businesses representing workers and this entire city. we have disbursed $35 million and distributed 3.1 million meals to people experiencing food scarcity. our current contracts are with human services agency, sf environment and owd across all areas including shared spaces and equity grant that we are involved with. today i want to provide that relief program that we gave out 25 micro grants to over six hundred applicants and we

awarded 400 grants representing a broad group across all supervisoryial districts. we asked to respond to a survey. i know the small business commission has engaged in its own survey that is currently open and businesses we have targeted in this survey are a sub set and five are fewer workers and target really businesses that are 20 or fewer employees, we refer to that as neighborhood businesses. i know the city's definition is 500

employees, but we are talking about the businesses that are the economic heart of the city but really the cultural heart of our neighborhood. they serve this dual function of economic vibe -- vibrancy and cultural vibrancy. in addition homeowners were of these groups that were experiencing these categories of bipocs, immigrants and lgbtq plus and migrant women. we had 251 responses. we had a

couple of key findings and i want to review, there is a 40 page small business report and we are sharing it with supervise and trying to share it wisely, but some of the most compelling pieces of information that come out of this survey has to do with the income that these businesses are reg. 66% report less than $25,000 because many of them earned no income. in terms of debt, 3 quarters, 77% are carrying debt. 30% have debt of $150,000 or more, a third have debt from more than one creditor and 34 reports accumulation of this debt as of

this bigger challenge. of course in terms of demand, this was a period which 73% reported a great demand of their services during the pandemic. this is what small businesses were facing. just in terms of the amount of income generated from the small businesses, the amount of debt they are carrying and facing a period of decreased demand for those goods and services. a couple of charts to illustrate the points i made in the last slide in a different way, you will see the graph in the left side will show the grantees, the

business owner income responses, 67% reported making less than $25,000. kind of following onto the conversation with the city economist, a full-time working earning minimum wage would earn an annual income of $35,000. despite the challenges, they are facing, they often were paying themselves less than the amount they were paying their workers. in fact on the right side, you can see mostly what is compared to what the economist said is most are making more than minimum wage and business owners had to pay more than minimum wage. a living wage in the area would have been $64,000. a disconnect from the income of

two small business owners to the amount of money that it takes to live in this city. in addition, the debt, you can see again a quarter of businesses have no debt, but on the left side you can see the categories of debt and we see the combined debt and the money they owed to the entity which they owed this money and this reflects a little bit on the period that the survey took place where the federal government was really a tremendous source of loans to paycheck protection and we see that increasingly that federal

government is not going to be there to provide that backstop going forward, and so increasingly the small business owners are relying on other sources of credit including we have personally experienced some businesses that personally guaranteed their loans with a conventions of not drawing a lot of income for their businesses and debt suggest that they may be facing personal bankruptcy if conditions do not improve in san francisco. one of two things to identify services and accountability for

the needs for the future of their business. surprisingly, 51% of surveyed businesses reported not being comfortable in reading cash flow statements and budget. we saw a real need to support businesses in that because as you can imagine uncertainty and inability to read basic cash flow statements and budgets, does make it difficult for the businesses to project their businesses in the future and to get out of that debt situation. then the key challenge that we have identified, we asked businesses to rank challenges calling out that 41% of businesses chose hiring and staffing is their primary concern. a couple of charts to reiterate the challenges point as well. you can see the top challenges

before the pandemic, hiring and staffing, profitablity and debt and top challenges going forward since the start of the pandemic equally the top three challenges but also joined by transportation as a concern. then on the left side you can see a pie chart where we asked businesses to identify challenges and rather than reading through them all, what i wanted to identify was businesses are seeing a host of challenges. it was in some ways not every, that wasn't a single challenge that was emerging but they were identifying that they were going to be a tremendous challenge across the board and on the right side the businesses are very pessimistic about recovery and worried it's going to take more than a year for the economy to recover and that

tracks with what we are seeing and from the business economist as well. last slide, i wanted to and again there is probably a dozen sort of actions recommended in the sf new deal small business report, but i wanted to call it four that i think we are interested in partnering with city and supervisors bringing private resource to bear with small businesses including financial, legal, business market to low cost prioritizing those businesses most at risk to permanent closure. two, to expand on a pilot we did in 2021 to improve employee retention and advancement opportunities for workers. what that meant is we piloted the program that brought management

