... businesses that are unable to pay rent due to financial impacts related to covid. the ordinance provides that a business is a covered commercial tenant and if it misses a rent payment that originally came due, due to the moratorium, again, because of financial impacts, then we cannot attempt to recover possession of the unit because of the missed payment until the applicable forbearance period. the tenants has combined gross

receipts of -- for taxes 2019, equal to or below $25 million. i wanted to highlight key items in the ordinance that are important for the members of the public to understand. it aligns the moratorium with governor newsome. prior the moratorium was set to expire in a couple of weeks. march 31st. but because of executive order issued by the governor march 4 extending the authorization to allow cities to regulate commercial evictions to june 31st, our moratorium was automatically extended as well. the ordinance provides a repayment period or what is termed as a forbearance period after the moratorium expires. so currently after june 31st. that gives businesses time to

repay the rent. the repayment period for the independent business will depend on the size. but the smaller businesses have up to two years to repay any back rent. for the smallest businesses, there is an additional protection that if they cannot reach an agreement with the landlord, they have the option to terminate its lease prior to the end of the moratorium period. and they would not owe any future rent after the lease termination date. the landlord still has some ability to effectuate an eviction if they can demonstrate either that the eviction is not based on the business's unpaid rent, or other financial obligations. or if the small landlord -- or if a small landlord can demonstrate an inability to evict would create a significant financial hardship for them.

the ordinance does not apply to for-profit-based businesses or businesses leasing property from the city and county of san francisco. as i mentioned earlier, the office of economic and workforce development has provided guidance and technical assistance. we've done this all in collaboration with the office of small business. since march 2020, our office and the office of small business has worked closely to ensure that we can assist businesses and landlords in understanding what the commercial eviction moratorium is all about. we have provided assistance to businesses, property owners, brokers, attorneys and our non-profit partners in a few different ways. one is any party needs clarification on how the ordinance might apply to them,

we will guide them through the ordinance to show them whether or not it addresses their specific issues or situation. if a party needs further legal assistance, we will provide referrals to our legal non-profit service providers. we'll connect the business to other resources made available by our office, as well as other city services the business may need. it's important to also inform businesses and landlords about the ordinance itself because it's such an important tool to help struggling businesses. in addition to providing information, the limits on the website, we've begun to do more outreach through webinars and posting in our news letters and we're going to continue to ramp that up as the moratorium period has been extended and as businesses may begin to -- our goal is to reach every business

in the community and we want to ensure that all the businesses and landlords are aware of the protections, as well as all the other resources we have available. one last point i want to mention. ordinance does provide that the office of economic and workforce development has authority to clarify any portion of the ordinance. when questions may arise, whether the ordinance is silent on a matter, my office works with the city attorney office to address those areas. to date we've provided clarification to four areas in the ordinance and published guidance on our website. we'll provide more information on the office resources and services. >> thank you. and now i'll go over the existing services as of now and where we're going to be adding services. so, you will see here that the

partnership we have with our organizations, there is a few key organizations that provide direct assistance and review. obviously, the lawyers committee for civil rights which i'm glad will be presenting today, so you'll hear more about the work and what they've been seeing on the ground. working solutions. a new partnership with the bar association. and then we also have neighborhood-based grants that support some of our opportunity neighborhoods, very specific in the language capacity and in these negotiations. one is in the tenderloin and second one in the mission, which we'll be launching soon. these will provide support, and referrals if assistance is needed. the extent of our service is not

legal representation. it's more legal advice and guidance. there are cbo, but we'll refer and do intake for businesses that need that support and guide them to where they can get it. annually, those requests are a little over 400 requests that come in annually. now, again -- >> that's the 10-minute clock. >> apologize. so we went over. i'm not sure if the time can be extended or if i should just end here? >> you can go ahead and finish up your presentation. >> i think it would be good to get an estimate of how much longer you think it's going to be? >> if i can get two or three minutes, i will go through these and you have questions, we can come back. so quickly, yes, we work with

