and thank what straw is giving that in and of itself it making an impact with the nonprofit through the consumers that are coming here is just as important it is important for the grill cheese kitchen the more restrictive i learn about what is going on in the community more restrictive people are doing this stuff with 4 thousand restaurant in san francisco we're doing an average of $6,000 a year in donations and multiply that by one thousand that's a i.d. 1871153493.>> chairwoman: s monday, may 10th, 2021, i'm aaron peskin, joined by raphael mandelman and connie chan.

our clerk is mr. victor young. mr. young, do you have any announcements? >> yes. due to the covid-19 health emergency, and to protect board members, city employees, and the public, the committee room and board of chamber room are closed. committee members will attend the meeting through video conference to the same extent as if they were physically present. we are streaming the numbers across the stream. comments and opportunities to speak are available via phone -- one moment while we sort that out. is available by phone by calling 415-655-0001. the meeting i.d. 1871153493, and then press pound and pound again. when connected, you will hear the meeting

discussions, but you'll be muted and in listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up, dial *3 to be added to the speaker line. best practices are to call from a quiet location and turn down your television or radio. alternatively, you may submit committee to me, and it will be forwarded to the supervisions and included as part of the official file. that completes my official comments. item 1 is the motion appointing dean preston ending february 4th, 2022, to the (indiscernable). >> chairman: colleagues, i want to thank supervisor preston for his willingness to serve on a

local formation body, that is chaired by supervisor chan. supervisor chan, is there anything you would like to say about this? >> thank you, chair peskin, for scheduling this, and i want to also thank supervisor preston for his willingness to join us and spending the time, but i look forward to seeing his leadership on the commission to help us especially with the items around public bank. so thank you so much. >> chairman: thank you, supervisor chan. i don't believe that supervisor preston is present, and this is relatively proforma, done pursuant to a memorandum that the clerk of the board of supervisors sends out from time to time, determining if members of the board are interested in various bodies, ranging from the goldengate bridge board to the california association of counties to

the local agency formation commission, amongst others, and supervisor preston indicated his interest. is there any public comment on this item number one? >> yes. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item should call 415-655-0001, and the meeting i.d. is i.d. 1871153493. then press pound and pound again. and then dial *3 to line up to speak. a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand, please wait until the system indicates you can speak. there are five listeners, but nobody lined up to speak. >> chairman: okay. public comment is closed. i would like to make a motion to send this item to the full board with recommendation. on that motion, a roll

call, please. >> clerk: supervisor mandelman? >> yea. >> clerk: supervisor chan? >> aye. >> clerk: chair peskin? >> aye. >> clerk: the motion passes. the next item, item 2 (indiscernable) for a term ending february 20th, 2024. i believe there is a request that this be sent out as a committee report. >> chairman: that is correct. thank you, mr. young. ms. gandhi, feel free to turn your camera on. i want to start by thanking ms. gandhi for the not one, but two meetings that we've had, not in person, but virtually. and let me just start by saying that ms. gandhi is quite accomplished in her field. and i enjoyed our visit,

and it was an opportunity for me to use my handful of phrases of terrible hindi language, but that is not what is before us today. what is before us is a motion pursuant to section 3.100 of the san francisco charter that relates to this appointment to the mighty retirement board of the city and county of san francisco that has an investment portfolio of many, many billions of dollars. and before we hear from ms. gandhi, who you all colleagues have a little write-up about her, and you may have already interviewed you herself. her form 700s are in the package and available to the public. i just wanted to say those things for the record. but i want to put this into a little bit of context. obviously, this is a mayoral appointment,

subject to section 3.100, which means that the board of supervisors can reject such an appointment within 30 days by a super majority of eight votes. and the last day that the board would have jurisdiction, sitting as a full board, would be tomorrow. hence the need to send this as a committee report. there has been a long-standing interest, arguably going back now a generation to the days when i was first elected over 20 years ago. in having the san francisco retirement system divest from its investments in fossil fuels, and in the last almost decade that has been a very robust movement, championed by then supervisor john avelos, and it has been

the subject of numerous resolutions by the board. as i told ms. gandhi, every appointee from the retirement board, supervisor safai, have been stal worth supporters of the investment from our fossil fuels portfolio, which is a very, very small part of the entire investment portfolio of the retirement system. that has been repeatedly met with resistance by staff. it has repeatedly been met with resistance by the oversight body, to which ms. shruty has been appointed to, and which we are considering today. despite the fact -- and i say that acknowledging that the retirement board and its staff visit a fid

fiduciary duty, and appropriately so. having said that, there have been a number of moral imperatives relative to investment over time. going back to the days of apartheid in south africa, where the retirement board, along with retirement systems across the country, chose to divest with companies doing business with south africa. the same was true around the city's historic investments in the firearms industries, which the retirement system divested from. the same is true with tobacco, but has yet to be true for fossil fuels, despite the push from really remarkable coalitions of

environmental activists. and in recent years, many retirement systems, academic retirement systems, like harvard, other cities and states, like new york, have been much more aggressive. san francisco's retirement system has been late to that system. with that in mind, the board of supervisions passed on february 23rd of this year, a resolution urging the mayor to appoint an individual to the retirement system who had experience in divestiture, including divestiture in fossil fuels. i think that is what is

before us today to consider. i have no question that ms. gandhi has the skills, the experience, and the background in the world of investment, and, indeed, her resume and her form 700s indicate that. i think the question before the board of supervisors today and tomorrow is relative to the unanimously passed resolution that we passed on february 23rd, that was co-sponsored by safai, ronen, mandelman, and mar, and voted for unanimously by the board. with all of that in mind, i do want to say that both of the conversations that i've had with ms. gandhi have been productive in general, and in this specific regard, and with that, ms. gandhi, the floor is yours for as long as you would like it. >> first of all, thank you for the context and

sharing that. and thank you forgiving methe opportunity to share my platforms. before i dive into that, i prepared a bit of my opening remarks to acquaint everyone who i am. i truthy gandhi. thank you for having me here. i'm a capital venturer. my fund focuses on (indiscernable) companies across different verticals, such as compliance, governance, health, finance, security, and my portfolio companies have been acquired by companies like apple and others. before venture capital, i worked for ibm for a

decade, working on many new patents, and also for the c.e.o. chairman at the time's office. i got my undergraduate degree on the east coast in computer science at meris college, and master's in computer science at columbia university. i have an m.b.a. university of chicago, school of business. chicago has produced many laurents in finance and economics. and i won the (indiscernable) award for 2021. having shared my resume now, i want to give -- and, you know, given you qualifications, as i mentioned, i want to give you my qualifications necessary for this retirement board. and i will be honored to leverage my experience,

knowledge, and network to serve for the role here. that is the points of me sharing my resume, just from the investment perspective. i know in february the board unanimously passed resolution for fossil fuel divestment. i want to mention that this goal is near and dear to my heart. with the recent drought, temperatures rising, we have something to do more aggressively to save our planet. with global temperatures rising every year, we have to act on a much shorter timeline. we have to get to carbon neutral as soon as possible, and have a clear plan on how to get there in three to five years. the resolution also called on the mayor to appoint an expert in sales divestiture. i want to be clear i'm not that person, as you can see from my resume. but i will be a strong advocate for divestment.

my expertise is helping companies set clear timelines, pushing them to meet those timelines. i want to bring transparency to our initiatives, to support a plan we were revisit regularly to track our progress towards these efforts. i think that san francisco employees and retirees are looking for more transparency, more visibility, into what the board and the retirement system are doing. lastly, my work over the last two decades will support notity the not just the divestment, but assets that reflect our san francisco values. thank you for that, and thank you for your consideration. >> chairman: thank you, ms. gandhi, and i'll certainly turn it over to my colleagues on this panel. i think part of the rub, if you will -- and, by the

way, in the last e.s.g. report, the retirement system indicated they would like to reach net carbon neutrality by 2050, which we found to be -- how should i say it nicely -- l. i think neutrality is a part of the issue, but the way the requirement system's staff and board has been treating this is that neutrality doesn't mean divestment. it means investment in alternatives. we want investment in alternatives and divestment from the approximately 120 instruments that are in the fossil fuel portfolio that i think total a little more than a half billion dollars. really, a very small part of the entire portfolio. i think it is a couple of percent of -- >> 2% or less, yeah.

>> chairman: there you go. okay. exactly. so i want to hear your thoughts about what neutrality means to you in your role on this body. >> actually, you bring up an excellent point, which i'm really good at, which is, you know, where does the money go once we do divestment. we should create a plan and make sure we stick to that plan. the part that i think alternate classes with high return in this category are important. i want to just point to one of my recent investments i made in this category, in a company called "solution," which recently announced they're going carbon negative. even though i may not have the best hat on for something like this, it is definitely areas we're going to consider, where we focus our investment strategy, and what carbon

neutrality really means, and not just neutrality, but more like carbon negative assets. i will still push for full divestment, i want to be clear on that, but pulling on my expertise, based on my experience and also people i know well in the industry, you know, we will get 200% divestment, but now also leverage all of these people into figuring out what is the best place for our money to be invested for highest amount of growth possible, but still considering the social implications of our investments that we make. >> chairman: thank you, ms. gandhi. and yesterday, when we were talking -- and i really appreciate you're reaching out to me over the weekend -- you indicated that you had kind of searched high and low on what is publicly accessible on the internet really to a divestment plan, and we're having trouble finding.

what do you think about that? >> that's an excellent point. i think we should bring more transparency because without being able to really understand what our goals are and publicly talking about them in a very clear fashion, i mean, in business that's what i do. we talk about what we're trying to achieve for the year, for the next few years, and then every board meeting we talk about where we are compared to those goals we set out as a company. so similarly, i agree. it is hard to find this information. and it should not be. and we should be able to bring more transparency to the process. and i will try my best to be able to create some sort of a transparency as much as possible to this process so we can then go out and make it publicly available to what goals we're meeting, basically.