training to mid-level managers and small businesses and also did a dual language program to focus on spanish an english to allow better communication within small businesses, and we felt that those programs bore fruit in terms of helping to build the organizational culture that allow those small businesses to retain and provide advancement for workers. three, distribute public transit vouchers for small business workers in order to enable improve intra-bay area hiring. we foresee the workforce for small businesses moving to the east bay or out of the city and we feel that to improve hiring, we are going to have to figure out how to subsidize that commute and encourage that commute. four, creating incentive programs that support

entrepreneurs to support other businesses and we were in initial discussions with owed to partner doing that in the downtown area. i think i want to end it there and again, thank you and my colleagues and i are available for questions. >> thank you so much. we are going to have a lot to say. commissioner carter, you are first. >> thank you so much for the presentation. i just want to speak on behalf of my business which i want to applaud sf new deal. you guys were a lifeline for small businesses like myself during the pandemic. we would not have thrived without sf new deal particularly. so thank you. it also provided a diversity of

meals for food security. i can't speak enough how much people came in and were so appreciaive of it and even when you transitioned to the vouchers, you guys were a lifeline in san francisco and i applaud your work. thank you. >> thank you.. >> i want to add to that and thank you for all of of your work. this is another cbo organization

that is not a bureaucratic but moves and i found an organization that targets small businesses. we were out with calle 24 and doing the program and again, fast because small business moves fast. we can't wait a month for some non-profit. thank you for that. regarding your report. the accounting portion, i did a similar report for the latino task force, yes, small business, that is really the achilles heel and they were selling pupusas and they go into business not understanding cash flow and they pay more per square foot because

their income is per quarter and they have put themselves in this generational impact. i love that and seeing some new on the ground and accounting and all of these aspects. the debt, $30-50 million, imagine that's nothing for this city. imagine if they didn't have to service that debt. that's a program. let's wipe out that debt. thank you all. i love your team and your organization. >> thank you.

>> >> thank you for all the work that you have done and the other is technical workers. and now we are thinking about technical services is not even a hub around here and it's not enough because if you look at someone making $0-23,000 a year

where are they going to this hub for the workshop and to have this impact on community, means we have to have more than one on one for in person on this business and that's going to be a lot of legwork but where we are going to see a lot of growth and dividends and exponential equity growth. that's what i have seen a lot of in our neighborhoods and i'm hoping that as we move forward and talk about putting in more into the technical service side that it's actually going into the business itself. the other piece, yeah, i'm totally blown away about helping

people with cash flow and i have seen this in many communities and i'm going say specifically in more of the immigrant communities and people see production of how busy they are. and they say i came home and i saw a lot of customers and i was really busy. they will go an entire lifetime and be able to pay a lot of bills that way but going into discussion planning and looking into the future of businesses, to shore off those businesses so they have something stable to pass down or sell or do whatever they want to do with, they need some kind of that support to really make that a metric that

they can value and also to get them more profitable that is the low hanging fruit. the other piece was the organizational culture. i think reading articles and knowing this ourselves is that as newer generations of workers coming out of the workforce, they are going to need more support and i see it in our students and as our students start to come into our workforce. so looking at the cost of doing business, we talked about wages already, but there is so much more right? we talked about transportation and these other things. i'm wondering if there are perhaps ways that we can kind of pull together resources to be able to offer other types of benefits for the new kind of

workforce because it's not that they want to work less but would we be able to do these things and for them to be able to access this in terms of healthcare and access to help solve that. those are my questions that i have left.

>> we have a call center and trying to meet the businesses where they are and speaking people's language as well. thank you, commissioners, for your support and ideas. >> thank you. >> i just want to add because the commissioner comes with many ideas and that's like the new

wave. and we have to keep that in mind because that's how news businesses work. thank you for that. i love it. >> >> just one last thing. i want to applaud you guys and even social media, you are great across the board at understanding small business. you guys are highlighting all type of stuff. you are great. thank you. >> thank you.

