so, first of all, thank you all for coming here today. we appreciate the presence of labor and the building trades. thank you, rudy gonzalez, and larry mazzola jr. for joining us. we know that army morgan has a rich and deep history with labor not just as the business representative for local three, but also serving, you know, as a liaison for the building trades, for the labor counsel. we know that having an important voice to represent labor on our commission is significant and sadly we lost one of those voices and tony rodriguez who we all knew and

love, he was an incredible person and we definitely feel the loss, but we also know that he would be happy and proud that you would be serving in the capacity to step in and serve with our good commissioners that are joining us here today. and those who serve on the commission will be the ones that provide you with guidance and help during this process as well as our good chief. the fire commission is near and dear to my heart as many of you know and thank you to supervisor safai for joining us as well. it's near and dear to my heart heart. i served for two years before i was elected to the board of supervisors. making sure that you listen on the fire commission and

listening to the men and women of the department that you're working hand in hand with the chief. the department has many challenges. we've got to get this training facility open. we have to make sure we deal with ambulance response times and continue to support the important work of serving and protecting the city and county of san francisco. it is a great honor to serve on this prestigious commission, one that is highly coveted by so many people and so of all the many people that wanted this opportunity, of course, you were chosen mostly for your work with labor, but also for your commitment to providing opportunity to people of san francisco especially your work with city build and how you've worked hand in hand to ensure that the next generation of young people growing up in this city have real access to good paying labor jobs especially in the trade. so we know it's not easy work,

but we know you're committed to that work and the same i think work ethic that you brought to labor and in your role is going to be very similar to what you bring to the fire department and our desires to try and ensure that people and young folks growing up in this city have access to these incredible opportunities. i know the chief is very much committed to this and so i know she's going to be very thrilled to have a partner who will help her in this effort. at this time, i'm going to ask you to come forward and then we're going to swear you in and then we're going to hear a few words from you as commissioner morgan. with that, come on up. where are we expected to stand? okay. let's do it. all right. you can take off your mask and keep a little distance there. all right. so please raise your right hand and repeat after me.

i, state your name, do solemnly swear that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies foreign and domestic that i bare true faith and allegiance to the same that i take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which i am about to enter and during such time as i serve as a commissioner for the

fire department of the city and county of san francisco. congratulations. [cheers and applause] >> here's your official city pin now. please wear it now along with your local three pin. you can wear them both at the same time if you want. so with that, commissioner morgan, please say a few words. >> thank you, mayor breed. i didn't expect all of this. thank you and this is a great honor to serve on this commission. it's a great honor to, you know, try to fill the shoes of tony rodriguez as a replacement, i take it as an honor. and i'd like to thank everybody for coming. the fire chief and the other commissioners and supervisor safai and this is a very big

honor for me. you know, i've been serving in labor for the last almost ten years and, you know, trying to fight the good fight to keep people working in the city and i try to tell the kids 'dirty hands, clean money' it's all good money. keep out of trouble and make a good living wage and have some integrity in your life, you know, because that's what union work has done for me. you know, i'm a union person. my family was union. my father drove for the muni for 20 years. my grandfather, his father was part of the laborers union.

i won't say that too loud. i think he worked on the golden gate bridge or the bay bridge, one of them. he might of worked on both of them. so i'm kind of like third generation. i've always considered san francisco my home even though i moved away when i was 15 even though i've come back in stints but i've always considered san francisco my home. i won't bore you. i'm not great at public speaking. i want to say thanks again and i'll turn it back over to the mayor. [ applause ] >> greetings everyone and welcome and congratulations. we are so happy to have you aboard the san francisco fire commission and thank you, mayor breed, as always for giving us another star and, yes, we all loved and miss tony rodriguez but we will all help guide you

along the way and i think it will be an interesting ride for you. so we look forward to it. so, again, congratulations and thank every one of your labor pals for being here and as well as our commissioners and command staff. so welcome aboard, commissioner morgan. [ applause ]

>> and, mr. covington, since our president is not joining us here today, as the president of the commission would you like to welcome him. oh, well, of course. >> thank you very much, madam mayor, for that occasion and this honor. i wanted to congratulate commissioner morgan. i stand here with your fellow commissioner. it's going to be a really wonderful experience that you're going to be having. the fact that you are taking the spot of tony rodriguez was very important. i was able to finish off his term as vice president. you know join us as his labor

representative, but more than that, a san franciscan. and we know your contribution to our team is going to be wonderful. commissioner covington. >> thank you, sir. it's wonderful that you're going to be joining us. we do need a full complement of commissioners. there is a lot of work to be done and i know from what i have heard that you are well-able, and up to the task. we have many things that need to be done and we are, as a commission, we are a cohesive group, we are of one mind that we are serving our city as citizen volunteers and a very sometimes challenging but always rewarding role. so welcome welcome. [ applause ]

