>> and i'm the board chair for the mayor's disability commission. today is march 18th, 2022. the public meeting [indiscernible]. >> clerk: this meeting is broadcast to the public on sfgov-tv and it is open captioned and sign language interpreted. there's nine public meetings yearly and they're generally held on the third friday of the month. please call the mayor's office on disability for further information or to request

accommodations at 415-554-6789. for voice or by email at mod@sfgov.org. our next meeting is on friday april 18th from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. >> at this time i would like to address what happened from last weekend. and i would ask the clerk to read the statement. >> clerk: okay, so i'm reading the statement on behalf of alex, co-chair madrid. as co-chair i would like to address the issue of civility during meetings. disagreement will always play a role in government. and the key is to focus on the

strengths and the weaknesses of proposed solutions to community problems. not to engage in personal attacks against those who favor different solutions. we live in a city where diverse perspectives, and meetings are beneficial to hear all of these differing points of view while keeping the best interests of our community in mind. everyone is right to have their view heard as a central democratic value. mcd members request to treat each other and members of the public with respect and we expect the same from the public we thank you for joining us. >> co-chair madrid: thank you for that. now can you please read the roll call. >> clerk: okay [roll call]

and that is it for roll call. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. now i will go to item number -- [indiscernible] can you read the agenda. >> clerk: item 1, welcome and roll call. and item 2, reading and approval of the agenda. item 3 is public comment. item 4 is an information item, a co-chair report.

item 5 is an information item called "keep us connected 2022 campaign and empowered sf assessment" and the presentation by marie jobling and carla soumala from the san francisco tech council and the dignity fund coalition. and item 6 is the information item on updates on the disability cultural center and dignity fund. and item 7 is the report from the mayor's office of disability. and item 8 is correspondence, and item 9 is public comment. and item 10 is a discussion item for council member communities and announcements. and item 11 is adjournment.

that's all for the agenda. >> i think that you are muted. >> co-chair madrid: sorry about that. are there any members [indiscernible] on the agenda. >> i approve. aye. >> tiffany, i approve. i second. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. public comment. can you please open up it up for public comment. >> clerk: yes. so we welcome the public's participation during public comment period. there will be an opportunity for public comment at the beginning and the end of the meeting, as

well as after specific items on the agenda. each comment is limited to three minutes, although comments may be limited to two minutes when there's a long queue of people waiting to make comments. at the end of the comment period, we will move on to the next commenter. if you want the council to respond to your comment following the meeting, please provide your contact information by email message to mod@sfgov.org. with the subject "mcd comment reply request." you may also provide additional comments by email to this address or by calling 415-554-6789. members of the public can join the meeting as participants and can make public comment during

the public comment period. members of the public can join the webinar by using the link provided in the agenda. to join the webinar using a telephone you can dial 1-(669)-900-6833. and the webinar i.d. is 854-1955-0368. if you join the webinar using your computer or tablet or smartphone zoom app you can click on the raised hand icon and you will be recognized when it's your turn to make public comment. you can also use the q&a feature in zoom webinar to be recognized or to make a comment. if you wish to be recognized type in the q&a box that you want to make a comment and hit send. and you can type it into the q&a

box and the clerk can also read it for you. if you join by phone dial star, 9, when you want to be recognized and you'll be prompted when it's your turn to make comments. we welcome suggestions on how to make the meetings more accessible. send feedback to mod@sfgov.org. if you need assistance accessing the meeting call 415-919-9562. or send an email to mod@sfgov.org. at this time, members of the public may address the council on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council that are not on this meeting agenda. with respect to agenda items, your opportunity to address the council will be afforded when the item is reached in the meeting.

each member of the public may address the council for up to three minutes. the brown act forbids the council from taking action or discussing any items not appearing on the posted agenda, including those items raised at public comment. so, with that announcement, i do see that we have at least one member of the public who is indicating they want to make public comment. >> co-chair madrid: all right. >> clerk: patricia, you have been permitted to unmute. >> caller: yes, can you hear me? >> clerk: yes. >> caller: yeah, i just wanted to convey to the mayor's disability council how disappointed i was and disheartened that you decided to ignore an almost unanimous response from the public at your last meeting about the closure of j.f.k. when you came out in favor of

permanent closure of that mile and a half stretch of j.f.k., i really feel that you're letting down a significant number of members, residents and taxpayers and voters of san francisco. people like me. i'm disabled. it's very difficult for me to walk. i have a muscle disease that is incurable and progressive. i fatigue very easily. i'm in fear of falling down. i have to be extremely careful and i walk with a whirlator. the best and the safest manner for people like me to go to the park and enjoy the attractions

along that length of j.f.k. is in a private car with someone. i don't see why we can't compromise instead of giving everything to the coalition that they want and the harassment and intimidate pedestrians all the time. and i think the letter that i think that your attorney wrote about how ada laws do not apply in this case, i think that is rather twisted logic and can be easily be refuted because there is still parking in golden gate park. able-bodied people just have to walk a little further, but they can still park in the park. disabled people can't walk a mile to get to the museum. they can't all park in the museum parking garage because

it's too expensive. it's like a disability tax. so i just want to let you know that i really think you dropped the ball and for a disability council, it makes me wonder if you're really taking into account the people that you're supposed to support and represent. thank you very much. >> co-chair madrid: thank you for your comments. are there any public comments at this time? >> clerk: yes. anon, you have been permitted to unmute. >> caller: hi. i'm a civil rights activist and disability activist in san francisco and i publish videos

of corruption and unethical corruption on youtube under activism and disability in san francisco. the previous comment i think that speaks to the widespread public opinion that this council and the mayor's office on disability have not supported and served the disabled public during the pandemic, especially, and for some time before as well. alex madrid and orkid sassouni demanded that i stop emailing them and asking questions about vaccine access or why these meetings were cancelled and rescheduled. for the first seven months of the pandemic these meetings were not even held and actually back in may 2020, there was a deletion of the public record of the emergency town hall meeting on covid response. that -- that deletion, that record, made it impossible for me to track and to find out where lifesaving ppe could be administered and supported and, in fact, the website last i

checked still said that there was ppe available for disabled people and there is not. that website by the way is an inspiration -- it's disgusting and a vast misrepresentation of what this city has done or lack thereof for disabled people. i tried three times yesterday, and the mayor's office on disability doesn't even bother to check such things to make sure that they're accessible to the public. despite numerous, numerous requests, mod refuses to work with the city to publish the home vaccine program to let severely disabled people know that there's a vaccine program that you can actually access to your home. they refused to publish there, i have no idea why. that program was many months late and as a result i became one of the last people to actually get a vaccine. and one of the last people to

get any kind of support around the covid-19 pandemic. additionally, this department -- the mayor's office on disability was found guilty of breaking the law and refusing to release my own disability records and lack thereof by the sunshine ordinance task force. they were found completely guilty by unanimous vote of 10 commissioners. and i think that speaks to the incompetence of the mayor's office on disability right now and the incompetence of the mayor's disability council. please do better, please make sure that people can access covid-19 data and publish the home vaccine program, and please respond to emails about these issues and, please keep these meetings active and let us video participate in these meetings, just like we would be able to if this was in person. there's no reason for you to force us to have our cameras off. that's it for my time. >> co-chair madrid: thank you.

how many do we have for public comment? >> clerk: we have one more caller who wants to make public comment. >> co-chair madrid: okay. if we have more, public comment from three minutes to two minutes. >> clerk: okay. so, caller ending in 1003, you have been permitted to unmute. >> caller: hello, my name is will railing and i am -- and i have three minutes, correct? >> co-chair madrid: yes. co- >> caller: i'm speaking for accessible san francisco, an unincorporated non-profit association. i appreciate these general comment times as an opportunity

to speak to you about things which are important for accessibility in san francisco. but which might not be the worst thing that's happening in the city right now. there are so many things going on, at any given time, so many different opportunities to improve accessibility in our community. and the most important of these is often on your agenda, like today, as full agenda items and for good reason, but i appreciate these general public comments and to remind you of issues and problems which aren't one of the major things agendized for today. so today i want to give a short update on the shared spaces program. shared spaces is the program which allowed thousands of additional businesses to use the streets and sidewalks beyond what was allowed before. now, this week on tuesday, two days ago, three days ago, the board of supervisors approved an ordinance which will eliminate any fines for violations by the shared spaces operators until

2023. now, it's very important to note that this will not apply to accessible violations. accessibility violations are not deferred. i do want to thank supervisor peskin for putting that exception into the legislation that he proposed. for that reason, we did not think that there was any reason to oppose the legislation. the city did not decide as a matter of law that accessibility violations by shared space operators can continue. now, that said, unfortunately, as a practical matter the barriers in the shared spaces program are being allowed to continue. i want to make sure that you are all aware of that. although, i think that you probably are all aware of that, because many of us as we go anywhere in the city where there are shared spaces in operation can't help but notice how many of them are not accessible. a great many do not even attempt to provide an accessible table for dining or drinking, even

when an accessible table is attempted, the accessible table does not actually comply with the code standards which determine compliance. many shared spaces, especially the ones constructed of wood at the curb, have barriers right at the entrance. either a full step, and too high of a lip or no ramp at all -- with no ramp at all -- or there's an attempt at a ramp but one has been built which would not even be safe to use much less compliant with accessibility standards. so we have been concerned that many have been built a year and a half ago and still restaurants and bars still discriminate against people with disability. there's no exception to accessibility to a one-day street fair or an event in a park. many have now discriminated now for 500 days in a row and counting and we don't see any legitimacy for the bureaucratic type responses that we're

hearing such as, you know, we don't have the resources to stop this discrimination, we're working on it, or that somehow it is okay to provide food and beverages in other ways. okay. these are public accommodations and they must be made accessible. there's no excuse. thank you. >> co-chair madrid: thank you for your comment. are there any other public comment at this time? >> clerk: there are no other public commenters at this time. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. therefore, i will proceed to the co-chair report. i want to acknowledge a member of the mayor's disability --