>> i'm reminded of when i first heard about new deal, it was really early. i thought it was genius. and i still think that. the lines that you drew between where the need was and how you helped to facilitate those needs and now we have a commissioner here who is a direct beneficiary of the work you did. you know, we need so much more of that in this city. drawing this line of

disparate nodes of need. thank you very much for connecting those circuits. thank you all of you and the rest of your team for what you have done for the small business community. i think it's really extraordinary and we need more of and more like it. when i started my business, i had a high school graduate and didn't know how excel worked and how to read business statement. that was 20 years ago. i have grown the business quite a bit and now seems i live a portion of my life reading statements. i

have said repeatedly until i'm blue in the face if commission has heard me say this repeatedly until i'm blue in the face is that the biggest untapped resource now is the employee retention credit. i continue to believe that we have at least hundreds of millions if not over a billion dollars of untapped opportunity for our local small businesses, and the biggest barrier to tapping that resource is lack of access to bookkeeping advice and filling out this need lessly complicated tax requirement that the federal government has created for people in order to get narc.

have you been able to get narc? it's very hard to get people and i didn't mean to bring your personal tax business, [ laughter ] but i will be interrogating you about your personal taxes. i have seen it make a huge impact and i will continue to look into this and have city advocate and speak for particular vendors in terms of being able to distribute money including nrp and getting people

help with taxes and while driving here today and parking in the garage, i hear this radio saying you can get your tax refund and they were talking about this and if i click on it, they are going to want 15-20% and a percentage of what they should get which is $10,000. so i think that's a really ripe area for non-profits to play the kind of role that non-profits should play. your survey, i think really

shines a crystal light on that particular segment which is the micro businesses, and it's very hard to get access to these businesses because they are small and they don't have a lot of staff and we know through doing our own survey on the commission how challenging that is with the incredible work that professor and commissioner have done. thank you for looking into that question and the detail that you did. we are going to be able to use that information and help advocate for some of these policies that we need to see. the other thing that came up for me listening to your presentation is that transportation is now an emerging top concern. how apropos that we just had the city comptroller tell us that

perhaps the lowest hanging fruit for driving small business sector growth since it's so challenging to lower housing prices and since there is no more room to minimum wage is to bring in more workers via transportation, and yet he also said, the current transportation paradigm that we currently have of 30% utility is not sustainable. so i think this idea of vouchers to help workers from other areas get here more efficiently and cheaper, to me that seems like a policy area that is right for further exploration and to that end, i spoke to some of the folks from transportation sector via technology while you were

chitchatting, and i plan to follow up on that, hopefully with all of you because it seems to me that's a really incredibly powerful idea that we just heard literally from the city's chief economist that this is one of the ripest areas for growing our city, growing our economy, growing our employment in the most disadvantaged sector, and helping our small businesses recover. so this is what happens when people take the time to ask questions, and actually find out what's actually happening. and

think of a couple things we can do to be constructive. i want to invite you to have the floor if anything comes to you or that you want to talk about. no pressure, but i did want to make that time available to you because i think so highly of the work that you guys do. >> it was interesting to hear the city's economist to talk about what we are doing and hopefully will lead to good solutions. i'm sensing no comment from --

but i want to thank you for inviting us and hope to come back in the future and report on what we are partnering on. >> since i can't get you to say anything, i will pester you privately. do we have any callers on the line? >> we have one caller on the line. >> caller, please proceed. public speaker: this presentation was one of the best presentations i have seen where the needs assessment done for small businesses was done in a

manner we those employees with employees were up lifted. now, what has the city learned from it? now, what we see with the mayor's office and i'm an advocate and worked for a non-profit and i ran the presidio and ran those jobs and i can give some jobs to some of

the listeners that i know, but it's a shame that thousands of small businesses folded in san francisco. the city couldn't do anything. that is the new deal that is the shining star, and all we do is -- but the city should now with the infrastructure bill invest in this. because the city needs to walk the walk. thank