these organizations, the direct legal service. what we're currently seeing from l.s.c. at this point in time what they covered in terms of last year's services, this year they've already hit the mark. so easily doubling the amount of requests that they're able to meet with their services. again, as i mentioned, the bar association is a new partnership we're developing. we're going to be adding that level of service. and so again, as you all may have heard already, you know, we've been mentioning that we have been investing in grants and loans. the ranges in terms of the grants have been from 20 thousand and loans up to 50,000 and these may be used to contribute toward rent. next is related to the vacancy rates we're seeing in the city.

and so, this particular -- we can come back during the question-and-answer period. this shows you that across the different sectors, this is the average vacancy rate across these sectors. this is taken from coast star surveys, so it's self-reported information, so this may not reflect the actual vacancy rate. it may be lower. we also -- we track 24 neighborhoods and have been doing so for commercial corridors specifically since 2013. and so we have seen an uptick average across all of the corridors of 3.5% in vacancy from 2018. and we have seen the largest vacancy rate. so here on the right hand graph, it will show the change between 2018 to 2020. and so we are seeing the level

in some neighborhoods that those levels are much higher. and these are the top three where you see the higher change in terms of uptick in the vacancy rate. so on business closures, what i want to mention, this is based on the information from -- business closures and openings include business transfers, so it's not necessarily that a store front shutters and then -- [indiscernible] -- it might just change ownership, so those transactions are captured here in addition to entrepreneurs with open business licenses. so this is tied to business license, but where you see the delta here in terms of the difference between opening and closures, that's where you may get a sense for how we are in comparison to other years in terms of the closures for this

year. next slide, please. and so on this slide, what it is showing is really overall it shows that there is more stability in businesses that are older and have been operating for more than 15 years in comparison to other businesses and closures. and with that, i'm going to end my presentation. and, again, we're happy to come back more in detail to any of the graphs or data. thank you. >> thank you. >> supervisor mandelman: yeah, i want to thank you for that presentation. it does seem like the vacancy -- the vacancy estimates don't seem right. at least in terms of what we're

seeing and what we think we're seeing in terms of closed store fronts. does that information tend to lag? i mean it looks like another year of not that bad honestly. and i don't think that's -- >> no, so we're showing the increase, not necessarily the rate here in the graph. that's what you might be reacting to. so what we're seeing, again in this particular graph are some of the vacancy rates right now are as high as 20-something percent. but this particular chart doesn't show the actual vacancy rate as we have seen it in december. what it is showing is the change. so the comparison to 2018. >> supervisor mandelman: and the highest is 9% on union street? >> right. from 2018.

>> supervisor mandelman: i persistently feel like we undercount -- at least my experience in the castro, i feel like we undercount in reasons that i don't quite understand actual vacancies. and this doesn't -- this vacancy information doesn't seem honestly that alarm -- i mean, it's not great, but it doesn't seem as concerning as a lot of what seems to be happening out on the streets. i'm wondering if you might talk to why there would be that disconnect? >> i'll explain it and invite my colleague to share detail on how we collect the data. this is on the ground, so it is based on the number of total store fronts within a particular corridor. so there is a segment of geography within the corridors. it's not like entire

neighborhood boundaries. it's 24 corridors that we focused on since 2013 to give us a sense of comparison across the city. and how it -- survey, someone goes out there and checks. you may see a closed store front, but the business is still in operation. or it may be there is construction happening. right now, many more store fronts are probably closed because they're not allowed to open. >> supervisor mandelman: how do you know the businesses stopped operating? what is the -- >> there are a few cross-checks that are done there. we use data from the web, like any indication. we get interviews. or if we see they're actually closed, on file that they closed their business, then we count it as closed. >> supervisor mandelman: so this is, i would assume, to show up

as a closed business, there is a few different thresholds, including it looks closed, shows up as closed. i'm going to say, this is an underrepresentation of the vacancies. >> but it's also a perception right, because there may be more closures when you see it, but the business is not actually closed yet. it may be reopening. i want to make a point that as of december, the last count, as businesses reopen, there is fluctuatingses that may be impacted. i would say that's a point in time over the year. so, we'll be checking to see how that rate changes. but at this moment in time, brian, i want to invite you in case there is any other detailed information you'd like to share, other than what i've already said.