[indiscernible] and members of the san francisco [indiscernible] thank you for coming to us. >> thank you for having me and i hope that we can cooperate. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. now i'm going to read the co-chair report. >> clerk: okay, for the co-chair report we have the february meeting, the mdc adopted a

resolution about the proposed closure of j.f.k. drive and golden gate park. it can be found at the mcd website under "resolutions." the resolution was sent to the mayor and the board and the recreation and parks commission, the director tumlin and director ginsberg. and the resolution was referred to by mta board members, recreation and parks commissioners and public commenters during their joint meeting on march 10th. since then, the mcd has been asked by director ginsburg and the supervisor connie chan to provide additional feedback and the specifics about the specifics of the resolution and mcd will continue to actively address this matter. >> co-chair madrid: i am a

member of a [indiscernible] to the mayor's office disability commission, and i am going to go to the board of supervisors on monday to be appointed for another [indiscernible] the co-chair, [indiscernible] to this report. >> this is orkid. i just want to make sure -- i'm not sure that it was mentioned at the previous meeting, i know

that the meeting went quite long. and i just want to remind folks to please be -- to please honor bob plantol who passed away. i don't have anything else on the report but i just know that our february meeting was quite intense in the discussion of the golden gate park access. it was quite a hot topic. so now that a resolution has been created, there are indeed other items within that that you can review. that doesn't mean anything to be opposed or in support of, mostly just items for the public to review and hope that we can work together successfully and keep golden gate park accessible for all. and that is it for me. no further reports. >> co-chair madrid: thank you, orkid. and we're moving to agenda item

number 5 which is keep us connected 2022 campaign and empowered s.f. tech needs assessment. presented by marie jobling and carla soumala, san francisco tech council and the dignity fund coalition. welcome to both. >> all right, thank you very much, i think that karla will get us started here today. >> thank you very much for having us. we're so delighted to be here. i am karla soumala and i'm here with marie jobling, she's the co-chair of the dignity fund coalition and the co-executive director at community living campaign. we're joined by cecile peritt

who is the lead author on the report that i'll talk about today and these days, she is the assistant director of disability access and inclusion with the ucff office of diversity and outreach. and so she will be here to field questions once i kind of go over the materials on the report. and so this -- we'll go ahead and get started. am i allowed to pull up the slides or can you enable me to do that? >> co-chair madrid: if you can -- to do it from our end. >> okay. >> i believe that john has that

slide deck. >> co-chair madrid: one moment. while i share the screen. >> oh, perfect, i will pull it up right now. got it. all right. and i will make sure that everybody can see my screen here. and can you all see my screen? is that -- is that available to you? >> and you need to go to slide show. >> yeah, i'm just trying to move the things around to get me there. there we go. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. >> all right. so, thank you, everyone. this is the 2021 findings and policy recommendations from the

empowered san francisco tech needs assessment survey. and as i mentioned, this is conducted by cecile puertz when she was working with "thriving in place" and she can answer further questions. this is also done in collaboration and for the mayor's office on disability as well as for the department of disability and aging services. and we appreciate all of their efforts. there are many, many, many more people, cecile would say, that need to be thanked, but we won't go into all of that today. we'll provide the website where you can see all of the collaborators there. >> karla? could you speak more slowly, please. for purposes of interpreting and for audiences watching on tv. >> perfect. all right. so as i said, marie jobling and i are here today, and we'll go over the key findings and recommendations from this report. why is this report so important?

first of all, i would like to say that it is hot off the press. it is recent, and it is relevant, and it points to the key needs that emerged in the disability community, and in particular among older adults during the pandemic. and it also provides us with some of the data that we need to really continue to advance digital inclusion for older adults and people with disabilities. this powerpoint will be made available to you where you can find a p.d.f. report and you can also find a summary on the website as well as all of the raw data. so there's a lot of information that goes along with this. these links are live. so why is this issue so urgent? it's probably not something that you need to be convinced of

today. but technology connects us with our health providers, with food, with housing, employment, family and friends. this has never been more so than during the pandemic. which we are still struggling with. without devices, internet access, assistive or adaptive technology and digital literacy support, so many people are left behind. what we've also learned is that this increases -- without these connections -- it increases social isolation and loneliness and barriers to tele-health are a public health issue. the methodology for this report -- this is a very, very brief overview. a total of 3,080 surveys were

collected a year ago this spring. they were conducted in a number of different modes -- print, phone, digital, in-person, and braille. what the survey -- or what the study results are based on, however, is the survey pool of 1,529 participants with san francisco's zip codes. the other people who filled it out were not in that -- in that s.f. zip code. the approach was community driven and involved participation on the part of those who are surveyed, including in-focus groups. a couple of different things that i will point out with a few highlights here in terms of age and disability and demographics 55% of the survey respondents were older adults, 60 and over. 9% were transition-aged youth.

by disability, you can see on your screen and some of these i will not be able to go through everything, but the top five disabilities indicated by those surveyed, mobility disabilities, chronic pain, deaf or hard-of-hearing, mental health, and blind or low vision. in terms of income and language demographics, 70% of the participants are from communities of color. 33% have household incomes of less than $20,000. and the top five languages include english, cantonese, american sign language, spanish and mandarin. in terms of housing and veteran status, about 88% of those surveyed lived or housed either in apartments, rentals, affordable housing, living with

friends or family, supportive housing or rsos. about 5% of the respondents were responsing homelessness. in terms of veteran status, a very good sampling, 23% are veterans. these are the top 10 zip codes. we won't go through all of them today. but you will be able to look these up. 9%, the highest number came from western edition, tenderloin and mid-market. and as you can see, go into many of the neighborhoods in the city that do often lack access. so the key research questions -- what were the researchers trying to discover with this report? they wanted to know what are the tech barriers and unmeet needs of san francisco residents with

disabilities, older adults and multipellly marginalized communities that had been most impacted during covid-19. the next question is -- let me move -- what are the links between digital and equality and income, race, ethnicity, disability, age, language, housing veteran status and patterns of digital red lining. what are the opportunities for targeted and strategic interventions to increase levels of digital connectedness? so some of this was discovering what the barriers were, what the links are, and where the opportunities are. so during the pandemic, this is a broad overview, 64% of the participants said that technology was a barrier to receiving vital services. and an interesting aside to this

is that though the data indicated that there wasn't as much need for devices or internet access as perhaps they had anticipated, but the -- but technology itself was critical. so what were the top five barriers to internet access? the top was the unaffordable cost of high-speed internet. so, in other words, reliable internet that allows a person to go online and to conduct a tele-health visit or to do other kinds of important business. the cost of devices, insufficient smartphone data was yet another one. unreliable internet connections and concerns about safety and security online. so where were people getting -- were accessing the internet in those who are surveyed?

the top sources include paid broadband internet in public, wifi hot spots. smartphone data, or smartphone internet data plans were the third. so this is really, really interesting. what were the top five service needs that people indicated? health, food, housing assistance, covid information, and computer literacy training. which is really important considering that it made it into that top five. what we also learned is that getting medical or receiving medical services through tele-health was both vital and challenging. 67% of respondents reported receiving medical services through tele-health. but, 57% reported missing important medical appointments either not able to do tele-health or get to their

medical care centers. this was particularly urgent in the latinx older adult community where 50% reported not using internet -- or not being able to use tele-health. and so what were the top five barriers to accessing tele-health services? lack of devices, affordability, again, training, the need for assistive or adaptive technologies, things like screen readers and all of the things that come along with that to make a connection meaningful and possible. and language access. we learned also that public computer labs were essential. i won't go into all of the data here, but before the pandemic, the vast majority of those in the transition-aged youth, people residing in -- sorry

about that -- in assisted living or experiencing homelessness, and 82% of veterans got their internet access at these public hubs. so libraries, community centers, that sort of thing. most of these -- actually all of these things closed down during the pandemic. and another thing that we learned is that free or low-cost tech assistive technology and training is critical. and so all of these kinds of things -- so what were those top needs -- low cost was the primary need and training on what was available and how to use it, all right, were the next two. and, finally, access to free or low-cost repairs. and this need for a.t. was

greater among older adults and people with chronic pain or mental health disability, low income, and sro residents and black, ladinx and aapi community and those who are monolingual. what came out of this report in terms of recommendations? what needs to happen? first, is expand free or low cost digital connectivity to residents with disabilities and older adults. absolutely necessary. there are a couple of different ways -- things that need to happen. this is not a simple recommendation. and there are different aspects of it from expanding fiber to housing pipelines, creating digital navigator hubs, and developing stronger outreach channels. another recommendation is to pilot initiatives aimed at lowering barriers to tele-health access.

again, not a simple recommendation. many pieces involved. but people need -- first of all, internet access, tools and digital literacy skills to be able to able to hop on a tele-health visit, but -- so, you know, this means making sure that tele-health services are accessible to everybody who needs it. the other thing -- bilingual services. those are often difficult to access. and another recommendation is increase funding and distribution of free and low-cost assistive technology. there isn't enough available in the community labs, the community computer labs, and we need more resources in this area. and also in training staff -- how to use the assistive technologies so they can work with participants who enter the lab. so i'm going to turn this over right now to marie jobling,

because we have painted a picture for you, and now we want to talk about what's happening on the ground right now. >> all right, thank you very much. well, i think that the first thing i want to do is to thank cecile and her team of people who put together this incredible piece of research and the organizations that funded it. you know, it will be a long time before we have anything as detailed, as specific, targeted to all of the communities that we want to know more about and want to be able to serve. so, a special thank you to cecile and folks who helped to make this report possible. and i think that one of the things that we're looking to do kind of all together is to figure out how to continue to take it on the road, so what you have learned today, some of which you probably already knew, there's a lot of communities who don't have a clue. a lot of policymakers who don't have a clue. so we do want to take this on the road. but as often happens, you know, you have a wonderful plan with

recommendations, and in this case an incredible amount of data. but then where's the money to actually implement some of what is being asked for? so we are launching another equip keep us connected" campaign and we're calling it the pandemic edition well, because there's more reason now to be able to do it. >> marie, would you speak a little slower. >> sorry. i am so excited here. so you got the thank you part. so now as we go forward, we're looking to launch a new "keep us connected" campaign. and we're calling it the pandemic edition, because it is really the most needed of all of the campaigns that we've done around this issue. and we're targeting those things that were mentioned here as being critically important. free or low-cost internet. free or low-cost devices and assistive technology. tele-health.

training and technical support in multiple languages. creating a clear pathway for people to find digital inclusion resources. and public technology hubs. and if we go to the next slide here, we will be able to see as a campaign we're trying to make the tools available on the dignity fund website, which is sfdignityfund.org. and when you go to that site you will see on the right-hand side that there's a menu of features that makes the website more accessible. so you can access a screen reader, increase the contrast, improve the text size and make a number of other adaptations to make it as accessible as possible. the first step in our campaign is an online petition that is now available on that website in english, chinese, spanish and

tagalog. so if everyone that is watching this afterwards could go to that website and click the link and add one more signature, that would be fabulous. we also have a flyer that is available for download that details all of the money requests that we're building into the city's budget justice coalition's ask, and that we're working to sort of organize advocacy for over the next few months. and so for anybody who wants to get more involved in the advocacy portion of this, you can email info@sfdignityfund.org or call 415-821-1003, extension 115. and so, again, thank you so much, and we're so pleased that cecile is here who can answer probably any question that you have about the data and the report.

>> thank you, karla. this is cecile puertz who oversaw the city-wide need assessments and as karla mentioned i'm serving my role as the assistant director of disability access and inclusion at ucff. and i'm available if anybody has questions. >> co-chair madrid: thank you to of three of you. and we'll ask our fellow commissioners if there are any questions, please raise your hand and i will call you one by one. i see helen.

