 or 28 buildings and about 3500 units. you mentioned the waiver to allow 5% instead of 10%. i'll point out that is the difference between 350 versus

only 175. there was lot of mentioned back and forth about public and private and we've been trying to sort out that issue. it's very complicated. your private-owned buildings -- my question and comment relates to how these projects are processed through the building process under the california building code. for public housing, there's stricter requirements under chapter 11b of the building code where privately owned is often processed under chapter 11a of the the building code. you happen to know if the r.a.d. project were processed? chapter 11b was a greater accessibility standard. this confusion extends

statewide. i'm participating on a statewide committee trying to sort of straighten out the definition of public versus private. there's a lot of confusion with the hybrids, everything from it tax credits to things like the r.a.d. program. i'm trying to understand it myself. thank you. >> good afternoon, i'm a colleague of maria at the mayor's office of housing and community development. i worked on the r.a.d. portfolio pretty much for two years. i did want to say, it is unfortunate we couldn't do the full accessibility upgrade on the r.a.d. projects. we're in state of emergency as h.u.d. declared our housing authority troubled. we're under the gun to get these

units rehabbed and get them out of the public housing system to allow the housing authority to regain its financial footing to get the units in shape. it's about $2 billion portfolio. the city put in $100 million. we had to get everything done in two years, which is unheard of for our industry. you have projects in three or four years. however, these units, they have been previously public housing, they will be affordable housing. they did under the code, meet that definition of "public housing" that your caller is talking about. they did go into d.b.i. under that classification. all those projects were monitored by d.b.i. and fully permitted when they were public housing however, they were not

run through d.b.i. m. of the -- much of the time. public housing authority do not have to comply with local housing codes. >> what housing code do they have to comply? >> federal housing code. >> co-chair pelzman: any more public comment? do you want to comment? we're just checking the public comment line. we have another public comment. orkid is on the line and like to make a comment. go ahead, orkid. orkid, we're on the line. do you have an interpreter through the telephone provider?

orkid, if you send your question to my email address, we can bring that up for comment later in the program. maybe we can have that addressed my mohcd. at this time. would you mind if i introduced him? we had forgotten about the director's report. i wanted to introduce james whipple. he is the deputy director of m.d.c. in nicole's absence. i like to introduce james. >> hi. james whipple acting deputy director.

since nicol nicole is in absenci guess i'm acting director. i don't have a formal report. there were some public notices that i guess director bohn wanted to report on. i think fees have been put in the record. i can read them off. >> that's fine. unless there's something that the public needs to be made aware of. there's an urgency. >> you maybe more familiar than i am. >> just some quick updates for the community change makers is still taking place at the downtown main library. we got superfest activities, dance, classes and we also have conversations with some filmmakers there.

please interact at the main public library through out month of march. we have super tuesday coming up. the department of elections in san francisco is inviting people with disabilities to come and learn how they can cast their vote. there'ses on of resource -- there's tons of resources. we have 2020 census information at the office of civic engagement, they're looking for people to help and people with disabilities are welcome to assist. off mohcd eats presentation, they're inviting public comment for the year 2020-2021. those are our updates for now. >> orkid is back on the phone. >> councilmember sassouni: i apologize for that. i was having a technical problem. i can see the interpreter, but we got disconnected.

this is a housing question. this question is in regards to housely problem. tthe people filling out of the application, they don't understand why there's not enough money. for the housing, what happens is that there are some people that are willing to do like maybe a video interpreting. lot of them don't they say there's not enough money to provide an interpreter for.

there's the responsibility for the deaf individual to pay $500. is there any way to get a grant that would be able to help the situation and improve it? there's nothing there. there's no alarm that lights up. there's nothing there for them. how would people be able to get out of building if it's on fire and there's no fire alarm. this is like affordable housing problem. we need to find somebody that can work with the deaf communi community. like an educational, workshop there so that the people providing services will understand what is really needed. a.d.a. will be broken. that's not right.

>> co-chair pelzman: thank you for that. unfortunately, maria and her team had already left. we offer to follow up and start formalizing a working relationship with mohcd. i encourage you to include that when we have a chance to sit down with them. i apologize, they walked out couple of minutes ago. >> i have a few comments to add. >> councilmember sassouni: , that will be fine. that was just one of my issues i wanted to bring up. >> the city of san francisco requires as of july 2020, that fire alarm upgrades be done for housing projects. that will be under way here

shortly. >> stephen has a comment. >> co-chair herman: helen and i will be drafting a letter to a marie thanking her for her presentation in writing. we'll be including request for information. this is an open invitation to all councilmembers to commit to us within the next week, any questions that you would like included in our or follow-up information that you would like to have, included in the letter that we will be drafting to maria. before anything goes out, we will review the final document with the full council and with m.o.d. please get request for

additional information to us as soon as possible. >> thank you. we're going to take a 15 minute break. we'll reconvene a >> co-chair pelzman: our next presentation is by porsche bunton. this is an update on the ace program. for people like me who don't know what the ace program is, can you tell us what the acronym stands for? >> the employment program. >> thanks so much. please start. >> thank you for having me. my name is porsche bunton.

