taking a little time to showcase our heart of san francisco. >> thanks again. >> thank you. >> that's it for this episode. we'll be back with another one shortly. thank you for watching. . >> good afternoon everyone. >> thank you for joining us at our housing authority commission meeting today in city hall on february 27th. we go ahead and take the roll please present president walking tour present commissioner leroy lando present commissioner we want to him commissioner marianne pike's and got him to write and three the acknowledgment the

raw material only community the housing authority of the city and county of san francisco acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the roma two colony who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula as the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions the roma to alone we have never ceded lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory as guests we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders and relatives of the roman jewish colony community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. thank you, president. item four is the president's report. i just want to thank everyone for the extraordinary festivities that have been happening in the city and county. we had a glorious lunar new year, a series of lunar new year celebrations launch and a conclusion of black history

month celebrations as well with i know the mayor's office doing a final event after last night's event that was held by brooke jenkins, artist attorney or state comptroller malia cohen and our district ten supervisor sherman walton with mayor lurie present as well. and just wanted to wish everyone a glorious time that we've had celebrating our communities in their full diversity here in san francisco and look forward to our meeting today. thank you, president item five is the general public comments before we begin i'd like to note this portion of the agenda is not intended for debate or discussion with the commissioner or staff. please simply state your business for the matter you wish the commission or staff to be aware of. it is not appropriate for commissioners to engage in a debate or respondent issue is not properly set in a publicly notice meeting agenda. if you have questions or would like to bring a matter to the commission's attention please send your communication via email to us f h a public comment at s.f. dawg. >> with that being said i'll start with the written speaker

cards and we have maxine jones first i'd like to come up and you'll have two minutes. >> good evening. everybody's doing that. >> i've been trying not to stand here and go back and forth with you guys about what's going on. and let me just tell you this. me being a city official right on a homeless oversight committee and i'm in the meeting here in regards to roderick whitney. he stood here last month. him and his mom explaining to you guys about him being homeless, living out of his car, raising two children, mom deceased. >> their mom is deceased. okay. he's still homeless. he was referred to kendra. okay. kendra explained to him that she was going to speak to the mayor's office in regards to him and that didn't happen.

she didn't return his call or anything of the sort. >> i'm i'm i'm i'm upset. >> i'm upset because when you tell someone you're going to do something do as you say you're going to do if you're not able to do that, you need to have someone else to do it for you. this man needs his certificate. when they say to him that they were about sending his mail to kiska street he never lived there, never lived on kiska. okay. and for him to still be homeless and not be housed and not receive a certificate and this been going on for years now give this man his certificate so he can move on with his family and raise finish raising them. that's what he need and i'm just asking for that today. >> give him a certificate. >> his mom is 92 years old. that lady stood up here and

explained to you guys what she did for her son. and no one's doing anything about it. and i'm not trying to badger or make her look bad but she looking bad on her own. which would be kendra because she didn't do what she said she was going to do. now in closing i'm going to say margaret mcnulty. okay. she's not my friend or anything like that. she was my instructor, my teacher. okay. for housing advocacy. okay. she's a very nice woman. believe in helping anyone she can and for someone to stand here and diminish her character . i'm not good with that because if you find good people that's willing to help people. don't make them look bad if they're doing good work but if they're not doing good work they need to be reprimanded. >> thank you very much.

robert whitley. all right. >> roger whitley. and i'm just coming in and say that i didn't i get no phone calls, no contact and nothing from the person that was supposed to contact me. so that's all i'm here to say. >> thank you. thank you, margaret mcnulty. >> and good afternoon. on a lighter note, i'd like to bring you up to date on my proposal for a resident council advisors and let you know what we're doing. we've kind of found a different niche than where it was going before and who we are is a dedicated board of officers committed to arca's cause with flexible specialist assignments

case by case. and there's a couple of people in the room. they're actually working with us howard hill vice president and maxine jones as well and belinda radcliffe she's not here right now but and mental health peer associates. what we really do what rca does mainly is we prevent lawsuits. we're a single minded body of advocates protecting the rights and relations between management stakeholders, resident services and disgruntled elderly disabled tenants. lot of people just need to be heard and where we go to different locations and serve them rad affiliates section eight property landlords and their lease holders. when when do we work? when the bat signal calls, we're on demand by assignment. when we are asked to create good outcomes from phone referrals which is that's what's happened so far. we've helped two dozen people so far. and why? because we can and we're really

satisfying the need to be heard. these people just need to. they feel that management sometimes isn't aware of their situation and they just need to be heard. so it's more of a intercommunal educating thing calming people, unifying us and just relating intervening where possible. >> and more specifically the mental health association of san francisco has trained me as a peer counselor. and so a lot of times again it's just communication advocacy with unity of purpose. conflict resolution. and it's all genders. we don't we don't classify whether you're what race your religion and a lot of these people are non-english speaking they're russian and chinese mainly. >> and i'll just be just one more minute if that's okay. sure. okay. thanks. we educate the tenants in their councils. i do that on a monthly basis.

i hold training for anyone that's interested in becoming a council member for the future and or that is a council member right now. and i do this off for free where they can come and just be trained. and there's different levels of training. maxine has gone through level one which is fantastic. and we listen we make reports and then we come to report to you. that's going to be how we see it working. so i just together in conjunction with all the good work that you're doing out there, we just we're ready to be boots on the ground. >> so thank you very much. thank you so much. you have any questions? >> no. no, thank you. is there any additional general public comment in the room or line? not seeing any. then we can close general public comment. item six is the tenant representative report anyone from a citywide council senior

disabled or public housing tenant association that would like to give a report out to the board if not any public comment? and number six also do not see any we can close up a comment. >> i'm just i'm just a few questions. so in response to both the the first public comment around around follow up on these issues just just generally how is the housing authority responding to these issues or providing follow up? >> can we just hear a little a little bit on that right right now in terms of what that process looks like?

