plict >> good morning. the meeting will come to order. welcome to the thursday, april 8th meeting of the public safety & neighborhood services. i'm supervisor gordon mar, and i joined by stefani

and matt haney. [inaudible] >> thank you to clerk john carroll. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> clerk: yes, thank you, mr. chair. in order to protect the public, board members and city employees during the covid-19 health emergency, the board of supervisors chamber and committee room are closed. this is taken to all various local, state, and federal orders. members will attend the meeting through video conference. public comment will be available for each item on this agenda, sfgovtv.org, and we're screening a call-in number across the screen at this time. your opportunity to speak will be available to you via phone. you will dial

415-655-0001, and once you're connected and prompted, entering the meeting i.d. 1878615621and then press ##. when you're connected, your line will be muted and in listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up, dial star followed by three to be added to the speaker line. the system prompt will indicate that you have raised your hand. best practices are to call from a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly, and turn down your television, radio, or streaming advice. everyone must account for time lapses in today's meeting. alternatively, you can e-mail me, john carroll,

and my e-mail address is john.carroll@sfgov.org. alternatively, you can send your written comments to our office and city hall. room 244, city hall, 1 carlton goodlet place, san francisco, california, 94102. and, additionally, mr. chair, we have coordinated interpretation services to be provided by a gentleman named david chu. i would ask if he could provide a brief introduction of himself in chinese. >> hello, everyone, good morning. i'm david chu. i am an interpreter who can speak both cantonese.

cant and(indiscernable). i will be able to assist anybody who needs interpretation support. i will be there. >> clerk: mr. chu, can you provide those comments in chinese for any chinese people we have on the line or who are watching the show? >> okay. [speaking chinese] >> clerk: thank you. >> and finally, mr. chair, any items acted upon today would appear on the board meeting of april 20th unless otherwise stated.

>> chairman: thank you, mr. clerk. and thank you, mr. chu, for providing interpretation and ensuring language access for this meeting. please call item 1. >> clerk: agenda 1 is an ordinance suspending (indiscernable) regarding issuance of certain violations and -- excuse me -- waiving certain unpaid assessment fees and fines due to covid-19 emergency. members of the public who wish to provide public comment should call the public comment number, 415-655-0001. enter the meeting i.d. 1878615621, and then press ## and *3 to enter the queue to speak. mr. chair? >> chairman: thank you. graffiti, like so many issues, have become more challenging during covid.

thank you so much, supervisor ronen, for bringing this item forward. the floor is yours. >> thank you so much, chair mar. i appreciate you for having us. the ordinance before you today will temporarily suspend the (indiscernable) for graffiti. i want to thank supervisor chan for your sponsorship. it makes it unlawful both for a person to damage or deface property with graffiti, as well as for an owner to allow graffiti to remain on private property. it allows public works to issue a notice of violation to a business or property owner ordering removal of graffiti, with fines and possibilities if the own fails to comply with a short timeline. at this time, when small businesses are struggling to stay afloat during shutdowns, to adjust to quickly shifting guidelines and practices and to creatively promote

new ways of doing business in outdoor spaces, in demoralizing for the city to force merchants to clean up after vandals or to face fees or penalties. my staff and i hear from small businesses all of the time, as i'm sure you all do as well. they are struggling to hold on, they are tired and they are stressed. and just when we should be offering help, giving them hope, they're handed a notice or a ticket. first their shops are vandalized, and then the city comes along and cites them. i want to share a couple of examples with you, although i know you all know these stories very, very well. elizabeth vasqué, who owns a mexican grill, her outdoor parklet has been tagged many times, and she has repeatedly painted over the graffiti. nevertheless, the city inspector showed up for, and i, quote, "consultation visit."

elizabeth wants to continue painting over the tags, so why is there a worry she will be cited. [inaudible] >> he called the city to ask why he had been charged an inspection fee before the deadline for abatement, but couldn't get a clear answer on what was expected of him. additionally, it took him weeks to get info on how to apply for a hardship waiver. i think we can assume that every small business on our corridor is facing hardship. why make them go through a prolonged process to prove it? there is a request to waive fees, but that puts the onus on the merchants to take that step. specifically this legislation will suspend the portion of the graffiti ordinance that allows citations to be issued to private owners for the duration of the

emergency order and waives any pending fees or fines back to january 1, 2021. the city will continue to be responsible for removing graffiti on public property and will also be allowed to respond quickly to paint over offensive hate speech graffiti. i know that every one of you has been very clear that saving small businesses is a top priority. most san franciscans agree and are stepping up to shop local and help keep local businesses alive. now is the time to walk that talk and make it easier for them to keep going. that is the message they should be hearing from us, that we have their backs. let's think creatively how we're spending city resources. i'm ready to work with public works, the graffiti board, and the office of small business to find constructive ways to deal with graffiti, rather than expecting our small businesses, the victims in this case, to shoulder the

burden. how can we invest and incentivize our murals? can we expand (indiscernable) and creative core programs to paint empty storefronts. thank you to supervisor haney and stefani. it is hitting across our very different districts. i i appreciate the small business commission for flagging this, and i want to thank small commissioner dajana. i want to thank amy biner, my chief-of-staff, who did the heavy lifting on this legislation and works

every single day for small businesses in our city, especially in our district, to help them. amy, you are just amazing. and i'm so grateful for all of your work on this. and we don't have any formal presentation, but my co-sponsors, who are here, they want to say a few works, and public works is here and available to answer any questions, if there are any. i hope we will send this item forward to the full board with recommendation. thanks so much. >> chairman: thank you, supervisor ronen, again for this. yeah, this is a very important measure, a step that we should take as a city, to support our neighborhood businesses impacted by graffiti and provide some relief. i would love to be added as a co-sponsor as well. supervisor stefani? >> yeah, thank you chair mar and to supervisor ronen, thank you so much for this legislation. when you mentioned it in roll call that day, i know i texted you and said, i

want to read that legislation and co-sponsored it as soon as i read it. i think it is vital, and i can't thank you enough. after the horrible year we had in 2020, and our small businesses are suffering so badly, we need to do everything we can to help them. i think we can address graffiti and vandalism without victimizing the small businesses. so thank you so much. i'm so proud to be able to co-sponsor this legislation, and do everything we can to make sure our small businesses survive through this incredibly difficult time we have all had. thank you, supervisor ronen. >> chairman: supervisor haney? >> thank you chair mar and supervisor ronen and staff. this is a really common-sense thing, especially during the pandemic. a lot of our small businesses are not open. they're not open in

regular hours. there has been an increase in property crime and our small businesses have been victimized. and i have heard from many of them about how demoralizing it is when they're the victims, to then turn around and be fined by their own city. so this is really the least that we can do. we can solve this problem. we can address this problem. we can take responsibility for this problem as a city without penalizing people who have been the victims themselves. we also, you know, in district 6, have a lot of opportunities to destroys graffiti with the support of c.d.c.s and other community partners. and i think we should be supporting and geraldo investing in that even more. and we can address it in an active way, and the city taking responsibility, not expecting small businesses, who are already struggling, to

take this on themselves or be fined themselves as a result of being the victims of a crime. so thank you again to supervisor ronen. i'm proud to be a co-sponsor, and also supervisor stefani and the other folks who have worked on this. thank you. >> chairman: supervisor chan? >> thank you, chair mar. i want to thank supervisor ronen for your leadership on this legislation. when i have discussed this with some of our small businesses, they saw that this is just wonderful news. so i just want to thank you. and i wanted to agree with supervisor haney's suggestion, and that we actually could go the other direction in supporting our small businesses by investing in them. and instead of punishing them for graffiti, that we, as a city, we should provide them the resources and support them. just seeing how great, in terms of the murals in

supervisor ronen's district going on, i think in the richmond, in district 1, we would love to see the investments from the city bringing artists together, bringing our communities and community organizations together to support our small businesses to create more murals that is really unique to our neighborhood in that direction, in that investment. and i think this is a great first step to support our small businesses towards making our neighborhoods more vibrant, and it's what we need to recover from our economy. so thank you. >> chairman: great. thanks, colleagues, for all of your remarks. white don't we go to public comment. mr. clerk, are there any callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you, mr. chair. we're working today with james smith from the department of technology to coordinate our public comment speaker line. i want to mention is brief bit of housekeeping, which is today's meeting was noticed as a potential

special quorum of the full board of -- with supervisors ronen, chan, and milgar on the line. today's meeting will be conducted as a regular committee meeting. moving on to public comment, mr. smith is informing me we have roughly six listeners and one in the queue. those connected via none, please press star, followed by three. if you wish to be added to speak to this item, which is item 1. for those on hold in the queue, please wait until you're prompted to begin. for those who are watching our meeting on cable 26 or through sfgovtv.org, if you wish to speak on this ordinance, call the following number: 415-655-0001. enter the meeting i.d.