i'm the diversity recruitment manager for department of human resources. today i'll talk about the ace program, give details about expanding our program, which i'm happy and giving an update and lastly discussing how i have a great vision and idea of an amazing event i want to put on at the end of the year and i'm asking for help on how to do that just to start off, the access to employment program is was started in 1985 and that is because individuals in the community, in the disabled community, was focused on expanding employment opportunities in the city as well as -- well, expanding opportunities in the city despite the civil service rules and the process of taking the exam. civil service rule allows for departments to fill positions

without having to go through the civil service process. the advantages for job seekers is that they don't have to take the civil service exam. and if they do take the exam, it increases their opportunities to having two routes to employment. >> i'm going to ask you to go a little slower, porsche. >> okay. the goal of the ace program in the beginning when i came on, before i came on board, there was no representative of this ace program. so all 64 of our departments and many more now were meant to do the program on their own. there was no consistent process. department of human resources along with our committee that we put on had really suggested that we really needed a designated person to do this program. i came on board in 2016 as a designated recruiters to support

this program. and from there, we've made many strides in expanding and doing many more which we'll talk about today. again, the goal of the program is increase employment opportunities. it's also opportunity for departments to have flexibility. as you may know, departments discuss the long hiring process. we've been able to expedite that by department, by having them hire a candidate while they, either wait for positions -- sorry, we help departments fill vacancies. because of that, they don't have to use the exam process. we make it easy by having classifications on our web page, which we designed two years ago. and those classifications are on a continuing basis. applicants can apply at any time. we do a lot of outreach to the

community on a weekly basis. once we get a candidate pool, we send that pool to the departments and they can request to view that at any time. another part of the reason why ace is such a great program and the goal of it was because we want to make sure we increase diversity in our workforce. the requirements of the ace program. if an applicant is going through the civil service rule 115 ace program, there are requirements. one of them is the classification must be entry level. we were able to define that when i came on board by two definitions. that is the first classification in a series. for example, if we have health worker 1, that has 4-5 different positions in this pathway. health worker 1 is the entry level class.

we also have classifications that don't have any career ladder. so those are standalone positions. examples of that can be a recruiter, a health program coordinator and/or one of them is a registered nurse. those are eligible for the ace program as well. many people in the community may not look at that as entry level classes, but we wanted to be able to give an opportunity to individuals with all different skills and levels of experience to be able to enter the city. we didn't want to put a definition of entry level as many people assume are custodians and very basic entry levels. we wanted to expand it in that way. another one of the requirements is that the individual must have a certification of disability letter. and thank you to our amazing partner, department of rehab, they actually take that under their wing and they really walk

candidates through how to be successful. our liaison in san francisco does a fantastic job in marketing the program. he has something on a monthly basis. don't quote me on this, but i believe it's the second tuesday of the month, where he puts on workshops in the community. so job-seekers can come and get a very -- a huge understanding of opportunities in the city. he walks them through the department of rehab certification. informs them of reasonable accommodations when they are required and requested. and also informs job-seekers to use department of rehab as a partnership in case they do need accommodations, they're able to voice that to the department of rehab and the department of rehab works alongside the city to make sure we give the appropriate accommodations needed. in addition to that, on the department side, positions must be designated. so because of departments not

being mandated employer, they are able to do this openly by saying you know, porsche, we have 70 positions up this year, we want to dedicate 10 of them to the ace program. they let us know in the beginning of the fiscal year, in july, departments have a huge vacancy need like now and they say, hey, we have vacancies available, we want to see how we can use ace. we'll discuss a lot of the departments that have taken it upon themselves to use the program. i'm h.r. professional meetings on a quarterly basis. we're doing -- trying to do a lot more events in the city community. like in october, for this national disability employment awareness month, we want to be able to do something where we get departments and the community together. so we're very active in the community. we try to keep our departments

engaged so we're always in director meetings to let them know about the ace program, especially for the ones that haven't used it at the moment. while in the process of rule 115, the position is actually a one-year probationary period and our civil service rules, so we turned the position from permanent to permit exempt. we had onboarded someone to focus on the one-year retention of the ace program. we have a management assistant that does a fabulous job in that. and what she does, she monitors the one year making sure that performance appraisals are on time. and if anything is in the appraisal that needs to be brought to my attention, she makes sure we know that so the

candidate is successful in their one year. we haven't had many retention concerns, however, we do have concerns around making sure that individuals still feel supported in the ace program. even after their one year. and that is something we're still trying to figure out what that looks like for us. because we've done a lot of walking individuals through the process from beginning to the end. now we're seeing that there is a need to make sure that they are understanding about promotional opportunity, they're understanding reasonable accommodations can be added even if you're not in the ace program. we're trying to see what that looks like and that's one of our priorities for this year. the benefits of the ace program. we do a lot of selling of benefits on both sides because it's a program that is win-win for everyone. the job-seekers definitely get an opportunity to see if the department that they selected is the department they want to be