thank you, president for us so depending on what the concerns are, we work collaboratively with either cvr or we work collaboratively with p and again, depending on what those concerns are, we will also bring in not just our operations director but we'll also bring in our general counsel ms. mason as well to ensure that we are providing the fullest response possible. and so it can be a reasonable accommodation, it can be around reinstating a voucher, it can just be an array of different things and we have to go through and look at what is the situation being presented to us asking all the questions, doing the research and then making a determination of what is the next steps and the outcomes are there are there some general

barriers as it relates to a emergency housing homeless housing for individuals who may have been on a waitlist are no longer on a waitlist? are there issues like that that the housing authority has to deal with and how does that get communicated to someone who brings a concern to us as part of this process? certainly. so we do we are oftentimes challenged with those types of request and when we are challenged with individuals needing emergency housing, individuals who have maybe been on a wait list, there are time lapses and different situations that prohibit us from just reinstatement. we also when we have in particular where someone has said oh i, i was on your waitlist and we do keep a three year lease there's documentation and we will go

back and determine did mal return what happened and determine what can we do or what can we not do and we do have an administrative plan that really helps us determine how we're moving forward in many in many of those cases. >> and so as you know, we really are bound by our waitlist rules. they are statute statutory rules that we must follow and we cannot just arbitrarily make a decision not to follow those rules. >> and when we're doing this work we are we have always communicated back. we have explained and at the same time we also work to determine how we might work with another program or refer to another program when we are unable to further assist in a housing situation. thank you. and then secondarily on the

proposal that was just shared with us in terms of resident engagement is is that something for mayor's office of housing and community development to engage on in terms of how how any additional support services would be provided for residents, whether those are pro bono or otherwise? i just want to get a sense of how best to direct people when they come to our office for or come to this body for information sharing proposal sharing and then the formal process is that will determine how when those elements will be incorporated. >> i don't know if that's for right now or if that's for a future meeting but just wanted to raise that. sure. i think it's for a future meeting and because it would be in partnership with the mayor's office of housing and community development when we're we certainly great thank you. thank you. thank you. i'm also mindful of council that we're not having substantive conversations that haven't been properly agenda so i hope that was within the bounds. >> thank you so much.

we are on item number seven for the chief executive officers report. starting off with item seven eight the messiah sheeny in o'connell or margot 2023 a presentation we have benjamin lao on line to present his report and then press archive tv we do have some slides for this presentation as well. >> thank you. is the slides being presented yet? thank you. all right i. hi everybody this is benjamin lao from mco no external auditor. i'm here to present the result of your 2023 september 30th september 30th 2023 the audit results. next slide please. at this is a summary of the audit results and the is the slide next slide please works

so i better not be a delay here one second. >> no no i will continue so just to save everybody's time and the results the overall results of the of after audit regarding basic financial statement we have issued and modify opinions on your financial statements which in other words is a clean report and we put in are similar to prior years we put into emphasis of matters that includes the concentration of on revenue which is federal revenues as well as are going concerned issue regarding is quickly present a component unit for plaza east associate and is a going concern has been there since i was ten plus years and we will talk about the current year financial statement findings regarding financial statements and for the single audit for this year we issued we have audited two federal programs that are deemed to be major for 2023 our

one of the program is we issued and modified opinion and then the other report other other program we have a qualified opinion. next page please is always a summary of the report to the board of commissioners and i will highlight a few items. the first one is the third item which is the adoption or change in accounting policy and during this year the authority implement three gasb standards. the gasb is that is the government accounting standards and gasb statement number 91, 94 and 96 and those the implementation of those statement do not have a significant impact at that. but for these financial statements there are two uncorrected misstatements for this year and the management has deemed them to be immaterial in which the auditors agree with it and and and basically there are

incorrect adjustment which is not material to financial statements. and lastly i want to point out is for the upcoming years for 2024 audit year there are no significant accounting standards there's gasb statement them in 99 and 110 for future years 2500 series 1 or 1 1 or 2 1 or 3 and those are more substantial assets than show impacted to now for these are potentially our next slide please. next slide is only is a summary of what opinion type that we can provide and modified qualified scope limitation efforts and as i mentioned your financial statements as well as one of your sink or the program and than opinion and then the second program which is the housing choice voucher program that is a court opinion. next page please. a little bit of definition as well. i at the term significant

deficiencies and material weakness so what material witnesses are more saffir issues when compared to significant deficiencies on internal control? >> next slide please. >> regarding financial statement findings i would start from prior year first 2022 how we provide a material weakness finding on the internal control over financial reporting that was two years ago and four i mean two years ago two audits ago and then by the most recent audit that has come to us and 23 at that finding there we saw improvement when compared to the prior year and s and for 2023 we continued we continue to have a finding that is less severe and it is a significant deficiency in internal control over financial reporting based on my discussion and with our authority there is continuous

improvement regarding that process and we anticipate that for the upcoming year audit we anticipate that we will evaluate we're evaluate on whether there is an improvement to the to the point of we can remove that finding for this coming year. next slide please. at this slide please send out the results under other programs the major programs that we have ordered in relation to single audit for since 2017 and a number of findings that have been identified. so for 2023 we have on the two programs public and indian housing 14.50 and housing our functional cluster which is 14.71 and 14.679. as i mentioned at the first program we have a modifiable opinion and the second one housing choice voucher qualified opinion and from a

finding perspective we have two findings for the housing choice voucher housing voucher cost the program which is a decrease of one when compared to private income. next slide please. this slide presented the two the define the two findings and both of them are on special test for information regarding housing quality standards inspection. so one of them is material noncompliance and one of them is incidence of noncompliance and hopefully at two more slides too. so make sure to slice. and lastly the last slide present a follow up of the 2022 audit finding and two of them is in part grants and one of them has been implemented so that's that's a summary of what we what we have identified as a