and that's -- i think that's a fair concern, without me being on the other side, that's what i saw. >> chairman: right. and given the lack of a plan, or a transparent plan, what do you think is a reasonable timeframe, given the -- depending on how you want to count it -- one or two decades that the elected board of supervisors has been pushing the retirement system? what do you think is a reasonable amount of time for that plan to be publicly available? >> um, that's a good question. i -- it's a very good question. i think something comes out in october, as you and i were chatting. but i think within the next year or two would be a good, reasonable timeframe for us to start talking about how we talk about 100% divestment. i also want to be clear that we're talking about two different types of as asset leases in here. there is ones we can

divest in sooner, like stocks, just like you and i can just sell. we should be able to sell thinking through what -- how does that impact our returns. and then there is a long-term asset class. i think that's the piece -- so within the 2%, we have to figure out what is the long-term asset class we divested in, and we should have those kinds of numbers available and talk about -- so sooner, to your answer, than later on the plan to start having transparent conversations around divestment from those asset classes. >> chairman: despite unanimously passed resolutions in 2013 and 2017 urging divestment, the more liquid class has not only not been divested in, as a matter of fact, the board increased its investment in oxidental

petroleum, despite those unanimously passed resolutions. so it has been going in the wrong direction, not the right direction. although i agree with you that the less liquid class of assets requires more planning. as to the more liquid class of assets, what do you think the time would be? >> i would say, again, one, to two years is something, in my book, that we should target. i'm on your side. but i want to push for this as past as possible. i think this realization came to me -- i mean for a while now, but last year my daughter was less than a year old. and i had to worry about the air she was breathing. and to me, that is not a concern any parent or anyone in the future generation should have. so i'm with you there. i think, for me, it is going in and doing the work. i'm a doer, and i want to

make sure we come up with clear plans here to support everything worry talking about. but i understand your concern, that it has been talked about for a long time, and not addressed. so i want to go in and figure out why that is and then come up with even better timelines. but one to two years sounds very reasonable to me. >> chairman: thank you. i want to use this opportunity to thank the folks who i know are beleaguered and who have been at this and got the board 20 years ago to pass -- ae there was such a sense of climate change and sea level rise, but they've stuck at it for 20 years. they were the wind at supervisor avelos' back and mine and many policy-makers. i want to thank sun rise bay area 350.org, and two ynsz. unions. local 21, as well as the

mighty largest employees union for the city, the service employees international union, 10to 1, as well as the group defund the dakota access pipeline that i think just scored a major victory with this new president of the united states for their ongoing advocacy. and in addition to thanking them, as far as we're talking about transparency, ms. gandhi, have they reached out to you? members of this committee have gotten a number of e-mails expressing their concerns or disappointment that you -- and you've been very candid about this, and i appreciate it -- don't have that experience in divestiture from fossil fuel portfolios or failing assets. have you reached out to them? have they reached out to you? and would you be willing to carry on an ongoing

dialogue with them if you are retained on this body? >> who are we talking about? >> chairman: i'm talking about the advocates for divestment? >> is that a group? >> chairman: it's many groups. it's two major -- >> right. okay. >> chairman: -- employees' groups, the folks who have been advocating from the outside for this policy change. >> i'm sorry. good point. i didn't realize if it was one group or not. i think we -- they haven't reached out, but i'd be happy to meet with them. and i think we should have a plan of someone to, you know, make sure -- actually, i don't know the inner workings of the staff on this, but someone should be in touch with these groups and updating them. and if it is not publicly

available, which is what we should be pushing for anyway, so there is no one one-on-one conversations, but a more transparent one goal as an organization overall, or as the city overall. >> chairman: thank you for that. are there questions from committee members? supervisor mandelman, you're the author of any number of policies related to reducing our carbon footprint. any questions from you, sir? >> i mean, i think that this appointment and the resolution we're looking at raises questions for me about an area where i'm, frankly, out of my depth. i think -- i do not understand why it takes 20 years to divest from fossil fuels.

i'm hearing a commitment from this nominee to make this a major focus ofory of hertime on the board. although you might state that, actually. i think i need to spend a little more time understanding why this seems so hard for this entity, and what other comparable retirement boards and funds have been able to do. i am sure that chair peskin is correct in that we are lagging, but i don't know what it looks like for those other entities to move more aggressively. and i don't know how many folks -- and i have no idea how many folks are out there, or if there are any folks out there, with

an interest in serving on this board. it is called for in the title, but not in the resolve, you know, who have the concrete experience in doing this, that would ensure -- i would love to be having a conversation with this nominee about how it actually would work, and clearly she has some work to do to figure out how that would be. i'm inclined to accept a strong promise from her, if she is comfortable making it, that she is going to make this a top priority and will be in regular contact with advocacy groups and will push for -- and this is what the resolution does call for -- will commit to working with colleagues, staff, and non-governmental stakeholders to develop a concrete plan, and just making it happen to (indiscernable) for the

carbon neutrality. so i have lots of questions, but i'm not sure it is for this nominee. >> chairman: thank you. ms. gandhi, anything you would like to respond to? >> i think from an outsider, who is thinking about this, myself here, without being briefed, and all sorts of things from the internal workings so far, since i haven't attended anything just yet, i feel the same way. how can something take 20 years and still not make progress. to me, i agree with your sentiment here. one of the things i would say is, to your point, supervisor mandelman, we should be looking at what the harvards of the worldsare doing, and have they accomplished it? not as a benchmark, but to

figure out if they've accomplished it, and what is stopping us? i definitely agree with your remarks on that. i think we should, as an investment committee, discuss that and at least, as i said, bring transparency to why and what is happening and talk about it in at least every six months in a public way. so i'm with you there. and, yeah, i'm as baffled, so i'm not sure, and i don't want to point fingers because i don't know what's really behind it to make this so long of a trajectory so far. but i am committed, you know, putting my efforts -- i don't know what you are looking for, but i am committed to putting my efforts into this and making this a priority, and implementing a plan. >> chairman: thank you. supervisor chan, anything you would like to add?

>> um, thank you, chair peskin. i think it is rather more of a comment than as a question at this time. i just kind of wanted to say it's probably -- it is just interesting and i concur with vice chair mandelman that it is out of my depth as well in terms of understanding our divestment strategies and how to approach it. however, i do want to understand for any appointee to be on this board, to move the entire board forward -- you know, what would the strategy be to change the direction that has already been in place for quite some time? perhaps, i guess it is a question to pose to try to

understand -- it indicates that we see that that has been the pattern going against what the board of supervisors have urged unanimously. you, alone, as one appointee, what is your strategy to approach the situation to ensure that we are going to change the direction, so to speak? thank you. >> and that's a very good question. i mean, that is what, i would say, i am good at, managing certain boards and the investments and otherwise. creating a plan, creating transparency, creating accountability on people and doing what they -- and doing what we promised and doing as they say, and not kind of paying lip service. i mean, if you call any of my companies, people that i've worked with for

decades, they will -- you know, they will point to that quality of mine, which is to bring everyone on the board on the same page and making sure we're all moving in the direction that we've committed to. in this case, the commitment has happened, it is just taking really long. so we want to make sure -- that is kind of kind of why accountability is a very big part of it. i will do my best. and i will be acting on behalf of the employees here and the money that, you know, we're governing and helping grow, to make sures it grows into the best possible assets, and in the best socially motivating san francisco values kind of investment that we all agree on. i hope that helps.

>> chairman: i do want to say, obviously this is a very complicated field, and to supervisors mandelman and chan, while i don't claim to be a hedge fund manager, i do note that everybody from harvard, to the university of california to new york, have figured this out. so we could have figured it out when supervisor avelos passed his first measure in 2013. and the second measure in 2017. there is just recalcitrants on the part of staff. and if i may, not enough support from the board. and so, i mean, yes, it gets a little complicated relative to long-term investments that are locked up, and short-term investments that you want to sell without taking a big loss and all of the rest of it, but it ain't that complicated. i wanted to get that off of my chest.

ms. gandhi? >> well, first of all, yeah. i think, as i mentioned, it would be great to call our colleagues and figure out what they did and what we haven't done. i think that should be the first order of business, if not. but if i may just kind of summarize some of my commitments, if you're open to it -- >> chairman: sure. >> okay. let me just start a little bit so we can all feel a little like i'm saying -- i'm saying the same things you're hopefully looking for in some ways. let's see. i want to commit to pushing for an aggressive schedule for fossil fuels, to an effort to build a coalition on our board, to build out data and metrics, to build a case. i'm committed to holding our staff and the board accountable. we need to proactively daylight our fossil fuel divestments to a committee structure by asking tough

questions, and reflecting those efforts in an annual report. we also need to hold our staff accountable to these divestment efforts and to ensure that the strategy doesn't just pay lip service, as i've been saying, to climate risk and so forth and has something more substantial around it. i'm committed to supporting staff wherever i can, particularly for the direct investments, which is my expertise. and i have actually invested in some companies in this category directly as well. i'm committed to pushing for some social impact divestments, so we build towards climate solution investments, that means pushing for more research in that area. and, lastly, i'm committed to using my personal experience with folks of different, you know, pension funds, investment platforms, and my extensive business and financial network at places such as columbia,

university of chicago, to present those opportunities to the fund. so we are moving in the right direction as we continue to think about divestment and start thinking about areas we should be investing in, as i mentioned, as far as our values are concerned, aligned with their values. i hope that is helpful to kind of summarize some of the things we talked about. >> chairman: very well received, at least by this supervisor. why don't we open this up to public comment. mr. young, are there any members of the public here for item 2? >> clerk: members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this should call 415-655-0001 and then i.d. 1871153493. and then press pound and pound again. if you haven't already done so, please dial *3 to

line up to speak. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and you may begin your public comment. at this time, we have eight listeners and seven people in line to speak. >> chairman: first speaker, please. >> caller: hello, supervisors mandelman and peskin, as well as ms. chan. thank you for allowing me to speak. my name is johnny kotrin. i'm a resident of direct 9, a past member of ipt local 21. i'm speaking to you to express concern that the current mayoral nominee for the retirement board, gandhi, does not meet the requirements. urging the mayor to appoint someone with direct experience in

divestment in fossil fuels. i'm afraid we will continue to kick the can down the road without making any substantial action. to our supervisors who claim this is out of their depth to understand, i want to reiterate what supervisor peskin said: this is already being done across the country. just because neither you or i understand the (indiscernable), it does not mean it is impossible to find a future divestment plan. based on the board's previous commitments, without something with direct experience towards divestment, we'll be in exacting the same place as we were 10 years ago. [inaudible] thanks for your time. >> chairman: thank you.