in, but also gives departments an opportunity to know that individuals that come through the ace program, it's not the only route they can come in through. and making sure we're giving departments some type of training, disability awareness training so they know how to support individuals with disabilities even when they come into the working place. the process of the ace program is faster than the regular hiring process. as we may now, the regular hiring process can be anywhere from about 80-120 days to fill. and the ace program, we expedite that for an department by already having applicants apply for positions on a continuous basis. we've hired more staff in the ace program and reviewing applications in a faster route. last year it was just myself and we received over a thousand applications. now that we have a team, we're

able to expedite those applications faster. the departments get the flexibility to fill the positions faster. the department of rehab is always there on our side to support us. if a department is very small and requires additional support, department of rehab is there to support them. now discussing our pool of candidates. so last year -- a couple of years ago, last time i spoke was in 2017 here. and in 2017, i talked a lot about doing everything manually by myself. there was no process. i was reviewing applications. paper and reviewing resumes and sending resumes to departments. and we realized it was a lot of work for one person. so we really worked the department of human resources really supported me in putting this on jobs apps, which is our applicant tracking system.

we had the exam team create private links for us where we can add continuous recruitment on the web apparentpage. in 2017, we had no marketing strategy. now we have a web page. we have assistance with marketing in the community. every career fair, where disability is on the name of it. we've made great strides in marketing and outreaching. because of that, we received over a thousand applications. it's a good thing, it's a good problem, but then my concern next was, we don't have a thousand openings. so i worked with city attorney alongside the department of human resources director mickey callahan and she really supported me in bringing some departments together and talking about how we can expand the ace program. although we have the civil service rule that restrained us from doing what we want to do, the city attorney and i came up with consistent agreement we can expand the ace program by using

exempt appointments, which is temporary exempt and permanent exempt. and that way we can have more flexibility where it doesn't limit us to entry level classifications. we did that and started that at the end of 2017. as you can imagine, wed a lot -- we had a lot of applications, but now we had double that. we opened up all classifications. we opened up the department of public health, airport, and department of public works to support us in our pilot for that one year. they started with entry level classifications, so some of them include junior clerk, clerk, administrative analyst, civil engineer and some airport i.d. technicians. that was, honestly, the one year where we saw so many placements happen. we were thrilled of the results.

after coming back, after the one year, we revisited the pilot program and decided we're going to put this in place. we started marketing the ace program as an umbrella of departments can either fill permanent positions entry level, or any appointment if it's an exempt appointment. that gives an opportunity for candidates to try out a position for 2-3 years and then from there take an exam. and they have multiple opportunities to take the exam. in that time, sometimes they may also be eligible for 60 promote points which is a big plus for some candidates that have worked six months in that position. so there is benefits in coming in exempt, where many people in the community may not know, our goal is to make sure we do workshops around educating our job-seekers about those opportunities. >> excuse me, for those of us

who don't know the distinction between exempt and nonexempt. can you explain that? >> so permanent exempt, it takes longer to get because you glue the examination process and it's also a process where it's a journey to go through it. once you get in it, you're permanent after completing your probationary period and we call that a position where, again, it's permanent. so you have rights to your position. in the exempt appointment, those are usually at-will positions. and those can range all the way up to six months to three years and sometimes can be extended. you receive benefits, however, the only difference is that you're not in a permanent position. >> exempt positions transition to permanent positions? >> for high level? no. so in order for you to be eligible for the permanent status, you would need to apply

and go through the civil service process if the position is higher than entry level. >> thank you. >> the slide that i'm showing here is the benefits of the exempt appointments. we've provided some benefits of departments can schedule interviews right away. usually when departments state they have an exempt appointment they want to fill, we post the position on the ace web page. and we give the applicants about 3-5 weeks and then we share and broadcast that out to the community as best as possible. we then close the recruitment by removing it off the list and closing the recruitment to review applications. then we forward the application to the department. the departments get a week or two to decide how they want to move forward. they can move forward with candidates or they can decide to simultaneously post the recruitment and have a huge recruitment to broaden up their applicant pool.

from there, departments can select a candidate. once they select an ace candidate, it's under the same umbrella of rule 115, the only difference is that the position they're in is a term-based and the exempt appointment can be three months to six years. we encourage the applicant to again apply for the position no matter when it becomes available for permanent status. we walk them through the journey. some success stories, we've done this last year and we've had many of our applicants transition to permanent status by continuously applying and having an advocate to say, hey the recruitment opened, apply for this, walking them through the challenges of what the exam looks like. letting them know, don't wait long to take the exam, because if you don't do well, you have three years do it again. that's the benefits of going into exempt. the opportunity to be in that position and try it out and not have to feel like you're stuck in it if you're in it. you have a way to say, this is