finding for a single audit. but overall we see progress and improvement when compared to the prior year. and with that that concludes this i think. that concludes my presentation regarding this and then available for any questions you might have. >> great. thank you so much. any questions or comments from commissioners regarding magos presentation? >> if i could just have a clarification or just on slide seven and i do appreciate you saying this and i'm probably trying to highlight what you just said in in terms of slide seven it's helpful to see from 2016 forward as i understood it you're seeing a general trend of of compliance and that's how it looks to me. could you just confirm that what you're seeing on slide seven that ten is correct? >> yes. thank you. sorry. that is correct. so are the results maybe we can there's multiple ways to look

at whether there is like changes improvements improvement four for regarding i can afford these like whether they're in compliance or federal requirements and this hopefully help i helped you to visualize it and that is just focus on 2006 17 which is items at y 17 we are the fall programs. each of the program has three findings so we're talking about 1212 findings and you can see a decline practically a decreasing trend from 2017 all the ways to today. so there are two for this year. so i this sure as of 2023 so i, i, i agree with the statement that there is a general trend of improvement when compared to at the inception of ngo audit for that for 40 thank you. >> and then in terms of the

housing authorities response to the findings from your perspectives, can you help shape for us what your response has been to what mgo has presented to us today? i apologize is that question to myself or to the housing authority to to respond on the findings themselves? >> good afternoon commissioners. so on the financial well there's still one finding for on the financial audit. yeah it's been lowered to a significant it's a significant deficiency but we've reviewed all our policies so we have a whole new we have put a new process last year this was in 23 so 24 we basically updated all our our policy, our financial accounting policy and the closing process. so we have now we do monthly close and then we do the mid-year sort of close closing just to make sure we monitor all the the trend the change and can correct anything that's

missing on in terms of joint entries. so there's been some we implemented off changes on on a processes and then we have since 23 we added three new staff on the no. so we brought up what we've been able to add additional staff to help just make sure we have sufficient staffing to cover all the bases. >> so do you feel similar to what the commissioner said earlier that you find the housing authority moving in a positive trajectory and addressing these issues with the resources necessary to do so? >> yes. yes. so even last year know we had a long conversation with mario because it was really focused on from our point of view there was already a significant improvement but it was not to sort of entry that no board looking at the root cause what caused that? you know i talked to be sort of not in the point of view not correct. so we seen we've seen that trend since 19. so in 2022 there was no zero

finding i think at that time for finance and then 2021 to 22 that's when we had another finding and in 23 it's been downgraded by still there but our goal is to have zero finding for finance so and 24 we know pre-covid and conclude that this finding can you just repeat that last part in terms of what you think the trajectory will be in terms of getting to that goal? >> yeah. so basically 21 we're able to close out all the findings for finance. so 22 because after there was a lot of there was a transition that 22 that's when we close out the public housing program. so since that puts are converted from public housing to pbb. so there was a lot more transaction happening and there was two stuff that i will let go in finance. so there was some impact on the in terms of volume of transaction and also on the stuffing side. so due to that we had to find it and that was in 22.

so 23 that same finding we are just partially defining. so it is still significant. so 24 we believe we'd be able to close it out because we have now changed the processes because we have a different team and we added new staffing. so onboarding new staff we have a new consultant that works for us used to be bdo but now we have a product so we do have a team in place and based on what we have which we will close down. >> thank you. yes, please. so i would agree with our cfo. we also found ourselves with a significant change with bdo who had been helping us in our finance area where we had lost a individual who had a lot of institutional knowledge during the time where we had a significant number of transactions due to the

transition of sunnydale and betrayal. we are on the trajectory that is your question of closing that finding out and we have added staff and we are able to bifurcate that work in a way that really helps us stay on track and continue to move the needle towards the direction we want to be as an organization with no audit findings. so i think that we are moving right where we need to at this moment in time. >> can you speak at all about just the questioned costs elements of the 2223 findings? >> the cost is on slide number eight the summary the findings we're 20 to 23 the question costs identified for both items whether it's on slide eight. >> so i speak on behalf of that is basically at the question

cost is a calculated number by the auditor which is basically my team and that is based on based on the nature of the finding. and for example for this specific and for i use this i just point to one finding for example that the 2023 dash or three is on hq housing quality housing quality and access enforcement and then enforcement because after at delay some of the some of the units that is being made basically because of the delay on nonperformance of that specific inspection the cost being paid from them on a technical technicality standpoint is considered question cost and the dollar amount that we present in the report represents those specific samples that we see. so we say 100% certainty those are non question costs i guess the definition but that's a definition of it as an auditor

that lists out based on the amount the amount of payment that's been made to that specific tenant. so that's how we come up with that question cost and from the dollar amount standpoint and we need to focus on the perspective that all the amount of federal awards regarding that specific grant is just unquantified it clearly $402 million. so as of 2023 and what we as the auditor are based on a sampling perspective we saw no cost of $10,000. so that's one of two finding the other finding we project on the results we project on the result based known at the time of non question cost that is $479,000 and we project to that whole population based on the percentage and by by doing so there can be likely question cost of another column. so that's basically our

auditors way of presenting what they put what the known impact is and what the potential impact in might be on. >> great. any other comments from housing authority on those comments? certainly. so all to say there is no fraud plus number one, what's most important and all to say that this particular question cost of $10,000 that's been projected out to the total population and to all the units that we have in public housing, it is a projection and this particular finding is not an on an unknown discussion with our hud field office and it is simply around the work done from a housing quality standard perspective of looking at our units and so forth and on in terms of inspections. >> so we are again we are not having any dollars retracted.