1878615621, and then press ## and *3. mr. smith, could you please bring us our public commenters. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is morris garcia. i'm calling to provide a comment on behalf of (indiscernable) who unfortunately had a medical issue come up last night. but feels very strongly in this ordinance and asked me to rely a statement on her behalf. i'm the district 9 resident visual artist. i want to commend the board for the actions you have taken to support the community (indiscernable) to creative canvasses for artists, and also to point

out they have also been targets of graffiti. i'm calling to support the ordinance to suspend and waive the fees for small businesses. we must ensure we're supporting locally-owned businesses that have been and continue to be financially and emotionally impacted by the pandemic. by suspending and waiving the fees, we are helping to make sure that the businesses are not hampered and further strained by the fines. i fully support the proposal for suspending and waiving fees. >> chairman: thank you for sharing those comments. mr. smith, could you please bring us the next caller. >> hi. good morning. my name is elizabeth vasquez. i also support you guys waiving the fees for the graffiti for the small businesses. my business is on 24th

street, between brian and florida. and it had been graffitied about five to six times, and i kept getting complaints from the city. i guess my neighbors would call 3-1-1 and then they came and gave me a courtesy visit from, i believe it was the department of public works, and they called it a compensation visit. and they gave me only a few days to fix the graffiti and make all of the fixtures that they wanted done. so, yes, i agree that everything -- the fees being given to the small businesses in regards to the small businesses should be waived, because we're just trying to survive as it is. i've been graffitied five or six times, and i was fined the next day. that's my point of view. i think everything should be waived. thank you. >> chairman: thank you

for your comments. mr. smith, could you bring us the next caller, please. >> hello, everybody. my name is naz quare, and i'm a resident of this district and a business owner directly on mission street. i just wanted to thank everybody who took the time to think about this small business community and the fact that we're getting hit really hard. hard by graffiti and tags. and we 100% support this ordinance. the only concern that i wanted to raise is the fact that similar to when we took the responsibility away from property owners about tree maintenance and gave it to g.c.w., which

is removal of trees, and the failure to plant a tree that is cared for enough to get (indiscernable). it wasn't for the work of friends of art, there wouldn't be any. i just want to make sure that by taking the responsibility away from business owners and giving it to (indiscernable) we're not creating more issues in the future. i honestly do not want them to touch my building because i want to take a generic white paint and painting over a green building or a black building -- do they actually care what the building looks like and what is the color of the build? another board member at m.m.a. had a great

solution where we help out the city pick up the bill from the hardware store in the city, that maybe they can offer a kit, like a one-time discount on maintenance cost and color -- >> chairman: the speaker's time is concluded. thank you for sharing your comments. mr. smith, could you bring us the next caller, please? >> hello. my name is (indiscernable). [audio is unclear] >> i am here to support the legislation. first i want to commend supervisor ronen for her help and for creating this action, and also this entire body for trying to

push this forward. i want to thank elizabeth vasquez for her request. >> chairman: caller, are you still there? it seems we have lost that caller. oh, she's back. >> i'm sorry, i had muted her.3 >> chairman: she still has a minute left on her clock. can we bring her back in? >> sorry about that, speaker. i unmuted you. they dropped up. there are no more -- >> chairman: there are no more callers? >> there are no further callers. >> chairman: public comment is now closed. thank you so much to all of the community members that spoke during public comment, especially the mission district merchants. supervisor ronen, do you

have anything more? >> thank you, chair mar. i also wanted to thank all of the missions district merchants clearly for this legislation, but because of the amazing support of all of the colleagues, including supervisor melgar, who would like to be added as a co-sponsor as well. this is not just a problem in the mission. it is a problem all over the city. so thanks so much. and i look forward to this passing as soon as possible. >> chairman: great. thank you, supervisor ronen. i would like to move that we send this item to the full board with a positive recommendation. >> clerk: on the motion offered by chair mar, that this be offered to the april 20th meeting. [roll call] >> clerk: mr. chair, there are three ayes.

>> chairman: great. this will be recommended to the full board. mr. clerk, please call item 2. >> clerk: item 2 is a hearing to address concerns on crime and violence targeting asian-american seniors and other vulnerable groups, and the rise of anti-asian racism, including status of investigations, victims' services programs, and other public safety resources and strategies that the departments are employing to reduce crime, and to promote cross-racial solidarity. members of the public who wish to provide public comment should call 415-655-0001. enter the meeting i.d. 1878615621. press ## to connect to the meeting, and press *3 to enter the queue to speak. please wait until the system indicates you have

been unmuted and you may begin your comments. mr. chair, before we begin, if we could bring mr. chu back into the meeting for a moment so he can interpret the instructions. >> yes. thank you. [speaking chinese] number numbers>> chairman: grea.

thank you, mr. chair. colleagues, thank you for the opportunity to hold this very important hearing today, which comes at an historic moment of reckoning on racism and violence against asian-americans and pacific islanders around the country. our communities remain traumatized and fearful following the hate and discrimination against us, fueled by president trump's racist rhetoric. like all people of color, our communities have struggled against racism throughout our history in

this country, over 150 years, but the recent violence and racism directed at asian-americans has been shocking. and the escalation of violent assaults have made the especially difficult circumstances of covid-19, including mass unemployment, safety risks, even more painful. so much violence has happened since we first called this hearing. the eight people killed in the atlanta massacre targeting asian-american women, more seniors attacked, too many more afraid to leave their homes, suffering quietly in isolation. from a single word to a homicide, anti-asian racism manifests in insidious way or overt ways. in criminal or non-criminal ways, intentionally or unintentionally, but nonetheless harmful ways. this period has been very difficult for me personally, as someone who started my community

organizing in chinatown many years ago. as a supervisor today, representing a district that is majority asian-americans, and as a father and husband, i'm concerned about the safety of my loved ones. i share the pain, the rage, and the demands by aapi communities for meaningful, long-term communities to stop hate and violence against asian-americans and all people of color, immigrants, women, and our elders. in the face of such tragedy and fear, it has been inspiring to see asian communities come together to take action in unprecedented in impactful ways, nationally and locally. i thank all of the community leaders, activists, and groups who have been organizing rallies, marches, safety patrols, senior escorts, documenting incidents and more. and i thank all of the allies for your support as well. in february, dozens of asian organizations across the bay area joined forces

to demand action against violence, recognizing that violence affects all of us. their demands include ensuring victims of all backgrounds and languages to receive full supportive services so they can recover and heal. expanding intervention and intervention-based programs for an fracture that we know will end the cycle of violence and keep all of us safer. we have resources and cross-community education and healing in asian-american and black communities that humanizes all of us. and they called out survivors of interpersonal violence have historically have not received enough language accessible support. i sponsored this hearing in a response to a cule to action. call to

action. we want to support asian-american victims, and how agencies are working with the community. we will grapple with the magnitude of the consequences when we fall short. today we ask departments for a commitment to work closer together and to work closer with community organizations to coordinate a comprehensive citywide plan to prevent crime and violence and to support victims in harmed communities with culturally competent services. colleagues, we have many presentations today, beginning with and centers on the asian-american community and statements from those most impacted by violence, represented by the coalition for community safety and justice and stop aapi hate. then we will hear from non-law enforcement agencies, the human rights commission, and the office of the civic engagement in immigrant affairs, followed by the street violence intervention

program. and then we'll hear from law enforcement agencies, s.f.p.d., and the district attorney's office, and staff from the adult probation and juvenile probation will also be available to answer questions. keeping our community safe is about taking collective responsibility. we as a public body have a mandate to protect people, and when there is harm, a mandate to restore. as a city, we need to hold each other accountable and invest in strategies that work, strategies that unify. we know the long-term solution to violence is to empower communities with resources, support, and education. i'm looking forward to learning more today from our dedicated city staff identifying how we can work towards an affective, coordinated citywide plan to prevent violence and crime and support victims in harmed communities with culturally competent services. so, thanks again, colleagues, for this opportunity for this hearing and for your

participation. supervisor melgar? >> thank you, chair mar. i just wanted to say thank you so much for calling this hearing. our districts are next to each other, and we share a couple of commercial districts that have seen a rise in violence. we, a few weeks ago, had a violent incident involving an older asian veteran that got in the news. but what didn't get in the news was the lack of support there was for him from veteran services, from just folks who should have been there in terms of community support. so i want to thank you you most of all for your leadership and your approach to uplift community voices,and to leverage the strength that we have in terms of culture and language and community support to tackle this issue, and to build out an infrastructure to support

victims. and also to proactively support people's safety based on community. thank you so much. [audio breaking up] making sure we can support and help fund the efforts of community to do all of the things that you listed. so thank you very much for your leadership. >> chairman: thank you. supervisor chan? >> chair mar, thank you. and i, do, want to thank you for your leadership for calling for his hearing. i'm really proud to be a co-sponsor of this hearing today. you and i share that chinese-american, asian-american, for me, first generation immigrant growing up in san francisco's chinatown, we know that hate against asian-american and communities of color has always existed in the

united states. and -- but at this moment, i am so glad to see that communities of color are gathering and standing together against hate. but we also know that for the last however long, we also have suffered as a community because of minority myths, that we deem to be mold minorities, and we're doing well and we do not need advocacy or support from our city government, but we know that we do. today i also many very grateful for being in the position as an elected position, to be able to co-sponsor this hearing, to carve out a space, a forum, for our community to be able to have this safe space to talk about their fears, their

anxiety, their concerns, and how we can actually hear directly from our community the needs that they have. and for our city departments also to be present with us in this forum, to hear from our communities, and i really also thank you to our interpreter, mr. chu, today joining us to make sure there is language access and cultural competency during this during when we are having this public dialogue. thank you, and i really look forward to not just hearing from our city departments, but really from our community to hear what their concerns are, and i'm eager to hear their voices. so thank you. >> chairman: thank you, supervisor chan. supervisor haney? >> thank you, chair mar. and i want to thank you for your leadership in bringing forward this hearing. and for all of the co-sponsors of the

hearing, supervisors chan and melgar for your comments as well. this is a moment of reckoning and a time of reckoning for a problem that has been with us and deep in our country and in our city for a very long time. anti-asian racism, hate, violence against asian people in our city and beyond has been a part of san francisco for a long time. and it has gotten worse because of what has taken place at the national level. but it is something that has been with us for a long time. and asian leaders, organizations, residents have come forward and said, we need more support. we need more resources. we need you to work with us and listen to us. and there has been some things that have happened that are positive on that. i know last year supervisor mar and supervisor peskin and former mer supervisor

fewer were involved in this to bring forward resources to focus on public safety as it related to the asian community, and we can build off of that. but this isn't only about the discrimination and the racism that exists out there in our city and in our country. it is also this systemic racism and failures within our systems to respond in a culturally appropriate way, to respond to victims who are asian, in some cases for whom there may be language barriers or cultural barriers. and our systems also have to change. so as much as we are going to talk about some of the things that folks are facing outside of our systems, we also know that our systems must be trans transformed to be more adaptive to protect our citizens and their public safety. some of the attacks were

in my district, and i want to send my deepest sadness and solidarity with those who have been the victims of assaults and their families, and we have to take action to protect them, and we have to listen to leaders who know how best to do that and transform our systems to make sure we protect the most basic, fundamental right, which is to exist safely without fear, without discrimination, to be able to walk down their own streets safely. and so i'm looking forward to learning about what we can do. and i want to say as chair of the budget committee, we will take what we hear today also and move forward to make sure we are fully supporting the organizations that are doing this work and meeting the needs of protecting the public safety of our residents. thank you, chair mar. >> chairman: thank you for those comments, supervisor haney. supervisor stefani?