next speaker, please. >> caller: hi, everyone. my name is alexander. i'm c.e.o. of mountain stream. and i want to talk to you as an investor, it is a software company that helps manufacturing and industrial companies comply with environment regulations. we help companies track requirements and measure their progress. when they're following all of the rules we're helping them follow, they reduce pollution. in fact, one of the long-term provisions is to be a key piece of e.s.p. p. investments. the reports are very unstandardized, and they generally jerry pick

pieces of data that makes them look good. without standards, it is hard to compare one company to another. i know you're talking about divesting in fossil fuels, and i imagine you'll go even farther than that. so transparency is going to be a key piece in making it possible for us to standardize these things. she took the time to dig in and understand the regulatory landscape, and that was something more investors were, quite frankly, not willing to do. she stayed very involved over the past three-and-a-half years, sharing her advice and opinions when we needed help, and she prides herself in building a community of founders, and not just being an investor. i believe truthy would be a available voice on the

board. >> chairman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> caller: hi, everyone, my name is sam bennett. truthy is on the board of my company. as you all know, making real progress in the world requires intense focus, the ability to think big while operating unlimited resources, ability to see a promising future where others don't, and not letting anything stand in the way of getting there. as a board member, i can tell you that shurty is the right amount of hands on, and is highly responsible, and she knows how to create a plan and drive a team of people towards a shared goal.

she helps us keep track of important milestones to make sure we see our company and the project to the next important phase of growth. she is highly respected in the technology community, where she has a broad network of subject experts to call in when needed, and she has been very generous bringing them into the fold here. she is a excellent capital investor, and she has a very unique perspective as an engineer. i think that is critically important for anyone looking to make data-driven decisions, and she does that and uses data to also persuade others to make decisions with her. i've suggested to a number of company founders that they add shruty to their board, and i wholeheartedly make the same suggestion for this board. thank you for the

opportunity to speak. >> chairman: thank you, next speaker. >> caller: hi there. i live in district 2, and i'm calling to support her appointment to the retirement board. i'm a fellow venture capitalist, and i have worked with her on a number of initiatives, and i found her to be one of the most astute bankers in the venture capital field. and what makes her unique and stand out is her ability to actually overlap and overlay her intelligence with a strong sense of moral fortitude. and i feel like this position requires that. her investments span a number of areas, including technology, as well as next generation materials, as she mentioned. all of those investments, i think, will give her a really unique insight, and

a differentiated insight in terms of how to rectify this position we're in in a very fast and thoughtful manner. i couldn't agree more that this is something we should prioritize and do in a timely fashion. 20 years is a long time to be waiting for action. i firmly believe that shruty is going to be a very, very strong advocate for making the change we need and will be a very responsible member of the committee for all of these purposes. thank you. >> chairman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> caller: hello, thank you, chair peskin, and supervisors. my name is chad holtzman, i live in district 5, and am a senior policy analyst for 350 bay area, and i'm one of the founders of fossil free san francisco,

which started trying to get the retirement board to move after the 2013 resolution efforts. thank you to supervisor peskin for caring this forward with the leadership. i wanted to say it was april 2013 when the board of supervisors passed the resolution calling for divestment. it was august 2013, when we started engaging with the board and meeting board members. over that time, they have lost a very substantial amount of money on those investments. managers hold on to them as they lose value for the public, which is poor incentive structure. if they had invested in indexes fund at the time we told them, then they would have done better for the fund. as a member of the public who has attended the most meetings on this topic and someone who works with many other boards and commissions, i need to say that the culture at this agency and board is

totally arrogant and necrotic. the board and the community asked for this. i'm not sure if ms. gan gandhi has watched these meetings. this appointment is one vote out of seven, so we need not just a supporter, but a leader, someone who can move a very stagnant board forward. i think we really do need a storied expert in e.s.g. and fossil fuel divestment. we have only ever been talking about liquid public investments, not ventricula investment. [buzzer] >> chairman: your time has lapsed.

thank you. i appreciate your testimony. >> caller: hi, this is jack fleck. i was very excited in 2013 and joined the efforts that was talked about. we met with pretty much all of the board members and tried to lobby every way we can. we started out by pointing out that this is an immoral thing, to be destroying the planet. if we were rats, would we invest in rat poison? and some of the members of the board were, like, yes, as long as it was making money. i'm very encouraged by a lot of what you said. i especially like the fact that you have a daughter, that you care about her breathing the air, and we all suffered last year. and four years in a row we have had unhealthy air. and we're heading into another wildfire season, and we know we have to be solving climate change. it is a really high priority. we need somebody on the

board -- and maybe you are that person -- who can whip them together because we're very frustrated. we have not strong leadership. we just need four votes. let's get rid of the fossil fuel, and certainly the equity has been going down in the value. not because anybody is divesting, but because they're becoming worthless. there was a great presentation at the board when a former f.c.c. member said that fossil coal is the canary in the oil well. coal stocks became worthless, and the fossil fuel stocks are rapidly becoming worthless. so the sooner we get rid of them, the better we'll be. so thank you, everybody, for working on this. i look forward to meeting you. i have to say i'm a little nervous about university of chicago. we always complain about them being the neoliberals who make it impossible to

solve things, like covid, because they think the market is going to solve everything. we think government has to do something about it. i hope you're the leader we're looking for. thank you, everybody. >> chairman: thank you, mr. fleck, and thank you for your service to the city and county. it was great overlapping with you for about a decade. next speaker, please. >> caller: yes. my name is david page. i worked for the city and county for 27 years before retiring. i want to say a quick happy mother's day to ms. gandhi and all of the other mothers that are in the room. i spoke before your committee about the issue of how to integrate the urgency of e.s.g. matters into the fiduciary

committee. i'm seeing very little progress in this regard. as the qualified and honorable ms. gandhi admits, she is not a leader with the e.s.g. issues, so i recommend that this committee vote to reject her appointment. i apologize about that, ms. gandhi, but i would like to recommend that we get a leading, strong advocate of e.s.g. on the board to balance out some of the other members that were referred to by the previous speaker. supervisor peskin, you spoke about fossil fuels. i want to emphasize that the s.and g., in the e.s.g. are also important.

let me give you some quick examples, where they have invested in fossil fuels. one is in china, one is in russia, and another is in saudi arabia. so regardless of how bad the pollution is by these companies and the product that they sell, there is also the social and good governance issues that are being neglected here. and that's another reason i was hoping we would get a strong e.s.g. proponent on the board. san francisco could be, and should be, a worldwide leader in e.s.g., and not a lagger. finally, i wanted to say one thing about this climate catastrophe, atmospheric warming issue:

people think about the matter as the future, but people die from air pollution every day. depending on which study you look at, it's maybe four million people a year, up to nine million people a year die from pollution currently. so we should be addressing this issue now and not thinking of something that is going to happen in 10 years or 100years. thank you very much. >> chairman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> caller: good morning, chair peskin, members of the committee. my name is hernandez gill. i'm in the local 10 to 1, which represents many city workers, many of which are in the san francisco retirement system. they passed a resolution urging the retirement board to immediately cease

any new investments in fossil fuel companies or in co-mingled assets, and divest within three to five years. [inaudible] such as renewable energy, clean technology, and sustainable communities. now in 2021, we find little progress has been made in this investment. this idea of a more critical climate emergency. we believe that any appointee to the retirement board must understand the importance in divestment and commit their highest priority to this. the local 10 to 1 urges the board of supervisors to ensure that a suitable and committed candidate who is serious about fossil fuel divestment for the appointment to the retirement board. thank you for your time. >> chairman: thank you. next speaker. >> clerk: just before we go on, we have one more

speaker on list to speak. if you have not already done so, please dial *3. for those already on hold, please continue to wait until the system indicates that you are unmuted. at this time, this will be our last caller. >> caller: hi, my name is austin. i called in today to listen to ms. gandhi speaker and her credentials. my alma mater just last month announced they had completed their divestment for their retirement funds, and that really spurred me to listen in today. overall, i'm really satisfied with ms. gandhi's qualifications. she is an exceptionally articulate speaker, and i'm really happy to hear that we have a commitment of one to two years to be committed to divesting from our short-term investments, like stocks.

generally speaking, i think she is qualified, and i really do hope that this board will move forward with her as i do believe this to be an urgent matter, and i see that we have a qualified candidate. >> chairman: thank you. are there any other members of the public for testimony on this item? >> clerk: i believe that completes our list of callers at this time. >> chairman: okay. so public comment is closed. and the matter is now in the hands of the committee. colleagues, i, number one, want to thank ms. gandhi for her forthright and candid testimony and for her willingness to serve. i want to thank all of the members of the public for their testimony. and i would like to make a recommendation to you, colleagues mandelman and chan, which is that i think part of this effort and movement is elevating

this issue in and around appointees to the board, in and around the resolutions that we have and will continue to pass, our direct interaction with members of the body. supervisor safai and i met with board member sansbury recently to continue pressing this effort. what i would like to do is have a robust conversation with our eight other colleagues tomorrow, with ms. gandhi present. and to that end, i would like to make this suggestion of sending this item to the full board of supervisors without recommendation as a committee report, if that is acceptable to, colleagues, and we can continue this conversation that i know is of great interest to all of us as evidenced by the number of co-sponsors on the february 23rd resolution. if that is not

objectionable, on that motion, mr. young, a roll call please. >> clerk: on the motion to refer this matter without recommendation at a committee report, supervisor mandelman? >> aye. >> clerk: supervisor chan? >> aye. >> clerk: chair peskin? >> aye. >> clerk: the motion passes without objection. >> chairman: thank you. and, ms. gandhi, we will see you tomorrow, a little bit after 2:00 p.m. next item, please. >> clerk: the next item -- item 3 is an ordinance amending the administrative code to create a now registry to promote participation by anchor businesses and city grants for small businesses and for commercial (indiscernable). >> chairman: this ordinance is brought to us by supervisor chan. supervisor, the floor is yours.