>> thank you, alex. and thank you, marie, and cecile and karla, for the good work. i'm curious, were there any findings that surprised you? >> hi, helen, thank you, this is cecile. so i think when we set out to df by saying that when we set out to do this study it was really, really important for us to center the knowledge and expertise of those who are most impacted in the design of this study. so i think that really contributed to the diversity of folks that we were able to survey. so i think that that was always a surprise as well, is that we were able to reach -- i mean, even when we look at the language, aer is percentage of folks whose language is asl or american sign language, to see a good representative sample.

of course, that means that there's a lot more work to do in how to reach the community. but i just wanted to thank orkid sassouni who served as a community advisor who helped to us reach the folks in the community. also, you know, surprising i think also during a pandemic how do we survey people about digital -- about their barriers to digital inclusion when only the main method is online survey? i think that really how do we adjust our community organizing strategies and serving strategies to reach people where they're at. and so that was alsoage important thing to think about, and how to work with organizers and going into neighborhoods that maybe have historically not been listened to or heard as much. and so i think that those were

some important -- i think that the transition-aged youth, is that we heard from a lot of transition-aged youth and veterans. the only thing that i will add to that is the tele-health barriers. you know, when we further -- and part of the reason why we made this data publicly available as well on the thriving in place website is that we really want to encourage more -- more research into this data and to further look at the intersections of race, language, veteran status, housing, income, age, and digital inequality. so i think that, you know, when we looked at that data and saw that latinx community members were experiencing even higher disparities and higher barriers to tele-health, that was a real signal to us that we need to be looking at this as an

intersectional issue. thank you for that question. >> commissioner smolinski: thank you. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. now i'll go to [indiscernible]. >> yes, i just want to say thank you to cecile for really starting this project and i know that it was not an easy one and i know that you had to gather quite a lot of people to get respondents. and i think that it is very interesting that there was an article recently regarding tele-health and the impact on people in diverse communities, bipoc folks and i think that it is true across the country that we are seeing disparities. in the deaf community, people are using video remote interpreting which is very different than the video relay service. and doctors typically want to

contract very specifically with certain providers versus others, that may not know who the deaf consumers prefer. and another barrier is, for example, on treasure island, the continual lack of consistent electricity is causing a lot of issues for individuals with how to access whatever is provided to them through the internet or through other things. so especially for individuals who live in sros or otherwise low-income, access is such a big issue. and then, again, when it comestr technologies, i think that, for example, at&t is providing -- or transitioning to providing isps, and i can't be more specific, but there are local i.s.p.s here in san francisco that potentially could be looked into in terms of providing

access on a more local basis. these larger companies, the walls that we hit with them, ar quite challenging, especially for folks with low income. it is a real challenge to have that already small ssi check to go to cover such an essential service as internet. so there's really no way, right, for us to empower people to ask for a discount with these larger companies versus these more local companies, local isps that can help with that -- that might be a way -- something that we can invest in that would help to make more sense for our low-income residents. and then for deaf and blind individuals, often they're very underemployed and it's very difficult for them to even get the equipment that they need to access their computers to get it in working order and get it

replaced when needed. iphones every few years need to be replaced. all of these things can also be considered when we are surveying individuals around technology. i know that there's a lot to cover so i did want to really first mention how much work i know that you did and what an impact this has had around people's access. so, thank you. it's really wonderful trying to keep it short. >> if i could just make a quick comment. thank you so much, orkid, and i think that sort of moving forward i think that it is absolutely critical that in our digital inclusion efforts in the city of san francisco, is to really to actively consult and include deaf and hard-of-hearing community members and deaf blind community members in the design of our programs. and sitting and being in leadership positions really is

absolutely critical because being a person who is hearing did not always understand and i think that a lot of people who are designing these digital inclusion programs may not have the nuance and insight and lived experience that deaf and hard-of-hearing folks do have. so i thank you, orkid, for your leadership and to the connections that you made with the community to understand what barriers people are actually experiencing. >> co-chair sassouni: and one other thing that i would add is probably partnering -- what is it -- the california phone access program, and they have funding that you could potentially partner with them to see how it's used for seniors in particular who are losing their hearing and are no longer able to access a telephone without assistive technology. so that may be something that you might find useful.

it's public funding. just something to keep in mind. okay, i'll wrap it up for the next person now. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. tiffany. >> commissioner yu: hello, hi, cecile. congratulations on your new role. and thank you, marie and karla and cecile for the presentation i know my involvement in the s.f. tech council, i've had access to see it come to fruition. so this question actually isn't as much about the report, but it's more about the outreach. and so i think one of the things that was really impressive about this, cecile, was the way that you were able to tap into not only the intersections that exist within the disability community, but also reach some parts of our community that are harder to reach. and so i was wondering if, like, that process of how you did the outreach was, like, documented

anywhere so that we can use that as a model -- not only for us at mdc as we think about how we can do better with outreach as well >> thank you so much, tiffany, for that comment. and just sort of seeing sort of the power behind the methodology. i would say in terms of addressing your question around is it documented. in the report we talk about the role that our community advisors play and we also -- so that was sort of the first step is identifying a diverse cross-section of people that were all paid to be on our advisory committee to help to sort of guide and steer the outreach. through that, we also designed a number of different sort of multimodal approaches to distributing the survey. so that was a piece of it too as karla mentioned in braille and large print, digital, phone based. and then we also really

prioritized language access. since we know that sort of there are a lot of existing barriers around language and digital inclusion. it also -- partnerships were huge as well. we partnered with one city -- a number of city agencies. one was the office of civic engagement and immigration affairs. ocea, and they have a community ambassador model where they train and pay community ambassadors who are from those communities to conduct public outreach, to connect people to resources. and so those folks were paid as well to help to support us in sros and a lot of our outreach to the unhoused population was conducted in that way. so that is definitely was a really informative model to help us start thinking about what a digital navigator's program might look like, and how outreach sort of during a crisis or a pandemic, and how we take

those lessons and continue applying them moving forward. so also i just wanted to thank all of the housing organizers and people working in sros and people in the disability community who really help to connect us to areas of san francisco. one example is in visitacion valley, and at the simon community development center. and i think that a lot of our outreach allows us to go into the community safely to meet with community leaders who are trusted in those communities, so i really attribute the success of this project to those community leaders. so i hope that answered some of your questions. thank you, tiffany. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. are there any other questions? i go to the staff, are there any

staff members that have question at this time? nicole? >> i wanted to direct our thanks to our presenters here and especially to cecile for all of your work on the survey itself and to marie and to karla for moving it through the next steps. for members of the public especially, i wonder -- i know that we have presented these, or you have presented these as kind of the top five aggregate issues. what did you see in the report that you would elevate as the most singular issue for people with disabilities? i wonder if you could reiterate that again. i know a lot of our community are also older adults, but when you specifically look at issues

facing people with disabilities in terms of technology, was the greatest barrier the assistive technology access? or were there other things? i wonder if you could illuminate more specific to disability, to the degree that you're able to, and maybe a few of the things related to the disability community in particular that really didn't make it into the top five, but are still critically important that we look at as a city. >> that's a great question, thank you, nicole. sure. so, i mean, i could start by talking a little bit more about -- i mean, one thing that really stood out to me specific to transition-aged youth with disabilities is also, you know, when we're thinking about a lot

of digital inclusion programs are geared or designed perhaps for older adults and -- i would say for older adults. i think that there's a large chunk of the population of transition-aged youth who are sort of left out of that conversation. especially as it relates to employment. so we did find that that is, you know, a significant piece of having access to technology -- consistent and high quality, you know, if that's not in place, then how are young transition-aged youth accessing employment, education? and digital literacy trainings that are really customized to their needs and to their lived experiences. so, you know, hearing from the street services and also, you know, of people who are chronically homeless or experience chronic homelessness, residents of sros with disabilities and veterans as

well. so we learned quite a bit from justice involved, veterans with disabilities. so i think that really moving forward i think that it really highlights the importance of connecting with veterans services, connecting with transition-aged youth services, and then as you mentioned the assistive technology piece and i think, you know, as orkid sassouni was mentioning really the -- all of the different ways that assistive technology is a critical piece. so it's one thing to have a computer and internet connection, but if you don't have the a.t. hardware and software and then the training, and the knowledge that those options are available to you, then how can one maintain -- connect meaningfully and effectively with their community? so i think that -- and just sort of the incredible -- the last thing that i'll say on that is

just the incredible wealth of knowledge that exists in the disability community around and organizing around mutual aid. how to access resources around technology. and there's tremendous knowledge there. and i know that the importance of continuing to tap into that and to employ people with disabilities in leadership positions to help to design these digital equity programs and potentially these labs, technology labs, in the future. >> can i jump in on that in terms of assistive technologies these s.f. tech council recently had a section with our access and learning work group, and we had someone from the white house jeffrey cologne, and another from irlc, and they did kind of like a quick overview of the kinds of assistive technologies

that are available within their organizations. and we had tremendous participation in the work group that day. and a lot of interest in learning more. so this idea of training not just lab instructors and lab staff, but really helping a much wider group of people aware of assistive technologies and what's out there. i think that is a big piece of it, because there is some stuff there and people don't know how to -- how to refer or to get to it, or any of those things. >> that's great. i think that is fantastic. i just really encourage as community living campaign and the tech council continue to move forward with promoting the findings, that we really highlight the unique findings about people with disabilities.

we did such excellent outreach and we really reached members of our community who we never reached before. and i'm so impressed by that. and we do a good job of highlighting that part. so i want to make sure that we do equally as good a job highlighting some of the disability specific findings that we -- what we have learned and continually use this model and this tool as a way to encourage everyone that this is the way that we should be doing research and outreach, and this is the way that we should be talking about and elevating disability specific concerns. so, thank you very much, for your work on this. i really appreciate it. >> co-chair madrid: thank you, nicole. are there other questions at this time?

before i take public comment, i have a question. first of all, thank you for your work, and thank you, cecile, for coming back to give us an update. you do an amazing job. [indiscernible] what has been done to mitigate the gap?