>> yes. thank you, chair mar, for holding this incredibly important hearing. we know that violence against the asian community has reached every corner of the prime minister stephen harper the city.i think this is somethg we're absolutely all committed to doing. the videos we've seen, not only just in san francisco, have been absolutely horrific, and across this country, and they've been shocking. in district 2, we saw -- a man was murdered while he was out for a morning walk. and jeffrey, in pacific heights, delivering food, when he kids were kidnapped, and we were all on pins and needles for hours waiting to see what would happen there. and thank goodness that resulted in them being okay in the end. and then simon lowell

witnessed a brutal assault on asian women. those are just a few of the examples in my district. we need to do everything we can to address crime and violence whenever it occurs. and right now the asian community is rightly terrified, and their city needs to protect them from harm. and we need to do everything that we can. i was watching this morning on television, president biden talk about what he was going to do about the plague of gun violence, and very emotional in terms of someone finally stepping up and saying what they're going to do to address this. and what he said, too, it is his job as the president to protect people in this country. and as, you know, i knew we would be entering into this hearing today, i thought as legislators, the 11 of us on the board of supervisors, it is our job to protect everybody in the city. and it is our job to

confront what is happening to the asian-american community. i know we all stand together to deliver on that promise and to provide peace of mind and safety, and to do everything that we can. so thank you, chair mar, again, for holding this incredibly important hearing. we have an obligation to service and responsiveness whenever a vulnerable community is targeted or at risk, and i stand committed to work with all of you to make sure that we do just that. so thank you. >> chairman: thank you so much, supervisor stefani. supervisor ronen? >> yes. thank you so much, chair mar, for bringing this hearing today. clearly it is so important and providing all of us the opportunity to come together and deeply analyze this issue. and, most importantly, what the city is doing in order to address the violence against the asian community that as supervisor haney and so many of you said is not

new but has a new level of attention around it because of the escalation, the terrifying and outrageous escalation in violence that has happened recently. i wanted to just briefly highlight, because i've very proud of this work that we've done in the porla neighborhood, which is a majority chinese neighborhood in san francisco. over the years we've worked very closely with community organizations in the neighborhood to demand and fight for and finally get chinese and cantonese-speaking officers that walk san bruno every single day. and they are amazing. and the community knows them and loves them and feels comfortable because of that personal touch and that personal relationship

that has formed over years now, to come forward and talk about how to keep each other safe, keep themselves safe, and report crimes when they do happen. in addition to the cantonese-speaking beat cops that we finally got after years of fighting for it, we also have a substation, a police substation on san bruno avenue that is open a couple days a week, that is usually staffed by the beat officers, that have deep relationships in the parla community. it has provided a space for people to come in their own neighborhood to report crimes in person, over the phone, with a translator, and it often doesn't feel comfortable or do the trick or provide the type of in-person attention that is often needed in these very sensitive and very painful

moments of reporting and talking about crimes towards people. and, finally, i just want to, as a supervisor, as a boss, really commend jennifer lee from my office who is my not only aide, but has become a leader in speaking up and in acting against violence in the asian community. she would be with us right now, but she is in the portala doing a safety walk, where members of the community come together and show in a very visible way their unity and work that they're doing to protect one another. jennifer has been doing these watches not only here in san francisco, but she lives in oakland and does them on a regular basis in oakland. and it is that type of

visible community action, that organizing that direct action, that public show of strength and solidarity that is really sending a message that this is a top priority for leaders and the community all over the country, but definitely here in the bay area, and definitely here in san francisco. i just am so proud and so in awe of the leadership and the activism that jennifer lee is doing in the community for her community. it is something i admire and support 100%. thank you for your leadership and for stepping up and being such bright lights in your community of leaders that are leading the way together with community members to protect one another. i appreciate you and i'm

standing here in solidarity with you, and i excited about the increased attention we have towards this issue today. thank you. >> chairman: thank you so much for those comments, supervisor ronen. i want to tell all of you -- why don't we move into the hearing right now. so we are to have six presentations. so it is going to be a long hearing but very important information presented and discussion that we're going to be able to have with our departments and with the city on these really urgent issues. so the first presentation is really from the community. and we're going to have sing che, and also representing the coalition for community safety and justice and stop aapi hate. it has been an incredibly powerful and important

leader on these issues. and we're very fortunate to have her here. >> thank you so much, chair mar, and to all of the board of supervisors for your show of solidarity and support during a very difficult and devastating time for our communities. i am the co-executive director of chinese for affirmative action, and also one of the founding partners of stop a.p.i. hate, which is tracking hate across the country. but i'm really here today as a representative of coalition for community safety and justice, whose members comprise of the community youth center, chinese progressive association, and the new breath foundation. and so i would love to

present to you our community-based response to violence. so as it has been shared before, this is not something new to our community. and many of the organizations here as part of the coalition have been working together over the decades. we have been the... [audio breaking up] and racial disparities. i think it is very important to provide some broader context. as i mentioned, as part of stop a.p.i. hate, nationwide we have tracked from march of last year through february close to

3800 incidents. and in the bay area, roughly around, you know, over 900, and in the city of san francisco, about 359. that's about 39% of the bay area incidents. so this is a major problem across the country. and also, you know, in our own backyard. it's important to note that a majority of the incidents that we're seeing on our site reporting center are not hate crimes per se, but they need equal attention because of the fact that without interventions, without efforts to address this issue holistically, we know that matters can escalate. and, of course, the atlanta area mass murder and shooting is a reminder that this is a real urgent

issue and something that requires all of our attention. we also know that women in particular are vulnerable. close to 70% of our respondents are women, and young women and elderly women in particular are being targeted, and for different reasons: sexual harassment, racist slurs, and also because of the fact that elderly in general -- women in general -- are more vulnerable to these types of incidents. it is really important for us to note, too, that the coalition, although all of us have been working together, again, for decades, we officially formed in 2019 in response to a long-standing incidence of violence and crime and racial tensions.

and, of course, the surge in covid-19-related anti-racism and xenophobia has created a greater sense of urgency. our coalition has played an important role in understanding the problem. and we put forth recommendations that really are looking at both how we can address immediate harm, but recognizing that the impacts of violence need to be looked at within the context of violence and how it affects other communities as well. we have a three-pronged approach. and this approach really is informed by many years of trying to meet the immediate needs of victims and survivors of violence and crime. and many years of trying to understand what is the responsibility of the

city? what are the baseline expectations that we can have in terms of language and culture competence? and the recognition that we need to do this across communities to promote racial solidarity and healing. if we are going to affectively address this in the long run. so this is our frame for how we believe that we're going to be able to address this, including the underlying causes of violence and crime and racial bias. the first component that is critical is a citywide rapid response network. it is vitally important that in the aftermath of violence or harm, that we support the victims' families and survivors, the wrap-around and

holistic services, and it is extensive to management. it is a range of financial assistance, mental health support, and at times it means helping them enroll in benefits that they're entitled to. and, of course, helping them to understand the legal system, which can be very daunting, even for english speakers. and we believe that it will be really important to have a dedicated victims' assistance fund because what is available now is oftentimes inadequate. we also believe that an important component of a rapid response network are immediate safety initiatives that can be done and employed, such as street outreach, so that community members, business owners also know about the programs and

services that are available to them. programs like the community escort and other kinds of education and violence prevention programs will be essential to also invest in. we believe that there needs to be a more robust citywide public safety infrastructure. that really, again, addresses the immediate harm, but also is working in parallel with the types of interventions and preventions that are necessary. we are currently trying to work with the s.f.p.d. with regard to referrals, as well as s.f. general, that also provides referrals when they come into contact with victims who are wanting and needing assistance, as

well as with the d.a.'s office in terms of accessing victims' services, and the department of public health and the resources that are available there for victims. these are yet to be formalized. we're in the process of trying to establish those direct lines of communication and coordination. and, obviously, it will be vital for us to work together. and then our interest, of course, is to really partner with existing intervention and prevention-based programs, to ensure there is language and culture competence, and that coordination is there. and, finally, it is very important for us as a coalition to advance cross-racial healing and solidarity. so often our communities are being pitted against each other. and we know that there is

disproportionate levels of crime and violence in low-income, working-class neighborhoods. and this is why we want to equal invest in the abilities of our communities to be able to understand why the drivers -- oe divisions amongst community members, particularly around the chinese and black communities. and obviously this work will require us to work within and across communities. it is really about addressing harm, immediate harm, but also to prevent future harm. it is really important to acknowledge the racial tensions that exist, and really be able to hold our communities, during this

time, but also be able to have honest, authentic conversations about that in order to address our collective safety. this work is necessary in order to find opportunities for our communities to work together. so before i end the formal presentation, i wanted to read a statement from the southeast asian development center, from their conversations with their clients and staff members. so what i'd like to read is that they have shared that 95% of those who earn $30,000 a year, whose youth high school graduation rate is 70% compared to the national rate of 87%. they are located in the

tenderloin, where 30% are asian and a majority being southeast asian. clients and staff walking through our center and through the tenderloin have experienced verbal and sexual harassment, cat calling, groping, and hate insults. and i'm about to use profanity, so just in case there are any family members listening. insults like go back to china, you (bleep). go back to where you came from. i'm going to (bleeping) beat you up. stupid asians, stupid bitch, go back to your country. residents experience violence on the street, such as being hit, shoved to the ground, or robbed by random people which cause injuries. the latest incidence was of an elderly vietnamese

woman brutally beaten and attacked in late september 2020n february of 2021. in the summer of 2020, an elderly vietnamese man was shoved on hyde street in front of sing-sing coffee shop. he died a few weeks later. our youth are forced to buy, sell drugs and are chased if they refuse. [please stand by]