>> thank you, chair peskin. i'm excited to move forward with this legislation to create a neighborhood anchor business registry. it is really, from my experience talking to merchants in the richmond area, that i recognize the need for this. what it is, is we have a lot of great legacy businesses in the richmond. [please stand by] p.

we can really prioritize these

small businesses. this is really the reason why it's moving forward. another part of this is i also wanted to talk about the fact that a lot of these challenges that are facing our small businesses at this moment is their leases and paying their rent. we know the commercial eviction moratorium is expiring on june 30th of this year. it was actually extended thanks to the effort of supervisor peskin and supervisor preston along with state assembly member bill chain. so we know it's already been a challenge for them to stay put and pay their rent. it's a reason why this piece of

legislation will also provide a free legal aid extending that program to help our small businesses negotiate their leases and eviction. so i would like to thank supervisor, my cosponsor supervisor haney, hillary ronen. dean preston and shammann walton. and legal outreach for submitting the letters of support for this legislation. i do have some amendments that i am introducing today based on the feedback from office of small business which i see that ragina is here and small business commission and other stakeholders and advocates.

if i may move forward with the amendments today, i'm just going to read it out loud for now if it's okay and in case you have any questions, i'm happy to open the floor for regina, sorry. director dick andrizzi. so the amendments that i am proposing today including the following limit the grant and loans for neighborhood anchor businesses for those related to relief or those recovering from the covid-19 emergency. the reason why i do recognize we want to prioritize the covid-19 emergency funds to help these businesses, but we also want to make sure that there is enough for everybody especially the younger ones, younger business that helped them to continue to sustain

moving sfard so another amendment is at cultural businesses in the area. to sign a sworn statement that they depo not have a pending complaint, a paid judgment or finding by a court or labor enforcement agency that they have violated a worker protection law. this reduces the office of small business staff to administer the program. and this is something we haven't talked about enough is also working with the small businesses who need protection.

doing the right thing and doing right by our workers and the other amendment is to allow the executive director of the office of small business to identify additional community based organizations so they can nominate small business who may not have connection to traditional business groups to also advance the city's racial equity and access. another thing is allow each merchant association or community based organization to nominate a maximum of ten small businesses per year. this is again with the goal to make sure equity throughout everywhere in our neighborhood not just in richmond. obviously, i think richmond is the best, but here we are. and then another amendment is to give the office of small business more time to repair a report identifying all covid relief and eviction services available to anchor businesses and requiring them at new

programs within 30 days of adopting eligibility for these programs. so, colleagues, the city attorney has confirmed that these amendments are substantiative. today, i will be asking for your support of these amendments, but i do understand we need to legislation to the next rules committee. i thank you for your time today in hearing us out. we do have director dick andrizzi here from the office of small business able to to make sure this is as strong as

ever. i want to remind you that this legislation was continued at the small business commission. which i intend to personally attend the commission meeting to have an open dialog with the commissioners. thank you, chair peskin. >> chairman: thank you, supervisor chan. before we open it up to public comment, i think your amendments are responsive to what we saw on the package to the small business commission which obviously is your prerogative as supervisor to take those suggestions or not. i'm glad you guys have had a collective collaboration. i would like to be added as a cosponsor. i don't see any names on the roster, so why don't we go to public comment. >> clerk: there are no callers in cue queue.

>> chairman: okay. public comment is closed and supervisor chan, would you like to make a motion to amend? are you on the chat? >> supervisor mandelman: i am, but you're not seeing it, are you? >> i have john c. we still have a problem houston. you've got like three hours into this computer and we've tested it this morning and it's still not working. but this will be the sub theme of the pandemic for this chairperson. supervisor mandelman. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you, chair peskin. and i want to thank supervisor chan for this legislation. a concern that it does raise for me a little bit and i also will be supporting it, it is the capacity of the office of small business to take on a significant additional responsibility. legacy business is a heavy

burden right now being carried i think by one person and so i don't know what kind of thinking there has been about the administrative needs and how we're planning on needing that specifically through our budget. >> supervisor chan: if i may, through chair peskin, and i want to answer that, but i'm going to also make sure to give a chance to regina to answer too. it's her team doing the real heavy lifting. i have a few conversations, i think, one, start off with the understanding that in the most recent times, both the mayor's recovery act for small businesses as well as, you know, budget chair matt haney's budget or entertainment

legislation all these are with the focus of small business or the businesses are 15 years and older. it's kind of we really are align in identifying and thinking to really provide funding and help and support for small business that are 15 years and older around the city and i also had a conversation with the incoming director and just try to have an understanding of which small business is under and part of and to try to understanding you know, we haven't been asking them to do a lot during this pandemic. not just with this legislation, but all around and wanted to understand what her needs and this is going to be enough of what we're trying to provide some of the support and budget commitment that i'm working with budget chair haney on. from what i understand is

obviously everybody needs more support and resources and, but i also want to make sure that our staffing is efficient and that service is not duplicated and to make sure when we really help these businesses, sometimes it may be one business that could qualify for multiple help and grant and relief. so all to say is we have the commitment from budget chair matt haney to make sure we move this forward and provide a support and he's also a cosponsor of this legislation. and obviously budget conversation is still ongoing and i want to make sure we work with the mayor's office and and

i think that's a goal for everybody all around. >>. >> supervisor mandelman: through the chair. i think it does and a huge additional kind of set of tasks was put before folks behind the scenes. sometimes we can see the creakiness of that. so we'll just need to be attentive tom that and, then, the other is just and the differences between this and legacy business, legacy businesses can apply for legacy business status themselves i

think. that's not the case for these businesses. right? >> supervisor chan: thank you, through chair peskin, and answering that question. it really is i think to sort of make it even more i think community led allowing the small business to work with the people that support them and i do believe that also includes petitioning which their customers can provide their support to the small businesses, i mean, there should be other options beyond the members of the board supervisors to recognize the small business in the district or neighborhoods to say they are recognized and deserve

support. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. >> through the chair. this is director dick endrizzi just to provide some information between the legacy business program and this potential program. for the legacy business program, a business maybe can initiate an application, but we cannot process that application until it receives the nomination from the board of supervisors or the mayor. with this program, not only do the merchants association and potential other business entities that the office and for me to identify to help achieve our equity goals, businesses can also self-nominate through a petition as well. again, so if this allows a

business that isn't connected to an organization to be able to be on the anchor business industry meeting all the other sort of qualifications that are settle out. just a point to note that with the legacy business program, we are backlogged with about a 9 to 10 month backlog of being able to process our applications. so adding this program will definitely need to have the consideration of the resources which supervisor chan did talk about and the fact that keeping consideration that this is the program isn't the short term program to deal. while we're work on focus to relief to the pandemic. as per this legislation, it will be establishing an ongoing program to be managed and so

that does mean it is a relationship just like rick has with all of our legacy businesses staying in touch with them making sure that if there's any need, resources that they need to engage with. so this will be an ongoing program to build with the number of businesses that are identified as neighborhood anchoring businesses. it will have anger ongoing management requirement. and that includes my remarks. >> chairman: thank you, ms. dick endrizzi. and, public comment is closed.

so have you moved the amendments, supervisor chan? ? >> supervisor chan: i don't think yet. but i will make the motion to move the amendments that i talked about earlier. thank you. >> chairman: okay. on that motion, a roll call please. >> clerk: yes, on the motion to amend, [roll call] the motion to amend is approved without objection. >> chairman: and then, supervisor chan, would you like to make a motion to continue the item to a week from today rules committee meeting. >> supervisor chan: yes, please. move. >> clerk: on the motion to on the move to move the item to may 17th.

[roll call] the motion passes without objection. >> chairman: thank you, mr. young. colleagues, do not sign off. i've been informed by counsel that we need to rescind the vote on item number two do to some technical and procedural issues. so i will make a motion to rescind the vote on item number 2. on that motion, a roll call please. >> clerk: the motion to rescind the vote on item 2, [roll call] . the motion passes without objection. >> chairman: ms. pierson, deputy city attorney pierson can you please regale us with what we need to do? >> yes. i'll be happy to rebale you.

so the motion before you today requires a motion for omit because it's left for this committee to decide to reject the nominee and the practice of this committee is to make that amendment in committee and then to send it to the full board either with recommendation or without. so the board may amend it here to make that choice, but it may still send it to the board without recommendation. and this practice derives from the board's rules with the clerk to require to send two separate motions. over time, that process has been expedited a little bit, but to send you one and have you make that selection through amendment. once you make the amendment, it allows the motion to arrive on the agenda tomorrow and to align with the question that's presented in the agenda which is "should this motion be passed?"

>> chairman: right. let me just look at that motion on tomorrow's calendar which says, well, the motion on tomorrow's calendar is the same as the motion on today's calendar. it's motion approved/rejected. >> that's right. we can't update that on the notice, but the clerk will read the revised long title after it's been amended. >> chairman: i guess my question is why can't -- i don't want to prejudice the board in that discussion by saying we are accepting or rejecting. i think the whole point of our sending it as is is we want to have though robust discussion at the full board. and the full board says amending/objecting. and then the full board would have to make a motion to accept or object. >> that's right. if you make that amendment

today, the full board can override whatever choice you've made. but the practice of the committee consistent with the board's rules has been to send to the full board a motion that already makes that selection. and if the clerk, if the samir is on -- >> chairman: by the way, before we get to that, i think there also are some additional technical corrections that need to be made because this is not a reappointment, it is actually an appointment. so in any event, i do believe that online 10, it should say authority to reject the not reappointment, but appointment and the mayor's notice of reappointment in line 11 and in line 13 and reappointed should be appointed. because this is actually succeeding car men chiu.

so there is that technical correction that i believe also needs to be made. >> that's right. >> chairman: all right. ms. samara, this chair, our rules not withstanding would like to send the item as is saying "accepting/rejecting" to the full board. have the full board actually make the amendments that we would normally make inspect committee. is that acceptable to you, madam deputy clerk? >> hello, mr. chair. thank you for calling upon me. the clerk of of ot board does recommend that the question is cleared by the time it gets to the full board. we do acknowledge it has came to the board where it has one or the other. it is currently agendized but the expectation is the work happens in the committee so the question that you guys put before the board or refer to them is clear and con size. i mean, we do acknowledge it has happened before, but we do

think of it is -- it will take a motion for somebody to amend it to strike approval/reject at the board level. if that were not to occur, the question would no longer be valid and we acknowledge it's very unlikely that will happen. but as the clerk and for parlitarian procedure. it is up to you and we won't push it if that's how you want to do it. >> chairman: thank you. and let me just say, this is i think a unique circumstance. it is very rare that we do not strike accept or reject and send. but this is -- and, by the way, at least i did a lot of work relative to reso much on esg and the retirement system and two interviews with the

appointee, ms. gandy, but i think the point here in this unique situation given the entire board of supervisors february 3rd, 2021, resolution is to really leave that to the full board. i generally like to do all of that work here, but i think this is of weight and import that the full board should be able to do that and, look, if for some reason, we didn't do that, we lose jurisdiction before next week's meeting anyway. so it becomes a mute point. so i would make a motion to change lines 10, 11, and 13 to say "appoint" instead of "reappoint" and then send it with accept/reject and as you indicated it has happened in the past and, don't worry, this will not be a normal practice of this committee during my tenure as chair.