>> hi. welcome to san francisco. stay safe and exploring how you can stay in your home safely after an earthquake. let's look at common earthquake myths. >> we are here at the urban center on mission street in san

francisco. we have 3 guest today. we have david constructional engineer and bill harvey. i want to talk about urban myths. what do you think about earthquakes, can you tell if they are coming in advance? >> he's sleeping during those earthquakes? >> have you noticed him take any special? >> no. he sleeps right through them. there is no truth that i'm aware of with harvey that dogs are aware of an impending earthquake. >> you hear the myth all the time. suppose the dog helps you get up, is it going to help you do something >> i hear they are aware of small vibrations. but yes, i read extensively that dogs

cannot realize earthquakes. >> today is a spectacular day in san francisco and sometimes people would say this is earthquake weather. is this earthquake weather? >> no. not that i have heard of. no such thing. >> there is no such thing. >> we are talking about the weather in a daily or weekly cycle. there is no relationship. i have heard it's hot or cold weather or rain. i'm not sure which is the myth. >> how about time of day? >> yes. it happens when it's least convenient. when it happens people say we were lucky and when they don't. it's terrible timing. it's never a good time for an earthquake. >> but we are going to have one.

>> how about the ground swallowing people into the ground? >> like the earth that collapsed? it's not like the tv shows. >> the earth does move and it bumps up and you get a ground fracture but it's not something that opens up and sucks you up into haddes. >> it's not going anywhere. we are going to have a lot of damage, but this myth that california is going to the ocean is not real. >> southern california is

moving north. it's coming up from the south to the north. >> you would have to invest the million year cycle, not weeks or years. maybe millions of years from now, part of los angeles will be in the bay area. >> for better or worse. >> yes. >> this is a tough question. >> those other ones weren't tough. >> this is a really easy challenge. are the smaller ones less stress? >> yes. the amount released in small earthquakes is that they are so small in you need many of those. >> i think would you probably have to have maybe hundreds of magnitude earthquakes of 4.7.

>> so small earthquakes are not making our lives better in the future? >> not anyway that you can count on. >> i have heard that buildings in san francisco are on rollers and isolated? >> it's not true. it's a conventional foundation like almost all the circumstances buildings in san francisco. >> the trans-america was built way before. it's a pretty conventional foundation design. >> i have heard about this thing called the triangle of life and up you are supposed to go to the edge of your bed to save yourself. is there anything of value to that ? >> yes, if you are in your room. you should drop, cover and hold onto something. if you are in school, same thing,

kitchen same thing. if you happen to be in your bed, and you rollover your bed, it's not a bad place to be. >> the reality is when we have a major earthquake the ground shaking so pronounced that you are not going to be able to get up and go anywhere. you are pretty much staying where you are when that earthquake hits. you are not going to be able to stand up and run with gravity. >> you want to get under the door frame but you are not moving to great distances. >> where can i buy a richter scale? >> mr. richter is selling it. we are going to put a plug in for cold hardware. they are not available. it's a rather complex. >> in fact we don't even use the richter scale anymore. we use a moment magnitude. the

richter scale was early technology. >> probably a myth that i hear most often is my building is just fine in the loma prieta earthquake so everything is fine. is that true ? >> loma prieta was different. the ground acceleration here was quite moderate and the duration was moderate. so anyone that believes they survived a big earthquake and their building has been tested is sadly mistaken. >> we are planning for the bigger earthquake closer to san francisco and a fault totally independent. >> much stronger than the loma prieta earthquake. >> so people who were here in '89 they should say 3 times as

strong and twice as long and that will give them more of an occasion of the earthquake we would have. 10 percent isn't really the threshold of damage. when you triple it you cross that line. it's much more damage in earthquake. >> i want to thank you, harvey, thanks pat for

good morning. and welcome to the country club. and i really want to first of all thank billy and the country club and the whole team for hosting us here today. for those who don't know, the country club is it one of the core community pillars in the castro for many people seeking recovery can have support. and the castro. so thank you castro country club for all you do. i'm scott weaner.

and i have the opportunity of representing the california state senate. we're here to talk about what we're doing at the state and local level to address it and i'm honored to be join by our mayor, mayor breed and supervisor mandelman, by our director of public health and my amazing community leaders who you'll hear from today. so we have been working all year on providing more state support for san francisco's work addressing our meth crisis which is a significant crisis in the city. we know in 2019, a majority of overdose deaths were meth related. that most admissions to our psych emergency room are meth related. we also know we have big problems with fentanyl and

heroin. meth is a huge contributor to those overdose deaths in san francisco. we also know that meth leads to significant behavioral health challenges on our streets with people creating unsafe conditions for themselves and for other people and we need to get people to get healthy and to recovery. so right now, i authored senate bill 110 which is sitting on governor newsome's desk, which will explicitly legalize something called contingency management which is perhaps or one of the most effective tools for helping people addicted to meth. for people to get sober and stay sober. we know that meth does not have a pharmaceutical treatment to help people get into recovery,