>> supervisor mar: i was wondering if you could speak a little bit more about that and maybe some of the challenges that community groups face in trying to work with city agencies on public safety, certainly, the broader range of issues that are intersecting here? >> thank you, chair mar. i also wanted to lift up the fact that laywa wu and sarah chan are here with me and could also add, but i will just start by sharing that, again, this call to action and the need for a more robust public safety

infrastructure comes from our survivors trying to navigate across government systems, and our intention is to develop a cooperative situation with key city departments that have a critical role in public safety, and the desire here is to develop direct lines of communication to make sure that we are aware of the provision of services and resources, and obviously, enforcement of our language access ordinance, that we ensure that regardless of your ability to speak english, that you receive the information in language that you can understand that's afforded to all residents here in san francisco. so that's really our desire,

and we are heartened by the fact that there is a tremendous amount of interesting and willingness to do so, and we hope to just, again, ensure that it is robust in meeting the immediate needs of our community members during their most dire time of need. >> chair mar: thank you. great. oh, it looks like supervisor safai has a question -- has a question or some remarks. >> supervisor safai: thank you, supervisor mar. thank you for calling this hearing. very, very timely. really enjoyed cynthia's presentation, and it's been

troubling to see the rise in crime and asian hate crime in particular. our committee has come together to condemn these acts of violence and making sure that we're doing everything we can to keep our asian and aapi community members safe. a lot of the attacks against this community needs to stop. i just wanted to note that i loved to hear what cynthia was saying and love to hear from others. one of the great thing as an elected official is we have the opportunity to be a conduit for great ideas. last year, they came to us and asked that, during the budget

process, that we would fund this coalition for safety and restorative justice. i worked with the budget committee at the time, and we were able to lead that process and get this funded and the ball rolling last year. so i really appreciate the work that you're doing and want to continue to help support the work that they're doing. the lost prong -- talks about the first -- talked about the first prong, but the last prong, talked about building a bridge between the asian and aapi community. we're working on finding a good community organization to work with them in partnership. i think all of that together will make this a robust initiative. i just wanted to put that out there, i know we have the chair of the budget committee on the

call. i know all of you are very -- i was going to say, on the call -- in this meeting. still not used to doing this on the computer, but yeah, i just wanted to appreciate the great work that they and the foundation have done over the last year. just wanted to say that we're going to continue to work with them aggressively to say that we're going to make sure that we see this initiative through and ensure that we're putting the foundation in place to change the culture of violence toward this community because it absolutely needs to stop, and thank you, supervisor mar, for having this. >> chair mar: thank you, supervisor safai, for those remarks. colleagues, i don't know if any of the rest of you have any questions for the coalition for community safety and justice.

supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: i do, yes, and thank you for this -- the presentation and for the recommendations and for the work and for bringing everyone together. i did want to ask -- and i know i'm sure we're going to talk about this throughout. you know, one of the things that we've talked about and has received a lot of interest in discussion is the community-based safety programs, whether that's escorts or having people who are, you know, trained from community organizations who are out there in the neighborhood on a regular basis, and i know we're going to discuss this more with the svip model. i wonder if there are in other models that -- any other models that you're aware of from any

other city or that you might recommend as a city a path forward, what that might look like? i know there's a lot of interest in this generally, and we have a much larger presence of organizations like urban alchemy, and a response from the neighborhood and ensuring the safety of our community. it's something that i'm interested in and i'm hoping to work with the other supervisors here and with neighborhood organizations in district six to develop an approach like

this. [inaudible]. >> -- with responses to the community ambassadors, with the, you know, escort ideas, you know, the community strolls that i think oakland talks about, and it's something that has generated a lot of interest across the country who are dealing with similar issues, so in that way, san francisco has been a leader in terms of coming up with more community-based solutions that are adopted by the city that's sustainable, and i think that

is something that should be highlighted. and sarah, did you also -- could we also allow sarah to weigh-in, as well? >> hi. thank you, supervisors, good morning. i think, as supervisor safai has mentioned, that last year we did received [inaudible] from the board of supervisors and to start these three pronged approach? as of now for the community outreach and other support components that we're heading on has launched and kicked off? currently, we're working with eight victims or survivors to provide wraparound services, and thank you so much for this championship of this funding because otherwise, we wouldn't be able to provide the service

much needed for this service -- i mean, for this victims, and really appreciate the partnership with san francisco police department, especially central station, and general hospital, and also our community partners for referring their clients to us so that we can provide the service. in terms of the community outreach piece, the plan is to have them go to the high asian concentration neighborhoods, especially commercial corridors to actually start to meet and to also get to know the merchant and also the community stakeholders, neighborhood associations, to get them to meet community members and hopefully we can direct them to other city departments to obtain services. we started our first walk in

chinatown on tuesday, and today, we'll be on san bruno avenue and also on [inaudible] avenue [inaudible] with the mayor's office together in order to have this commercial corridor. from the tuesday experience, the merchants are very welcome? they felt like the city and also the community partnerships do care about them? they felt like they're being seen, and they also think it would be great if this is one channel that they could provide input ways to make them safer? i think a lot of them have been affected by antiasian racism events that have happened? many of them have stated that they're very scared, that they have to stay home? their young kids have to stay home, even though the schools

will be open very soon, and there's all this fear that they have, and also, at the same time while trying to care about their living and small businesses in san francisco. so we are definitely hearing a lot about the same concerns that they have, but this is the start of a time that they're hopeful for them and we are starting to put resources into the community. >> yeah, thank you so much, sarah. the only thing i want to add -- this is laywa from chinese progressive association is highlighting the infrastructure and the city of san francisco in investing in not only the work of c.p.a. we want to invest in the value

of these street patrol initiatives. supervisor mar mentioned this. we genuinely appreciate the initiative of people on the ground who have emerged, right, in an attempt to fill the clear void within our communities in addressing immediate violence, and oftentimes even though with well intentions, if we do not underfund and do not train community members in a way that limits racial profiling, that really train people to deescalate without exacerbating a situation, that we could ultimately do more harm than good. i think continuing to fund these initiatives by the city to protect our community -- all communities, right, is going to be really critical. >> supervisor haney: thank you. thank you, chair mar. >> chair mar: yeah, thanks for that question, supervisor

haney, and for the responses, sarah, and laywa, about community-based safety strategies. you know, i just wanted to maybe go back to the question i had around your engagement with city agencies and maybe some of the challenges that you may have faced, and, you know, i just know even around victim support, i'm aware of the important role that you have played, the community has has -- association has played in supporting a number of victims, and i think some of these were before the funding was even allocated. you guys have been doing this for years, but i guess my -- my question is just, like, what are the challenges and gaps particularly for victims and the communities that are harmed

to connect with city agencies, and, yeah -- and particularly cultural gaps? >> chair mar, thank you for that question. i feel that sarah wan would be in the best position to address that because there are many, many challenges. sarah? >> yes, i'm here. i will answer from my ground experience and definitely seen. i think with all the services we have been providing, we were able to actually work with the district attorney's office victim's support unit. they might not have all of the languages needed in the asian and pacific islander community? i know they do have two cantonese speaking worker and

one vietnamese speaking worker, but there is a challenge to provide workers that can provide worker support services to the family? they also have been challenged because it would be very hard for the victims to really understand the whole criminal and legal process that is going through. they -- there is no, like -- i'd say there's no one from the victim's support unit that can actually provide, except from the district attorney directly about the process of the case? sometimes it's pretty hard to understand really what is going on? do they need to be subpoenaed to the court? what does that mean? witness statement, all those stuff actually i think culturally something is not necessarily not only asian but i think anybody would feel very strange to or maybe feel a little bit hard to understand what the process about? so -- and then, the other thing is the reach out to the mental health services is also

challenging because i think, right now, unless it's referred by i think district attorney victim's support services, even for us, we would not know where to refer within the department of public health for services. a lot of times, we were told that depending on the victims, they would have medical insurance providers, but that would be a lot of hurdles to get through. and i think a lot of things that have challenges is finding mental health service providers in their language. there are a lot of stakeholders in the asian community to receive mental health services, and most of the time, maybe one out of ten cases we are able to refer for mental health support. a lot of the times, we are falling back on our victim support advocates to do visits and screening and also visit

the family member to let them know what the benefit is of receiving mental health services. so i think it's how can we promote this educational awareness of receiving mental health services, especially after they've been through a traumatizing event. i think a lot of concern from the victim is the financial piece. through the victim's support unit under the d.a.s office, they do have victim support program, but it does require a lot of paperwork, and it might not support their immediate need. let's say if they need some help to replace a cell phone, they need to have, really living expense to buy, like, food and other stuff, it's not there for them, so that's why our coalition has started a victim and survivor fund so that we can provide immediate help and response to these victims, as well. so those are the three immediate needs that we need

support going through the legal understanding of it, the mental health services, and lastly, the financial assistance that they might need right away. i hope that's clear, and do you have anything you'd like to add? >> yeah, and we can also add the broader challenges of immigrant communities, you know, historically traditionally underutilizing government resources and services that they're entitled to. we have to keep in mind that we've had many, many years of antiimmigrant policies at the national level, moving our community underground, fearing that accessing services via the expansion of public charge

would jeopardize their neighborhood status, illegal immigrants, just the overall fear of being entangled with law enforcement or the broken trust between the community and agencies historically, so i think as community organizations, we can help to -- to serve as a bridge and to, you know, build better and more effective sponsor services that's attuned to why there might be barriers to accessing those services. >> chair mar: thank you. yeah, thanks so much, sarah and laywa, for the presentation, for all of your important work, and maybe we can move to the next presentation, so thanks

for being here, guys. so next, we're going to hear from -- we're going to have presentations from a couple of nonlaw enforcement city agencies that play an important role in addressing these issues, and we'll start with the human rights commission. so i think representing h.r.c. here today is shakiron [inaudible] representing the office of racial equity. >> thank you so much, chair mar. can you hear me? >> chair mar: yes. >> so thank you so much, chair mar, and supervisors safai and stefani, for allowing me to speak. my name is shakira simle. i am the director of the human rights commission, and i am

speaking on behalf of our s.f. human rights initiative director, cheryl wright davis who sends her best to her colleagues. i wanted to ask to share the presentation. >> clerk: i was under the impression that you were going to be sharing your slides today, but if you want me to share, it'll take a moment. >> yes, could you share, please, for ease of presentation? >> clerk: just a moment, please. >> the hate faced by our asian and black communities is heinous. it's important for us to come together not just in times of crisis and celebration, but also the moments in between. in addition to maintaining

visibility and focusing attention to this issue in addressing the issue of antiasian racism or any racism faced by communities of color requires us to talk not only about the interpersonal racism but also seeking structural conclusions in a consistent community led and accountable way. next slide, please. so just for a bit of context for folks, the human rights commission, also known as the sfhrc is chartered through three primary areas, through our workshops, community-based training, our civil rights workshop, which investigates discrimination in public housing and accommodation, and also through policy of social justice through the committee on racial equity and other

initiatives and topics. our approach to our work is always grounded in community and director davis has been a fearless and consistent leader when it comes to this. i want to thank the government and lift that up [inaudible] we respect the agency and self-determination in making this decision that directly impacts their lives. the h.r.c. supports program that arise directly from community, and we work every day to build culturally responsive programming. in education, we collaborate with communities and city partners and i'll share some examples shortly, and also, we make sure that we connect community with city departments to identify needs and gaps in best practices, as well. next slide, please.