>> great. thank you. >> chairman: supervisor chan. see, i'm bringing my computer back in. >> supervisor chan: great. thank you, chair peskin. this is truly just a technical question for how this is for both our deputy state attorney, but also probably for our clerk to answer this question. i mean, will it be problematic? should we duplicate a file and the other one say accept and then both without recommendation will that pose a problem? i mean, that, you know, because then that way the board can vote specifically on each item up and down. perhaps that creates even more problems. i don't know. >> chairman: i think the question is a noticing question which is the item on tomorrow's calendar.

there's only one item on tomorrow's calendar and that crossed my mind when deputy city attorney pierson contacted me offline. but that would be another route if we don't have a noticing problem on tomorrow's agenda. >> it would pose a noticing file because there is only one file on the file as a committee report. in the past, this is how we submitted appointments. we would send two motions, one to appoint and one to reject just so that we wouldn't have this issue, but, in this case, it did come out of the committee or it is coming out of the committee report and there is only one item. >> and, we might. this is probably not the place to have this conversation, but we might want to say given, you know, this board's policy around retirement board issues. we might want to say any time pursuant to 300 subsection 18

that we have somebody from the retirement board up, we send two motions that way but it's half a dozen to others. the board will tomorrow amend it one way or the other, and if the board fails to act, we lose jurisdiction. so it kind of net net doesn't matter. so it will be rare that this happens in this committee except for in this instance. >> good to know. >> chairman: so, with that, colleagues, i would like to make the aforementioned motion on turning appointment into reappointment. with that, mr. clerk, a roll call please. >> clerk: yes, the motion on the appointment on that motion -- on the amendment. my apologies. [roll call]

>> still a lot of people wonder since the trees have a lot of issues, why did we plant them in the first place? >> trees are widely planted in san francisco. with good reason. they are workhorses when it comes to urban forestry. we have begun to see our ficustrees are too big and dangerous in san francisco. we have a lot of tree failures

with this species in particular. this is a perfect example of the challenges with the structure of the ficustrees. you can see four very large stems that are all coming from the same main truck. you can see the two branches attached to one another at a really sharp angle. in between you can't it is a lot of strong wood. they are attached so sharply together. this is a much weaker union of a branch than if you had a wide angel. this is what it looks like after the fi c.u. resolution s limb l. >> we see decline. you can see the patches where there aren't any leaves at all. that is a sign the tree is in decline.

the other big challenge is the root system of the tree are aggressive and can impact nearby utilities, and we can fix the sidewalk around the tree in many cases. we don't want to cuts the roots too severely because we can destabilize the tree. >> in a city like san francisco our walks are not that wide. we have had to clear the branches away from the properties. most of the canopy is on the street side and that is heavyweight on those branches out over the street. that can be a factor in tree limb failures. a lot of people wonder since these trees have a lot of issues. why did we plant them in the first place? they provided the city with benefits for decades. they are big and provide storage for carbon which is important to fight climate change and they

provide shade and really i think many people think they are a beautiful asset. >> when we identify trees like this for removal and people protest our decision, we really understand where they are coming from. i got into this job because i love trees. it just breaks my heart to cut down trees, particularly if they are healthy and the issue is a structural flaw. i have also seen first hand what happens when we have failures. we have had a couple of injuries due to tree failures. that is something we can't live with either. it is a challenging situation. we hate to lose mature trees, but public safety has to always >> the city of san jose and i'm

honored to be joined by friends and colleagues as part of the california big city mayor's coalition united for a common and urgent cause that is well after this pandemic has passed and an even pandemic will persist and that is homelessness. our city mayors no far too well that affects 161,000 of our fellow californians we have convened today. this year's budget presents california with a once in a generation opportunity to dramatically reduce homelessness. if we can muster the collective courage and will to stand up for our most vulnerable neighbors. today, we stand together to issue a clearing call for

historic investment against california's shameful scourge against homelessness. we sent a letter to our governor and legislative leadership encouraging that they commit a substantial share of this year's more than $40 billion budgetary surplus toward a multi-year funding strategy towards this crisis. a commitment of $4 billion per year. we call for flexibility of dollars to prevent homelessness to triple down on successful initiative such as governor newsol's project home to get more of our neighbors off the streets. sustained successful models of emergency transitional permanent housing, tiny homes and many other initiatives that have emerged in our city. $4 billion per year over the next half decade. this commitment would be bold, part of this pandemic, the

state of california had never spent more than a billion dollars to address homelessness, but we stand together to say we need to treat homelessness like the crisis that it is. we have met with the governor and legislative leadership to discuss our options and opportunities, we've pressed our case and they have responded. in mid april, our senate leader rose and the california senate issued its budget plan called "build it back boldly." they called for precisely $4 billion in investment and homelessness solutions in each of the next five years for a total of $20 billion and just yesterday, the assembly released its budget and their colleagues similarly called for a $20 billion investment spread

over the next half decade. we express our immense gratitude to our leadership and staff for recognizing this unique moment and for their continued partnership in this fight. and fortunately, we have a governor who gets it and who has already made historic commitments towards housing solutions and many others have forged a set of initiatives. project "room key" serving more than 35,000 homeless residents. and certainly this is greater progress than we've ever seen, but we have much more work to do. i want to thank the amazing leaders who are about to speak after me and who i'm honored to call my colleagues and friends and enable timely flexible

dollars they use to address the unique needs of their cities and to do so quickly. we'll be displaying this in the backgrounds behind us. behind me, next to this freeway, that is the 101, the emergency housing community we built here and just opened in recent weeks. although, building apartments in the bay area typically cost about $700,000 per apartment building, we've shown how we can utilize and neglect publicland and innovative like this one in less than six months. we've built three of these already in the last year and a fourth one will be under way shortly. it's my great honor to introduce my friend and colleague he's just announced

an epic commitment to address homelessness. welcome eric garcetti. >> thank you so much. and to this incredible group of brother and sister mayors across the state. to come across partisan, bipartisan gentlemen graphy and it was in 2017, maybe 2016 when i was chairing this group and we were the big 11 before we became the big 13 and so glad to have both stockton and riverside as part of this organization now where we were with the last governor saying this homelessness thing is pretty big, we'd love to see the state get involved and we all love jerry brown. but we wouldn't quit. and we convinced him grudgingly because he only spent money grudgingly, but happily in the

end knowing cities can turn around solutions to homelessness immediately. we had a governor who had as a mayor tackled homelessness, governor newsome saw that and tackled it and then doing cutting edge work which is now making a national splash with programs like "operation home key" and los angeles resulted with the state buying 15 buildings and on our own another five that inspired us to get the twenty buildings we purchased in just three months. this is the biggest crisis in california. we see them under our bridges and, unfortunately, it's not just there anymore in the shadows. it's in front of businesses and homes. it is everywhere. it's the first thing people talk about and the second thing they talk about. and long after this pandemic is done, the pandemic of homelessness let's be clear what the consequences are and the worst cases, people die

from homelessness. it's time for california at a moment of a historic surplus to speak to our values and to step up and i know we have the dream team with this governor and two legislative leaders and their fellow colleagues. this is why we were overjoyed to see both president and the speaker put together the support of $4 billion a year to have a 5-year commitment, $20 billion to go straight into california's communities and in those concentrated areas of california's biggest cities to make sure we continue that momentum. behind each one of us, you see how we spend it. it's for shelter, permanent housing, it's for everything we need to address the complexity of homelessness. and, typically, those who are listening from the media are used to folks from cities or folks from an issue area coming to sacramento and saying "solve

this problem for us. here's our empty hat and hand." we're not coming with empty hats in hand. and pockets full of investments. in los angeles, what that meant and when i became manager of the state, we're not lucky like london to have a county and city together was just $10 million. in the budget i released last week, it's $955 million. part of that is state money. part of that is local measure that we passed and part of that is every extra ounce that we can find in this budget because this is our top priority. add that up between 13 cities. we are putting billions of dollars of money on the line and saying match us. meet this. get it right. it's not an either or. it is housing. it is shelter. yes, it is services. it is also trusting that cutting through red tape works when you empower local communities to make the

decisions and spend quickly the money and we have a record and the data to show of the dollars effectively quickly, and happily being spent in our communities. i want to hand it over to my brother mayor in san diego who is one of our newest mayors, but also one of our boldest leaders. you know him from his state legislative work. by ty gloria, the floor is yours. let's get this done. >> thank you, mayor garcetti. thank you my fellow mayor who is are here today. to help this issue in housing and homelessness. you were saying a moment ago, it resinated for me. we were leading during the pandemic and economic slowdown. it is striking to me the thing i'm asked about the most is what are you doing about homelessness. a moment where their health and health of their loved ones.

fearful about their finances and the finances of loved ones that this is the issue they talked the most about and that's precisely why this group of leaders in cities across the state. bipartisan leaders say we need to continue state assistance in order to be able to respond to that about what we're doing about homelessness. i want to acknowledge the leadership of our governor and my former colleagues and my former speaker or the current speaker, my former legislative leader anthony rendon and $20 billion over multiple years understanding that we can't solve this problem in one fiscal year. it then takes the repeated commitment of state, federal, and local leadership to get the job done. now, eric was talking about bringing some hard hats to the table, i'm bringing some [inaudible] to the table.