like, for example, opioids, there's medication that you can take. that doesn't exit for meth yet. we hope it will one day. and contingency management is a proven tool that the san francisco aids foundation have been using for a decade. that the veteran and that has proven results in helping people use less or stop using entirely and to get into recovery and stay there and be healthy. so we're calling on the governor to sign sb110 to allow san francisco and other cities in california to take this approach which the biden administration has embraced. so this is something that we really need to move forward here in california and in san francisco. in addition this year in the state budget, i was able to obtain $4.2 million so san francisco can open up an additional meth sobering

center. san francisco is moving forward with these sobering centers so that people who are using meth have a place to go to come down, to be in a safe space, to get connected to resources and we hope eventually to go into recovery. so i want to thank our senate leadership and everyone and our budget committee who allowed us to obtain this funding for meth sobering center in san francisco. we know that people of san francisco are incredibly frustrated with the situation with overdoses and people dying. we had a record number of overdose deaths last year. it's heart breaking for this incredibly compassionate city. it is a public health crisis. it is not a criminal problem. this is not about arresting people and cycling people through the system. this is -- this needs to move away from the overwhelming of our emergency rooms when we have other tools that can help

people without flooding our emergency rooms. and that's what these strategies are about. so, again, thank you. and now i'd like to bring up mayor breed who has been and is a true leader on these issues with a lot of different innovative approaches here in san francisco. mayor breed. >> thank you. first of all, i want to just say thank you to senator weaner for his leadership in sacramento on all things that are important to address in san francisco and in particular addiction we know is a very challenging thing. he has been leading the fight on safe consumption sites. he has been leading the fight on resources to address the challenges that we face with getting this meth sobering center open and i really want to thank and appreciate his work, his ability to deliver

$4.2 million to help support this facility is going to be absolutely incredible and we will be opening that center in the soma neighborhood in november. we have to think about diverse number of solutions and it's not one size fits all. i have had as some of you may know family members who struggle with addiction and the last thing that you want to see is someone who you love who is strung out on drugs, out on the streets, or worse, someone that you love die from a drug overdose. we can't just make it disappear because we don't want to see it. these are people. these are people with families. these are people who folks love and care about who have challenges just like many of us have challenges in life and so this is really important to me and very personal because, you

know, what we see happening on our streets because of the challenges with addiction is something that we can help to do something about and part of what we want to do is we want to save lives. over 95,000 people in this country died as a result of drug overdoses this past year and we want to make sure because we saw record breaking numbers of overdose deaths in san francisco and we want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to prevent that. that's why we're here today. we know that we have to think about a diverse number of solutions and how sb110 is really i think a very innovative way, again, one that senator weaner already talked about as being implemented by the aids foundation here in san francisco and others because we have to make sure that we

provide as many resources as many incentives as possible to get people on the right path. and not to mention here in san francisco as we all know, we see, you know, a lot of the addiction play itself out on our streets and so many people see and then they think, we don't want this happening on our streets. well, we don't want it happening on our streets. we have to make sure we have places like the castro country club. we have to make sure that we continue to support health right 360 and their incredible work. we have to make sure that people have alternatives. this, you know, crisis of addiction with fentanyl, with, you know, meth, with heroin, and all of these other drugs that, you know, are getting into the hands of folks all over the streets, it's a struggle. it's a challenge and it's one that we're prepared to meet, but we have to make sure that we have the places, the

resources, the capacity so that when someone says "i need help, we're able to be there." when they're at this meth sobering center, they're not just sitting there by themselves. they'll be people there to provide alternatives and to try and help them get back on their feet. we want to make sure that every solution possible exists in the city and county of san francisco so that as soon as someone puts their hands up and says i need help, we are right there, we're ready to get them into any treatment that makes the most sense and that's going to lead to success for them and their life. so i want to thank you all so much for being here again. thank you so much, senator weaner for your leadership and work on all of these matters. it is great to have a partner who understands and values the need to do this work and he has truly been an amazing leader

and an inspiration. so thank you so much, senator weaner. >> thank you, mayor breed. we'll now hear from our san francisco director of public health grant colfax followed by my successor on the board of supervisors, supervisor rafael mandelman. >> good morning everybody. it's impressive to have the leadership of so many here. your work to address our city's overdose crisis and meth crisis is saving lives and, again, placing san francisco at the forefront of compassionate and effective care. thank you for hosting us today and your stewardship of the castro country club. for decades, this has been a place for where people can come on their journey in recovery.