these are discussions that we have been in with hud. we have we are and have been doing the work that has been required of us by head around all of this work and it is related solely to sunnydale in potrero and the mass transition of that property from public housing to project based vouchers and we have our hands on the pulse with hud on this work and with our contractors as well. >> yet those two findings we are working closely with b and cvro2 contractors so we have a corrective action plan that we basically added as a response to these two findings and we've seen those progress. two in terms of an inspection abatement and making sure they have some tracking sheeting on that we monitor to make sure and given the response, let me know if i'm overreaching here. but in my questioning but that

is an alignment is this in alignment with the questions and conversations we've been having generally with providers, partners around inspections, abatements enforcements or is it very clear to separate these items, these items now that this is in line with the discussions we've been having of late? >> is that right in this sense? but enforcement is more like delay in enforcing it sorry for so i think what we see on the port side is more the impact of those when we enforce the abatement issue like when we enforce it and stop being so there's no have that can be. >> so these are reflective of intentional choices or not legally we are required to enforce those when they are they are and they are they are intentional choices as it relates to the requirement of the cfr of hud requirement, we

must follow head requirements. >> right. and then just again because the purpose of my questioning is just to break it down. so when you say the cfr is a code of federal regulations that we are bound to follow so yeah, yep great. >> thank you. thank you. >> any further questions from from commissioners? all right. well i mean it's good to see the progress. >> it's great to see the continued work in this area. it's great to see the alignment of what's seen here and the conversations that are taking place with the authority as well and the improvements that are being made in the resource allocations that are being made to support the issue. so just thank you for that and we look forward to the next time we pick this audit up again. >> thank you. thank you, benjamin.

item seven b is the chief executive officer of general communications presented by ceo tony wells. >> you thank you. i'd like to start with our operational report and this is to share out as it relates to some of the operational metrics that are used by hud in determining how well we're performing as an organization and and so our first slide that we have i'm just waiting for the slide to turn sorry one second. sure.

it's okay. we i think everyone has the power for one minute. >> okay. they have the physical copies too. okay, i'll just keep going. so our first slide that we're talking about is utilization and that really looks at what just one more just because this is being recorded and it should be broadcast for future future sessions through s.f. gov tv if we could have that next slide move before the narrative that aligns with it continues that would be helpful with a full acknowledgment that technical issues are a reality in this building. >> so thank you. are there are there any other

items you may want to report on now while we're waiting for tech to catch up with us? >> thank you. i can i can do that. >> so i'd like to really quickly talk about the transition that is happening at sunnydale in potrero. if you recall, we on our behalf you approved a new contract for property management at both of those sites and bell properties will take over the management of sunnydale and petro while ibm's c transitions out. and we want to take a moment to thank both management companies for just their accessibility to the residents and working with each other over the last month . and these properties as we know are unique and they are both actively under construction so we have brand new sites as well as our remaining sites that are

older sites that residents still are living in and both of those properties are 100% leased to the capacity that they can be as it relates to our old buildings and we sent an initial letter to residents informing them and introducing them to the new management company immediately after your approval. >> a new letter was sent this week from bell properties officially introducing themselves and also including office hours and rent information and the authority we meet with both of the property management companies and we have been meeting with them daily for the last month and will continue to meet daily for the next two weeks and then we'll determine what should be the cadence as bel properties

begins to really fully take over the entire site. ebc will remain with us through the entire month of march so that we ensure that all financial business is closed out appropriately because that work also impacts our financial audits going forward. so we need to ensure that everything is in alignment from a business perspective as well as it will also provide opportunities for real time questions as belle property fully takes over and la belle properties has worked diligently to step up and i understand that many of the staff have been retained if that has been their desire to do so. so it has been so far really a great transition and it's been a lot of collaborative and partnership in this work with both property management companies and ourselves. okay. thank you for and just before

we continue on onto this slide, the time that the time line again that we're working on is when will this transition take place march 1st. march 1st. so so the full transition is going to occur on saturday? >> yes, two days. >> yes. thank you. yes. and i just you know, i want to thank my team. they have been working extremely hard with both the contractors and with our staff and with all of the construction going on working with mercy mercy working with bridge to really make this process as smooth as possible for the residents. so i want to thank all of you. >> it's taken all of us to do this work. i just want again just want to thank you and the staff as well and of course for the previous partnership of pbmc the new partnership with bell and it sounds very elegant and simple and what's happening right now it is not it is a complicated

process. >> so just want to pay full respects and acknowledgment of that. >> so thank you very much to you and the entire team at the authority. thank you. and i'd also like the commission to know that we have been keeping our supervisor and chairman walton abreast of all the different things that are going on site and i have committed to him that once we can get a little settled and with bell properties that we will have an introduction meeting with him and the new property management company as well any resident issues that are arising right now that you're paying attention to? >> sure. as part of this process. so i think as part of this process we just have had our hands in the air so that our residents would feel comfortable and understand that we're the housing authority, we're there on the ground with them and making sure that all

of our nonprofit organizations are well informed. our services are well informed. i think one of the things more outside of just transitioning to property management is as you know on sunnydale we have about 130 plus residents who are moving either in to the new location to new buildings on site at sunnydale or we've had some who will be transitioning off site. and so with that there's been some fencing challenges and we have been working on those for the last couple of days with mlc, hd and i did talk with supervisor walton who had noticed me that there were some residents concerns and as always we immediately began to look into what was going on and prior to supervisor was calling actually my team had received several resident calls and we had begun to work with mercy. i began to work with them on fd

my partner dan adams in noticing and moving this forward. >> so thank you. thank you. thank you. been it for that so we're going to talk about operations for the first quarter of what we call our federal fiscal year and that is october 1st through september 30th for quarter one i'm sorry. >> so actually it's yes, october november, december so october 20th, 24 through december of 2024 and what we're looking at on this side slide is utilize aviation and how we use leased units and how we're using our budget from hud. >> and so what you're seeing is where are we in terms of