i see supervisor ronen has her hand up. >> supervisor mandelman: i have one more question. >> good morning. this is brian. o.e.w.d. i'm glad to share on the screen here -- let's see -- the actual -- we will send this to you offline, but the actual quarter vacancy numbers here. -- corridor vacancy numbers here. i'll pull out looking at the castro. it has a 6.6% change in vacancies from 2018 and 2020. that means it's gone from 11.4% to 18%. so a lot of these increases seem a little -- may seem minor and the numbers look low at first,

but the reality is some of these -- where we had kind of -- >> supervisor mandelman: i -- it's gone up 6.6%, but that's actually like maybe a 50% increase in vacancies? >> correct. >> supervisor mandelman: well that helps me understand why that looks so off. my last question, i'm glad for the work that gets done with these businesses that need help reviewing leases and in negotiations with landlords. do you believe you're meeting demand or do you have a way of measuring the difference between demand and what you're able to do? >> so currently the way we measure demand is based on the

amount of businesses we're able to get to per our partners and what we're seeing out there. but what we anticipate right now demand is higher than what we're able to read at this time, so that's why we're scaling up our services and plan to do so. >> supervisor mandelman: that's not a measure of demand, that's a measure of what we're able to provide. >> no. we don't have a specific measure of the demand, but the referral is how much we can provide. so the referrals are coming in and we're seeing the numbers and so that's where we see the demand. but not everybody, right, knows where to go. but right now, i shared some of the referrals are in the amount of 400 or so a year. we'll be tracking if that includes change. that includes 13 or more organizations that we work with. so the request that comes into

our partners is how we're able to track that demand. that doesn't mean that is the only demand that exists, but that's the only way to track it is through our partners and what is coming in, as well as oewd. >> supervisor mandelman: when they have a request for help, do they have someone to connect the requesting business with? >> yes. so you won't -- he'll go into the detail of that next. >> thank you. >> supervisor mandelman, supervisor ronen is on the roster. i wanted to make sure she had an opportunity to ask questions of oewd. >> supervisor ronen: just a couple of questions. i'm wondering if oewd has been

working with communities on a shop-local campaign. when i talked to some of the merchants on mission street, they say that so much -- so many of their customers were tourists. and not having tourists in the mission has just devastated them. and if there was a way of sort of creating a community sort of responsibility instead of buying that on amazon, shop locally, that's the best way to stimulate the local economy. is there any sort of city-wide marketing or campaign that is encouraging residents to shop local? >> we do have several that in traditional times we've used. with closures, it's sort of trying to find that balance, right, of pushing, you know, making sure people adhere to the

orders and things like that. but we have shop-local. shop and dine. we have other ones that are picking up now that we are reopening. specifically for mission street and our opportunity neighborhoods definitely have those local marketing campaigns. we're also starting to push more digital, right, online, to make businesses more visible. and help support that capacity. so, yes, we are moving toward that. especially now. we're going to be picking that up as we move toward reopening. what we were focussing in the beginning was relief. so we've been really focused on the relief, the grants, the loans. and now we'll be, once again, transitioning back to that marketing and bringing our shoppers back. but, yes, some of the areas most impacted are those dependent on tourism and other areas that just attract people from the

outside. >> supervisor ronen: i do think as for opening up again, that having some city coordinated advertising campaign reminding us all you know what a difference it makes when we support our local merchants as opposed to shop online. i think it will resonate right now as we're all trying to support each other to come out of this moment. if that's not on the list and there is something i can do to help support that, please let me know. i think now is the right time to get us in that framework as much as possible. and then, supervisor mandelman talked about the vacancies. i'm wondering, is it time to bring back the vacancy tax?