so key to the community. and thank you for the leadership at hr360, a tremendous partner as we address ongoing issues in the city and for your focus on helping us develop the drug sobering center coming this winter. and, finally, thank you tammy martin for your advocacy in sacramento on these key issues that are so important to the lgbtq+ community. as we all know too well, san francisco has seen an alarming number of overdose deaths. and these overdose deaths are truly preventable. and today marks a big step forward in supporting our community who struggle with substance abuse. to get there, we are expandaing what we know to be an effective care treatment and creating a safe space like soma rise. this is about innovative practices, low barrier to

access and meeting people where they are so that every door is truly the right door for people to begin their journey on recovery. in 2019, i had the honor of cosponsoring. we came together with community based organizations, and people with experience using methamphetamine to develop a plan. that seems awhile ago, but i'm so proud that our top recommendations from the meth task force are taking shape and being implemented. and as senator weaner shareded, many of the addiction treatments are unfortunately not effective for stimulant addiction. a treatment for stimulants that we know work is truly contingency management and that's what we've been supporting in the health department for many years. advocates have been waiting for someone like senator weaner to make it possible to expanded funding source, contingency

management and therefore serve so many clients. we all want to do the right thing, we all want to implement effective treatments, but i can tell you making it reality with ab110 would really allow us to scale up this intervention. we also know that not everybody is ready for treatment. meeting people where they are, building those relationships and serving their immediate needs is key. some will rise. it will bring people indoors where they can have a safe, welcoming place to come down, rest, and be connected to services. tragically and unfortunately, fentanyl has changed the landscape of drug overdoses throughout the country and here in san francisco. contingency management provides our key parts of our approaches, but are pieces of a much larger response. san francisco is investing millions of dollars through mental health sf. we are filling gaps and

coordinating services. i want to remind our communities for ways we can support friends, family, neighbors who use drugs and/or stay safe ourselves. san franciscans are saving thousands of lives a year with naloxone, a medicine that reverses the effects of overdose. along with our community partners, we've distributed over 28,000 overdose kits annually. test strips are free at our pharmacy at 1380 howard street and at community sites across the city. we simply cannot give out too many given the pandemic, the pandemic of overdosed in our city. second, the san francisco department of public health in partnership with the fire department has launched two teams to respond to people in crisis or those suffering from an overdose. the street crisis response team and the street overdose response team. if you see someone in crisis or suspect someone needs support,

please call 911 and someone will be there to help them. and now it's my pleasure to introduce a champion of our efforts in our community, supervisor mandelman. thank you. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you, dr. colfax. and i will echo all of the praise and gratitude that has been should you ared on billy lemon and the castro club because you are doing life-saving work every day and it's an honor to represent you. this is a great day and this is great legislation senator weaner. when we had that meth task force a few years ago, it was not an uplifting or happy experience to have that conversation because we do have -- we did have a meth crisis, we do have a meth crisis, we've had a meth crisis for some time and the reality is that meth is a really hard drug to figure

out good intervention for. and as has been said, the medical interventions seem to not be particularly effective. but when we heard the presentation on management at the aids foundation, really, i thought it was a cause for hope and something to feel like man oh, man, we really need to be doing more of this. and so recommendation number six i believe in the meth task force report. thank you for letting us convene, mayor, and dr. colfax and i following that up was to build out and fix out the medi-cal funding contingency management. and here we are two years later but we need a signature, governor. we need a signature, but we can dramatically expand those efforts throughout california. it has been personally gratifying for me to see some of the other top reports of those get closer to fruition.

the sobering centers were the first, the number one recommendation, a safe place for people who are in crisis or on the verge of crisis in the streets, shouldn't be on the sidewalk. need to be in a safe place and ideally get connected to services and we're on the cusp and i think we're going to need more than one, but one is a start. and the second recommendation of that task force report was better outreach to those on the street. and the mayor has made that a priority. we are exploring many different ways of getting to folks on the streets, not having the police be that first point of contact, but rather folks who can work with people ideally before an overdose, but after an overdose to keep people connected and get folks into treatment. so the crisis continues. you can see it every day out on the streets. it's not just on house folks either. one of the things we learned,

the prototypical of a meth overdose was a gay, white man in his late 40s. that's a little close to home. but this has been a challenge in the queer community, but it's a challenge for lots of communities and so we need to move faster, more, do more, not rest until we actually -- until we get more of a solution than we got. so i know we're going to do it. i know the mayor's super committed. thanks everybody for your efforts and now we've got to do a whole lot more. oh, and after saying nice things about billy levin, i get to bring billy levin up. i love billy. >> thank you, supervisor. good morning everyone. my name is billy lemon. i am the executive director of the castro country club, a position i've had for about six years and before that i was addicted to methamphetamine.