not working. i want to transition to something else. and they have that opportunity to do so. the rule 115, because it's a probationary period, they don't have that freedom to say they want to move around. they need to stay there and finish their one year. or they can decide the position doesn't work and they start back at the beginning, job search all over again. i wanted to provide you an example of the steps to our process and show the benefits of why the ace and exempt are important. again, when you go through the civil service process this is much lengthier, it does consist of meeting the minimum qualifications, taking the exam, being placed on the eligible list, and making sure the department has vacancy, where they may not be a vacancy. where in the ace program, if you see a recruitment that is continuous, it means either there is a position available or

we know it's coming down in that quarter, so we plan in advance for a large applicant pool to be provided. we wanted to share some accomplishments because in 2017 i think that was the year where i was begging for a lot of assistance, where this year i feel like we've made a lot of strides to success stories. so just to kind of go into an overview. 2011 to 2015 the ace rule 115 only had seven appointments. that was when departments were doing it on their own with no assistance. in the past four years that i've been here, we've tripled that by doing 55 appointments from 2016 to present. mind you, the first year was very rocky. it was me coming on board to fix the structure of the program. and then the second year was

realizing we had a huge community that wanted help in getting employment. so that was 2017. and then i was also working alongside city attorney that same year to see ways on how to expand it. these were because the concerns in the community was that rule 115 was really limited. then 2018 is when we came with the applicant tracking system. so we moved a lot of that on paper manual work to our tracking system. that's when we started seeing more placement occurring from there. i wanted to share with you what the four years looked like for me. we could have done a lot more, but because we had to structure the program in 2016. so from 2017 to now, departments have been extremely active. some departments concerns in

rule 115 was that they would say, we don't have entry level positions to give. and when we do, it's a one offevery year. tell us how. now is the opportunity where they can be supportive because they can use the exempt process. it's a win-win, they're filling positions faster and we're helping job-seekers enter city service without going through that long hiring process. in 2011-2015 we had five departments that were utilizing the ace program. now we have over 16 departments that utilize it on a frequent basis. our yearly goal is to increase the department by three a year. and now that -- >> could you tell us what the departments are? >> from the top of my head, the active departments in the five years? or -- >> currently the 16. >> i'll have a slide on that shortly. >> okay, thank you.

>> that is the next slide. so our departments that we currently have active are airport, assessor recorder, community college, human resources, public health -- they're our largest so i want to give recognition to public of health, they've done over 39 placements. elections. ethnics. fine arts museum. human services is another big department. they've done 10. library 3. sfmta that a regular classification they use on a continual basis. that was the crossing guards. a lot of the community reached out to sfmta and stated they have a lot of job-seekers that want to do part-time and were

they open to opening that up. and sfmta was amazingly open to doing. we send them a batch of applicants every month. their hiring manager kathy does a phenomenal job interviewing everyone. we don't get that many people, which is surprising, but our goal is to just make sure that we're fulfilling part-time positions as well. so big thank you to sfmta who says they want to make it on a continuous monthly basis. we hope that in a lot of other departments as well. sfmta had 11 placements. public utilities. rec and park. police department and treasure and tax. i wanted to provide ace updates. this comes from our 2017 presentation that i did. these were the goals and just to

be able to know that we've accomplished these goals is very powerful for me, because a person doing it by myself in the past three years, i have to say it was challenging, but i wouldn't have been able to do it without the support from mod and the community out there. so in 2017, we had goals of increasing awareness and the utilization of ace program. the goals were to update and expand the ace website which we've done and completed in 2018. the marketing of the web page testimonials, we have testimonials on the web page, about 16-17 that we rotate informing us about their experience in going through the ace program. we have that on our web page. we continuously do outreach to our city departments and community-based organizations. we've leveraged an applicant-tracking system. we've also explored a pilot

program in partnership with departments to hire individuals and exempt appointments. these were all goals we put together with mod, the committee in 2017, and they've all been accomplished. so i just want to say it's a phenomenal, great feeling. this is really exciting and a passion of mine. my goal is to really come up with an event where we honor departments and honor our community, specifically our disabled community and letting them know that we want you to work for the city. and we have departments that want to use the ace program. my goal is to do something where, it's like a conference, where departments talk about some positions they see coming down the pipeline, where they're going to need organizations to support them. and then having our job-seekers talk about the work they want to do in the city.