[indiscernible]. >> thank you so much. marie, did you want to jump in and talk more about the budget campaign. >> it's just to say, you know, i have learned so much -- even on this conversation. you know, i think that the point is that raising this as an issue and being able to take the report raises consciousness everywhere and there has to be an advocacy piece and what will you do and involve the communities as being leaders and employees and folks who help to shape the solution. so through the dignity coalition we'll try to get as far as we can on that. and it is a grassroots campaign i will say that slower. it is a grassroots campaign.

so we're hoping that if folks are interested they will let us know through the website. >> co-chair madrid: i'm not talking about the money aspect, i'm talking about giving access to people that possibly need it right now. that's what i'm saying to you. >> i mean, there are -- our organization and a number of others do have some ways to provide support now. we can hook people up with subsidized free internet. we have a device program, where you get new users and others access and they can keep the device if they're engaged. we have the abilities integrator whose job it is to keep us honest and make sure that we're doing everything that we can to provide equal access.

so -- but it's a drop in the bucket compared to what is really needed here. so the city spends an incredible amount of money on its own technology every year, and we'll spend $54 million on the city's side of technology to reach the community, but there's nowhere near as much money being provided to the community to be able to connect from their end. >> co-chair madrid: with that -- >> through the chair, i just have one more question, marie said something that raised a concern that i have. so i know that we wanted to direct people to the website to participate in the campaign. where do we direct people who want to participate and do not have internet access? >> that is the issue, isn't it? so i think that we're working through a number of organizations to do the outreach in person. and looking for ways, you know,

whether it's through, you know, government tv, or other things where people can connect and get information. as things begin to open up a little bit, i know that we're planning to hit every street fair that we can to be able to talk to folks. and, you know, the more organizations that help us to kind of reach folks and where there are resources now and hook them up, but, if not, to make this a big issue for the city. you know, i think that we just have to make it an issue. >> co-chair madrid: just one suggestion is that maybe we're trying to [indiscernible] who need devices and go from there.

i know that cecile works right now to do that, and maybe you guys can talk more. and now we'll go to public comment. we'll take the opportunity for public comment at this time. >> clerk: okay, as a reminder to the public, if you want to make public comment and you're using the zoom webinar platform you can indicate your interest in making public comment by pressing on the raised hand icon. you can also make public comment over the phone, and call star 9 to raise your hand and you will be prompted when it's your turn to unmute. if you want to have your public comment read by the clerk, you can write your public comment in the q&a box, in the webinar

platform. with that, i do see that we have a couple members of the public who want to make public comment so, we'll start with caller 4284. you have been permitted to unmute. caller ending in 4284, you can unmute by dialing star, 6 over the phone. >> caller: hello? >> clerk: hello. >> caller: yeah. so i have been listening to the presentation, and i appreciate that needs assessment done, but i want to talk about the

infrastructure bill that has set aside a lot of money for high-speed internet, but we also need to impress upon the institutions like the hospitals, that they need to create space, centers, for people who are challenged can go and get help. and this also involves the banking system. there are a lot of things that are done digitally but people who are challenged are not given the opportunities to use the technology. we have a small group working on a digital platform, so we are open to helping anybody who

needs help. and i think so that we do have some large companies who are willing to help, but they need a business plan. and i know that there are small companies that want to help the physically challenged, and here comes the outreach. and we need to impress on the city and the county of san francisco that they do spend a lot of money themselves, and there's one of your members who stated that they do not give sufficient resources to the community. so right now we are working on something that is going to not have to beg the city and waste

our time, but i can tell you that there are modems now that can be used much more powerful than the old modems and there are companies willing to help. so i'm going to go on your website and please i can talk to somebody from one of your presenters, and we can work together to go to a better place. i'm here in san francisco, and my name is francesco da costa, and i'm the director of environmental justice advocacy. and once again i thank you for the needs assessment done, and now we need to have our goals, short-term goals and our long-term goals. thank you very much. >> co-chair madrid: thank you for your comments. are there any other public commenters at this time? >> clerk: yes. anon, you have been permitted to

unmute. >> caller: hi, i'm a disability and civil rights activist and i post videos of ethical misconduct and corruption in san francisco on a youtube page called disability and activism in san francisco. i appreciate the effort that was gone into the presentations today. i for one though am a little confused with the agenda item 6 was supposed to go over the disability cultural center. if somebody wants to clarify if that is coming up next, that is the overwhelmingly desired thing that people wanted with the dignity fund. for those that don't know, the dignity fund was passed in 2016 by san francisco voters to give millions and millions and millions of dollars to the city so that veterans and disabled people and seniors could live with dignity. i would love to slow down but unfortunately we don't get a lot of time to speak so i'll try to, but it's very difficult. the public is not prioritized at these meetings. and it's always been a bit of a

shame that this council and the mayor's office on disability, which were created in the 90s to help to facilitate the communications between the community are primarily used for presentations. so, you know, mdc just sits in your high chairs and you just watch city departments talk about how great things are. and things are not great, things are really, really bad for disabled people. and these meetings give me a queasy feeling in my stomach because there's so much toxic positivity that happens in them and we are being displaced in massive droves, according to the 2022 census, 5.7% of san franciscans are people with disabilities. that is down drastically because now landlords are using covid to intimidate and harass us by coming into our homes without wearing ppe, and mdc and mod do nothing about this. and additionally, you know, you're supposed to have a disability cultural center. there are, fortunately, cultural

centers for all other minority groups and there's a filipino cultural center and african-american cultural center, and there's a lot of senior community centers, there's nothing for disabled people. there is no place that we can go and get to know one another and communicate with each other. we have nothing for that. and voters gave millions and millions of dollars of taxpayer money to this city to create such a place called a disability cultural center. i have fought for public records requests to understand what is happening with that cultural center and why it's not done constructed, which should have happened many years ago. and the dignity fund was passed in 2016, and so i would really appreciate an update. because that's what we need. we need to stop living in isolation and stop being gentrified out of this city and we need to be able to meet each other and coordinate and organize. i want to thank the people that presented here for actually mentioning people in sros and

low-income individuals and mod and mdc usually ignores and the rates of depression and suicide among our veterans and other disabled members. it's a real struggle out here, folks, and there's nothing wrong with being a little bit sad when you present at the condition of disabled people in this city. we don't always have to pretend to be positive and upbeat and happy because things are really, really hard right now. that's it for my time. >> co-chair madrid: thank you for calling. and i just want to clarify to the public that we are on item number 5, which is keep us connected 2022 campaign and empowered s.f. tech needs assessment.

and after that we will have an update on the disability cultural center and the dignity fund. again, that would be after the council break. are there any other public comments at this time? >> clerk: i do not see any other public commenters at this time. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. i just want to thank marie and karla for coming back and to come to this body and giving us an update. i hope that this is the beginning of working together, and please come back.

and help us to meet the many needs in the disability community again. thank you for coming. and with that, the council will take a 15-minute break. and after that we will have a presentation by kelly dearman, the director of department of disability and aging services. she will be talking to us regarding the disability cultural center and the dignity fund. with that, we'll take a break.

, everybody. >> clerk: thank you, everyone. a reminder to return by 2:35. thank you.

>> co-chair madrid: the -- and now we are continuing with our agenda with item number 6. the information item updates on disability cultural center and the dignity fund, presented by katie dearman, the department of disability and aging and services. good to see you again. >> nice to see you, alex. thank you.

i appreciate being able to share with you the information around the cultural center and the dignity fund. i think that there are some slides. >> co-chair madrid: [indiscernible]. >> clerk: one moment. do you need presenter access, kelly? >> i do not. i spoke to john and he was going to advance the slides. >> clerk: let's wait for that, for the slides to go up. one moment. i can also speak to it, and just make sure that you all get the slides. either way.

>> co-chair madrid: let's wait. [indiscernible] is that okay, kelly? >> yeah. >> co-chair madrid: i am sure john is working on it right now >> so i want to confirm that we have access to them. i can't see john, so i don't know -- if we're working on it or not. i would recommend -- >> [indiscernible] access to the slides myself. just setting it up on my machine right now. >> thank you.

okay, i believe they are showing. >> yes, thank you. okay, all right, so we can move to the next slide. i'm first going to speak on the disability cultural community center. and, yeah, so whenever you can move the slides that would be great. thank you. okay, so we are working with the mercy housing -- >> i'm sorry, kelly, one moment i wanted to make sure that we have full screen access and now we do. please continue. thank you so much. i'm sorry. >> it's totally fine. so we're working with the kelsey mercy housing and mov on various aspects of the project from the general foot print of the space and the request for proposals to identify service providers. and you can go back -- there's a comprehensive needs assessment

which included analysis of literature, and resources and models available. and exploration of the existing community and cultural centers in san francisco and their external trends. in that focus group with the leaders from government and non-profit and community and advocacy organizations, and in addition longmore had a core committee of disabled leaders who worked collaboratively with them. so the goals of this cultural center is a place where people with disabilities can gather, access information and resources. information and input will be gathered through the community engagement process, and as part of their work with the community, longmore developed values and mission statements in order to guide the creation of this center. those values and mission

statements were incorporated into the principles. so some of the principles include creating a space for diverse people with disables tos to come together, and advancing social and disability justice and celebrating disability culture and provide and providing information about and access to disability programs and services. and, like i said, the request for proposals is currently under review by the human services agency contract so i can't really speak to what is in that request of proposal until it comes out. but i know that there was a groundbreaking a couple of weeks ago to start the construction. and so it is finally after a very long time underway. so we're pleased with that. next slide, please. and in termings of the dignity

fund, as was mentioned earlier, this is based on a proposition i, and that was passed in november 2016. and it does provide -- set aside protected funding for services for older adults, adults with disabilities and their caregivers. and so now here we are in the year 2022, next slide, please. so it established $38 million of funding that was set aside that grows by $33 million over 10 years. and the way that this -- the planning and funding cycle works, it's a four-year planning and funding cycle and as many of you know that we just completed the community needs assessment which happens every four years. and the goal of that is to see what we're doing and what we

should be doing and what are the unmet needs among san francisco's older adults and adults with disabilities. after we do the -- after we do the needs assessment, after that is completed, then we do a service and allocation plan. and so the needs assessment identifies how the funding will be allocated over the next four years based on what we find in the needs assessment. there's also the oversight and advisory committee that advises in the administration of the dignity fund to ensure that we are using that money in the way that it is planned and designed next slide, please. so -- so in terms of some of the

initiatives that we look at, and that we've been doing with the fund, some more community service centered programs. there's been a lot of talk about caregivers and caregiver support and need for respite, but also as you all know we're in a crisis in terms of the workforce. and so how do we reach them, and how do we get more people involved in the care giving process. then there's -- i have already spoken about the cultural center, and how can we expand services for adults with disabilities, including the cultural center, including food we do not provide housing, obviously, but we, you know, how can we ensure that we're providing all of the resources that we can so that people can get proper housing. and then also around nutrition

and support for people with chronic health conditions, and also our department works with veterans and how are we making sure that we're meeting the needs of veterans as well. and as we all saw during the pandemic, isolation is -- is a real problem that i'm sure that we all knew about prior to the pandemic, but it became really visible during the pandemic so how are we combating that. and the programs for our transgender and gender non-conforming people. and, lastly, how do we ensure that we're doing enough outreach to strengthen our awareness of our existing services. and one of the things that we will be doing is coming out with an online service directory, and we've been talking about this for several years but it's really happening finally. and we understand that not

everyone can reach us or has the ability to get online as we just heard. that that will be one additional way that people can find out about our services. in addition to the fact that we are going to be doing more training for our providers as well as internally for our staff to make sure that we are -- that everybody is clear on all of the different services that are operating throughout the city, so that we're not just acting in our own little silo. next slide, please. and i thought that i'd tell you a little bit about the needs assessment and how that went. so we kicked it off in september, between september and december, there was a fair amount of research and stakeholder engagement that was done. we also -- there's a big focus on equity and so we wanted to

make sure that we are reaching out to the populations who -- who need us most, we had a community survey. we did community forums, and we had focus groups and key informant interviews. we understand that obviously we did not reach everyone. it's a really short time frame and, of course, there were peaks and valleys happening with the pandemic. and -- but i think that with it all we worked with a consultant and we did our best to reach as many people as we could to find out what people were thinking about and what issues were coming up. so we are just finishing the phase of completing the draft report, which offers findings and recommendations. and i know that there will be a meeting on monday to discuss the draft report and that's with the

oversight and the advisory committee on monday. next slide, please. so we have already shared the report with the dignity fund service provider working group, and as i mentioned on monday we'll be sharing it with the oversight and the advisory committee. in april, we'll share the final report with stakeholders and that will be through a joint hearing of the commission and the advisory committee on april 6th. in may, the doss commission will be voting on this report and then in june we'll present it to the board of supervisors for their approval as well. and i think that is about all i have for now and i am happy to take questions.