next slide. so it's important for us that we put forth community education and policy issues that support cross racial solid -- solidarity work. one of the key -- one of the key parts of that is our c.c.j. program in which we work with the young asian womens against violence through the community cohort center. [inaudible] this is an incredibly useful program, and this spring, the c.c.j. is working with a few group of

students from the community youth center to [inaudible] it's an opportunity for this work to happen with the a.p.i. youth and black youth. [inaudible] at school and in the classroom? and then also our h.r.c. community roundtable, which i'll talk more about, which has brought together community leaders from across different races and culture and languages every week during the pandemic to help imbue community solutions during covid-19. so next slide, please, and next slide.

so a lot of our community work is committed to advancing community based and multiprong approaches that have been uplifted by advocates based on their decades of experience and providing services and organizing. like i said, this work can't happen unless community is at the helm, and the h.r.c. designs our programs and initiatives with that, and that's prepandemic and for years. next slide. one of our initiatives that we're particularly proud of is our staying together initiative, which is an h.r.c. led collaboration with community leaders and organizations that work together in the fight against racism and discrimination, particularly fighting for antiasian racism, uplifting and -- dismantling violence and then with an emphasis on multiracial solidarity. some group has convened since last fall, and we appreciate

them and thank them. next slide, please. so in addition to the work that we do with staying together s.f. in supporting different community coalitions, we have led numerous events to convene leaders, to educate and promote cross racial solidarity. one of our first events happened last october, when we talked about this issue, and one thing that we really want to uplift, in the interests of time, this coming april 17, we'll be holding a [inaudible] which will be focus on providing tangible, concrete ways in which san franciscans desire to stop antiracist hate can lead directly to action from community members. so when it comes to different tools and strategies that the h.r.c. uses in order to promote

social justice, i'll summarize our work, but basically on-the-ground interventions and programming, we are very proud of the work of our multiracial staff working directly with community based and grassroots organizations, and we have led -- have had [inaudible] hours of work put forth owards webinars and community-based programming, showing up, even when it was scary to do so directly in neighborhoods when incidents happened and also staying long after news cameras and folk that's have gone away. individuals and families are still stuck with their trauma and pain over incidents that have happened. in addition, we also know we can't do this work unless folks can do so in a way that's culturally responsive and

linguistically responsible, so we make sure we have multilingual documents and cross cultural access. next slide, please. when it comes to covid-19, again, a lot of these probable issues have existed prepandemic, and what we saw from covid, it basically really, you know, created a situation in that pressure cooker situation in which our community, we're living in pandemic within pandemics, to combat that from the jump last march, we convened our roundtable, and we've been pushing for rapid testing sites, p.p.e., and vaccination sites throughout the city. [inaudible] which speaks directly to the rise in antiasian hate racism because of covid, and that includes

guides between enable and also bystander intervention programming including stop aapi hate. the next slide, please. so i want to focus on this part, which i think is going to be really important in the future. and i like to think about this in three ways: upstream, in the moment, and downstream. [inaudible] we see a pressing needs to make sure we expand work across all city departments to address these different aspects of financial, [inaudible] and both when it

comes to upstream solutions before a hate crime or incident happens, we need to make sure that we're expanding preventative education and countering any zero-sum antiimmigrant narratives in white supremacist extremism from schools and in public spaces like buses and trains. in the moment, you know, this is very difficult, and we're going to make sure that we're looking at this, by saying, like i said, beyond -- it's super important to make sure that we have [inaudible] for residents and workers and neighborhoods where there's a pattern of increasing hate, and we're happy to work with our citywide agencies on a citywide information campaign including signage in support for folks

and ask the intent behind our campaign for solidarity, as i said, on april 17. we need to make sure that there's [inaudible] experiencing incidents of hate crime, and this requires proactive follow up information about next steps so the burden is shifted away from the individual and onto the system itself and then looking at ways that don't meet the threshold for an actual hate crime but hate incident, what are the resources and inclinations that can happen there. so in closing, these issues are complex in nuance, and at the human rights commission, we strive to bridge the gap between our communities. and last slide, we wanted to

share a few resources for communities to follow up with us and happy to answer any particular questions. thank you so much for the time today, and thank you so much, chair mar, for convening this hearing. >> thank you. >> chair mar: thank you so much, director simley, for your presentation and for all the work that you're doing. i had the pleasure of working with you on a town hall back in in -- on an event at city hall back in february that was a very positive event. i guess i had a question. how do you measure effectiveness and particularly looking at stand together s.f., which is an important initiative that the human rights commission launched, you know, in the past year, you

know, to respond to this, the urgent issues? >> so in response to that question, we do that in a number of different ways, and i can work with director davis to follow up to make sure that you have all the information possible. but looking at data and reports and information that come from different city departments, but truly and ultimately, it comes down to the story telling and lived experience from our community members that tell us are our folks actually better off? what does that look like when it comes to outcomes, and yes, their day-to-day experience, but it comes down to food securities, to housing, to transportation, to folks' abilities to feel safe and included at school and see themselves represented. it's not a one-issue solution.

we look at it in a holistically centered way but always look at our constituents as our guiding star. >> chair mar: and i guess i had a question -- another question around equal, i guess, around violence prevention. and i guess maybe the question should be what should h.r.c.s role be to prevent and address violence where groups of people are potentially being targeted by their age, language, race, or perceived vulnerabilities and also direct support for harmed communities? >> for us, i think it looks like, in a number of different ways, to a, continue our community based relationships and define those solutions as we're hearing from community. number two is looking with our civil rights division and making sure that they have the

resources and rights they need in order to work with victims of hate and discrimination, and it's also working directly with the young people in some preventative measure and strengthening our relationships with our community providers not to rebuild the wheel. we want to make sure that there's stronger coordination, that there's more communication, that there's more transparency, and also accountability and follow up when it comes to our community, so chair mar, i would say that this is definitely something that is important to us and something that we've been working on for such a long time, and it hurts my heart that the community has to see

such violence [inaudible] cultural media, but that only shows us the work that we have to do and that we will continue to do through the office of racial equity. happy to do that with you through the initiative and with all the community agencies and departments present today. >> chair mar: great. thank you so much, director simley. colleagues, do you have any questions for director simley and the human rights commission? seeing none, maybe we can move to the next presentation, but thank you so much, director simley, yeah, for being here, and for the presentation. next, we're going to hear from director adrian ponce of the office of civic engagement and

immigrant affairs about important language access work that they provide for our city. director pon? >> good morning, chair mar. can everyone hear me? >> chair mar: yes, we can hear you. >> thank you. good morning, chair, committee members and supervisors. adrian pon. i'm the director of the office of civic engagement and immigrant affairs, and i'm joined by richard whiple and [inaudible] who's with the community ambassadors program. thank you so much for this important hearing and allowing us to participate. i also want to acknowledge our sisters and brothers for the coalition for community safety and justice, c.a.a., stop aapi hate, for the courage and leadership, and as well as our sister departments. so we're -- we have a --

several slides, and i'm going to go through these very quickly, hopefully. as sin mentioned -- we go to the next slide. thank you. as sin mentioned, we have all been here before. aapi violence and hate are not new. as the former executive director of the asian law caucus, i shared the pain both as a community member and as someone who has worked with this community before. so a little bit about the office of civic engagement and immigrant affairs, we provide direct grants and services to the community, and our goal is to serve as a bridge between the community and the -- and city agencies. we -- we were a start-up in

2009, but today, we're a multifunctional office and work very closely with the community and city agencies. so a little bit about what we do on the next slide? so as you can see from the array of programs and initiatives on this list ranging from community safety to immigrant access, language rights and access and workforce development, we are all about engaging and supporting and connecting community members to information resources and city programs and services. next slide. okay. this is a goal that we share with many of you. you know, we seek a safe, inclusive, and equitable san francisco where everyone can contribute and thrive, and we put safety early on, 12 years

ago, into our vision statement, and i'll explain why in just a second. so oceia, we work with a lot of data and information, so i hope to go into a few steps. san francisco is home to one of the most diverse populations in the nation. over 870,000 people jammed into a very small location. one in three san franciscans is an immigrant. that is more than a third of our population. one-third of our population under -- 45% of our population under the age of five speaks

more than one language at home. the population of older adults age 60 or older will increase to about 30% in the next nine years. currently, the population has shifted -- actually, it's shifted over the last 20 years to be -- most of our seniors are immigrants, and 54% of them speak languages another english. many are monolingual and l.e.p. next slide. okay. so this is why language access and linguistic equity are so important and a part of this conversation today. there are over 109 languages spoken in the city, and it's important are only for emergency and safety services,

but also for transactions and requirements: permits, health care, transportation, the every day things that people in the city do, and it's more than just about the language. it involves cultural competency, as well. so oceia is a small office. we do our very best to comply with the l.a.o., the language access ordinance. language access is not just about translating documents and interpreting what people say some of the times. this is why, as a small office, we really try to interpret the entire meeting because this creates understanding both ways. it's not just about what the monolingual l.e.p. speakers have to say. we want them to understand what is being said about them, as

well, so a two-way perspective. you go to the next slide, about the community ambassadors program, this is -- our safety work started in 2010. interestingly enough, following an uptick of violence in -- on asian american seniors and families in the bayview. the aapi community called out for help and demanded actions with over 1,000 residents and victims protesting at civic center. so the mayor at the time, mayor newsom, the police chief, members of the board of supervisors, met with black clergy and youth leaders, and as a result, more officers were assigned to the affected area, but they were pulled out after six weeks. now we worked with a number of