utilization of the number of units that we have been able to house resident or participants in those units and we're at 99.62% oh i'm sorry we are as it relates to our hap budget we're at 96.62% and as it relates to the utilization of the number of units, we're at 96.03% and what's really important about these utilization rates we can't be above 100% either on if one is at 100% if our budget is at 100% that means we can no longer provide another voucher to house someone if we are at 100% as it relates to the baseline of the number of units that hud says that we can rent out then we need to stop so that 100% mark whether it is

at the number of units or the dollar value that we have to spend is that then we have to stop because that means that we are at a 100% utilization rate of our budget or the number of units that we can actually have . >> and if you you know and just for note, we literally are 13 we have a 13% increase of our utilization rate from 2022 to present. next slide please. >> and so this slide really speaks to how our housing leasing goals have gone over the years. >> and so for 2024 we filled our project based voucher side

of our portfolio and we really intention really worked on the project based voucher part of our portfolio. leo and if you recall i think it was last year or the year before we were able to put 50 brand new 50 brand new project based vouchers in the garden and we were able to put i think we put over 200 to 250 project based vouchers into different affordable housing projects throughout the city in conjunction with the mayor's office of housing and community development and that was really an intentional focus because we had excess budget or reserves that allowed us to make these in tension or choices to be able to increase the number of individuals or households who had deeply affordable subsidies. so this was really important work and so as you can see through that work over these

last three months we've had a 580 increase also in just this year of new participants into the program and we've also had 85 individual households leave our program and you also see on this slide our annual re examination. >> so in this period of time we've had over 4000 reexamined re examinations that were due. we've been able to complete more than half of those re examinations and then on our bottom line we call that the p r p i h information center. it's also known as pick and this is head reporting system that tracks each household that receives a subsidy from the housing authority. >> and what we're doing here is we're required to track and move ins annual recertification

and interim reexamination ins and inspections and all of this work that we are doing bringing in individuals into our program, doing all the inspections, re exams and interims is a part of a score that is given to a housing authority by hud and when we are putting this information in today what it's saying it's 100% and what it's saying is that the records that you have at the housing authority in your system we have them also in the system at hud. next slide. >> okay. and so the holds in abatements we talked a little bit about those abatements housing quality standards. so right now as of 1231 24 we

have 232 holds which amounts to about $357,000. they are about 4.3 months and then abatements we have 204 abatements as you can see about four and over $400,000 and there are about 9.4 months. >> how do we convey this information to our stakeholders on we have weekly calls with our stakeholders and we talk about the holds. we talk about the abatement rates on property and we're talking about how can we help you get through and particularly the abatement generally sometimes with the holds really that is intertwined with our residents and generally we are waiting to go through reexamination or annual recertification and we

work in partnership with imo cd as well as services on site and the property management to work with residents to get this information in. >> this information is critical as i shared with you earlier, when we talk about pick or the pitch system, hud is looking to determine the systems bids out on a quarterly basis how many annual research vacations need to be done and we are sending out this information in advance at least three months in advance saying it's going to be time for annual recertification after we get to generally down to 60 days we're saying to mlc, hd our partners property management again to residents that this work needs to be done and we need your help to help us get all of the information that's needed. and once we get this information then we release the

hold on that particular unit and have again we send out i think it's a weekly abatement list around to our bless you to our developers about even though we're having a weekly conversation with staff we're also sending a report an abatement report to say these are the units that are in be in abatement at these sites. what is it that you need help doing? we and as soon as they're ready to have reinspection we make it a priority and we get out there and we do the re inspections as it relates to inspections, as you can see we have a total of 2600 inspections that have passed. we've had 976 that have failed when we talk about final fell, usually if you fail we go out

it's like three times we go out when you said yes, i've corrected it. yes i've corrected it, yes, i've corrected it and if it fails we have a final fell and then at i think it's after 30 days we're moving in to an abatement and we're noticing you saying we're moving this into an abatement. we also if you see we have a column of no shows so that means that we're not able to get into the unit. one of the things that we have really worked hard at and and continue to work at is we do notice our properties wherever they bastos this in the mail we notice them we are on an annual basis now doing inspections so everyone knows our partners know that this is the schedule for 12 months and then we still send out it now produces us to

say we're coming several times. i think it's two days or one day before coming. we also make a call to the property saying that we will be there to do these units. that information also is in a system where they can see it and one of the great new things rather than using i think sharepoint now we have our new landlord portal so there are many things that our landlords our property owners now can see in the system as well for themselves. >> so the day i think that again the day before we're coming we have a call i don't think do we have a call on the day of yes and we also have a call on the day of as well so we are really working hard to make sure that we have know that we don't end up with no shows and as of nine 3024 we are standard.

our goal is to be high performer and we will continue to work hard at that and you can expect that we will the reason we chose these indicators because these are in these are the indicators that align with the c map score process. thank you. questions i do have some would you like to know please? i would love you to dive in. >> thank you. i'm so thank you for doing these reports. i know that i've been asking and i really do appreciate having them go forward and we talked about it's it's great to start with these i think we used to see them and then i know for for other reasons we we pivoted to the financial reports which were really helpful. so i appreciate going back to these and i do hear your comment about starting with these as they impact them. i think that the slide three

talking about pick is sort of just related to pick c and then the second one is c map. i'm just so in terms of the the pick reporting data, i think that there are a number of categories that go into that pick number to talk about target compliance. i'm wondering whether so i think it's important that there's a lot of information data regarding effort. i think when we think about impact and impact as it relates to compliance, would it be helpful that we have the what rolls up into picks admission, those different five categories where we are where the target is and kind of see those over a period of time? i wonder whether that would be helpful as well as the c map score were there those 14 different metrics that roll up into the c map score just kind of see where we are because i remember we all sort of like added up those scores to make sure that those key ones added