so if there are any questions, fire away. >> co-chair sassouni: , i have one, this is orkid. >> hi. >> co-chair sassouni: hi. so i am orkid here. and a great presentation. and a timeline. i am curious -- the dignity fund, does that include housing too? that's my first question. or is that separate for providing services? >> okay. so the answer to that first question is -- no. it does not include housing. my department of disability and aging services provides services and not housing. we recognize that housing is a

key barrier for many people. and what we do is that we are working with other departments and trying to find out what is happening, we are in a severe housing crisis, among other things. but what we try to do is to make sure that once -- if people are housed, they're getting the proper supports they need to stay housed. >> co-chair sassouni: okay, so thank you for that, that's really good to know. i know that it's not -- it's not easy. part of the problem with this is that there is a gap in those services. so i'm hoping that the city can really work on collaborating on not fixing, but working and

revamping the access, i should say, to all of that. and i know that it's a huge process for people with disabilities who are experiencing homelessness, obviously, there's a large population. so i hope that you can give them support and services, social workers, case managers, access to folks and they need to provide access as well. so hopefully you're setting up that type of program and i realize that is quite a problem and we will be able to collaborate with the other departments because we do need access, obviously. so there's another place maybe where you can bridge that gap, so people who are really, really familiar with access issues and people that aren't. so maybe they could bridge the

gap in that area. >> yes, i so appreciate your comments. and i wanted to just mention that our department did just finish -- we completed a housing assessment -- which is a snapshot of where we are today in terms of older adults and people with disabilities. and it is -- it is upsetting as you can imagine. and from there there will be a full -- there's going to be a full assessment done that i think that just recently got kicked off and it will take the next several months, like -- so we know what the picture is, but what are we going to do to improve this dismal picture? and that's where we are now. and that is a collaboration with multiple departments. but the board of supervisors passed das to, you know, to hold everybody's hand and to get this

-- get this project going. so i'm hoping that i will be able to come back in a few months and to let you know the results of that report as well. >> co-chair sassouni: that would be great. >> yeah. and i just want to add that it's not just that there are gaps in services, but there are gaps in what people know and what services are available. and that is something that we are really working on hard right now, because, you know, you don't know what you don't know. and it's not -- >> co-chair sassouni: right. >> right? and it's not just the users of the services who don't know, there are many people who are out there providing services that don't know what the person down the street who is also providing services -- what those services are. and through our online directory, through these trainings that we'll be doing, both internally and externally, we're hoping to list everybody

up, so we can all see what everyone is doing and hopefully that will help a little bit. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. are there any other questions? don't be shy. all right. nicole, do you have a question? >> yes, i do. thank you so much, kelly, for coming today. and for presenting about the cultural center and the dignity fund. regarding the cultural center, thanks for outlining where we are with our rfp and i know that kelsey has just begun their ground breaking. do you have a sense that you're

able to share around when we might be targeting a launch or an opening? so that's one question. and to what degree do you think that virtual connections will be a part of the cultural center? i'm wondering if you're able to speak to that at all. and the second question is if you could answer those first, that would be great. >> i'll answer the second question first. the idea of the cultural center is to be both in-person and virtual and the idea, and whoever is chosen as the vendor, is that people need to, yes, to meet in person. but also need to be able to meet

in the virtual world because we understand that for many people that's the only way and the best way for them to meet. so, yes, to that. so there will be a lot of virtual opportunities as well. i cannot give you, unfortunately, an idea of -- i don't have a time frame yet and i will have that when the rfp is actually released. and then we'll get an idea as to how long it will take to actually open things up. so, i'm sorry, that i can't be more specific on that. >> thank you for clarifying the timeline. we appreciate it. and then towards the -- towards the das commission and the mayor's disability council, and have you been collaborating and working together on future projects or elevating concerns, what would you suggest that would be a good mechanism for that? what would be most helpful for -- in the way that the

mayor's disability council might be able to support the das commission and vice versa? >> so, thank you for that question. so, you know, initially what is happening is that director bohn and i meet very regularly to make sure that we're on the same page about things that are happening. i also think that there is confusion and probably some concern around what the mayor's office on disability does, versus what das does. so i can see that in the future that a joint meeting would be really great for us all to know who is doing what. and i also think that it would be helpful for me or someone on my staff to come here on a quarterly basis to let you know what we are doing. and vice versa. someone from this council to come to ours. i do think that there is a lot

of room for us to be doing things together and having each other's back, and that -- and these two departments have been working long before i got here, and that continues, but i do think it's a great idea for us to, you know, to put it more out in the open and to have some joint meetings so we can all be on the same page. >> we definitely support that and i hope that council would consider that level of participation as well. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. before i open up to the public, i have a question to you. kelly, i would love to have a session [indiscernible].

>> yes. >> co-chair madrid: so my question [indiscernible] (please stand by)

>> just for clarification for the council and for the public about the r.s.p. process, part of the reason that the director isn't able to speak on the proposals because m.c.s or individuals are going to be applying to be the entity that runs the cultural center because that process hasn't begun yet because it's in contracts. that's the reason we can't be specific about dates yet, but as soon as they request a proposal is out and ready and has been approved by contracts for public desemination, we'll

be able to provide more information. >> exactly. >> chairman: thank you. now i'm going to open it up to the public comment. clerk, please open public comment. >> clerk: okay. as a reminder to the public, if you are using zoom, you can press the raise hand icon to raise your hand and you can also write your comment in the q&a box to be read by the clerk. you can dial star nine to raise your hand and be prompted when it's your turn to comment. our first commenter, we have anon, you've been permitted to unmute. >> caller: hi, yes.

i'm a civil rights and disability activist and i post youtube -- videos on youtube under 'disability and activism' in san francisco. of it's great to hear the disability cultural center ground is being broken and we're going to have a cultural center. that's a breath of fresh air because it was looking like it was in jeopardy for awhile. i'm hardened by the presentation that was given, but i'm a little concerned by who was giving it. kelly dearman used to be the executive director of the in-home support services. while she was there, she was incredibly oppressive to the disabled people that needed home service and needed care providers to help us. kelly dearman told me specifically, directly that she would refuse to have a community space for disabled people to organize and solve our own problems and own issues we are struggling with in the in-home support services system

so the idea to lower the burden on staff and to give more agency to disabled people. kelly dearman told me this was not appropriate because the disabled people would not be able to be monitored. i repeat, kelly dearman said we could not have a community space because we would not be able to be monitored. i don't know what she meant by that, but it concerned me. additionally kelly dearman also refused to let me meet with the deputy director of the in-home support services department and i don't know why she refused that. i actually had an appointment and she blocked me from interacting with public officials. this really concerns me because the idea of a community space and a cultural center is exactly that, right. that disabled people can meet, share concerns, share ideas, have community, have culture.

right. and if kelly dearman is still operating from that space as monitoring and sensorship and trying to make sure there's no criticism or any sort of analysis that doesn't fit in line with her world view, then that could be incredibly oppressive and could actually sabotage this cultural center. so i'm hoping in the years that have passed that kelly dearman has had a change of heart and maybe views this a little bit differently. i ask and encourage that this new space have community space for disabled people to not just be limited to organizations representing their own world view and their own services, but to actually have a space where people can get to know each other and have criticism. criticism is okay and part of being a good public official is being able to accept criticism with grace. i hope you're all willing to do that and i ask these things be

added to the cultural center. thank you. >> chairman: thank you for your public comment. are there any other public comments at this time? >> clerk: yes. our next public commenter, caller ending in '4284' you've been permitted to unmute. >> caller: it's very important to know that this is san francisco. and here in san francisco, the disability movement is very strong. so it hurts me to hear from the previous caller that as he was

trying to do something positive for the challenged community or the disability community, he was prevented and [ indiscernible ] put in his way. let me remind everybody that the federal government and we did have a president f.d.r. who put it in writing. so challenge people of that by federal laws, ordinances that have them. so we do not want people saying one thing in the presentation, talking about needs assessment, but failing to have in their heart, the right type of intention to have the challenge population. if your heart is not in the

right place and if your heart is not in the right place, you cannot take anybody to a better place. now, my name is francisco de costa. i often go to city hall to fight for those who need help and i'm challenged and i do what i can. so i'm happy we have a disability cultural center through the dignity fund. whatever's happening within the dignity fund is taking a long time. we need more transparency and accountability and in the previous agenda, we spoke about communication, another needs assessment was done, but now we have two needs assessments. it's time for action. and the way you get action is

by outreach, getting the disabled community together so that they can voice their opinion. they can tell you what they do need and what they do not need. also, we know we cannot address all the issues, but these are fact that many of the challenged people in san francisco are treated with disdain. many have no place to live. thank you very much. >> chairman: thank you for your comments. are there any other public commentors at this time? >> clerk: there are no other public commentors at this time. >> chairman: thank you. kelly, again, thank you for coming. it's good to see you. i hope that we will see you

again and i'm looking forward to working with the commission in your department and we involve the community in san francisco. >> thank you so much. i really look forward to working with you all and i will definitely keep you informed on what is happening specifically around the disability cultural center and we'll figure out how soon we can get a joint meeting with your commission and the d.a.s. commission. >> chairman: thank you. >> thank you so much. take care everybody. >> chairman: bye. have a good weekend. >> you too. >> chairman: with that, we are going to item number seven.

information item: report from the mayor's office on disability. >> i'm sorry, alex. go ahead. >> chairman: i think i heard recording stopped. do we need to hit record again? >> it's broadcast and recorded through sfgov tv. >> chairman: okay. >> okay. so hi everyone. so today i'm going to focus primarily on legislation that is is current and pending and some recommendations for what the mayor's disability council may want to consider at future meetings. for members of the public who

are wishing to engage with aspects of this report, please contact m.o.d. by phone at (415) 554-6789 or m.o.d. via our e-mail address, our general e-mail address which is mod@sfgov.org. also, you may join our distribution list or find this report following the meeting at our web page which is sfgov.org/mod. so the legislative items i want to focus on today, there's several, one is j.f.k. drive which as you know we heard about in the last meeting. i wanted to announce the referral number for you and for members of the public who want to follow along with the proceeding. that referral number for j.f.k.