c.b.o. and community leaders at that time to develop a more permanent solution, so these were c.b.o.s led by chinese by affirmative action, marlene tran, dr. joseph marshall from alive and free, sharon hewitt. oceia was given three weeks to develop a program with no resources or staffing. so long story short, we got it done. we created the community ambassadors program or c.a.p., for short, to provide on going nonlaw enforcement safety presence along business transportation corridors, and where there were hotspots in the community, where there was a lot of street activity. so c.a.p. today is a

community-based neighborhood safety and engagement program. it's a job training program. ambassadors are city residents. they're employed by oceia to provide that safety presence while they're assisting, engaging, and helping the public, and we built this as a replicable model that could also be respectful of community expertise and leadership. [inaudible] >> -- c.a.p. operates. >> okay. hi, everyone. i think there was a bit of a delay or having a difficult time presenting the slides at the same time as adding some comments. thank you for having us today,

supervisors? just an overview about what our ambassadors do? it's a very broad program in terms of scope with a general focus on just improving quality of life in public spaces with a focus on safety? it's also a job training program, so really, one part community safety, one part neighborhood engagement, and using partnerships with other city agencies like the human services agency jobs now program to make sure that we are using a pipeline of city residents who are from the community who understand the needs of their own neighborhoods. some of the services our ambassadors provide is kind of a general scope of work but really centered on community safety? safety escorts and safe passage were kind of one of the original functions? safety escorts are something that we provide today that can be accessed by calling 311 in one of our designated working areas. although we're a prevention

based program, we do conduct minor deescalations or interventions when there's no risk to the ambassadors or the public. we do a lot of support around directions and way finding to visitors, towists, reporting issues to 311 or the police department when appropriate, and of course, conducting wellness checks on individuals in the street who may be in need of social services or any form of support or engagement. a lot of our work really centers on connecting with community organizations and community groups. in recent kind of review in team leads with each of our areas, they talked about the importance of what they do in partnership with community. so for example, in our chinatown team, i heard from our team lead, victor, after a program at self-help for the elderly, they will help them carry their bags home because of fear of violence.

similar -- similarly [inaudible] shared with them, so they're very much affected and working directly with community groups. in terms of the neighborhoods that we work in, we have, over the years, received funding that's very neighborhood specific or responding to particular issues, so these are the neighborhoods that we've worked in that we currently operate in: bayview, chinatown, the mid market/tenderloin-civic center area. it's really focused on the 15 and mission corridor and

visitacion valley and portola corridor and san bruno corridor. we typically operate weekdays 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., but it does vary depending on the community needs. and with that, i'll turn it back to director pon. >> thank you so much, rich. here are some key foundings and principles in the c.a.p. program that we have really thought about over the past ten years: that violence prevention starts with individuals. this is why our training focuses on the individual commitment to living a life free of violence. that is led by dr. joseph marshall from alive and free who trains all of our ambassadors, our fellows, and program participants. one of the reasons why this

program works is because of the on going partnership we have with the community. we have forged a culture of we and us rather than them and us, and a lot of this work stems from the 2010 census, and they're community members, so they have a stake for community success, and also thinking about a path to opportunity, making it possible for people to contribute. we also have a principle of respecting, hearing, and listening to community voices. so i wanted to talk a little bit on the next slide about community resources and opportunity. c.a.p. is just one program solution with a proven track record and, you know, it's a

ten-year proven track record. we have recorded every single street interaction, focused on what works best, developed a strategy and program and reached out to the community. we also provided a number of services to the community, and this provides everything from language outreach and assistance, capacity building for c.b.o.s, citizenship, community engagement, immigrant voting, and other resources, as well as rapid response. and i heard one of the speakers earlier suggest that there be a rapid response created for -- system created for victimed of hate crimes. this is not seally -- victims of hate crimes. this is not solely about resources, but we understand in a time when resources are limited, it's not about more,

it's about where you put the investment and how you sustain that support for community-based organizations that are doing the hard lifting, and for victims' rights and services. so we totally support the notion of a rapid response for hate crime victims and wraparound services, and this investment needs to happen not just when there are sudden tasks, but it needs to support the on going work of these community organizations. and more important, from a department perspective, better coordination systems and programs so that we are all looking out for each other and happy for each other's success. if you go to the next slide, i wanted to end with a couple of slides about solidarity, ending racism, hate, and violence. so this has all come to a head, as you all know. the intersectionality with

racial equity, health, housing, layered on top with criminal and environmental justice, linguistic and digital equity, equal access to accurate and timely information during a pandemic, access to services, programs, and opportunity. this is where addressing the hate and violence has to be about all of these things. it's not enough to have a conversation with something bad happens. we've got to have on going discussion and collaborations before the problems. this last slide frames the issue of white supremacy in bipoc and minority communities. if you go to my very last

slide, this is the but, okay? [inaudible] >> -- has affected all of us, but access by the community and victims at this moment are so critical. the image above was created by local indigenous artists by our 2016 census campaign, but it's done for all of the communities that feel that they are inverible and feel -- invisible and feel that they don't matter. last, .2% of all philanthropic dollars go to support these needs. so there's a perception that this community doesn't need the help. i want to end with this quote by daniel day kim who testified recently, on march 18, at a

judiciary committee meeting, that what happens right now will send a message to generations to come as to whether we matter, we as asian pacific islanders, whether the country we call home chooses to erase us or include us, to dismiss us or respect us, to individualize us or not see us. so i want to thank you for allowing this hearing and for letting us to participate. we can do more as a san francisco family of community members, and with that, rich and i are happy to answer any questions that you may have. [please stand by]

>> i saw that the coverage is limited in san francisco. also the capacity for ambassadors. after all, i wanted to make sure that we do have that language as a culture competency. i'm going to -- i have follow-up more questions on the program. i thought we should start it off with just the budget, the total budget for the program, number of the ambassadors for the existing coverage area and their

language capacity. , thank you. >> thank you, supervisor. the budget is really about $1 million. maybe little bit over. it remains pretty much the same for the last ten years. even though we have been asked to do more and stretch ourselves pretty thinly. we pretty much stretched as far as it would go. it's about $1 million. there's no programmatic funding for the program. we were supported for a number of years by private grants. which have ended in 2018. we're borrowing from other programs to kind of support the community ambassadors.

rich will go into the number of balances. >> to add more detail, i think the budget in the current fiscal for ambassador program is a little bit closer to $1.5 million. because the budget cut it's projected to be $1.1 million. there are budget cuts in terms of how the program will be running next year. i can speak to the staffing now. usually, there's folks entering and exiting the program, usually about 25 ambassadors in total. that's across the various teams. we're arranged in four different teams. we have a district neighborhood team that have about five to six ambassadors in that team provides services in cantonese, vietnamese and spanish. we have teams in the mission that's a smaller team for folks

with language capacity in spanish and reassigned folks from other teams when needed to support cantonese. in chinatown team we have ambassadors. central market and tenderloin area, same kind of capacity in terms of having cantonese and spanish. those are the areas we're working in the language capacity. i'm happy to provide more detail. when we say it's 25 ambassadors, some of those are positions that are funded directly by our office and some are actually job participants that are places in our office during their jobs. i don't think our budget can hold or present -- represent 25

ambassadors. we do our best to partner with other city departments. >> it's about $1 million. but it doesn't really cover all 25 ambassadors is what you're saying? you're sharing the workers with job now program? >> exactly. >> what are the operation hours of the ambassador program? >> the general window is -- across all teams is 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. the teams vary a little bit base the on either community partner needs or request we've been getting in the community. each team is slightly different. our district ten and mid-market tenderloin teams are 9:00 to 6:00. mission and chinatown teams are working 8:00 to 5:00.

it is flexible based on what we're hearing from community. things like that. >> with that, generally, 8:00 to 6:00, they are there monday through friday. are they all seven days? >> monday through friday. occasionally for special events, they would work saturday and sunday. right now it's a weekday program. >> i think -- how does ocii measure success? i think chair mar highlighted in the first two presentations but at the last one. sort of on the city services and to really talk about the measure of success. what does that really look like? what does the measure of success, what the metric of success that you view for community ambassador service

program? >> go ahead adrian. >> before you answer that question, supervisor, that's a great question. that's really important. when we were very small start-up office, we decided to pilot everything -- every single one of our programs so the program was piloted for a year. we collected tons of data. since then, we documented every single interaction, everything is based on data. any tweaks that richard and his team make to the program are based on data that we're collecting every single day

through every single interaction. richard, you can go on with the details. we continue to use a number of metrics which rich will explain. >> yeah. just to add some additional texture to that, it is really challenging to measure overall community impact especially when you're trying to measure the absence things like violence or crime. i think that's been a challenge for us. we try to focus on measuring the impact of what our ambassadors do in terms of tracking services, or any interactions. primarily based on self-reported daily activity logs that each ambassador completes every shift. we tracking number of 311 reports that complete the and number of safety reports. that's helpful. we realized -- we can provide useful data in terms of like how that has changed over the years.

sometimes that's more of a reflection of our staffing level than community need. we struggle with figure out how to measure the broader impact. the anecdotal impacts from it community about why our services are so important and from our community partners, i think rely on our presence. it's something were trying to get more zeroed in on but i'm happy to provide some of the data that we do track if that would be helpful. >> yeah, absolutely. i think that given the fact that we started this program since 2010. it's an annual funding of $1 million, that means we have on and off, even with private funding, we have invested over $10 million in the community ambassador service program. i think it's time to really

establish efficient metrics measuring success. i think for the very least, it's like number of people served. how are they served in what way. with that, can help us determine areas that they should be deployed. obviously, the district supervisor for district 1, i see the needs. i worked with department of public works and i wanted to really understand how are we really utilizing individuals. frankly the ambassadors i met are wonderful. there's no doubt about the quality of the ambassador. what i do worry and have concern is that after a decadesful investment, here we are. we want to make more investment.