my former colleagues in the legislature. we really want to see how we're bringing these dollars to work. to make sure that the dollars that californians entrust their state government with that those dollars are actually getting the job done. and, i'll tell you down here in san diego, we've been working extremely hard to change the status quo on homelessness. to move away from shiny objects, instead, invest in proven strategies that are housing first spoken, human centered and compassionate in their approach. i want to tell you about a couple key stories. number one, we converted our city convention center into a temporary homeless shelter during the pandemic. collaborations between the city, the county, and nonprofit partners, we were able toll house over 4,000 san diegans. 43 families housed through that

process. it really shows what happens when we choose to make this a priority and tapped with the urgency that californians are asking. through that process, we were able to vaccinate many of our homeless in our san diego community making sure our worst fears of outbreak and our population did not come. more importantly for our friends, we used a significant amount of home key dollars to purchase two extended stay hotels and convert them into new, permanent supportive homes for four hundred high need clients. you can see one of those hotels behind me. the 332 homes we were able to build of acquired $2.3 million of annual funds to keep people housed. the housing unit is helpful, but as my fellow mayors know, it's the services that keep people housed for the long term. the city of san diego is prepared, ready, anxious to be able to acquire more of these

hotels to convert them to supportive housing to get people off the streets for good. we need flexible funding as well to provide those services to say with a straight face to our residents and to our bosses that we will keep people housed and keep them off the street permanently. i will just tell you when we follow the housing first strategies, when we invest in more housing, permanent housing, we know that we can get people off the streets and we can use innovative concepts that are seen behind so many of my colleagues here to see even more. emergency beds, safe parking program. dollars entrusted to us by the state that are getting results. and so it's my colleagues in sacramento who are diffeying up the budget as we speak and doing the difficult things like

siting those housing projects, by executing the contracts to get the housing done. in my proposed budget, we are making an unprecedented commitment to this particular problem. we can do even more. so we are calling upon our state leaders for their continued partnership to take advantage of this once in a generation opportunity to fund the housing and the services that we know work for people experiencing homelessness and to make a lasting impact on this crisis that i believe all of us were elected to solve. so, with those comments, it gives me great pleasure to turn the mic over to my friend up in san francisco. some people that's the second largest city in the state. i'll remind them it is san diego. my friend, mayor london breed. >> thank you, mayor gloria. and, thank you so much everyone for joining us here today and for coming together on these very important issues that impact our cities. here in san francisco, we've been working really hard to

build housing, more shelters, and to connect people with the services they need. we've developed over 9,000 permanent housing placements and we created thousands more, but in our last point in time count, we still have over 5,000 people who are facing unsheltered homelessness. the reality is not one city can do this alone. not one city can fully address this problem because it's clearly a statewide crisis. we all need more resources to truly face this challenge of the scale that's needed to make a real difference. and, we need to acknowledge that this problem won't be fixed overnight. it will require a sustained commitment over multiple years. this is a challenge that's developed over decades and our response will take multiple years to really solve what is truly an embedded problem. we need to build more housing, of course, provide rental

assistance for people in need and create connections to employment, education, health care and behavioral resources. there's no one solution to homelessness. it requires a number of different approaches and many of them take time. that's why we're all here today. we're calling for a commitment from the state to provide the resources we need to make a difference over multiple years. there's so much to do. we have to reactivate our shelter systems after covid. to house people from shelter-in-place hotels and continue to move people off the streets. some of us have been able to purchase hotels and make them permanent housing options for formally homeless people. that has been incredible. has a lot to do with project room key. in our reaction with this pandemic if we were provided the resources, it can be done.

i look forward to making sure we have partners and resources and support in the state. and, with that, i'd like to introduce mayor jerry drier from fresno. thank you. >> thank you, mayor breed. i appreciate it. again, jerry dyer mayor of the city of fresno. i can't say enough about the unprecedented partnership that exists between california's largest cities, governor newsome and our state legislaturers and it is a crisis. this partnership is allowing us to rescue our most vulnerable population providing them with a safe environment to live. much needed services and ultimately hope for a future, a better future. and, in fresno, we've used

"project home key" dollars to purchase and operate five motels to house and provide services to our homeless population here. these motels have allowed us to initiate what we refer to as "project offramp" in our city. it is an offramp from our freeways and life of homelessness and an onramp to services. our freeways which quite frankly once reasonable urban campgrounds are very close to becoming homeless-free in fresno thanks to "project home key" and our state legislative leaders and governor newsome. however, this success story is only the beginning. it is our plan to take project offramp and replicate it city wide and neighborhood by neighborhood. in order to do so, we need

long-term flexible funding and to provide services and alternative housing models for our homeless population. absent that, we ultimately displacing homelessness from one neighborhood to the next neighborhood without real solutions. with the state's budget surplus and one time federal stimulus dollars, i believe we have a unique opportunity to make transformative investments putting an end to homelessness once and for all. i urge our state legislative leaders and governor newsome to continue with what i believe the most meaningful partnership in our state's history and to be able to allocate the $20 billion in order for us to address homelessness over the next five years. and so it's my honor at this time to be able to introduce a long-time state leader, a

senator pro temp for seven years and that is mayor darrell steinberg from the city of sacramento. darrell. >> have to unmute. thank you very much, mayor dyer. i really appreciate that. i am sitting virtually as it is virtual in one of sacramento's sprung shelters. a quality facility where we have the capacity to house up to 100 women suffering from homelessness and as my colleagues have said, it's one of the many strategies that we as big city mayors are employing to combat this seemingly intractable issue of homelessness. it's not intractable. it just requires will and

resources. i'm worried about the big city mayors because i want to make sure those listening understand how impactful this group of mayors has been and continues to be. and mayor garcetti to continue that history it was this organization that for the first time convinced excessive governors and the legislature to direct resources directly to cities to combat homelessness. because we're not health and human services agencies and yet homelessness as is evident is our most significant urban problem. i was thinking about last night and pride and how he talked about seizing the moment and how he talked about a rare opportunity. to make a fundamental change that changes the course of

history. to make a change that affects in a positive way. the lives of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. an opportunity to prove the impossible is possible. this is the moment in california to take that and make homelessness dramatically different in all of our cities. it need not be hopelessness for we know what works. we are doing it. we are getting thousands of people off the street and now with the additional resources to be able to help those dealing with rent struggles and to be able to prevent evictions and to be able to prevent people from losing their homes. with $20 billion of state resources which is about ten

times more than we have ever gotten even with heap and hap and "project room key" and "home key" what we are demonstrating in realtime works and imagine a californian with these kind of investments, people breathing a sigh of relief because we've done the humane thing. we've done the right thing on behalf of suffering people and our business communities in our neighborhoods. not that we cure it, but that we make it dramatically and visibly better. that's the moon shot we have here in california over these next couple of weeks. i agree with mayor ricardo and the other mayors. so grateful for the legislative leadership for putting forth that $20 billion proposal and we know the governor, whatever

the number is is also going to go big as he has in the past. let's get this done and let's start getting more people indoors. thank you. it's my honor now to turn it over to my friend, our mayor, demonstrating that homelessness knows no partisan boundaries and that's the mayor of bakersfield, karen dough. >> thank you, mayor steinberg. my fellow mayors and i want to take the backgrounds that are behind them right now and have our homeless brothers and sisters have a background in their own home in their own office like the one behind me. combatting homelessness in our state continues to be a paramount issue. requires a broad range of resources for persons who find themselves in the most

vulnerable situation of their lives. our california cities are on the front line of addressing the homeless crisis. we've demonstrated success in adding emergency bed space creating permanent housing solutions and now we must address and sustain the next phase of the challenge including providing housing, supporting services for severely mentally ill and drug addicted persons. we are so grateful for the state's funding that's enabled bakersfield to double our emergency shelter bed space. yet, we find many of our homeless brothers and sisters on the street. we need ongoing resources to change the plight of jonathan, sharika, and karen who i met on the street yesterday and this morning. today, we're calling on state

leaders to prioritize the much needed, ongoing flexible investments that will empower and address the youth challenges before us and sustain our progress. a $20, $20 billion funding investment will change the futures of the many jonathans, the many sharikas and the many karen-anns in our great state. we are our brother's keeper. let us build back boldly to improve the lives of all californians. and now it's my pleasure to introduce anaheim mayor harry sadue from the happiest city in california. mayor sadue.

>> thank you, mayor. good morning everyone. i'm anaheim mayor harry sadu. anaheim has been a leader in addressing homelessness for more than six years. since two thousand seventeen, we have opened four homeless shelters, including two temporary facilities that continue today. these efforts were assisted by homeless emergency aid program funding. working with u.s. district judge david coder, we have cleared inhumane homeless encampments from the parks, and freeway underpasses. by maximizing city, state, and federal resources. but we are far from finished. we are working with the salvation army under long-term

facility call center of hope as you see behind me. it will include shelter beds, supportive housing, health care and drug treatment. this public private partnership will be a game-changer for anaheim and orange county. you can see that these efforts in anaheim have proven to be a stronger turn on investment for california and we have made a great gain. but these are, there are still too many homeless and the need for affordable housing is great. and this crisis is bigger than anaheim. with ongoing flexible support with state partners to meet this challenge and change lives. now, it's my pleasure to introduce riverside mayor patricia lock douzen. >> thank you, mayor sadu.

one of the newest mayors in the big city mayor coalition, i appreciate the power that we have in our collective voice. so i have really appreciated being able to be part of this group and i want to echo the sentiment of my fellow mayors. i know we all want to thank our state legislatures and governors for being proactive. we don't often have to seek them out, they come to us and they listen which i appreciate so much and like mayor gloria said i think it's true with most of us that they've made it clear homelessness is one of the greatest challenges of our time and leaders must rise to this occasion. we must rise to meet this challenge. and, you heard from every mayor here. each city faces its own unique

but as you've also heard much more work remains to be done. we all know uniquely that the crisis of homelessness transcends our individual cities. the funding that we're asking for for the legislature and that they have now budgeted gives us a unified front from the state things that we all need not just the beds, but mental health services. without ongoing funding, our efforts, our momentum will be solved and we won't be able to move forward.