i understand that we -- in the beginning of the pandemic because, you know, everything was in such flux. it's not as if new businesses were going to open. it made sense. but i'm wondering now if the -- reestablishing the vacancy tax would help landlords deal reasonable with businesses as they're trying to survive during this hard time. do you have any thoughts about that? >> we're going to have to explore. also, it's hard to tell right now. we're really going to be watching closely where the referrals come in and how that helps to alleviate -- like you mentioned the restaurant and the food industry support, that's going to make, we're hoping, a pretty huge impact. as we watch that -- but

definitely also policies and regulations. how do we make it easier for the businesses to fill the vacancies on that end? it's going to have to be like a variety of thing we have been trying and new things that we haven't thought of yet. as i mentioned, we look forward to working with you all as we assess and go back to our partners too. now that reopening is happening, what is that looking like for businesses? are they able to once again get back in the way they've been seeing with all the interventions that we have? what is that looking like? i feel like now we'll get a better sense of that. again, as we go into reopening, as the relief is coming down. we're looking forward to working on that very closely. and that's why i think this hearing right now is timely, because it's where we are right now. and it's not a very -- in terms of we don't have all the answers

yet, but we need to get ahead of that and start working toward that. so thank you. >> thank you, supervisor ronen. >> supervisor chan: thank you, chair preston. i find this -- i guess it's both comments and question, but i find this presentation somewhat -- it's interesting and it kind of helps me think about just the legislation that i'm working on -- that we're working on. that specifically about the last couple of slides really is about closure of small business for more than 15 years. and the goal really that i have been thinking about is to ensure that the small businesses are around, can continue to stay around. like they're not closed yet. but they're teetering closure, because of the pandemic.

and the thought that i had really about small business about functioning for more than 15 years is because they've been through the last recession of 2008. they're still thriving -- bless you, supervisor mandelman -- and you know, just kind of making sure that they can continue and get through the pandemic. so i do see in the slide that talks about the fact that really the businesses of 15 and more years are resilient. that they only -- or maybe not just only -- made up 13% -- 13.3% of the closure. i guess my question, too. one, i do see the point is, hey, in 2018, our treasury office

removed 30,000 delinquent registrations. is it possible to explain to me like what -- like what would be considered delinquent? that's quite a bit. 30,000 businesses. so that kind of makes me pause an question, what are those businesses? or maybe the reason why they were delinquent. >> yeah. i'll have brian answer that question because he's the one that looks at that data and can provide more comprehensive answer to that. brian, are you able to answer that? if not, i can take a stab at it.

i think he lost service. so what was explained to me is there were many businesses that hadn't necessarily -- they closed and hadn't been in business for a very long time. and they just hadn't gone through and admitted their formal paperwork. so it was a cleanup in the data. so they went through and confirmed all of those. so they haven't done that before. so it was a cleanup of the data. and so that's my understanding there. that's why you see that huge difference. it's not necessarily that they call closed during that year. but that's the year where t.t.x. did the cleanup of the data and went back and closed accounts that haven't been active for a very long time. >> supervisor chan: right. but that means that what we have now is up to date. so that was just like a cleaning out of the backlog.

but the data that you present today is really up to date, right? >> i see -- >> so, exactly, i was about to say amanda is on. she can speak to this. >> hi, supervisors. amanda from the treasurer's office. so the data that you see, diana was correct about that one year catchup, cleanup effort. the closure data you are seeing currently is not up to date. the reason for that, we get the bulk of closures in our system when we have businesses renew their business registration every year. typically that happens by may 31st. and so in our data, you'll historically see a big uptick of closures in may an june when we hound businesses and they say, no, we're closed. and because the city has deferred basically a