up to sort of to the the overall designation is that i imagine you're tracking that is that something that we would be able to see and track so we can kind of understand where we're going and what what movement we so i think it would this is great and i think it shows a lot of effort if we could have that other piece about the impact as it relates to compliance, i think that would be sure. >> oh how often would you want to see that on a quarterly? >> how often would you want to see that on a quarterly basis? i think it would be very helpful to do a deeper dive on a quarterly basis. we could do it here, we could do it at the committee but i think it's just important to see it over a period of time. i think it's it's helpful to see it in a snapshot but it also is i think very helpful to see the trend the same way in the order we were able to see the overall trend. we could see how things have been going for the last eight years and then see whether

there are certain points that continue to stick what is going well and we can kind of see which direction we're going. so i think quarterly would be great and we'll do it quarterly and it will actually be at our committee meeting. so as we talked about are there other reports similar to this process, other metrics that you are using for performance with vendors that would also be helpful to be able to see here as well that are in alignment with what the commissioner has said? i mean we we have our quarterly scorecard those scorecards really from a factual basis really track in to here and we

can show you how that looks as well. we'll come up with something. >> but i think what's more important fundamentally that we it's part of that process that we're tracking in. it's how do all these numbers fit into the scoring and so we'll determine we'll keep working at it and we'll determine, you know, what's the best way to really put that place the data so it's easily understood and you can easily track it. >> so we'll work on doing all of that together and tell you where we're getting it from and why. >> and just to the commissioner's point, it's wonderful to have clear, concise information that allow us to understand where you can make best use of this body and where its attention can be paid in a systemic manner that helps

highlight issues, question issues very specifically or gives this body the information it needs to have a substantive dialog with you and staff on performance issues of performance. it can be discussed as it really relates to that final impact number that we're looking at. so thank you very much for that . i think from my perspective that's something that's really important and helpful is when you're looking at in particular really slide for slide four has when you talk about the program ,slide four is extremely important because this is your money meaning this is our money the money we use to pay all of our landowners and when you have such a huge rad program as

ours it's really important when you talk about where those abatements where are the holds, why are they and what what are the trends around that and how do we get our arms around that and how do we get help to push that out? >> those are really important things. and then the other thing again because the inspections really move into the abatements and another piece that we will bring forward from our utilization perspective is how are we moving individuals in and out of units. so you'll see that in the next iteration because it's leasing, it's abatements, it's holds because that's all dollars, right? >> and how are we performing in those areas and not only how are we performing but how are our partners performing so that we can keep everything moving

in a way that it needs to. so that subsidy is where it needs to be. properties are well maintained and cared for from the perspective where any money that we're supposed to allocate in provide is happening and it allows you to see what's happening and have those types of questions and receive answers and provide guidance where needed or help. >> how how do you see these reports aligning with the conversations both around reconciliation issues and overall performance engagement issues, communication issues with partners and so that's why i bring up slide four and then the added on that i brought forward is i think i think this data and i will and add another piece on here and i'll figure out where it really goes is

around processes and those key processes reconciliation that needs to be done and how those are being performed and are they being performed in a timely manner and what are the outcomes of those as well is something you know we will add in this package so that you're able to as the commission have a full awareness of how are we performing, how are we engaging and where is that lack of engagement on either side and what else can we do and what else is needed and it's being stated very transparently and matter of factly and clear and concisely right if i so as you're working on these i think i just want to also kind of add to the ask regarding procurement activities just having i think quarterly is it could even be sort of every six months or so just sort of what

are the overall summary of of the activities, what are like the key contracts that are being awarded compliance risk sort of stuff that you're seeing and then upcoming initiatives that you are looking at and what are the procurement activities that would be coming up as it relates to that? i think it would just be helpful because i think that as we have moved from doing the the work versus contracting it out and there are a lot of contractors there's a lot of activity going on and i think it would be helpful just to sort of get a global look maybe every six months or so just saying okay, let's just look at a summary how are they doing what are the key metrics? are there any issues coming up? any risks that are going on and then sort of like what is that next group going forward if we could kind of start with that and go from there? i think that would be also really helpful and i'd like to do that every six months if you don't mind and if you find that

six months doesn't work for you then you can let me know and we can change that cadence. >> i think that seems fine to do it every six months or so. yeah it does. >> i mean especially since we're we're the attempt is is seeking to while day to day activities are obviously going on while there is very meticulous attention being paid to the ongoing work that we have just been discussing that this body is being utilized for the global conversation we could be having about systems programs, services writ large for the authority issues writ large for the authority that we can have on the top of our minds because what we we are slowly moving out of is reactive modes successfully we've been moving out of reactive modes even though there's a lot to react to these days which i'll ask a question about shortly but it is good to see us moving in this direction so that we can pay attention to very particular areas that

allow the authority to move forward and we can pay attention to those particular areas that cause concern in the authorities progression towards realizing the performance levels that would be recognized by hud. so i think those are great ideas. thank you. thank you. thank you. yeah. just a follow up on that training. i know we have some consent agenda items to move through shortly and quickly from a budget perspective, can you share the conversations to date that that you're aware of that you're observing that have a financial material financial impact or potential impact of the authority that should monitoring during this time? >> i know there's a lot of questions about that and just to remind us and center us again in what our annual

process is like, what the conversations in washington are that you're paying attention to . >> so the one thing that i am paying attention to is just ensuring i want to say this from a day to day perspective that we are operating well and we are making sure that we're paying the subsidy that we need to pay and doing the day to day operations while paying attention to the many things that are being stated at the dc level. and so what we really are paying attention to is the appropriation bill at the house and at the senate. the level of funding that housing authorities will receive it to date it's either 97.5% or 88 point i think 6%. so we're really unaware of what level of budget that we're going to see.