i think we deserve as a community, more investments. let's make sure that if we're asking as rapid response team and thinking about investments in our community, we ought to be able to say, what are the metrics for us to measure the success and if we can provide improvements and figure out and allocate resources in places where it can really bring us results. what are the results look like and what do the deliverables look like. that's more of a comment chair mar. i will yield my time. i wrap up my questions here. thank you. >> supervisor mar: thank you, supervisor chan for good questions. i have few follow-up questions about the community ambassador program. i thank director pon

highlighting significant surge in violence targeting asians back in 2008 and 2009. i was wondering, since then, there's been -- it's good to see the program continue and expand into other neighborhoods. there's been other similar kind of neighborhood or street based on safety outreach programs that started up. even drawing on some of the model and examples from the c.a.p. program. there's even the police department, there's foot patrols and walks and community organizations doing patrols and outreach programs too. my question, how does the community ambassador program coordinate with these other similar programs. they're little bit different.

there's similarity around neighborhood outreach around safety issues. what level of coordination happens? >> thank you, chair mar. that's a great question. it's not always easy to answer it. in terms of the ambassador program and richard and i don't think fernando is on the line. there's an ongoing conversation that the team has with community. it's not just when something happens. they meet regularly. they attend the neighborhood meetings for the sfpd. we're always working. coordinating with other groups as you said, over past ten years, a number of similar programs have popped up. when we first started -- those

were ambassadors like individuals that goes on and off the muni transportation system. then there was two guides. that was it. over the past ten years, it's been c.d.d.s that created their own ambassador program and tourist association and visitor associations have hired them. i think they've come and gone. we've tried to be part of the coordinated conversation. there's been some when there was uptick in violence in the civic center area. there were -- that was probably the best coordination. it was the p.d. and local captains and officers, ambassadors, city departments, mental health, everybody.

as of today, i don't believe, richard please correct me if i'm incorrect, there's a coordinating body today currently. we do our best to coordinate with each individual organization. there used to be a director of violence prevention out of the mayor's office. in 2010 they wrote this 120-page violence prevention plan. i don't think it ever got to implementation stage or not all of it. as of today, i don't know if you know who is the point person for violence prevention in the city. we do our best to coordinate individual organization. >> just to add that your individual leads attend monthly.

we try to build partnerships with works that in overlapping areas. we train our ambassadors to have the dispatch number for the community benefit district. maybe benefit district can address more quickly than d.p.w. there are many programs on the street providing support whether it's street cleanliness, safety team. i think the need for coordination is very critical. there's a lot of great work happening. lot of natural partnership kind of surfacing. some additional stewardship to make sure all these programs are really aligned in a similar strategy through m.t.a. or our office or sfpd or community run.

more people on the streets in uniform the better in terms like a friendly presence to support people. i do think that's true. i think the coordination need is acute. >> supervisor mar: thank you for that. thanks for all your good work. it sound like there's coordination happening between c.a.p. and other public safety outreach programs on sort of neighborhood or district station level. there's a lack of sort of citywide coordination or for the various programs. supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: i had a similar question. i won't go too far in it. i constantly hear about

ambassadors are doing and the great work. i'm really grateful for what they do. we also, it feels like there are a lot of other similar types of efforts. -- whether it's c.b. some ways they are doing similar things as the ambassadors but may be they are mimicking in some ways or doing some other types of things in other cases. i'm wondering even for example to ask you this latest effort that was announced by the mayor with the role of sbip and other organizations if community ambassador have role in that and how that differs for what you are doing. it does feel like we all want to expand the ambassadors and also,

at the same time, we're expanding all those other types of programs. how do we create something that's coherent and coordinated and people know who they are and what they do and they are well-trained. i think it does feel like we're sort of seeing a dramatic expansion in all different ways. there could be something that is centered around the ambassadors that's a bit more coordinated and coherent rather than having to interact with a lot of these different other efforts. is there -- i don't know if that's a question more of a statement. is there a role with this latest effort with seip and specific focus around the anti-asian hate incidents. how does the ambassadors fit in that?

>> i will make an attempt to answer that in the most diplomatic way possible. no, there's not a role that was defined in that effort for the community ambassadors. however, we do see our role as continuing to support all the community efforts and if it's the street violence prevention folks or the c.b.d., we will continue to partner with them. the simple answer is no. there's no role to expand any of these efforts. >> supervisor haney: thank you. >> supervisor mar: the next presentation was going to be on the street violence intervention program. why don't we go to that.

mr. carrillo? >> good afternoon everyone. i'm director for the street violence intervention program. i don't know if we have a slide available. >> good afternoon, we have your presentation. give us a moment to retrieve it and pull it up. >> okay. >> supervisor mar: your

presentation is up. >> i don't see it. okay. it's not showing on my screen for some reason. >> the presentation is displaying for the viewers here. i can see it. it's full screen. >> that's interesting. i have it up on my screen and i can present it from there. the street violence intervention program is an outreach program. it was created in 2013 to intervene with youth related to street violence in the city and county of san francisco. the history goes back over 30 years. there was violence in the mission district, violence in the bayview and there was a

program that was developed. that was developed in '84. it was a mission to go on friday, and saturday nights where lot of youth were partnering in garages and on the street. they would pick up youth, take them to mission rec center, take them on outing and drive them home when they were drunk. they developed a program called the real alternative program, called r.a.p. it provided -- targeted school for home boys. they learned about baton rouge and science. -- biology and science. back in 2000, -- let me back up. at the same time, in the bayview, there was brothers against guns and there were other community agencies that were working together to try to

prevent violence. in 2000, there was uptick violence in the city and especially in the mission. community response network was built to address pretty much five different neighborhoods. western, mission, bayview and the o.m.i. in 2013, c.r.m. was transitioned to health right 360. i was asked to take over this program. the youth that we serve are 10 to 35-year-old. we deal with at-risk. those kids hanging on the block and not involved with anything, those are at-risk that have some

criminal justices involvement. those that are in risk that considered perpetrators or victims of those that are perpetrated. what we do, we do street outreach and we do crises response. the street outreach is we go to the hot spot neighborhoods. when covid is not happening. we will walk the neighborhood, talk to the transitional -- the young adults that are at risk to violence. we ask what will it take to get you off the block. most of the time they will say go back to school or support with substance abuse treatment or mental health service. we connect the dots to do that. we do community building events. we have almost 30 staff.

they are african-americans, latino and park islanders. island -- pacific islanders. we do lot of community event. we take youth to different outings to get them away from the blocks that they are from. we do safe passage. if there's someone at school who might have a problem getting to and from school, where they need support, we may do safe passage for the youth. we do conflict mediation. we do preventive education and we have intensive mentorship program. we follow the youth. we'll make a referral to an education, let's say to y.c.d., they'll go through a job readiness training program to try to get a job. we will support them during that duration to make sure they have

the support. we also do crises response. when a shooting happen or stabbing, there's a text that goes out from sfpd or d.p.h. they dispatch a worker who will work with the victim or immediate family. we do crowd control, rumor control, deescalation, whatever we can do from the hospital and into the community where there might be problems. we try to do that mediation. we started the process of --

reimagining [indiscernible] the youth are not hanging out as much as they have been. we've been supporting other areas. food distribution. there's a lot of food lines in different communities. we've been supporting with that. covid testing. we've been supporting with covid testing. we've been transporting people who are getting vaccinated from let's say 24 state to sf general hospital. different locations to make sure they are getting vaccinated. we're working with the mayor's announcement as far as working with ambassadors with c.y.c. to start to establish some walk abouts in chinatown and o.m.i.

we're more than willing to work with whomever to be supportive to this cause. there was a question about violence prevention coordinator with the mayor's office. that person is james caldwell. i can send that information to whomever. he is the public safety officer that's working directly for the mayor's office. he would be the person to contact this coordination that we're doing. that's the short version. i can answer any questions that you have. >> supervisor mar: thank you so much for your presentation. i had a question. can you talk more about what the plan is to partner with other

a.p.i. community groups to address the crime and violence that we're seeing right now? what the time line is for that as well? >> we are working on that. we received sort of like an announcement of coordination. that funding to do this. we're at the beginning stages of finding out how many svip workers will be available. we have to hire culturally responsive folks that can speak the language. we have today, african-american, latino and pacific islanders. mostly samoan realm that are prone to violence in san francisco. once we get funding, i can start that hiring process. i'm waiting for that green light to be able to start that in

motion. we have been speaking with the sheriff. we will start to coordinate our efforts to figure out how best to be supportive. meeting the community needs. >> supervisor mar: is this going to be a partnership or it's a coordinated program? >> that's still to be defined. whatever we can do to support each other in this cause. as a matter of fact, we've started the walkabouts in chinatown yesterday. we're going to be in san bruno this afternoon. we're having the wheels in motion. there's different community

advocates. there's different groups right now that are formulating their own walkabouts. we want to have a coordinated effort so we're all speaking the same language and we're all trained properly. we can be supportive as possible. we're still working out those details. >> supervisor mar: even for the walkabout that you started in chinatown, is that being done with c.y.c. folks? >> yes. >> supervisor mar: that's great. how are you coordinating with the existing sort of patrol groups or outreach even from the last presentation, there's a community ambassador team in chinatown, how you're coordinating with other safety

outreach efforts? >> we're just starting this dialogue. i need to connect with the leaders from those groups. the walkabout groups and with the ambassador program to write this all out. i'm just starting to process now. >> supervisor mar: got it. thank you. colleagues, do you have any questions for mr. carrillo about svip's work? supervisor chan? >> supervisor chan: i want to thank you for this work. it really is not easy. i think it's more of common question. very similarly to my question to

director pon about the community ambassador program. training qualification and the metric of measuring success, really look forward to like supervisor haney have talked about earlier. looking and identify some coordinated effort citywide and different type of programs that we're working on to make sure we're efficient and we know the metric of success measuring of that and perhaps working along with the controllers office to identify those per forma metrics so we can have some type of audit or annual reporting to really figure out the results and the deliverables. >> thank you. >> supervisor mar: supervisor

haney? >> supervisor haney: thank you so much for your work and your team. you just do such extraordinary work, keeping people safe. when we look at some of the success that san francisco has had reducing some of the violence in our city, i think you all have been consistently at the center of that. so thank you for that. i had two kind of connecting questions. i know that you all work with a lot of different folks and a lot of the work that do you is around working with young people, which i think is really critically important. one of the questions i had is how with this particular effort, which is really working with seniors and working with sort of a different population. how that transition is happening for you all in terms of either training or partnership with