i got sober in 2013 through the help of -- [ applause ] -- through the help of a myriad of city services that are offered and now supported by many of the folks standing behind me and most primarily mayor breed. we appreciate everything you do. a little -- what i want to say and what i feel is most important is, you don't get a crowd like this in a space like this, in a small neighborhood community center unless there is a very pressing issue. senator weaner has been a long champion of the castro country club. he helped me get out a work force development program funded in 2014 because here's the deal, i got sober with the help of prop at the san francisco aids foundation. at the time, i was homeless. i had a backpack and i walked

into the offices of rick andrews, hi, rick. at that time, rick was the director of prop, i invited him this morning. and prop worked for me. prop is positive reinforcement opportunity project. and, basically, it allows somebody to get a positive test -- a negative test for methamphetamine over a period of time and those little incremental rewards for somebody who was a stimulant user is an effective treatment. and that combined with a whole host of other things. abstinence, maybe not abstinence and eventually folks find their way. and they find their way because san francisco is a compassionate city that cares

about folks moving forward. everybody up here cares about folks moving forward. and what i hope is over time that through the fantastic board of hr360. places like the castro country club, we can meet folks where they are and provide a myriad of options to kind of get their substance use to it a position where they feel comfortable. that's what i do every day and i am a living, breathing example that if you offer a helping hand, that eventually folks will figure out a way to make it work for them and so i really want to thank everybody up here. dr. colfax, vicka, senator weaner and the mayor for funding our work force development program. thank you. we very much appreciate it. we know that you have a lot on your plate and it really is

appreciative. i'm very heart warmed to have you on the premises in a sacred place. so thank you everyone. >> our final two speakers will be vick eisen. >> thank you everybody. can you all hear me? i'm short. thanks for having us here. you know, i am grateful to live in a city and a county that follows and believes in science and follows the research and that is no small thing in this era of covid. and it's also demonstrated by how this city and how our state has responded to drug use, drug overdose and to problematic drug use. we follow the research and we

follow the evidence and the science even when it kind of defies our beliefs, closely held belief systems. in it defies with someone we might of read on the internet. contingency management under sb110 from senator weaner follows the science. it follows research on effective interventions for people who use methamphetamine. now, you have to realize sb360 has been around for a long time. it was a partner and a research project on contingency management back in the late 90s. now i'm an old treatment person. so the idea to me of paying people to not use drugs seems strange, but i said, hey, it's research. let's go with it. and so what did we find? it was effective. we said follow the research. we need to invest in things that work even if they seem

unusual to us or unexpected or it's not the path we thought things would take. so i'm grateful to live in a place where we have a mayor, senators, and board of supervisors who are willing to do that. the summer rise project which we are grateful to be apart of is also evidence of following research on low barrier, low threshold intervention for people in drug crisis. what we want to be able to do is to meet them where they are and connect them to care. that works. that research that shows that that works is also personal experience that shows that that works. you heard billy's story. i'm a former drug user. way back in the day, i went to

ashbury's detox clinic. i must have gone nine times. i felt welcomed nine times. eventually, because they cared about me and i trusted them, i went to treatment and so we look at soma rise. people think they should be in jail. people are filled that we will greet them with love and compassion and food and a shower and a warm place to be and we'll do it all over again until the point they say we want to do something else and when that second comes, we will be there to connect them to care. we'll connect them to health right 360. we'll connect them to service along the path to health. we will be there to do that. we are facing an unprecedented

crisis in overdose deaths. these are just steps to take, but we are proud to be apart of a movement towards really doing anything it takes to taking care of people who use drugs and improving the life of people in san francisco. thank you. [ applause ] >> good morning everybody. tommy martin, legislative director of equality california and every day i go to work to push back against discrimination, against stigma, and against shame. those are just a few of the barriers that prevent people from accessing treatment that they need to overcome addiction. i'm honored to be here today to represent the over-900,000 members of equality california which is the nation's largest statewide lgbtq+ civil rights

organization. and, together, we all joined senator weaner in urging governor newsome to sign sb110 and to combat meth use which is a long standing crisis in the lgbtq+ community. and advocating for this bill over the past 10 months now, imet with a surprising number of people who were not aware of this crisis in the lgbtq+ community and that lack of awareness is another barrier to treatment and another reason stimulant use has grown so rapidly. and meth is often presented as a party drug in the lgbtq+ community, but as we know all too often, it comes for roughly 60% of overdose deaths in san francisco in 2019 and in the mortality rate is high among african american men. so sb 110 is not just a public

health priority. it's not a priority just for the lgbtq+ community, it's also a racial justice priority. we heard this year senator weaner secured a significant state budget which will provide trauma space. and governor newsome has shown a strong commitment by improving that budget investment and that's why we look forward to his signature on sb110 which will provide another critical tool in reducing meth addiction and saving the lives of lgbtq+ californians. thank you. >> thank you, tommy. so now i want to thank everyone for being here. we're happy to answer any questions that members of the press may have. >> reporter: mayor breed, there's currently a resolution at the board of supervisors committee urging you to call for a local emergency on overdoses and then immediately