>> and so while we are we can't i can't give any concrete answers and tell that appropriate bill is actually passed. we are i can say that we continue to receive our subsidy as been committed by hud. we have been able to touch bases with everyone that we need to that we have been in on a regular basis. so we have not had any miscommunication actions whatsoever. so i'm really thankful for that at the at our regional level or at the washington dc level we have gotten everything that we have needed and they continue to engage us as normal and if we have questions our questions are being answered to our day to day operations to the best of everyone's ability. so as we continue to learn more information we'll share that out and we again like always

generally we don't receive a new budget letter until about april or may. >> so again we are we're waiting and we can and we are again receiving everything that we have been committed to receive as it relates to our budget at this moment in time. so right now from a perspective of operation business as usual and any time that we have a significant change we will talk about that and like any time where we realize that change could potentially happen even not during these precedent precedent at times we've always looked at our finance is we're always preparing and doing predictive modeling around what potential income will come or not come. so we continue to do that work and are confident at this

moment in time that we can move forward in the ways necessary until such time we're told differently. >> thank you very much. and just to the staff at hud that have been very supportive in conversations to ensure the financial stability and consistency of programs. >> thank you for having those conversations. >> all right. we go for public comment and item number seven on the report . >> i don't see any closing public comment for item number seven. item eight is the committee report commission, linda, which is to give a quick report on the last week's february 18th committee meeting. >> yes, absolutely. the committee met on the 19th at 1815. they were 2 p.m. there were three items on the agenda which were discussed and forwarded to the full board for approval. they're quick enough.

>> thank you commissioner linda any public comment? item number 810 the committee report not seeing any. we can close off a comment item nine for the consent agenda. i'll just state all five consent items first and then commissioners can pull any further discussion if they choose this to include item number nine a for the commission regular meeting minutes of january 23rd 2025 item nine b the commission special meeting minutes of january 31st 2025 item number nine c resolution approving and authorizing the chief executive officer of the housing authority the city and county of san francisco to enter into an agreement with d c construction for the authority's public housing capital improvement vacant units at plaza east for an initial one year term with the option that the authority discretion of an additional one year period for a maximum term of two years in an amount not to exceed $2 million. item nine d is the resolution approving and authorizing the chief executive of the housing authority of the city and

county of san francisco to enter into a housing assistance payment contract with mercy housing of california for the housing project located at 607th street for a total not to exceed 23 project based vouchers and item nine e resolution approving and authorizing the chief executive officer of the housing authority of the city and county of san francisco to enter into amendment number one to contract 20 dash 0008 with mrs. jeanie o'connell or mdo for financial audit services to ratify exercising the option for year four for 2023 exercise the action for your five for 2024 and increase the contract amount for an additional $400,202 for years one and two from 2020 and 2021 year four 2023 year five 2024 for audit services with a cumulative not to exceed value of the contract for $938,382. >> what can i do for any of these items for further

discussion just one quick question just to reconfirm that item c regarding d c construction for capital improvement of vacant units that was discussed in substance committee, correct? >> yes. great. thank you. if there's no additional commissioners comment on the consent agenda we can open for public comment that we can close off a comment and ask for a motion for approval approval of the consent agenda. >> motion to approve and a second i'll second thank you roll call vote commissioner pike's high commissioner cam commissioner lindo i am president taurus so move. >> thank you. item ten is for any additional commissioners comment or report commissioners any additional comments thoughts observations queries poems songs. >> all right. haikus are hearing none. thank you again similar issue

for for for the work. not only that is particular but also that it's quite holistic and substantive. congratulations again on moving the items forward with bell for the properties at sunnydale and potrero. >> truly truly a wonderful a wonderful feat to make sure that our residents are best served at those sites. thank you for the constant communication with those impacted and for the recent meetings that we've had with supervisors regarding properties within our portfolio that are of interest to supervisors and of course to us and to all of you, thank you so much. >> move to adjourn. time is 5:21 p.m.. thank you

♪♪ >> san francisco! ♪♪ >> this is an exhibition across departments highlighting

different artworks from our collection. gender is an important part of the dialogue. in many ways, this exhibition is contemporary. all of this artwork is from the 9th century and spans all the way to the 21st century. the exhibition is organized into seven different groupings or themes such as activities, symbolism, transformation and others. it's not by culture or time period, but different affinities between the artwork. activities, for example, looks at the role of gender and how certain activities are placed as feminine or masculine. we have a print by uharo that looks at different activities that derisionly performed by men. it's looking at the theme of music. we have three women playing

traditional japanese instruments that would otherwise be played by men at that time. we have pairings so that is looking within the context of gender in relationships. also with how people are questioning the whole idea of pairing in the first place. we have three from three different cultures, tibet, china and japan. this is sell vanity stot relevar has been fluid in different time periods in cultures. sometimes being female in china but often male and evoking features associated with gender binaries and sometimes in between. it's a lovely way of tying all the themes together in this collection. gender and sexuality, speaking

from my culture specifically, is something at that hasn't been recently widely discussed. this exhibition shows that it's gender and sexuality are actually have been considered and complicated by dialogue through the work of artists and thinking specifically, a sculpture we have of the hindu deities because it's half pee male and half male. it turns into a different theme in a way and is a beautiful representation of how gender hasn't been seen as one thing or a binary. we see that it isn't a modest concept. in a way, i feel we have a lot of historical references and touch points throughout all the ages and in asian cultures.

i believe san francisco has close to 40% asian. it's a huge representation here in the bay area. it's important that we awk abouk about this and open up the discussion around gender. what we've learned from organizing this exhibition at the museum is that gender has been something that has come up in all of these cultures through all the time periods as something that is important and relevant. especially here in the san francisco bay area we feel that it's relevant to the conversations that people are having today. we hope that people can carry that outside of the museum into their daily lives.