drive park code golden gate park access and safety program, slow streets closures is 220261. that referral number is going to track the proceeding if you would choose to follow it. the proceeding is currently in referral status. it's been referred under the board of supervisors 30-day rule to the land use and transportation committee. as you know, from the last meeting, this legislation forwards the recommendations of sfmta and recreation and parks to the board of supervisors for a consideration. last thursday, the staff report was accepted unanimously by the sfmta board with recommendation to revisit taxi provisions and

paratransit access and the recreation and parks commission also forwarded with a positive recommendation by a majority vote although it's not unanimous. the mayor's office on disability continues to advise sfmta, recreation and parks, and the mayor's office on architectural and programatic accessibility improvements. we continue to encourage all involved to provide improvements that exceed requirements and disability equity. and in addition, m.o.d. continues to elevate the individual concerns from the disability community from members who are both opposed to the continued closure to private vehicles and members of the disability community who support the closure. as the council knows, your resolution that you drafted is a conditional one.

conditional upon additional accessibility improvements. so i really strongly urge you to help advance and keep monitoring the resolution and when you do have offers to consult and share your opinion and the opinions of the disability community that you continue to do so. thank you so much for that. i really appreciate your help. it's critically important. supervisor chan has also requested a consult as you know with both the mayor's office of disability and the council as was mentioned in the co-chair report earlier in this meeting. the next legislative referral item i want to address once more is the shared spaces referral number which is 211301, limits on fines for

shared spaces violations. it is at the board of supervisors for a final consideration and it will maintain the ability to issue fines for access violations and it is expected to pass with full adoption. ment i do want to encourage the council to consider hearing an enforcement update at an up coming public meeting, however, so that i know that the disability community is concerned about the ability for the city to enforce the shared spaces program, access violations, so i would encourage you to keep that on your agenda. the next thing i wanted to mention is moving to some covid resources and there's one that's on a deadline, so i want to mention that and then finally, i'm going to move to

some recommendations for future topics. so i just wanted to remind folks that the state covid rent hope and eviction program, the eviction protection program information is available at sf.gov/renthelp. the deadline to apply for eviction protection is march 31st. we have mentioned this in previous reports, but it's time that we mention it again. so march 31st if you're interested in looking at state covid rent help and eviction protection information for yourself. again, that is posted at sf.gov/renthelp. also, there is information available regarding the availability of the covid-19

vaccine and including the home vaccination program that's posted online and available by calling the covid resource center.' the covid resource center number once again is (628) 652-2700 and the home program vaccination program is at sf.gov/getvaccinated your home or work event. the link will be posted as part of the report, but you can also go to get vaccinated sf and there are links that provide more information. or, again, you can call (628) 652-2700. finally, i'm going to move to some items that you may want to

consider for future agenda items along with a few other updates. i mentioned in detail, the proceeding around j.f.k. drive. i did want to elevate for the council that there is a concern also that we have heard through m.o.d. around the great highway and continuation of slow streets in general and so the council may want to consider this as a broader item for a future meeting. i have already mentioned shared spaces enforcement, we heard that in public comment also today. hybrid meetings -- hybrid public meeting participation has now begun and you may recall last fall the community alliance of disability

advocates sent a letter to the mayor's office and the city administrator around maintaining access for public meetings. and now that they have launched, it would be good timing to consider hearing about how it's going so that we're making sure that we're ensuring disability access and appropriate civic participation for all. next, someone should recommend that the council should think about our city wide web accessibility policy which is currently just beginning a dissemination phase so they can learn about electronic policy and how to track the effort especially pertaining to accessibility remediation plans, training and city wide compliance. we've had, are the next topic i want to mention is the summer together program and summer

camp programs in san francisco for kids and families of kids with disabilities. we have had a productive year in that regard in really being able to advance in partnership with the department of children, youth, and families. the san francisco school district and some of our colleagues and recreation and parks. a training program that helps summer camp providers understand how to provide access for kids with disabilities so that they can participate in summer camp is a series of trainings at which m.o.d. help to coordinate. one of them that was very well

attended by all camp providers and we're hoping that this education and awareness although it needs to continue makes for a better camp to experience. finally, i just want to mention a few more things to keep an eye on and to consider the council previously tracked. you may want to and finally the better market street accessibility improvement update is something that we've heard interest from the public and wanting to know more about as well. and circling back to the very beginning of this meeting, i just wanted to support orchid's

comments and urge the commission to reconsider the mayor's disability council speak in award for the member of a disability public. that concludes my report for today. >> chairman: thank you nicole. thank you. >> thank you. >> chairman: we are moving on to item number eight. correspondence. are there any correspondence? >> this is deborah caplan. there have been several letters received that we have forwarded

to you regarding the closure of jfk drive. we're not going to read them verbatim because several of them are very long. they are consistent with many of the comments that you heard from members of the disability community at the last meeting and to some extent at this meeting. and they are all expressing concerns with the proposal for the permanent closure of jfk drive mostly focusing on parking issues and inadequacy of some of the measures that have been taken or discussed.

and that's the correspondence that's been receiveded. >> chairman: thank you. >> through the chair, debbie has the correspondence been forwarded to the council co-chairs? >> yes. >> for a full review? >> yes. >> thank you. >> chairman: thank you for that. now we will go on to item number nine, general public comment. clerk, can you please open it up for general public comment. >> clerk: okay. at this time, members of the public may address the council on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council that are not on this meeting agenda. each member of the public may address the council for up to three minutes. as mentioned before, the brown

act forbids the council from taking action or discussing any items not appearing on the posted agenda, including those items raised at public comment. and to make public comment within the zoom webinar platform, can you click on the raise hand button to raise your hand. you can also raise your hand on the phone by dialling star nine and if you want to write your comment, you could type it into the q&a box and it will be read by the clerk.

i do see one member of the public who would like to make public comment. alita, you've been permitted to unmute. >> caller: thank you very much. my name is alita fischer. i'm the advocacy assure chair for the san francisco community advisory and i would just like to commend the work of the mayor's office disability, rec and park, and san francisco unified school district to raise the issue of families of children with disabilities and finding a summer program. i cannot thank you enough for all the work that's being done to ensure we have inclusive camps. there's nothing more demoralizing than to sign your child up for a camp along with their nondisabled peers only to get that call midway through day one asking you to come pick them up because we're sorry, we just can't support your kid here and it's devastating for our children. so thank you for all the work that you are doing and obviously it continues. we've got plenty of private camps who still do this. we're excited that the commitment of rec and park is there to make all camps inclusive. and also there are many of our students who qualify for extended school year which is five to six weeks over the

summer and that only runs until 1:00 p.m. so there are many families who still struggle with providing options for their students after extended school year programming ends at noon or 1:00. [please stand by]

and i would like very briefly to comment on director bohn's presentation, on potential future agenda items. i'm very impressed with the list. it really underscores how much is going on at any given time in the city and county that affects accessibility and people with disabilities in general. and it's really -- i guess what they call a target rich environment for you, you know, these would all be great agenda items to consider. but it's also really great that director bohn gives you an update on pending legislation and including the reference

numbers. i think that's also very -- that information isn't always so easy to find. so it's very helpful for all of us to get that as well. so i just wanted to speak in support of that item and i'm not exactly clear how you actually decide as a group what items you will hear and when, but, again, it's just a great list of really important agenda items. so i hope that you can get to as many of them as possible. thank you. >> co-chair madrid: thank you for your comment. are there other public comments at this time? >> clerk: there are no other public commenters at this time. >> co-chair madrid: thank you. and we are now on discussion

item. >> co-chair sassouni: this is orkid. i have no announcements or comments. >> co-chair madrid: if i could thank for planning of this meeting, to discuss a virtual public meeting items. and decide which items for the next public meeting.

i want to have the last public comment before i adjourn the meeting. with that i want to just say thank you, bye, orkid. >> co-chair sassouni: yes, this is orkid. yes, one very, very brief item just generally. i want -- really want to acknowledge the film "coda" that received some awards, really beautiful representation of the deaf community. so very thrilled that that has happened. and we hope that this win will help hollywood see that the

disability community can be well represented in media and -- interpreter is asking for clarification -- and we are hoping they'll win an additional award this month little so clap your fingers, the movie is called "coda" and it's about a deaf family. so i wish you all a wonderful week and weekend. >> co-chair madrid: i will watch it, that's the next movie. before i adjourn i just want to give thanks, a big huge thanks to the staff, for speaking again

and to the members, and the interpreters and sf-gov tv. i hope that i'm not missing anyone else. but with that, i call this adjournment of this. and the next meeting will be on april 15th at 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. so now we can finally adjourn the meeting. thank you, guys.

dev mission's goal is aiming to train young adults, youth so we can be a wealth and disparity in underserved communities like where we are

today. my name is leo sosa. i'm the founder and executive director for devmission. we're sitting inside a computer lab where residents come and get support when they give help about how to set up an e-mail account. how to order prescriptions online. create a résumé. we are also now paying attention to provide tech support. we have collaborated with the san francisco mayor's office and the department of technology to implement a broad band network for the residents here so they can have free internet access. we have partnered with community technology networks to provide computer classes to the seniors and the residents. so this computer lab becomes a hub for the community to learn how to use technology, but that's the parents and the adults. we have been able to identify

what we call a stem date. the acronym is science technology engineering and math. kids should be exposed no matter what type of background or ethnicity or income status. that's where we actually create magic. >> something that the kids are really excited about is science and so the way that we execute that is through making slime. and as fun as it is, it's still a chemical reaction and you start to understand that with the materials that you need to make the slime. >> they love adding their little twists to everything. it's just a place for them to experiment and that's really what we want. >> i see. >> really what the excitement behind that is that you're making something. >> logs, legos, sumo box, art, drawing, computers, mine craft, and really it's just awaking

opportunity. >> keeping their attention is like one of the biggest challenges that we do have because, you know, they're kids. they always want to be doing something, be helping with something. so we just let them be themselves. we have our set of rules in place that we have that we want them to follow and live up to. and we also have our set of expectations that we want them to achieve. this is like my first year officially working with kids. and definitely i've had moments where they're not getting something. they don't really understand it and you're trying to just talk to them in a way that they can make it work teaching them in different ways how they can get the light bulb to go off and i've seen it first-hand and it makes me so happy when it does go off because it's like, wow, i helped them understand this concept. >> i love playing games and i love having fun with my friends

playing dodge ball and a lot of things that i like. it's really cool. >> they don't give you a lot of cheese to put on there, do they? you've got like a little bit left. >> we learn programming to make them work. we do computers and programming. at the bottom here, we talk to them and we press these buttons to make it go. and this is to turn it off. and this is to make it control on its own. if you press this twice, it can do any type of tricks. like you can move it like this and it moves.