you very much. >> >> there are no other public commenters on the line. >> thank you very much. public comment is closed. >> thank you for being here today. >> next item. >> approval of draft meeting minutes (discussion and action item) >> commissioners, i hope you have had enough time to review the minutes. >> i don't know if this is a typo, the second sentence, it says abe, i don't know if it

should say ape. >> noted. >> any other comments? >> seeing none. >> public comment is closed. >> >> commissioners, do we have motion? >> i make a motion to approve

the draft minutes. >> [roll call] >> motion passes. >> general public comment (discussion item) >> is there any member of the public that would like to make comments not on the agenda? >> we have no commenters. >> seeing none, public comment is closed. >> next item. >> commissioner discussion and new business (discussion item) >> commissioners, any new

business? >> i was just going to report back some stuff. last week the commissioner and i attended the agencies gala, and we had a blast. today i was with the mayor and other selected officials, police chief regarding her new cultural ambassador program and the mayor does care and she is exploring new options and we are super thrilled because we are going to have people that look like us in the neighborhood taking care of

us. so this is a new paradigm and new model and as always in san francisco, thank you to the mayor for being bold and showing her leadership. >> great. i love that. >> i wanted to thank the commissioner for the invitation to the event. it was a wonderful event and i had a lot of fun meeting so many people that i new in other ways and connected to that. it was wonderful. prior that, i was able to jump into the san francisco council's merchant gala event as well. at the event, i believe, i was not there during that time but sf walk was there and i wanted to recognize my cofounders and partners who have been producing art walks throughout this city

for the last year and we have a couple more coming up and they should be fun events in excelsior and bayview. i will get the dates and you can come out. they have been working really hard. thank you very much for that. i might remember something else later. >> okay, we can come back to you. commissioner carter? >> i just also want to applaud mayor breed and her efforts to support small business. i think she is actually trying. i think it's a huge issue obviously in san francisco that didn't just come to san francisco and i

would like to thank them for cleaning the streets. it's not an easy job but i see people trying and it's up to all of us to being creative and finding solutions. i want to applaud everyone that is trying. >> thank you. >> commissioner dickinson? >> i was at the gala, i didn't see you all. i did see you. it was great and it was a lot of fun. i want to give a shout out to, i'm glad that we are on the same page with mayor london breed and she supports these businesses and also patronizes these businesses, and i think she is

doing an an amazing job under the circumstances and i think she's the right woman for the job. i want to give a huge shout out to our mayor and bayview gets a lucky's. we were out of resources and very limited resources to fresh food and that's a big deal especially with what i do as a business and health and fitness practice and always referring different types of alternative foods for health needs. so to have lucky's, we have now a lucky's in bayview and they have now hired locally from the bayview community and

we will have the grand opening this wednesday. we get a preview tomorrow and a grand opening happening 10:00 a.m. wednesday. i know there is going to be a huge turnout for that. i want to give a shout out for that. that's a big deal in bayview. yay! lucky's. >> commissioner carter? >> yes, to piggy back off that, we are so excited in the bayview to see the lucky's come. they did it the right way, not only are they hiring from the community, but there is a lot of locals on the shelf. i want to applaud them for keeping the community in mind. it will actually make things a lot different when you are in a store and seeing product from community. a lot of people are excited. my mom's house is a

block away. so i'm happy to see her be able to go there and not the other grocery store. we'll see how that works out. we are very excited and it's a great addition to bayview. >> i will say, i was at the gall an and i didn't see you. don't feel bad because a lot of you were at the meta gala. let's put it this way, i would be delighted to attend next year. i would love to go. it sounds like it was a great event. yeah, i wish i had been there.

to see the main gala, whether it's appropriate or not, holy smokes, commissioner dickinson, wow, that dress, my wife is still talking about it. i mean she put the gala in gala. it basically wasn't the word gala until she walked in. she was dressed to the 9s, her husband too. well next time don't make me look so bad. i would be remiss if i didn't mention, it was all out sf and small business commissioner

helped organized, and heard from him earlier today that attracted over a couple thousand people to the various events, lots of outreach. there was an office hours and town hall for elected visuals and we also had the small business flash mob. i asked twitter, which one should i go to. there were six neighborhoods to go to and i didn't want to see i was picking favorites though i had in mind but i got 72 votes to go for richmond and i said i'm going there to do the flash mob and holy smokes, that's going to be off the charts right, and i get