implement overdose prevention sites is that something you're supportive of? calling for a local emergency on that? >> what i plan to do is exactly what i've been doing and that is making sure that we're focused on action and investments. you know, this pandemic, when we were hit with this pandemic, we use the powers of a declaration of emergency for the purposes of addressing this issue and we know that there are challenges with drug overdoses that are, of course, problematic and this is definitely a public health crisis and the solution is not necessarily a declaration of emergency. the solution is putting resources and putting forth action toward addressing this

issue. and so we are doing what we can to invest significant resources in combatting the crisis and to also be clear ever since i was on the board of supervisors, i have been trying to push to open a safe consumption site and we have been experiencing a number of challenges. senator weaner has been pushing for the state legislation that would allow for us to open those sites and avoid people losing their licenses and other challenges that may come their way. so this is not a issue that san francisco's going to be able to combat alone. this is an issue that we're going to have to continue to work with our state representatives to try and get the job done. and i think, you know, with the investments and the advocacy that we have here today, every single day, we're going to continue to push in that

direction. >> reporter: if this resolution made it to your desk, you would not support it? >> i cannot confirm that at this point because i have not had a chance to review the resolution. >> i do want to reiterate that sb57, our state legislation to legalize safe consumption sites is moving forward and it will move forward in january. governor brown vetoed it in 2018 but we're going to put it on governor newsome's desk next year. >> reporter: mayor breed, director colfax recommended that if we're in a crisis to call 911. are police still responding to meet calls that involve nonviolent situations involving the unhoused. don't you have different advocates to get crisis response to the streets? >> no there shouldn't be.

what has been said today is that almost every single day, san francisco police officers are providing narcan to those experiencing overdoses and they are also saving lives. but what happens when you call 911, the dispatcher analyzes the call to determine who should come out. so, for example, we had the overdose response team, but if they're not available, we need to send someone sooner rather than later. we can't wait and this is a new vehicle. a number of the things that we're putting in place in terms of the street crisis response team, the overdose response team, the wellness checks, we have just put those things into place. and they're working very effectively when they are able to respond, but they're also very time consuming. so it's not like you can just show up to a scene and say get in an ambulance and say let's go. sometimes it can take an hour or two hours for one individual to get support because it

requires patience and it requires an understanding of what that person is actually going through. so if none of those groups of people are available to respond in those teams, and someone is calling 911 and it's a crisis, we're going to send what we need to send in order to try to help deal with this situation. and it should be noted again that there are offices out there with narcan that are helping people too. and i get it. there are some folk who is have a problem with it, but at the end of the day, it's going to take all of us to work together to help address this crisis. and i apologize, but i do have another thing to go to. >> thank you. >> final questions. >> reporter: quick question for dr. colfax on another note. where do we currently stand on the indoor mask mandate? is that something you're discussing? repealing at this point? >> we're in discussions with

our health officer and other science health experts looking at our numbers and figuring out where there may be sub substantiatebility. and we're on a downward path and we're going to be continuing to figure out the best time to potentially roll back some of the indoor masking mandates, but right now, we're not prepared to do that. >> do you have a timeline? >> i don't have a specific time line. >> can you expand a little bit more on san francisco in terms of that positive path that you're referring to? >> well, our cases have been dropping. we're almost at half the statewide average, but right now we're about 11 per 100,000 cases. our test positivty rate is below 2% and that's the first time it's been below 2% for a number of months. we have about 65 people in the hospital on average on any given day. i think the most important metric is our vaccination rate. so we're at 82% of people

eligible to be vaccinated and in relationship to how we all get back to an ongoing, safer environment, the new normal, we're really excited about the 5-11-year-olds being eligible for the vaccine at the end of october. that will be a major step forward allowing children to continue that in-person learning. so excited about that. >> what kind of metrics are you looking for? are you looking for certain case rates? >> it's a combination of factors. so it's looking at that and a lieu of those variables that i just talked about. >> do you think it is the vaccination rate that's most contributing to san francisco being at a better vaccination rate. >> i think it is. i mean, we're higher than most jurisdictions and i think you also see the fact that in the hospitalizations among people hospitalized, people without vaccine are eight times more likely to be hospitalized with covid than people who are fully

vaccinated. so these vaccines are saving lives. they've saved lives in san francisco and will continue to do so. so the message is if you haven't gotten vaccinated, please get vaccinated. we have drop-in centers across the city. we have 100 vaccine sites usually within a 5 to 10 minutes walking distance in san francisco. >> great. any final questions? >> perhaps dr. colfax mentioned this, but we heard about the unprecedented crisis on overdose deaths, what is contributing to that? >> it's spiking everywhere. this is throughout the country, throughout california. san francisco is not unique and i think there are -- we were already, you know, we talked about death of despair. people who feel like they have no other options, lack of support and and the pandemic made things worse because there

was less access to services and to health and so, again, this is not just a san francisco problem. it might be more visible here because we're more concentrated denser city, but it's happening absolutely everywhere. in rural areas and in urban areas, suburban areas and that's why this sb110 received a unanimous bipartisan vote of support in the senate and almost unanimous in the assembly. it was not controversial and it was very bipartisan support because every community is suffering. okay. thank you very much everyone. [ applause ]