now the city of riverside has a proven track record of using direct funding from the state in an innovative and prudent manner. we are often the ones who roll up our sleeves and get to work because we've not always been included in things. we've worked very hard to spend our money frugally and with great impact. this million dollars proposal will allow riverside to support long-term solutions. such as "project home key" or nontraditional models. this is the first of its kind in southern california and has provided a model that other cities have emulated and it's also where i met powerful paul this past week. he is is a pro boxer who is now getting into permanent supportive housing and he's

very grateful for the work we have done here. so while we remain certain from recovering from this pandemic, we must also be equally certain and optimistic in our ability to meet the crisis of homelessness in our city. and, with this funding, i'm hopeful. we just have a sense of optimism here and we can begin to move the needle and make a change and i'm pleased to be part of this historic day today. with that, i want to turn it over to the mayor of santa ana. >> thank you, mayor. i'm proud to stand with well virtually stand with all the mayors here on this call. so i'm not going to repeat what was said because i think a lot of the theme has already been articulately made. i just want to say that one

thing we all can agree on as mayors and staff is that the buck stops with us and we get those tough questions and demands and we know that here, for us, what we've found most interesting was that when we were talking about different issues like public safety and now public health, homelessness is still holding higher than either of those two critical issues that we deal with, so we know it's on the minds and hearts of many of our fellow residents. and so, for us, i know what we've tried to do is make sure we invest intelligently and we're looking at the background in the front of which is a permanent supportive housing project and we do a lot of service providing there, not only spaces and placements, but also wrap around services and, you know, one of the things i wanted to talk to you about is that santa ana's in orange county where 80% latino.

many of our residents live below the poverty line. this is also an equity issue when we talk about homelessness. we want to deliver those services to unsheltered residents and population. but, at the same time, we want to create a quality of life that's going to be proud for our low income communities of color to be able to thrive in and that's the fairness that they deserve and that's something that we have to deliver and be conscious of. so i know that when we talk about, you know, $20 billion's a big number. we have to have a proportional response to that issue. it's something that we know as mayors, it's not going to be a long-time lump sol approach. it's a multi-year effort that we have to all work together on and i'm proud of all the efforts we're doing collectively, but we all have unique communities and orange county and the minds of others may seem like -- and harry can speak to this, it's depicted as

an affluent county. you see some real despair and that's where we have to use this money intelligently to address those things and so i'm really proud to say and we're blessed to be living in a state that i think there's an understanding and there's humanity that we all want to deliver these services in. but, i think the moment is now and i think that we all have to, you know, ban together and use this opportunity and use it wisely because, look, if it goes away, it can be spent or miss spent other places and i think all of us are saying we can do things intelligently together and cohesively and make the state, again, one of the best places to live in and a place that i've grown up in myself. to the extent i'm completely supportive of what was said out of the effort that's going to be requested, we're grateful to the governor and his staff for being able to work with us. so let me go ahead and just because i know we're short on

time. i want to turn it over to my friend and other newly elected mayor from the great city of stockton, mayor kevin lincoln. kevin, the floor is yours. >> thank you, mayor. and, again, just thank you to my fellow mayors here for your leadership. the image that you see behind me is the image of count center studios here in stockton, california. this location was formerly a hotel that was converted. as a result of "project home key" and units that were provided to our shelter. over 80% of stockton residents view homelessness affecting the quality of life for all stocktonians. and over 50% are experiencing behavioral health challenges in the areas of mental health and substance abuse disorder. the need to expand wrap around

services, emergency shelter capacity, transitional and permanent housing opportunities has never been greater. the fundamental allocate -- the $20 billion funding allocations to our cities would help us take bold actionable steps to mitigate homelessness by addressing the root cause of homelessness in our communities and bring healing to unsheltered residents. it is imperative that our cities have access to increased levels of flexible funding from the state to adequately address the crisis through more positive initiatives like "project home key," community outreach efforts and ultimately homeless prevention. once again, this flexible funding allocation for homelessness would provide us with the opportunity to meet the immediate needs in our city. at this time, i'd like to turn it over to mayor shaft of

oakland, california. >> thank you, mayor lincoln. i believe mayor shaft will be joining us momentarily. we can proceed with questions and perhaps come back if mayor shaft is able to jump on. so we welcome questions from anyone in the media to any of the members. >> mayor shaft is here now. >> great. welcome. >> hi, i apologize. >> from the great city of oakland, i want to welcome my colleague and friend from across the bay mayor libby shaft. >> thank you so much, i know my job is to wrap us up and send us home. the state of california has made an amazing impact in our city in bending the curve to start to address this moral outrage that is homelessness. i'm sure you heard from all my colleagues there is nothing that our residents care more about than this. in oakland, the state's assistance has helped us double

our shelter capacity. that means double the number of people that we have been able to get off of the streets and allow them to sleep with a roof over their heads. it's allowed us to advance innovations in shelters like our cabin communities, our safe rv parks. we also have used the "home key program" to do miracles. i don't think anybody imagines that we could create permanent affordable housing for our homeless so rapidly using existing buildings and not just hotels and motels. in oakland, we converted a former college dormitory into housing and bought single-family homes to advance a very innovative model of shared housing for our formally homeless seniors. it's truly beautiful. we know that this problem -- we

know how to fix this problem. each of our jurisdictions have done detailed analysis, have regional plans in the bay area, all homes just unveiled their regional action plan. and in alameda county, the second largest county in the bay area, we also just released this week a detailed systems analysis that shows exactly how we can end homelessness. we know how to do it, we just need the resources. $20 billion is an appropriate, large investment in california's largest problem. it is something as mayors are

this request. >> thank you, mayor libby shaft.

as members of the media can see, we have a great lineup but it's wonderful having a great clean-up hitter like mayor libby shaft to really drive us home. so the message is very clear. we're happy to take questions from members of the media to any of the big city mayors here today. >> absolutely. thank you, mayor. we're going to start with chris win from abc 7. chris, you should be able to speak now. >> great. thank you so much, rachel. chris win from san francisco. this question is for san jose mayor licardo. this would be a big investment. what do you say to people who are on the fence that it will be money well spent. and, secondly, for mayor breed, some have the notion if you build it they will come. for those who might come here in search of housing and

services. first, let's start with mayor licardo? >> that's, chris. it's no question it's a big investment. when we emerge from this pandemic, this will remain our biggest problem and the evidence is clear that we haven't spent nearly enough addressing this crisis. we believe this budget surplus will be something on the order of $40 billion, perhaps more. obviously, the numbers change as we get closer to the final decision, but spending half of a surplus on the biggest problem we face in california and making that commitment last for a half decade, that's money well spent. mayor breed. i think -- >> mayor breed had to jump off for a scheduling conflict. chris, we'll connect you with her office after this.

my apologies. >> great. thank you, chris. >> next question comes from telemundo sacramento. her question is the money will be used to continue the existing programs or to create a state program that will be implemented in every city and only the cities in this petition will have access to the money or will be distributed to every city. >> i'm sorry, the question was how will the money be distributed? >> correct. >> yeah. again, i welcome any of my colleagues to jump in. we know that the funding formulas from the state have typically allocated dollars to counties and because of the leadership of predecessors like mayor darrell steinberg and eric garcetti we now have direct allocation to the cities. obviously, we'd love to have even larger allocations to the cities.

we know this is going to be a partnership. cities and counties working together because we each have critical roles to play. homelessness is worse and that is in our big cities. mayor steinberg. >> i'll just try just on the question of how the money will be allocated. what we seek is maximum flexibility, to be able to balance both the capital that's necessary to build whatever kind of structures we need to bring people under a roof, but then secondly and mayor shaft is absolutely correct, the five-year piece of this is important. it enables us to use flexible money for operations and to be able to spread that money out over five years. it's a combination of the capital and the operation that creates the magic that allows people to regain their lives off the streets.

>> thank you, mayor steinberg. anyone else like to respond? okay. >> i'd just add that this is -- we're not asking for a new program. we all know what the proven strategies are. our issue is scaling them and so this is not a new state program. it is investing in evidence-based strategies to prevent and end homelessness and the flexibility allows californians to get more bang for their buck. each one of us knows the investments we have made locally and where that added state dollar is going to have the biggest impact. that's what's so important about this request. >> thanks. i have a question from christina kim from ks. how many funds would san diego county expect to get and what programs or projects would you

want to prioritize? >> appreciate the question. like our chair licardo mentioned, last year, home key dollars, we were able to receive over $30 million having housing for over 400 san diegans. that's a budget decision that will be made by others. where i would like to see dollars, i would like to see the number of growing supportive housing units in our city. that's how you solve homelessness. that's what we did with the hotels. we are prepared to acquire hotels. we can also help provide gap funding. things that city council has already authorized. get more deeply affordable units, work with our county. i had a long meeting very early this morning with the county of san diego trying to coordinate our federal relief dollars.

that probably looks like more detox beds, more recoup and care beds. the kind of niche spaces that we're looking with super sick people on the streets. it's the permanent housing that addresses the issues in the long run. some of these intermediate beds in between. everything's on the table and what i would refer to is look at our city's homelessness plan. the full implementation of that plan will require $1.9 billion. you understand very clearly why i'm here today and so strongly in support of this proposal. it will help us get much closer to the interventions in that plan. it will reduce homelessness by half in the next couple of years in san diego. >> thanks. eric, you should be able to speak now. >> hello, my name is eric galicia. i'm the editor of the local

college over here. my question is for mayor lock-dawson. in terms of the spending that riverside implements, how would you go about that when it comes to the fires that we've been seeing in the river bottom and other parts of the city? and, also, you campaigned on tackling homelessness through a regional approach, so if, you know, do you plan to use some of the funds at river side we get to help out our neighboring cities with homelessness? >> well, thanks for the question, eric. i appreciate that. both of those questions are related to each other, but i will tell you fires aren't necessarily a homeless related problem. i mean, some of it can be, but this money, we will use for

most likely not just housing, but services. we're going to bring services to this region. and, also, we're already working with a regional coalition right now and we've made a plan to tackle these kinds of things where we are working with our surrounding cities, we're working with the county. we're working with the state and we have a plan to address not only the fires in the river bottom but also just the folks that are down there and getting them into housing and getting the services that they need. so the money will be used wisely as it has in the past. as you know, we have in riverside here, the office of homeless solutions. on there, you can see our dash board and we've planned to use that money to just build on the programs as mayor shaft said. build on the programs that are successful. we know what works, so we just need to make sure we have the funding to continue that work. >> thank you, mayor.