to the store and the only other person in the store beside me was commissioner huey. the flash mob was just me and commissioner huey going store to store. the buying power was entirely me depleting the kids college savings, but i felt compelled to make-up for the lack of mob that we had. i was buying everything, anything that looked remote. i was texting my kids and saying would you like a book on caligraphy? >> i feel like you are always

surprised that you had a good time with me. [ laughter ] >> no, i wasn't surprised but we thought a lot of people were going to be showing up. i think it would have helped if former commissioner could have told me about this event maybe more than a couple days before. i found out about it belatedly. i meant to say that even though it was just the two of us, we still managed to spend a lot of money and we had a few laughs. i got some books and already read one of them which is fantastic. then we went to high season, the wine bar, and i started because i was trying to drum up business because i started tweeting and by the time we left there was

another five people that came. we managed to grow our mob to be almost mob like, and we did generate some additional spending for a small business sector. >> you got to come out to the richmond and everyone is invited to come out to the richmond. i am a lot of fun. [ laughter ] you don't need 75 people to tell you on twitter that i'm a lot of fun. >> you wouldn't think that commissioner is fun, just wait and hangout with her. she is super fun. i have to say, from where i live from sunny side which is a good 30 minutes with traffic to go down there. >> also a point, in terms of

transportation of what happens in the richmond is that it's an isolated quadrant, so if we can advocate for more of that. >> yes, some cross city transit. i'm all for it. >> the tunnels. >> yes, we need a hyper lift from sunny side to richmond. i have been out to richmond since the pandemic to see some comics and i haven't been there recently. i have kids and i don't have the opportunity to visit every district every weekend, but walking around as

the sun was setting, it was absolutely gorgeous, and i have to say that the quality of the shops and the gifts that you could get, there was a lot of really great stuff. i was joking about buying stuff i didn't need, maybe i didn't need it but i did want it because it was very attractive. and i did come away from that experience with an enhanced love for the richmond. so mission success. >> i apologize i didn't make it up to the art walk, but next time i will. >> don't schedule it when i'm taking my kid to college. >> for sure, i will check your schedule before we do anymore art walks. >> yeah. [ laughter ] >> all right. i think that's enough getting myself into trouble.

is there any public comment on commissioner comments? >> there is none. >> okay, seeing none, public comment is closed. >> next item. >> item 7 is adjournment. sfgovtv.org please show the small business office slide. >> we end tonight with saying that small business is your point to voice your concerns for the business vitality in san francisco and it's the best place to get answers for small businesses in san francisco. if you need assistance, please continue to reach out to the office of small business. meeting adjourned. >> >> >> [ end of realtime captioning ] >> >>

>> i am iris long. we are a family business that started in san francisco chinatown by my parents who started the business in the mid 1980s. today we follow the same footsteps of my parents. we source the teas by the harvest season and style of crafting and the specific

variety. we specialize in premium tea. today i still visit many of the farms we work with multigenerational farms that produce premium teas with its own natural flavors. it is very much like grapes for wine. what we do is more specialized, but it is more natural. growing up in san francisco i used to come and help my parents after school whether in middle school or high school and throughout college. i went to san francisco state university. i did stay home and i helped my parents work throughout the summers to learn what it is that makes our community so special. after graduating i worked for an investment bank in hong kong for a few years before returning

when my dad said he was retiring. he passed away a few years ago. after taking over the business we made this a little more accessible for visitors as well as residents of san francisco to visit. many of our teas were traditionally labeled only in chinese for the older generation. today of our tea drinkkers are quite young. it is easy to look on the website to view all of our products and fun to come in and look at the different varieties. they are able to explore what we source, premium teas from the providence and the delicious flavors. san francisco is a beautiful city to me as well as many of the residents and businesses here in chinatown.

it is great for tourists to visit apsee how our community thrived through the years. this retail location is open daily. we have minimal hours because of our small team during covid. we do welcome visitors to come in and browse through our products. also, visit us online. we have minimal hours. it is nice to set up viewings of these products here.