and then having our individual ace employees talk about their experience and the city culture. and then coming to have community-based organizations talk about how they can support departments. i think some concerns that the departments raised to me is, we want to work with cbo, we just don't know which ones. so what i'm doing to support them, i'm making a recruitment tool kit that will have a list of all community-based organizations that they can reach out to if they wanted to fill vary vacancies -- their vacancies with ace candidates, and work with community-based organizations is important to me. because a team of three can't do all the work. so i want an event that kind of encompasses all of that. so i'm really hoping that the mod and the committee can support me in a way where we visualize what this may look like and plan toward that. i'm happy to do my part in getting departments together. i know this will be great

opportunity. and our community, it will be great as well to bring awareness and also make sure that the number one city employer is doing the right thing, which is getting awareness of what the opportunities are available. so i just wanted to put that out because i think about this every day. i've actually designed something and would love to share that and get feedback about that. last slide is just to know more about the ace program. it has the website, which i strongly encourage everyone to review and provide feedback to me please. we're always looking at ways to improve it. and then our employment opportunity as well, that rotate on a biweekly basis. i thank you so much for having me and i'm open to answering questions. >> you have a question? >> yeah, can you read off the website, so that people can understand it? >> yes. so the website is ht

http//sfdhr.org/ace-employment. >> thank you, i want to applaud your efforts. i think the work you're doing is outstanding. and if there is -- well you stated what you would like us to do. so i would be delighted to help support you in any way and get your budget increased. >> yes, please! [laughter]. >> and get a few more people on the staff to implement this work. it's uplifting to hear about things that are going right. >> thank you. >> so i applaud your efforts. >> i appreciate that. >> we appreciate you.

>> council member williams: i need to get my microphone on here. thank you. thank you for the wonderful presentation. on a personal note, my agency works with porsche and the ace program frequently and i cannot tell you how this has enhanced our ability to place people in the city. so thank you for your many efforts and seeing you grow to where you are now is just -- i don't know another word to use other than a joy. so thank you for all the work you do. >> thank you. >> council member williams: i want to commend you also on your website. i was just there yesterday looking at how you list your jobs that are available. and it's so clear and so easy for people apply to those positions, so i think it's wonderful. and perhaps i missed something on the website, because hearing you talk today, i personally am extremely confused about the

exempt and how that is different than what the ace program is. is there a step-by-step process that is listed somewhere where we can follow how to do that or how that works. >> great question. so on the front end, on the job-seeker side there is nothing different. so when apply for a position, it's going to be various positions you see, not just entry level. in the application, there is an option where you can select if you want temporary exempt, permanent exempt, permanent or all options. and at that time, that is how we filter our applications when a department states they want to select and what that appointment type looks like. >> how would an applicant know what exempt meant and how that would make their job search different? >> and that's a great question. so we are broadening our web page and we're in the works of

that to add that language. we're going to be really focused on our web page. actually, the diversity recruiter we brought on identified this as a concern that they want to work on this year, that is broadening the web page, giving guidelines and also, we've got a lot of questions on what to expect after completing an application. and we want to provide that information as well. so we're looking at expanding that. we will have to work with you as an agency to see questions that job-seekers are asking, so we can focus on those and make sure those are answered. >> council member williams: thank you, that would be appreciated. with the expansion of the staff, i know h.r. has added people, maybe not to your staff, but to the diversity and recruitment process. how is that benefitting and in what way is that benefitting the ace program?

how many of those people are working with you? are you getting the help you need? i think that's what i'm asking. >> that's a great question, yes, i thank you for that. the two diversity recruiters and i have split up all of our departments and we have multiple departments under us. our focus is to use our departments to increase awareness about the ace program. we have a total of over 64 departments. i have about 15 and the recruiters have 30 each. what we do, they focus on the ones that are continuously doing it, but the goal is the ones that have not used the ace program, to reach out to those departments and encourage them to use it. identifying classifications that we can use and encouraging them to use ace within the fiscal year or next and helping them plan for that. we all split up the ace program having it department-based. >> that's great news. i know the answer to this, but

is there a legislative process to change rule 115? does anyone have the power to make that different than entry level into job classifications? >> unfortunately, it would need to go back on the ballot and go through a legislative process. >> council member williams: are there plans to do that? >> as of now, no. >> council member williams: as a council we're able to take this up as a project, we might have influence there? >> yes, yes. >> for those of us that are new, what is 115? >> it was on the -- >> oh. okay. never mind. sorry. my bad. >> it can limit the ability for people who have experience in a job not to have to start at the entry level into a job classification. it's designed for people who are

entry level into a job classification at present unless the exempt skirts around that, which i do not at this point completely understand. >> so we've expanded the ace program to include exempt where the departments are able to exempt for all classifications. yes, so we have added that on to it so we can broaden the program. so under the ace program, you have rule 115 which is permanent entry level and then you have exempt under the umbrella of ace, which is departments can fill any classification in any position. >> thank you. and again, thank you for all the wonderful work you're doing. >> thank you. >> next we have stephen herman. >> co-chair herman: i want to follow up on that and then i have comments from one of the council members who isn't here today, but he asked me to raise a couple of questions. but following up on the exempt, i'm familiar with the exempt because i've hired people at the

college through exempt positions, but it seemed you have a couple of exempt classifications and i got a little confused. you have a permanent exempt position. if a person goes into a permanent exempt position, do they have to go through -- is that a three-month to three-year -- >> correct. >> co-chair herman: and they have to still apply? so how is that different from a temporary exempt? >> we actually put it under one umbrella. so exempt includes temporary and permanent exempt. >> what is the difference? >> temporary exempt is a limited back phil. >> for a short period of time? >> yes, correct. sometimes it can be a loaning extension of a project, but it's supposed to be a temporary duration. >> co-chair herman: then the permanent exempt can be --