c.y.c. and other organizations that do work with seniors more often. you can speak to that shift from working with different set of populations that you're working to protect here. >> i'm a senior. it has to be developed. we've been talking through this whole covid, the work in it city, all of us have to reimagine what we've done in the past. there are trying it times now. all ever us need to be open. we're going to walk with the senior citizens, we'll help with sfmta, with the ambassador and the police. we're all in it together to make everyone feel as safe as possible. we'll have to change our schedules. we'll have to develop specific

proofs that we'll go out and support those folks. we have to be culturally confident, we have to peek the language. we have to get trained. >> supervisor haney: i'm wondering how this works and what are the different roles, different organizations and leaders in a situation like in tenderloin where we have variety of safety challenges. we have concerns around some of these violent acts of hatred and racism and hate crimes. we have seniors who are vulnerable and concerned about walking down the street in many cases. there's a lot of organizations that are involved and have a

role and all of that. are you playing a role of helping to coordinate all of that? are you putting actual people out on the street to be out there invisible and help with intervention? are you helping to train some of the people who are going out there. are you coordinating with different groups that might be playing a role? i'm trying to understand how this looks like in a neighborhood like the tenderloin when we have such tremendous need. what role you're playing and how this creates -- [indiscernible] >> supervisor, we have to work that out. the street outreach that we do at harbor road is different than the tenderloin. i'll be honest with you, i myself, went through there years

ago as a young adult. i know that walking the beach in the tenderloin with someone trying to buy drugs, you have these jackets, these svip sweatshirts not will not work well those who are buying and selling. we have to make sure everybody is safe. we have to develop a coordinated effort how to do that. the cbos there, we need to work with them. i don't have the answers now. i'm willing to do whatever we can to help those folks. lot of it's all substance abuse. there's mental health issues. wie need to connect the dots to get people to the supportive services that they need. >> supervisor haney: i appreciate that. definitely, agree with you on the complexity of neighborhoods.

every neighborhood is different. one things i appreciate about your work, you all understand that. you understand how to approach. in way that's connected with the organizations and meet us there. is there a timeline for this work? is there a time in which sort of when you be able operational or scale up. when we can expect impact of this? obviously, there's a lot of urgency that our residents and constituents feel around this issue of safety. we know that there was some announcements around this. we are supportive of. it's harder for me to understand how to share with my constituents when they'll see some impact of that. >> right. i put in the request to james caldwell who's the chief officer of criminal justice and public safety. i just added his information on

the chat line so we can all communicate with him. i'm waiting to hear back to him when the funding stream will start to roll in so we can start to figure this out. in the meantime, we started talking about how best to set the protocols for training protocols, the hiring of staff, on boarding to work that out so we can start to develop some timelines. i don't have an answer as of yet. we're working diligently to get that information. >> supervisor haney: thank you. i appreciate your work. thank you. >> supervisor mar: thanks for the good question preview haney. we also have available on d.p.h. representative, svip is housed under d.p.h. crises services

program. stephanie felder here? >> hello. >> supervisor mar: hi. i had a question about d.p.h. this is more around victim support and services and the question is what's d.p.h.'s role response to violent crimes. specifically with language on culture barriers when they've been targeted by their race, languagability and age?

this is chair mar. i have a question about d.p.h.'s role in supporting victims of violent crime. specifically where they have language and cultural barriers. they may have been targeted by their race, age or vulnerability. >> most recently, we've been getting information from sfpd regarding victims that have been affected by these types of crimes. we have had our cantonese and mandarin staff reach out. we have a 24-hour crises line where anyone can call to get support. we do have language capability. >> supervisor mar: that's good to hear.

is this support to particularly asian victims of violent crime? offering mental health services. is this a new support from d.p.h.? that's been created recently as a result of the surge in cases? is this something you've been providing? >> this is something we've been providing ongoing for a while now, for years. >> supervisor mar: i don't know if you can speak to the numbers of cases in individuals that you're supporting specifically a.p.i. individuals. has that increased. >> the resembles from -- the referrals from the police has increased. over the last few months, it

increased. >> supervisor mar: do you -- you connect them to mental health services? d.p.h. mental health services or community provider? >> it depends on what the individual would like. we can take them in-house and provide that individual treatment. we just kind of assess their needs if they need to be linked back to victim of crime. if you're interested in mental health, we can link them to the outpatient clinic or provide the service here at crises. >> supervisor mar: thank you so much. if there's no other questions for svip or d.p.h., we can move on to the sfpd presentation. i believe we have chief scott

here and his team to do the presentation. are you still here? >> yes, supervisor, i'm here. let me thank you for chairing this important meeting and bringing attention and awareness to this issue. which is one of the most important issues we have going now. i'll start by introducing my co-presenter which are acting deputy chief commander. i will open it up and turn it over to acting deputy chiefs. first, i want to start with the san francisco police department, recognizes that our asian-american pacific islanders, aapi community has been deeply impacted by all the

senseless violence not happened in our city and in this region but on a national scale over the last few months. frankly in reality, we seen some horrific crimes against senior members of the aapi community over the last few years. i hate to say that. that is sad reality. we seen a rise in violence against our aapi community members. we're seen devastating consequences of those directly impacted and their families. those consequences includes heightened sense of fear and anxiety. people who just want to go about their daily activities of life. some are afraid to do so. that is very problematic. however you want to look at this issue, that is very problematic. fear and hate is not what our

city is about. we have to work collaboratively to change what's happening and the anxiety associated with the fear of crime. we're going to talk about how we are doing our part to do that. as i said, acting deputy chief will speak more to that. in october of last year, where the mayor was urging, the board urging, we knew we had to do more. we created a community liaison unit also known as c.l.u. to support victims of these types of. incidents and crimes. unfortunately, they were put to tack right away. we had the homicide that happened months ago. that community stepped up to support his family during this crises situation. that's what they put together

for. since then, they have supported our investigators and our team and the families that have been victims to these types of crimes and other types of serious crimes. they've done a really good job. we like to expand the footprint of the c.l.u. it really speaks to the other part that i talked about reducing the anxiety, helping people navigate when they are involved in situations like this. navigate through the processes, city government, linking them with the right resources including the district attorney, victim support unit and resources like that and the community-based resources that are out there. there are lot of community based resources that can support our city and victims of these types of incidents. as a department, also, we're constantly assessing our strategies and inviting our aapi

stakeholders to continue to brainstorm with us. those meetings will give solutions to address this issue. we've already seen some dividends of that. we're thinking community collaborations and community safety loss and strategies like that. which have been very effective not only raising awareness but letting people know that we're there to support. our aati collaborations have been very helpful in that regard. i want to thank our newest commissioner for his work in this. he has been -- he hit the ground running on that. we've done community walks. we've done rallies. he's partnering in bringing all of of this together. i want to thank him i know he's

not here. and all the commissioners for their support on this issue. i want to thank you, chair mar, supervisors stefani to present. with that, i will turn it over to acting deputy chief. >> thank you, chief.

as you will see in this, we actually saw a decrease from 2020 to 2021, a slight decrease. in it, we're looking at crimes such as assault, robberies etcetera. we did have one homicide that i'll talk about later in the presentation. you'll see a trending. we have noticed trending higher from 2021 and i'll talk about

that a little bit more in the slide. we looked at actually incidents involving elderly asian-americans and all elderly victims. you can see that we're between 2019, 2020 and 2021, the trend has been pretty close. it's between 19%, 17% of victims are asian-americans and this relatively stayed the same. we're seeing that same trend. we are seeing more people come forward definitely since february, march, talking to special victims unit on this. our hate crimes are actually investigated -- [indiscernible]

if somebody can please go on mute. the hate crimes are actually investigated by our special investigations division. every single patrol officer is trained on hate crimes. every single patrol officer that is out there every investigator is trained to look for indicators of hate crime and to elevate that and make sure that we capture those incidents by the way they investigate and write the report and how the case is investigated. if you look at the stats here, we did see a decrease from 2019

to 2020 but we also ran the raw numbers. when you look at the raw numbers they talk about full hate incidents. we saw an increase of rec and --increase with 2019 to 2020. especially in the last few months where lot of cases are highlighted. more people are coming forward to us and reporting this. which is actually great news. we do want to hold people accountable that commit these crimes. we want to educate the public how to prevent these crimes. you'll see the numbers right now, these are actually victims. so the incidents are about seven that we looked at in 2021 that are actually chargeable as a hate crime. i'll go little bit more into

that in the next slide. the way we determine hate crime, we're actually dictated by a general order. we have very specific training on how to identify hate crimes. our general order 6.13 is based on both the civil rights act of 1976 and the dane act, the state act for civil rights of 1987. our policy is based on both of those acts and we go much further into it on victim outreach. basically, the premise of it, any crime, violent, threatening acts that are based directed on a person or property, some of the things that we look at as

far as what those -- we look at race, the person's gender, religion, national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, age, disability. we looked at these factors. the critical part is the motivation. by somebody committing the crime, we want to show that their motivation for committing this crime was primarily based on one of these indicators -- one of these victim indicators what cause them to commit the crime. that's sometimes very hard. that's why if you look at the overall cases, bring it to the level of chargeable hate crime.

the cases that we had this year, out of those cases, every case that we have brought up to that level and have been able to present it to the district attorney, the offenders have been charged on those cases as a hate crime. lot of these cases are open. i can't go into lot of details on the specifics of the case. i can give you generally what's going on with the cases. in addition to specific training that's formalized, we also -- we just recently reached out to all patrol officers and refreshed their training on indicators of hate crime recording and then victim outreach. >> deputy chief. >> supervisor mar: can i ask few questions about the last few

slides? you're saying -- you're saying 2021 so far, there's been seven cases that have been charged as hate crimes with aapi motivation is anti-asian prejudice? >> seven cases that have been identified out of those seven have been charged, the others are open investigations. >> supervisor mar: the previous slide showed 15. >> 15 victims. some of them have multiple victims. >> supervisor mar: okay. [please stand by]