>> thank you. we have megan. megan, you should be allowed to speak now. please tell us your outlet as well. >> thank you, this is megan with los angeles magazine. my question is for mayor garcetti. this request comes as you know at this time in the federal lawsuit, mayor, you had said after he issued this injunction that you would still hope to sit down and work something out with him. his order on the stay request sunday night opens the door for that. have you or anyone else at city hall talked with the judge this week, and, if so, how did those discussions go? >> i can't speak for everybody, but i was pleased to see him back off of the order and to sit down with us which we've never not wanted to do and engaging and making promises and meeting those promises. i just said stay out of the way

of progress. i'm happy. i think the council president spoke to him briefly and we agreed to sit down on the 27th of may. i know he has a big case he's doing but in the meantime, we're not waiting one minute. but i certainly don't want to see anything of what we're advocating here. we're acting too quickly to be able to stand up. >> so it doesn't sound like there's any discussion then before the stay request. that's still pending and it doesn't sound like there's any kind of settlement or negotiation. >> i would hope so. that's what we were aiming for. we already made one huge settlement jump. as you saw in my budget historic funding to get there

we hope the county matches as well. but, no, we're ready. if we wants to talk to me tomorrow. >> may 27th is a long ways off. >> that's what he asked for. in the meantime we're satisfied with what he's withdrawn. >> okay. i did have another question regarding the pallet shelters that are going up everywhere especially in north hollywood. these same shelters had a pretty bad fire last december and the mayor of redlands is citing that fire as a reason to go with another type of tiny home that he says isn't as flammable. i understand that i think the city bought these pallet shelters before the incident and banning, but i'm just wondering if there's been any review of the shelters? >> yeah. very expensively and folks wanted to build them much more densely, but our fire inspectors insisted on the

space between them. because you can have them with or without those hvac extinguishers so we've done a lot of extensive work to make sure they're going to be safe and spaced out from each other. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, both. we've got about three more questions here. gina from bay city news. gina, go ahead. >> hi, can you hear me? >> we can. >> great. so i have two questions. the first one is more general, but how exactly will the $20 billion proposal be split among cities? i mean, is it just the major cities here on this call or in this coalition and will it be based off maybe population? how do you anticipate that will be split. ? and the other one is specifically for mayor licardo, what issues would you prioritize in san jose and how much do you anticipate san jose

would get if this was passed? >> thank you. the allocation will be determined by the legislature and the governor, but what we've seen in the past is essentially allocation that goes both to counties and to large cities. counties obviously have smaller cities within them and the allocation will be based on a formula that combines both point in time homeless count and population and so we'd expect those kinds of formulas to continue and we'll be certainly advocating to ensure that the hardest hit cities after all it's large cities that suffered most from homelessness are in fact front and center in focus. in terms of san jose, i think what you've heard from my colleagues is very true in san jose as well. we need many different solutions because homelessness is a complex problem or diversity in which ways come into homelessness. we'll be spending dollars to prevent homelessness.

very effective strategies using relatively small amounts of money that keeps families housed. that's a much more proactive way of addressing this problem. obviously. we'll be building more of these permanent supportive housing in shelters as well. we need all the above strategy because we know we can't wait for one solution while others are still on the street. we're going to need multiple solutions. >> thank you. and just sorry. we know we've heard a lot this is a multi-pronged solution that the mayors already know. i mean, what are the main solutions to, you know end homelessness or at least curb it? >> i'll kick it off and ask my

colleagues to jump in. the one solution is housing. we need to build a lot of housing than in the past and we need to be able to do it quickly and that requires some innovation and what you're seeing throughout these 13 cities are innovative approaches everything from tiny homes to various approaches and density enabling more people to get off the street. we're able to get a lot of red tape out of the way the governor's been forthright. so we need flexibility and the ability to move quickly. i've also learned, preventing people from getting into homelessness is a much more cost effective approach. so we need housing and homelessness preevengs. >> tim, did you want to go

ahead. go ahead, mayor shaft. >> i just wanted to lift up a reasonable action plan. and what it puts forth is really how we can maximize the flow to our system and make the investments that are going to be the fastest and most efficient at bending the curve and that's the 1:2:4 ratio. every interim bed that we have, we need to create two permanent affordable houses for people to live in forever in security and we need to fund four prevention interventions. what we're seeing is we're getting people out of homelessness, but new people are getting homeless at a faster rate.

in two years it's prevented 5,000 house holds from falling in to homelessness or rapidly resolving their homelessness and the average cost has been about $4,000 for average housing and allows us to maximize our speed at which we completely end homelessness. 1:2:4. thank you. >> yeah. i wanted to address it from our perspective. the question is often answered, what is the process? and i think it's unique for every city. i can tell you in fresno, what has been working, you need to be able to fund outreach workers. there has to be that repore established and it takes a lot of work, a lot of energy, a lot of effort. the second thing is to be able to take those individuals and place them into transitional

housing and that transitional housing must have security, it needs services for mental health, for alcohol substance abuse, addiction to address the growing population domestic violence. victims and their families out there on our streets. our veterans who are often times abandoned. all of those services need to be provided and not on the short term, long-term and there has to be an exit strategy from that transitional housing and that's permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, alternative housing models like tiny homes, accessory dwelling units, as well as apartment complexes. all of those things have to happen. if not, we run into stagnation. and the fact that we ultimately end up with people remaining in transitional housing or emergency shelter for longer

periods of time ultimately transitioning back out onto the streets in continuing with that life and lastly making sure that these folks have skills that will allow them to be gainfully employed. and so we need all of those services over a multiple period of time which is why we're asking for four to five years of funding and sustained funding. so. >> would you like to jump in. >> one of the reasons why people are homeless is for different reasons and there's a different set of solutions for people for example who have become homeless for a short period of time because of an economic circumstance. contrast that with people who are living with severe mental illness or drug addiction we

know what to do. the interventions are different. it's immediate housing to make sure that homelessness doesn't last long. for those who are chronically homeless, we call it a continuum of care. and what this funding would allow us to do would be able to fund the assertive outreach, the case management, the wrap around services, the temporary housing that's needed and then the transition to longer term or permanent housing. it's all about getting to scale on all of the interventions and strategies that we know work because we're doing them, we just can't do it for enough.

>> we'll take these two last questions and then we'll wrap up. >> this is christy growth with kthl. this question is for mayor steinberg and for mayor lincoln. if you guys are able to get this commitment, what programs and specific projects do you guys have ready to go. to hit the ground running and going with that, how do you convent. ( who don't want those shelters and centers and affordable housing near them. >> i'll go ahead and start it off. thank you, christy for that question. when it comes to the matter, you know, it's very important to understand and have community buy-in and work alongside and through our current community based organizations that are

currently partnering in the space to help the needs of the most vulnerable in our community. in order to get public buy-in. we have to make sure we're enhancing the services that are in place to meet the specific needs. what was the other question, i'm sorry. >> what specific projects do you have ready to go if you were to get this allocation of money? >> yeah. so they're currently projects in place right now. one of the things we have to do is we have to expand that emergency so the capacity and enhance our transitional housing, but also work very hard towards that permanent affordable housing, you know, for our unsheltered population like many of our colleagues had said over the past hour that this is very multi-facetted. this is a very complex issue when it comes to homelessness

and every community is impacted differently, but we can't forget the hard work that our community stakeholders are doing right now. and the people in our community that have been, have developed that repore to mayor dyer's point with the community, we have to work with and we have to double down on those resources so that they can be as affected as they possibly can with reaching this most vulnerable population. >> darrell, did you want to respond? >> how will having more state

money help solving this problem? >> i think it's been alluded to in a couple of the other questions and answers. it's not just getting people into beds. we have prevention strategies. >> but also, we need better exit strategies. as mayor steinberg alluded to, we know what our population is. it's not just one monotypical population. we know we have people suffering from mental illness. we know we have people suffering from drug addiction. we know people have physical disabilities. people who are just down on their luck. need a leg up and help. so the money that we will be

getting will be going towards each one of those programs. mostly what i would like to see though is focus on services. we have very -- the strategies that we've put in place now. >> thank you. with that, i think that's a good note on which we should wrap this up. i want to thank all the members of the media for being with us and thank all of my colleagues for their forceful advocacy. we'll continue to push forth in the weeks ahead, we look forward to celebrating by getting more housing built in our communities and helping our homeless neighbors get off the streets. thank you all. women's network

sustainable future . >> san francisco streets and puffs make up 25 percent of cities e city's land area more than all the parks combined they're far two wide and have large flight area the pavement to parks is to test the variants by ininexpensive changing did new open spaces the city made up of streets in you think about the potential of having this space for a purpose it is demands for the best for bikes and families to gather. >> through a collaborative effort with the department we

the public works and the municipal transportation agency pavement to parks is bringing initiative ideas to our streets. >> so the face of the street is the core of our program we have in the public right-of-way meaning streets that can have areas perpetrated for something else. >> i'm here with john francis pavement to parks manager and this parklet on van ness street first of all, what is a parklet and part of pavement to parks program basically an expense of the walk in a public realm for people to hang anti nor a urban acceptable space for people to use. >> parklets sponsors have to apply to be considered for the program but they come to us you know saying we want to do this and create a new space on our street

it is a community driven program. >> the program goes beyond just parklets vacant lots and other spaces are converted we're here at playland on 43 this is place is cool with loots things to do and plenty of space to play so we came up with that idea to revitalizations this underutilized yard by going to the community and what they said want to see here we saw that everybody wants to see everything to we want this to be a space for everyone. >> yeah. >> we partnered with the pavement to parks program and so we had the contract for building 236 blot community garden

it start with a lot of jacuzzi hammers and bulldozer and now the point we're planting trees and flowers we have basketball courts there is so much to do here. >> there's a very full program that they simply joy that and meet the community and friends and about be about the lighter side of city people are more engaged not just the customers. >> with the help of community pavement to parks is reimagining the potential of our student streets if you want more information visit them as the pavement to parks or contact pavement to parks at sfgovtv.org >> clerk: good afternoon. this meeting will come to order. welcome