>> up to three years or more. >> co-chair herman: and could eventually turn into a permanent position if the person goes through the process and is eligible? >> correct. and we've seen temporary exempt become permanent as well if we're backfilling for a person and they don't come back, then after a while that position becomes permanent. >> co-chair herman: let's get to the questions from a council member who isn't here. he wanted to know, if you can just give me a number if you have it at your finger tips, in terms of 2019, how many people got hired through the ace program? >> that is a great question. we have that number as we keep a rigid placement tracking system. in 2019, from july 2019 to present, i would have to go back to get the exact number. we do have that. >> co-chair herman: could you let us have that? >> yes. >> co-chair herman: he was asking that if an applicant is on the ace program and took the

test and got a low score, what happens? >> great question. so this is a big concern in the community and what i like to inform everyone is when you're going through the ace program, we encourage you to take the exam. it cannot hurt you. it only helps you. so when you take that exam and if you don't rank well, now there is -- i want to clarify this individual's question, because if they're saying i did not pass the exam, then they only have the ace route to go on. if they passed the exam, but they're not reachable, then they still have an opportunity to use both routes. they can interview, the department said -- we do have a lot of departments that do this. departments will say, i want to use ace and interview applicants on monday, wednesday and friday. then i want to interview eligible on tuesday and thursday. they have a right to do that.

if they want to select a person on the ace program who is low on the eligible list, they'll do it. they don't know what level you, but no departments know what number you are on the list. >> do they have to reveal they took the test and got a low score? >> no, we encourage them not to even disclose that, because departments don't care about that information. they just know h.r. gave them a batch of people that were reachable. that's all they care about. i want to make sure i say this out loud because there is a lot of concerns and i don't want there to be. when individuals submit a certification of disability letter, their disability is not noted on that certification. nor is it given to a department. i want you all to know i'm passionate about this program and letting departments know it doesn't matter what a person has as a disability, it matters if they can do the job with or without accommodation. departments know that.

they're aware of that. they never question that. so if any applicants come with concerns that their disability may be a barrier of why they're not getting into the ace program, i would love your help in discouraging them that we don't release that information. we have removed code certifications because departments were curious on what 1, 2, 4, 5 meant. as soon as we noticed that, i called ricciardo and called his director and said, we need to make these changes and they did it in less than a week or two. i want everyone to know we have an amazing process and partnership with the department of rehab who says, if you have concerns, we're willing to make those changes. >> co-chair herman: this is the final question. >> i just want to note the council member is alex madrid.

>> co-chair herman: thank you. he said he's been told that somebody would get back to him and that nobody has ever gotten back to him. so i don't know if you would maybe look into that? >> i definitely will, thank you. >> co-chair herman: do you reach out to old and new applicants and check in with them? >> so, yes, we have a process where we do a -- a department may inquire about an application. we inform applicants that your application will never be sent to a department until we tell you that. so what we do, we do something similar to what the general hiring process is, we say, once we refer your application to a department -- once you apply for a position, we notify you if you met the minimum qualifications. we're eligible to refer applications back. we can never do that in any other process. ace is very unique. we want to give individuals opportunities to continuously apply. so when they're deemed they're

not qualified, we inform them you have an option to revert the application. you can revert it and submit it back meeting the minimum qualifications. once they've met the minimum qualificatio qualifications, we update them in 4-6 weeks. i want to honest. it was just me last year. one thousand applications were overwhelming and now my recruiters are expediting that, so we'll look into alex madrid's application, but it could be we were so overwhelmed last year, we weren't able to hit all of them. that's called a status update. that is usually within 4-6 business weeks. and then we will not say anything until the department has said we want to review applications. we then send a notice update saying your application that been referred to a department for review. please allow 4-6 business weeks and if you don't hear anything, reach out to us.

if they do hear something, we encourage them to tell us because we want to be part of the journey with them. we want to prep the applicant to be prepared for that interview, where they are informed of answering questions where they don't have to feel like they're disclosing their disability. >> co-chair herman: thank you so much. >> thank you. >> next we have helen smolinski. >> council member smolinski: thank you. so thank you for coming back. and thank you for a wonderful presentation and for all your good work. two short quick questions and then a little bit longer one. you mentioned there are 16 city departments that participate as of last year or total? >> total. >> what percentage of that city departments is that? >> i have the numbers back, but

i don't have it with me right now. we were before i even started at 7 and now we've added the 7 into that 16, so we can give you an updated percentage. >> no, no, i mean how many city departments are there total and 16 is what percentage? >> oh. we have about 66 departments. however, a lot of those are very small. for example, csc is one of the departments. mayor office on disability is another small status of women is a small department. i like to say 64, but a lot of those are small departments where we would not be able to do an ace placement, it would be challenging because those individuals stay for a long period of time and never have vacancies.