[♪♪♪] ♪ homelessness in san francisco

is considered the number 1 issue by most people who live here, and it doesn't just affect neighbors without a home, it affects all of us. is real way to combat that is to work together. it will take city departments and nonprofit providers and volunteers and companies and community members all coming together. [♪♪♪] >> the product homeless connect community day of service began about 15 years ago, and we have had 73 of them. what we do is we host and expo-style event, and we were the very force organization to do this but it worked so well that 250 other cities across the globe host their own. there's over 120 service providers at the event today, and they range anywhere from hygiene kits provided by the basics, 5% -- to prescription glasses and reading glasses, hearing tests, pet sitting,

showers, medical services, flu shots, dental care, groceries, so many phenomenal service providers, and what makes it so unique is we ask that they provide that service today here it is an actual, tangible service people can leave with it. >> i am with the hearing and speech center of northern california, and we provide a variety of services including audiology, counselling, outreach, education, today we actually just do screening to see if someone has hearing loss. to follow updates when they come into the speech center and we do a full diagnostic hearing test, and we start the process of taking an impression of their year, deciding on which hearing aid will work best for them. if they have a smart phone, we make sure we get a smart phone that can connect to it, so they can stream phone calls, or use it for any other services that they need. >> san francisco has phenomenal social services to support people at risk of becoming homeless, are already experience and homelessness, but it is confusing, and there is a lot of

waste. bringing everyone into the same space not only saves an average of 20 hours a week in navigating the system and waiting in line for different areas, it helps them talk, so if you need to sign up for medi-cal, what you need identification, you don't have to go to sacramento or wait in line at a d.m.v., you go across the hall to the d.m.v. to get your i.d. ♪ today we will probably see around 30 people, and averaging about 20 of this people coming to cs for follow-up service. >> for a participant to qualify for services, all they need to do is come to the event. we have a lot of people who are at risk of homelessness but not yet experiencing it, that today's event can ensure they stay house. many people coming to the event are here to receive one specific need such as signing up for medi-cal or learning about d.m.v. services, and then of course, most of the people who are tender people experiencing homelessness today. >> i am the representative for the volunteer central.

we are the group that checks and all the volunteers that comment participate each day. on a typical day of service, we have anywhere between 40500 volunteers that we, back in, they get t-shirts, nametags, maps, and all the information they need to have a successful event. our participant escorts are a core part of our group, and they are the ones who help participants flow from the different service areas and help them find the different services that they needs. >> one of the ways we work closely with the department of homelessness and supportive housing is by working with homeless outreach teams. they come here, and these are the people that help you get into navigation centers, help you get into short-term shelter, and talk about housing-1st policies. we also work very closely with the department of public health to provide a lot of our services. >> we have all types of things that volunteers deal do on a day of service. we have folks that help give out lunches in the café, we have folks who help with the check in, getting people when they

arrive, making sure that they find the services that they need to, we have folks who help in the check out process, to make sure they get their food bag, bag of groceries, together hygiene kit, and whatever they need to. volunteers, i think of them as the secret sauce that just makes the whole process works smoothly. >> participants are encouraged and welcomed to come with their pets. we do have a pet daycare, so if they want to have their pets stay in the daycare area while they navigate the event, they are welcome to do that, will we also understand some people are more comfortable having their pets with them. they can bring them into the event as well. we also typically offer veterinary services, and it can be a real detriment to coming into an event like this. we also have a bag check. you don't have to worry about your belongings getting lost, especially when that is all that you have with you. >> we get connected with people who knew they had hearing loss, but they didn't know they could get services to help them with

their hearing loss picks and we are getting connected with each other to make sure they are getting supported. >> our next event will be in march, we don't yet have a date set. we typically sap set it six weeks out. the way to volunteer is to follow our newsletter, follow us on social media, or just visit our website. we always announce it right away, and you can register very easily online. >> a lot of people see folks experience a homelessness in the city, and they don't know how they can help, and defence like this gives a whole bunch of people a lot of good opportunities to give back and be supported. [♪♪♪].