it actually can go like this. >> like, wow, they're just absorbing everything. so it definitely is a wholehearted moment that i love experiencing. >> the realities right now, 5.3 latinos working in tech and about 6.7 african americans working in tech. and, of course, those tech companies are funders. so i continue to work really hard with them to close that gap and work with the san francisco unified school district so juniors and seniors come to our program, so kids come to our stem hub and be exposed to all those things. it's a big challenge. >> we have a couple of other providers here on site, but we've all just been trying to work together and let the kids move around from each department. some kids are comfortable with

their admission, but if they want to jump in with city of dreams or hunter's point, we just try to collaborate to provide the best opportunity in the community. >> devmission has provided services on westbrook. they teach you how to code. how to build their own mini robot to providing access for the youth to partnerships with adobe and sony and google and twitter. and so devmission has definitely brought access for our families to resources that our residents may or may not have been able to access in the past. >> the san francisco house and development corporation gave us the grant to implement this program. it hasn't been easy, but we have been able to see now some of the success stories of some of those kids that have been able to take the opportunity and continue to grow within their education and eventually

become a very successful citizen. >> so the computer lab, they're doing the backpacks. i don't know if you're going to be able to do the class. you still want to try? . yeah. go for it. >> we have a young man by the name of ivan mello. he came here two and a half years ago to be part of our digital arts music lab. graduating with natural, fruity loops, rhymes. all of our music lyrics are clean. he came as an intern, and now he's running the program. that just tells you, we are only creating opportunities and there's a young man by the name of eduardo ramirez. he tells the barber, what's that flyer? and he says it's a program that

teaches you computers and art. and i still remember the day he walked in there with a baseball cap, full of tattoos. nice clean hair cut. i want to learn how to use computers. graduated from the program and he wanted to work in i.t.. well, eduardo is a dreamer. right. so trying to find him a job in the tech industry was very challenging, but that didn't stop him. through the effort of the office of economic work force and the grant i reached out to a few folks i know. post mates decided to bring him on board regardless of his legal status. he ended his internship at post mates and now is at hudacity. that is the power of what technology does for young people that want to become part of the tech industry. what we've been doing, it's

very innovative. helping kids k-12, transitional age youth, families, parents, communities, understand and to be exposed to stem subjects. imagine if that mission one day can be in every affordable housing community. the opportunities that we would create and that's what i'm trying to do with this

>> i don't want to be involved in the process after it happens. i want to be there at the front end to help people with something in my mind from a very early age. our community is the important way to look at things, even now. george floyd was huge. it opened up wounds and a discussion on something festering for a long time. before rodney king. you can look at all the instances where there are calls for change. i think we are involved in change right now in this moment

that is going to be long lasting. it is very challenging. i was the victim of a crime when i was in middle school. some kids at recess came around at pe class and came to the locker room and tried to steal my watch and physically assaulted me. the officer that helped afterwards went out of his way to check the time to see how i was. that is the kind of work, the kind of perspective i like to have in our sheriff's office regardless of circumstance. that influenced me a lot. some of the storefronts have changed. what is mys is that i still see some things that trigger memories. the barbershop and the shoe store is another one that i remember buying shoestrings and getting my dad's old army boots

fixed. we would see movies after the first run. my brother and i would go there. it is nice. if you keep walking down sacramento. the nice think about the city it takes you to japan town. that is where my grandparents were brought up. that is the traditional foods or movies. they were able to celebrate the culture in that community. my family also had a dry-cleaning business. very hard work. the family grew up with apartments above the business. we have a built-in work force. 19 had 1 as -- 1941 as soon as that happened the entire community was fixed. >> determined to do the job as democracy should with real consideration for the people involved. >> the decision to take every

one of japan niece american o japanese from their homes. my family went to the mountains and experienced winter and summer and springs. they tried to make their home a home. the community came together to share. they tried to infuse each home are little things. they created things. i remember my grand mother saying they were very scared. they were worried. they also felt the great sense of pride. >> japanese americans. >> my granduncle joined the 442nd. when the opportunity came when

the time that was not right. they were in the campaign in italy. they were there every step of the way. >> president truman pays tribute. >> that was the most decorated unit in the history of the united states army. commitment and loyal to to the country despite that their families were in the camp at that time. they chose to come back to san francisco even after all of that. my father was a civil servant as well and served the state of california workers' compensation attorney and judge and appellate board. my parents influenced me to look at civil service s.i applied to police, and sheriff's department at the same time.

the sheriff's department grabbed me first. it was unique. it was not just me in that moment it was everyone. it wasn't me looking at the crowd. it was all of us being together. i was standing there alone. i felt everyone standing next to me. the only way to describe it. it is not about me. it is from my father. my father couldn't be there. he was sick. the first person i saw was him. i still sometimes am surprised by the fact i see my name as the sheriff. i am happy to be in the position i am in to honor their memory doing what i am doing now to help the larger comment. when i say that we want to be especially focused on

marginalized communities that have been wronged. coming from my background and my family experienced what they did. that didn't happen in a vacuum. it was a decision made by the government. nobody raised their voice. now, i think we are in a better place as country and community. when we see something wrong we have change agents step up to help the community affected. that is a important thing to continue to do. you talk about change and being a leader in change and not knowing whether you have successes or results. the fact of the matter is by choosing to push for change you have already changed things. through inspiration for others, take up the matter or whether it is through actual functional change as a result of your voice being heard. i think you have already started on a path to change by choosing

that path. in doing that in april of itself creates change. i continue in that type of service for my family. something i hope to see in my children. i have a pretty good chance with five children one will go into some sort of civil service. i hope that happens to continue that legacy. >> i am paul, sheriff of san francisco. [ music ]

welcome everyone. we're so excited to have you here. what a beautiful day. happy international woman's day for a female-led nonprofit. this is the best day we could have picked for a ribbon cutting. hi, i am sharon lai. i'm the executive director. just a friendly reminder, the site is an active site meaning we have residents on the other side of the fence.

please stay on this side and do not lean on the temporary railing back there. just a little bit of housekeeping. so welcome to the phase one opening of this amazing pilot project. we started this effort last year when i joined the dignity move organization and when elizabeth and her friends at y.p.o. invited me to join their efforts to turn this kept into an operational real life project, i was super eager and excited to do this. the thought that we could use prefabrication, technology in order to add alternative new housing tools into our community was so exciting to me. and this is possible only made by all of our wonderful partners here. so dignity moves very quickly is a statewide effort.

we are so excited to be bringing on our first pilot here in san francisco, but check us out. we're in santa barbara, sonoma county, and alameda county and many more as elizabeth works on our expansion plan. so we began the construction of 33 goff around the new year and we are so pleased with the support of our urban al can pea giving people the option to essentially transfer from the tent site that this was into the shelter, the structured buildings that you see on the other side of the fence where people can stand up straight in their own private space, where they have a door and furniture and they can keep their belongings dry. that is exactly why we're working hard to get this project online as quickly as possible. so i want to start the program off by celebrating our stellar team. we have such an amazing large

people of partners. many of which i actually had to pay quite handsomely when i was on the private sector. but when we called to action, they were all so amazingly generous with their time and resources and talents, they just got to work with us with basically not very much more than a vision and here we are a couple months later and people are already living in these units. to start this off, bear with me. winnerton builders, they are the amazing people on this job. they have worked really hard to coordinate with us and with the city departments in order to move people in as early and as quickly as possible. also a wonderful group of folks who have an amazing sense of humor. so it's always fun to come on the job site.

p.a.e. who is our engineer. thank you so much. paul knight, our wonderful attorney. thank you for covering all of our attorney needs up and down the state. structural engineer, we could have not made sure that this project was stable and safe and secure without your assistance. frayer electric and electrical industry. thank you so much for stepping up and being a partner in this prefab project. we're definitely making history. center thank you for sending your apprentices. we're so glad to be able to work with you on this work force training effort. this is a wonderful way to elevate our youth. our project support team. the manufacturer of these amazing units. this is the first time in history that we've ever used these units, ever. so we're excited to show case them and, of course, a very

special thank you to our architecture team at gensler. without their countless hours, we would not be able to bring this project to life. so most importantly is our pilot partnership with the city, with san francisco, with h.s.h., the partners. thank you so much for providing the land and the operating dollars for this site. the tipping point community on thank you so much for being our cornerstone funder. you guys stepped up first. you will always have the bragging rights. of course, urban alkamine. daily, building trust through a trauma informed lens. thank you so much. in home for services, thank you, andria. thank you for being here. with the implementation support of many city departments and i mean many including d.b.i.,

d.p.w., fire. we certainly are very glad to be working with you on this first of its kind project. we hassled a lot of people primarily d.p.w. and chuck buckly. thank you for your assistance. innovation is hard and innovation with so many cross sector partners is even more challenging, but we are showing up as a community and i believe this is a strong commitment from our community to state that we are willing to work hard together to address our unhoused needs and so thank you and welcome again for coming and, with that, i'm going to hand this over to our visionary and our founder, elizabeth fung. thank you so much for bringing me on to this project and here you are hearing your story. >> thank you, sharon. and i'm going to echo all of her thanks to all of these

incredible partners. it's been so heartwarming to see these companies and volunteers and everybody to be so eager and part of something new and this new pilot. this has been such a dream. we started on this 18 months ago trying to think about how we can address the unsheltered portion of our problem. and this is hopefully a new tool in the city's vast tool kit for addressing unsheltered homelessness. and i want to be clear that even though dignity moves focuses on building these temporary interim type projects, it is one piece of a very complex set of solutions. and obviously we need more permanent housing. permanent supportive housing. permanent affordable housing and thankfully we have a city that's really focused on that and i want to commend our city partners who are tirelessly working to build more housing and there are lots of projects under way. i started my personal journey in addressing homelessness by

joining the board of glide's housing initiative when we built two buildings over in the tenderloin. and so from personal experience, i know how complex and challenging and time consuming those permanent supportive housing units are. i commend those working on them because it takes a lot to figure out these projects. people need a place to come now. they need an interim stop where they can feel safe and can be sheltered and unfortunately, for many people who have fallen into homelessness, there's trauma associated. i would go out to the encampments and tell somebody there's a evacuee cannot bed available. and you might be lucky to get one out of ten. it's an important tool that

doesn't work for everyone. and we are thrilled to say 100% of people are thrilled to be offered one of these rooms. i want us to have this as one alternative and one tool in our tool kits. as i like to say, our streets can't be the waiting rooms. focus on building interim housing, a place where people can come in off the streets and take a deep breath. my dad told me we should have named the organization "a deep breath." when you have a door that unlocks, all things unlock for you. when you're on the streets and you're worried about getting raped or where your next meal comes from, are you can't possibly think about other solutions. this is a place where people can come away from that trauma, take a deep breath and start working with supportive services to figure out what barriers are in their way to where they want to go. so using california's emergency building codes, we are able to build units that are two code,