>> council member smolinski: interesting. what percentage of the ace jobs or the openings are part-time? >> great question. >> council member smolinski: i would think our community is interested in -- more likely to be able to work part-time. >> great question. so a lot of our clerical, 1404, 1402, library page is part-time, our school crossing guards are part-time. we did a placement at the department of public health which is a medical evaluations assistant, nursing staffing assistant and that's part-time. we identify those and put those on the web page as honoring that and also when we market, we say these are the part-time vacancies when they do open. i would say a handful. about 10 classifications can be considered part-time. >> council member smolinski: what percentage of overall classifications? >> in the city, i wouldn't know.

>> council member smolinski: how many placements are for part-time position? 10% a year? 20%? 50? >> i'd say we've done about 10% of placements we've done are part-time. >> council member smolinski: okay. and then lastly, i'm a parent of a severely disabled child and she also medically fragile, so my -- i'm her primary caregiver. i know a lot of parents, like me, are in that position. is there room -- and i can't work a traditional job. we can't work traditional jobs. is there room for parents like us in the ace program? >> yes. i definitely would say that. i think the bigger question would be what type of work that people are interested in. i don't think i quite understand

the question of if -- can you expand on the question? >> i, myself, am not a person with a disability. and that sounds like that is one of the criterion for the ace program. so it doesn't sound like there is a place for parents like us. >> i think the question has to do with could helen be eligible as an ace employee in the service of taking care of her disabled child? >> great question. >> and i was initially thinking i.h.s.s. was designed. >> yes, i.h.s.s. would be best fit. the civil service rules state that the person going into the ace program must have a severe disability that inhibits one or more life daily activities. ihss supports parents that are actually caretakers and supporting them through opportunities. that probably would be the best fit.

>> council member smolinski: okay. again, that is curious. you said a severe disability. >> in the civil service rules, it was severe disability in 1985. we market it as a person with a disability now, as present, because severe disability, many people in the community think, well, i have a surgery, but it's not severe, so we've opened it up. i wanted to say the words severe disability because that is in the charter rules. >> council member yu: hi, thank you for this great presentation and work you guys are doing to close the disability employment gap, as i'm sure you know hasn't moved since the passage of the ada30 years ago. i have one clarifying question and then two questions. one clarifying comment and then two questions. the last time i understood this program it was entry level with no path of advancement, now i'm

understanding it includes exempt, so you can have a little bit of previous work experience. but then it sounds like you're working with the candidates to ensure that after their one year if they decide they want to stay, you will work with them to find continuous employment within the city? >> correct. >> council member yu: that is great to know. you mentioned the one thousand applications that came in. did those all meet the minimum requirements? >> we're still going through a lot of them. a lot of them do not meet minimum qualifications, no. so we're sending e-mails to those candidates letting them know they didn't meet the qualifications and their application is allowed to be everted. we address the them in the e-mail. >> council member yu: the reason i ask that question, i'm taking

a look at the numbers you're saying over the past four years, you've been able to have 86 hires. if i assume 60 of those happened in the last year, when you get 1,000 applications, that's 5% hiring, which means you have so much demand of people as the number one employer in san francisco, i would love to see us figure out a way to support that. >> i agree. >> council member yu: that wasn't really a question, i apologize. thanks just a comment. -- that was just a meant. the last thing, it's the 30th anniversary of the ada in july, so i know october is our national disability employment awareness month, but i would also encourage you in your role with the city of san francisco and ace, how they want to celebrate the people successful in this program alongside this milestone anniversary that is coming up. >> i agree. and i would love to see how we can work together in doing that,

because i find that because of us being a new team, and myself, i don't know what activities look like in other counties. we've seen al ami al amid -- i would love to see from this committee supporting us through that. because we're very short-handed. and it's a huge goal. >> council member yu: one more thing. i think it would be really cool if we were able to get these ace employees on ad spaces during national disability awareness month. just publicly saying, hey, i work for san francisco. that would be great. >> i agree. >> i would love that.

>> that's a great idea. >> let's keep in touch. >> our ace employees, there are some that love this program and if it wasn't for the program, they wouldn't see themselves in the city. they want to share their story. they want to say thank you in such meaningful ways. i think i would love to partner with you. we don't have that much of a budget, so i would just love to share ideas and have thought partners. >> we'll look forward to setting that up. i have a question. and this relates to permanent positions. as a disabled candidate -- i know we're speaking -- i'm asking a question about a program that is not yours, but in the process, the evaluation process, if you select disabled for permanent position if you're applying through the sf gov --

>> the general hiring process? >> exactly. how is that disability determination treated in your application process? >> so i just want to repeat the question. helen, your question was, if i apply to the general hiring process, didn't use ace, and i required an accommodation during, for example, exam time, what does that look like? they would reach out to the h.r. analyst and their h.r. analyst on that job announcement will provide them a paper form. their paper form can be submitted to either medical provider if they know they have a d.o. r. counselor, this is department of rehab counselors. we changed the rules. one of the concerns were that some people may not have doctors. so we have expanded our -- we've been very flexible in that part.