>> my name is angela wilson and i'm an owner of the market i worked at a butcher for about 10 years and became a butcher you i was a restaurant cook started in sxos and went to uc; isn't that so and opened a cafe we have produce from small farms without small butcher shops hard for small farms to survive we have a been a butcher shop since 1901

in the heights floor and the case are about from 1955 and it is only been a butcher shot not a lot of businesses if san francisco that have only been one thing. >> i'm all for vegetarians if you eat meat eat meat for quality and if we care of we're in a losing battle we need to support butcher shops eat less we sell the chickens with the head and feet open somebody has to make money when you pay $25 for a chicken i guarantee if you go to save way half of the chicken goes in the enlarge but we started affordable housing depends on it occurred to us this is a male field people said good job even for a girl the interesting thing it is a

women's field in most of world just here in united states it is that pay a man's job i'm an encountered woman and raise a son and teach i am who respect woman i consider all women's who work here to be impoverished and strong in san francisco labor is high our cost of good ideas we seal the best good ideas the profit margin that low but everything that is a laboring and that's a challenge in the town so many people chasing money and not i can guarantee everybody this is their passion. >> i'm the - i've been cooking mile whole life this is a really, really strong presence of women heading up kitchens in the bay area it is really why i

moved out here i think that we are really strong in the destroy and really off the pages kind of thing i feel like women befrp helps us to get back up i'm definitely the only female here i fell in love i love setting up and love knowing were any food comes from i do the lamb and that's how i got here today something special to have a female here a male dominated field so i think that it is very special to have women and especially like it is going at it you know i'm a tiny girl but

makes me feel good for sure. >> the sad thing the building is sold i'm renegotiating my lease the neighborhood wants us to be here with that said, this is a very difficult business it is a constant struggle to maintain freshness and deal with what we have to everyday it is a very high labor of business but something i'm proud of if you want to get a job at affordable housing done nasal you need a good attitude and the jobs on the bottom you take care of all the produce and the fish and computer ferry terminal and work your way up employing people with a passion for this and empowering them to learn

as latinos we are unified in some ways and incredibly diverse in others and this exhibit really is an exploration of nuance in how we present those ideas. ♪♪ our debts are not for sale. >> a piece about sanctuary and how his whole family served in the army and it's a long family tradition and these people that look at us as foreigners, we have been here and we are part

of america, you know, and we had to reinforce that. i have been cure rating here for about 18 year. we started with a table top, candle, flowers, and a picture and people reacted to that like it was the monna lisa. >> the most important tradition as it relates to the show is idea of making offering. in traditional mexican alters, you see food, candy, drinks, cigarettes, the things that the person that the offerings where being made to can take with them into the next word, the next life. >> keeps us connects to the people who have passed and because family is so important

to us, that community dynamic makes it stick and makes it visible and it humanizes it and makes it present again. ♪♪ >> when i first started doing it back in '71, i wanted to do something with ritual, ceremony and history and you know i talked to my partner ross about the research and we opened and it hit a cord and people loved it. >> i think the line between engaging everyone with our culture and appropriating it. i think it goes back to asking people to bring their visions of what it means to honor the dead, and so for us it's not asking us to make mexican altars if they are not mexican, it's really to share and expand our vision of what it means to honor the dead.

>> people are very respectful. i can show you this year alone of people who call tol ask is it okay if we come, we are hawaii or asian or we are this. what should we wear? what do you recommend that we do? >> they say oh, you know, we want a four day of the dead and it's all hybrid in this country. what has happened are paper cuts, it's so hybrid. it has spread to mexico from the bay area. we have influence on a lot of people, and i'm proud of it. >> a lot of times they don't represent we represent a lot of cultures with a lot of different

perspectives and beliefs. >> i can see the city changes and it's scary. >> when we first started a lot of people freaked out thinking we were a cult and things like that, but we went out of our way to also make it educational through outreach and that is why we started doing the prosession in 1979. >> as someone who grew up attending the yearly processions and who has seen them change incrementally every year into kind of what they are now, i feel in many ways that the cat is out of the bag and there is no putting the genie back into the bottle in how the wider public accesses the day of the dead. >> i have been through three different generations of children who were brought to the procession when they were very young that are now bringing

their children or grandchildren. >> in the '80s, the processions were just kind of electric. families with their homemade visuals walking down the street in san francisco. service so much more intimate and personal and so much more rooted in kind of a family practice of a very strong cultural practice. it kind of is what it is now and it has gone off in many different directions but i will always love the early days in the '80s where it was so intimate and sofa millial. >> our goal is to rescue a part of the culture that was a part that we could invite others to join in there there by where we

invite the person to come help us rescue it also. that's what makes it unique. >> you have to know how to approach this changing situation, it's exhausting and i have seen how it has affected everybody. >> what's happening in mission and the relationship with the police, well it's relevant and it's relevant that people think about it that day of the dead is not just sugar skulls and paper flowers and candles, but it's become a nondenominational tradition that people celebrate. >> our culture is about color and family and if that is not present in your life, there is just no meaning to it you know? >> we have artists as black and brown people that are in direct danger of the direct policies of

the trump administration and i think how each of the artists has responded so that call is interesting. the common

. common >> chairman: all right. good morning. and welcome to this september 28th meeting of the treasure island mobility management committee board. madam clerk, will you please call the roll. >> clerk: yes. [roll call]