they are safe, but we can do them in really rapid time. our partner gensler partnered with boss homes to custom design this panel based system that can be assembled quickly and cost effectively. and then when our project is finished and the land needs to be returned to the owner, we can pick them up with a forklift and move them to a new location. this project, the units themselves assembled are about $15,000 a room. but we're going to have two dining buildings. we're going to have a computer lab. we're going to have obviously bathrooms and showers and all sorts of amenities. lots of offices for the support staff. so all in, this project is about $30,000 per room. we are incredibly grateful to our city partner, h.s.h. who has paid for the land lease and is paying for the ongoing supportive services, but mostly for their willingness to be innovative and try something new because we need to bring

silicon valley style innovative think to go this problem and it's going to mean experimenting and trying new things to see what works and what doesn't. so i want to make a special thank you to tipping point who very early on in this process came to me and said, let's do this, let's try something new and they really had the vision and obviously trying something new is scary, it's hard to get philanthropy to invest in something that isn't proven and so tipping point's vision was so important in helping make this happen. i also want to thank dignity health who made a significant contribution to this and dignity health understands that housing is one of the most important determinents of health and it's important that our unhoused neighbors get inside where it's safe and start to work on any medical challenges as well as emotional challenges. i'll do a shout out to the ron

con roy family. first republic bank, and so many others. i'm also going to say i have been so touched by the community rising up around this. i think we've all felt like homelessness is just insolvable and we've become so frustrated and we're quick to complain about it and how much we hate seeing tents and how it inconveniences us, but people have a good heart and it has been incredible to see people so eager to jump in and try to help support a solution. we have artists who painted all these beautiful murals. we had families come, adopt a unit, so they're all custom designed and everybody's been so eager to be apart of trying to contribute. so give me optimism, unsheltered homelessness really can be resolved. if you get people to a place where you want them to go. if we all work together, we really can end the crisis of unsheltered homelessness on our streets.

thank you for believing in us. thank you for being here. thank you for supporting this innovative new project. with that, i want to introduce sam cobb who has been his organization tipping point has been obviously incredibly instrumental in making this happen. so thank you, sam. >> thank you, elizabeth. i have the privilege today of introducing mayor london breed. before i officially bring her up, i just want to say that projects like this are the reason that tipping point exists and the reason why we believe that you need philanthropy dollars. that's what my partner mayor breed does. after the tipping point, they showed that they can be worked and so we wouldn't be able to do this work without the partnership of not only mayor breed who she would bring up later. without further adieu, i want to introduce the mayor of our

city, the honorable london breed. [ applause ] >> thank you. and hi everyone. thank you so much for being here for this grand opening. and i've got to say, you know, i'm excited about what this will mean for peoples' lives, but i'm also hopeful that we as a city can do a better job at getting more housing built in the first place and getting more people into housing in the first place than we are at getting things like this done. and even though this is needed all over san francisco, what i look forward to the most is when we finally build housing on this site, what i'm looking forward to the most is the people of this community that we can transition them into something permanent not just at this site, but anywhere in san francisco and that's why i'm so excited to be here with

partners like tipping point. tipping point and the work that they're doing to help us get access to housing all over san francisco and i've got to say, sharon in particular left a very nice cushy job to join elizabeth with dignity moves and partner because she wanted to be apart of the solution. she wanted to bring her skill set to a place that's very different. and i know what we have here is part of the work that she's doing with dignity moves and will continue to do throughout san francisco because it can't just be one-sided. it has to be how we think about doing things in san francisco and how we cut the bureaucratic red tape to get the work done. [ applause ]

and this site initially we weren't talking about housing. we were talking about a temporary site when supervisor kim was on the board of supervisors pushing for housing development. then it was going to become a navigation center. then the pandemic hit and we opened it up and people who unfortunately were living on our streets and sleeping in tents ended up on this site as and i worked with supervisor mandelman and supervisor haney to make that happen and here we are, the perfect site to try this program which allows people to be apart of the community that they want to be apart of. and i think that means something because, you know, being apart of a community matters. it matters when you have people who support each other, who look out for 1 another where you don't feel alone. and this will be a place where people will not feel alone. they'll be support not just from dignity moves and from tipping point, but on site one

of my favorite organizations in san francisco that has really taken the tenderloin by storm, urban alkamie has been an incredible partner. i love you right back. and we also have another extraordinary organization that's been working in the western edition and other places in the community to help people transition to real career opportunities and support and i see elizabeth and the folks of the success center. thank you all so much for being here. because it's not just about a roof over your head. it's about opportunity. it's about knowing that people care about your livelihood and your well being. it's about trying to help people become more self-sufficient. it's about a second chance. and this location at 33 goff street is a second chance.

and so i really want to thank again dignity moves for their work and their partners and larry bear is here and aaron conway. when you ask people for support for projects like this, they don't hesitate to say yes and public private partnerships are very important. this city is so generous in general in terms of when we bring initiatives to people in the city and the voters often times say yes. this city has committed a billion dollars to help address homelessness throughout san francisco and part of that resource is that we have with the city will be matched in some regards with philanthropy and so we really appreciate as i said dignity moves and tipping point and all of the work that they do from the city side.

the person who's going to continue to work to help to implement these innovative ideas and make this happen and provide these places for folks is none other than sharine mcfadden who is the director to have of the office of homelessness in the city and county of san francisco. sharine. >> good morning everyone. i want to start by saying how much i hate going after mayor breed. she's such a wonderful speaker. i feel like it's such a privilege to work for her. we hear about it all the time and she's always telling us, like figure out new ways to do things and be innovative and i think this is such a great example of how we can come together as san franciscans and make something happen for people who are our most vulnerable people in san francisco. so i want to thank dignity moves and home first and success center, tipping point,

and everyone who's contributed to this effort including my colleagues in the city. there have been a number of people who've worked on this and my own staff at h.s.h.. this is a real opportunity for us to study something we haven't tried before and to understand how we can support to provide dignity and privacy for people but also provide services for them so they can move on out of here and let somebody else move in and they can get permanent housing and jobs and reunited with families and all of the other things that we ourselves expect for ourselves. and so thank you so much to all the partners. i'm really excited to see how this, works and continue some efforts like in other parts of the city. so thanks much. [ applause ] >> all right. so in my nerves i realized i forgot two things. first of all, i neglected to thank home first who we're a branding organization. we only got our 501.3c status

in november. they have agreed to come and be apart of a project here in san francisco, their first one north of where they work in san jose. thank you very much for being apart of this and they're units. the other thing that stuck out of my mind when mayor breed talked about cutting bureaucracy. i want to be very clear, this city rocks. literally all the departments came together in round table and gave us feedback on our permits in four days and we had these permits approved in less than three weeks. that's a historic first and that really shows the commitment this city has and it should not go unrecognized. so thank you very much to our city partners. >> i said i pestered them a lot, right. well, so it's going to get a little chaotic here. we're going to move this podium so this we can do the ceremony of ribbon cutting with the

mayor. is it okay if i shift this over there. is it going to screw up anyone? no. okay. great. >> are we ready? get in there, supervisor. wait, the supervisor needs some scissors. okay. are we ready? >> we're ready. >> okay. five, four, three, two, one! there we go. [cheers and applause] learned it across the city. [♪♪]

the tenderloin is home to families, immigrants, seniors, merchants, workers, and the housed and unhoused who all deserve a thriving neighborhood to call home. the tenderloin emergency initiative was launched to improve safety, reduce crime, connect people to services, and increase investments in the neighborhood. >> the department of homelessness and supportive housing is responsible for providing resources to people living on the streets. we can do assessments on the streets to see what people are eligible for as far as permanent housing. we also link people with shelter that's available. it could be congregate shelter, the navigation center, the homeless outreach team links those people with those resources and the tenderloin needs that more than anywhere else in the city. >> they're staffing a variety of our street teams, our street crisis response team, our street overdose response team, and our newly launched wellness response team. we have received feedback from

community members, from residents, community organizations that we need an extra level and an extra level of impact and more impactful care to serve this community's needs and that's what the fire department and the community's paramedics are bringing today to this issue. >> the staff at san francisco community health center has really taken up the initiative of providing a community-based outreach for the neighborhood. so we're out there at this point monday through saturday letting residents know this is a service they can access really just describing the service, you know, the shower, the laundry, the food, all the different resources and referrals that can be made and really just providing the neighborhood with a face, this is something that we've seen work and something you can trust. >> together, city and community-based teams work daily to connect people to services,

>> right before the game starts, if i'm still on the field, i look around, and i just take a deep breath because it is so exciting and magical, not knowing what the season holds is very, very exciting. it was fast-paced, stressful, but the good kind of stressful, high energy. there was a crowd to entertain, it was overwhelming in a good way, and i really, really enjoyed it. i continued working for the grizzlies for the 2012-2013 season, and out of happenstance, the same job opened up for the san francisco giants. i applied, not knowing if i would get it, but i would kick

myself if i didn't apply. i was so nervous, i never lived anywhere outside of fridays fridays -- fresno, and i got an interview. and then, i got a second interview, and i got more nervous because know the thought of leaving fresno and my family and friends was scary, but this opportunity was on the other side. but i had to try, and lo and behold, i got the job, and my first day was january 14, 2014. every game day was a puzzle, and i have to figure out how to put the pieces together. i have two features that are 30 seconds long or a minute and a 30 feature. it's fun to put that al together and then lay that out in a way that is entertaining for the fans. a lucky seat there and there, and then, some lucky games that

include players. and then i'll talk to lucille, can you take the shirt gun to the bleachers. i just organize it from top to bottom, and it's just fun for me. something, we don't know how it's going to go, and it can be a huge hit, but you've got to try it. or if it fails, you just won't do it again. or you tweak it. when that all pans out, you go oh, we did that. we did that as a team. i have a great team. we all gel well together. it keeps the show going. the fans are here to see the teams, but also to be entertained, and that's our job. i have wonderful female role models that i look up to here at the giants, and they've been great mentors for me, so i aspire to be like them one day.

renelle is the best. she's all about women in the workforce, she's always in our corner. [applause] >> i enjoy how progressive the giants are. we have had the longer running until they secure day. we've been doing lgbt night longer than most teams. i enjoy that i work for an organization who supports that and is all inclusive. that means a lot to me, and i wouldn't have it any other way. i wasn't sure i was going to get this job, but i went for it, and i got it, and my first season, we won a world series even if we hadn't have won or gone all the way, i still would have learned. i've grown more in the past

four years professionally than i think i've grown in my entire adult life, so it's been eye opening and a wonderful learning

>> welcome to our city's newest park, the park at 5m. welcome to our city's newest hub of creativity, commerce, and community. welcome, everyone, to 5m. [applause] >> this is an exciting day that has been more than a decade in the making, but it's just the start of great things to come for the people who live, work, and spend time here at 5m. when we broke ground, we were surrounded by four acres of mostly parking lots. today, brookfield properties is proud to announce the completion of its development commitment. the first is the parks at 5m. about the