once they submit that back, that paper illustrates i'm a person with a disability and this is the accommodation i'm requesting. that goes to the hands of the h.r. analyst who provides that accommodation and provides notice and works with that applicant to make sure their accommodations are in place. sometimes it as simple as, i'm not available that day, i need to take it another day, or i'm going to need a scribe, and i'm not going to be able to do it in a room of 250 people, so they come to our office to take the exam. there are many different requests. we just asking it's in a timely manner submitted to us, so we can put the accommodations in place before the exam. >> the point i'm trying to get at, and you may not be able to answer, aside from the accommodation component, who or how or if the designation of

being disabled is accessed or made aware of by the hiring team -- so for example, if you are -- i'm using a colleague of mine who actually is this person, he is in a chair, he has a spinal cord injury, but he is a pharmacist. he is reluctant to apply to a city position because he has to indicate that he is disabled. and he hasn't gotten a lot of positive response back. so what i'm trying to determine is that designation, self-designation of disabled, how is that treated? aside -- you can't speak to that, but is that -- i guess it is included in the packet that goes to h.r. for review? >> i wouldn't know that. that is difficult for me to say because i don't work with the general hiring process.

i wouldn't see in a way where this person could disclose their disability along in addition to the application. but i don't know how else they would deem themselves disabled after that. i think our application asks if you want to disclose you're a person with a disability. is that a barrier when they're indicated that? that's not. that application -- it's not an indicator of being a barrier moving forward in the process. but i wouldn't be able to answer a lot of questions about the general hiring process. >> co-chair pelzman: i appreciate that. >> co-chair herman: i have a question. earlier you said you're reviewing the thousand applications and many of them don't qualify. >> correct. >> co-chair herman: what would be an example of a disqualifying

application? >> it can be simply the minimum qualifications? >> which is what? >> of any job specification. >> oh, you mean the job specification would disqualify, having to lift 50 pounds. >> that's the functions part. we don't even go over the essential functions until the department has identified a candidate. what we deem people qualified for is the application they've submitted. so your application in the previous presentation, the requirements of the ace program, one of it is you must have a certificate of disability letter, meet the qualifications. those are the two indicators. one is the minimum qualifications of the job spec. the other is the minimum qualifications for a program. >> could you give us an example for a job spec that has certain

qualifications? >> of course. junior clerk. don't quote me, but i believe it's six months of experience or some credits or both, six months and credits. it's an individual on their application states they have no work experience, but have 10 units, that would be an indicator of not meeting the minimum qualifications. in our e-mail we'll put you did not meet the minimum qualifications because of education and experience. we would list the minimum qualifications and then ask them to provide documentation of how they meet the minimum qualifications. it can also be where a person meets the minimum qualifications of the job spec but doesn't put a certification of disability letter. we would then say you're application is not -- we would state to them you met the qualifications of the job spec, however you're missing your

certification, please confirm you're a person with a disability and i include ricardo in those to support me in reaching out to the candidate to figure that out. >> do we have questions from the public? anybody? anybody calling in? nope. then i get to do this. >> co-chair herman: no, no, wait. oh, public comment. any other item? >> take that away from her. >> stop that. >> any other public statements, items, anybody want to share anything? okay. >> co-chair herman: i have something. there is a conference that is

being put together by tom and dr. tim wilfred and i believe it's march 5th from 1-4. did i send you the flyer on that? i think it's from 1-4 at the lgbt community center. and it is specifically targeted toward seniors and disabled individuals regarding things to avoid from people who are scamming older adults and disability -- individuals with disabilities. and it's a workshop. it's going to be speakers there talking about their experiences and what to look for to avoid. and there will be breakout groups and people will have a chance to talk about their experiences of maybe being scammed and what to avoid. but this is definitely a problem

for the older adult community and the disabled community. so i just wanted to mention that as a public announcement. >> are you aware of whether or not this is videotape or accessible online? >> it's definitely going to be accessible at the event. i don't know if it's videotaped. >> okay. there are some people who may be interested in that and may not be able to make it. >> we have a public commenter. >> hello. this -- it was mentioned briefly as part of the list early in the meeting, so i just want to highlight again the change-makers exhibit at the library. it was -- i learned about it from the january meeting. and i really appreciated that.

it's really terrific. it's inspirational, funny, humorous and i just couldn't -- i can't recommend it enough. 6th floor, the main library. and i believe it continues until march 15th. thank you. >> co-chair pelzman: thank you. anything else? if there is anyone else that would like to comment now, it's open comment. anyone from the public or audience? >> i need a motion to adjourn. >> so moved. >> i second. >> co-chair pelzman: thank you. we are adjourned. cla

>> so today, we have come together for a historic day. today, we gather to honor 50 years of pride. yes, 50 years. [applause] >> this anniversary was hard fought from the days of the freedom -- freedom parade to compton cafeteria riots,