[music] ily lives. >> hi. thanks for coming today. really appreciate you coming out. this idea of a round table actually i have been wanting to do for many years especially it talk with fellow veterans. i'm excited for today.

we get into it. if you guyings could introduce yourself to the group. and how you came to which finds that recruiter or you know how to finds that dotted line and put up your hand for the oath. alex. >> i'm alex, u.s. army, i joined the military because i came from a heritage my family in the military it was just normal for me to. i enjoy it serving in the military. that was a reason why to keep it in the family >> how long du serve. >> 11 years. >> nice. you are in now. >> still active duty. >> great. >> thank you. how about you, tanner. >> i'm tanner, i was at the marines and i did 5 years

2013-2717. i always knew i uponed to be in the military. like alec we have family members navy, army and all the above. i figured i would go in this one. and yea i did 5 years. and it was amazing. iel >> you were take being pictures or video? for when i was there triple circumstance forefronting i marine corp tv serious. we were doing like documentary work, right. so -- we would cover like the first female infant real marines covered on the east and first female assault [inaudible] as well. where they work on the big man

escaping my. the triple aman b. covered the training they did, being able it deadweight lift, 168 pounds out of the av. everything that we did. [laughter]. so. it was incredible y. when i was in the navy my last 2 years in, i was electronic technician i worked on radar and gps stuff. and you know they called me twijet, tweak and adjust it. i actually [laughter] was interested in film make thanksgiving was in 99 in 2000. my last deployment i wanted to make videos. and so i started my friend and i the other guys, mo japanese and

chinese guy started a show on the ship. mtv, tom green. and going making people answer stupid questions. and like, um. ... something like that. and that's how i learned everything and within our own ship and love and you make a montage of the ship's prescription and like that. it is how i started other than being a kid and filming stuff that's how i became a film maker. opposite of when my job was. [laughter]. that is awesome. keep the ship's entertainment with young -- >> we would do like mtv cribs style. on the ship. and so people would be this is

where i sleep on the missile and stuff like that. and the air dents the guy who is flew the helos found a smoke machine and smoked it out and come out of it. [laughter] stuff like that. [laughter]. tax dollars. [laughter]. awesome. cool. jimmie how about yourself. i'm jim and he how i got enters old union square soldiers and joes ping. this is neat. and i gay man this is cool. next year i'm at the national guard unit signing up and taking my oath. when i got to the fortmy first night i said what have i gotten myself in. i joined because i love my country and i will serve and survived i'm proud of being a

vet republican serving my counsel row. how long du serve. >> national guard 83-89. quarter master and i took a leave in 83 due to illness. >> chris how about yourself. >> my father was in the korean war, had a bronze star and purple heart. my uncle in vietnam. he was aef missile maintenance worked on the hawk missiles. and so, i decided to follow the tradition and i went in the u.s. army. from 1982 to 2002. spent 20 years. and my time was over in bosnia. that was an eye opener for mow. i seen children wound in the combat from the mines and all

that stuff placed is there. it is it affected me. in a way of what are we dog in this world. and but i enjoyed serving my counsel row like my father and uncle and -- and -- it was a good tour. >> nice. >> myself, i think i have a different story. i actually just did not get long with my dad at all. you know all through high school he was kicking me out and staying with friends and stuff like this. i had this mentor from like the boys and girl's club in china town in san francisco. he was in the navy and got out. and for some reason, i thought that was my only out to get oust house or whatever. you know not really well off as a family.

did not have the opportunity to go to a 4 year school. and did not understand school, either. the grants and what not. when i heard like college fund g. i. bill and this stuff. that is interesting. and obviously i think my friend he was like, if you want to be safe don't go marine or army and if you want adventure take navy. you seat world. i went in served from 97-03. stationed uss [inaudible] the destroyer and did my time we did 3 and one south pack got to see a lot of the world. on the ship a lot. and -- so -- just much different life than all my friends had. i wanted to ask how was like

that first moment few days of boot camp. for me, i admit i was by the time i got in bed may be 72 hours later i get off the bus i started crying. and like saying what the hell did i do here? even getting off the bus and everyone was shouting out numbers. real iegz everybody telling social security number and i was trying to mem rise mine on the bus. getting used to that atmosphere of yelled at a lot. how was this first few moments of boot camp am >> so traveling from san francisco is where i signed up to san diego, i done think about it we went occupy and stabilized and down and straight in the

unfortunately the group i was we were late for the drill destructors we got yelling off the bat. the first couple of moments. after that first week you know it basement new normal. it was great. >> and remoinldz me when did you join. 2013. >> okay. i want to gauge era was 97 they were able to touch you and, yea. >> and stuff like that. and [laughter] i heard 2013 did they toucher or yell. they were in the supposed to touch you. a little crazy. but you know it was all nothing was done maliciously it was done

for actual training. >> how about yourself >> boot camp for me -- it was too difficult but had hard times but i within down [inaudible] i enjoy today. i learned, lot about myself as a person going down there. but it was a good time. >> nice. chris? >> well when i went in it was they were allowed to work you over for pushups and sit ups and all this stuff sxf dropping you and -- i was my dad went through it i was like, i know i can do this. i rarely b dw pushups when i

left i was doing 40 pushups. >> they were allowed reach out and touch you but in the time frame they were adjusting to getting away from that. and they did in the do it in a way to be malicious. they did it as a training thing. and i enjoyed it. i liked it. >> yea. >> it it is like a -- if everyone is suffering together it created a bond. you know. the command. there was a thing called ricky lane. ricky short for recruit and upon then stoims when we get in trouble everyone have to pull out their bunks out to the side

and we valid to exercise until the ceiling drips from condensation. you hear or see coming in yelling ricky rain! ricky rain! everyone is no. running trying to get water in them they know they will sweat it out and stuff like that. that was something i remember. >> how about you jimmie. >> i rhode to oklahoma in 83. we get in the camp and the gentlemen gets on the bas likes like lou from officer and gentlemen. says y'all got 30 seconds to get on my bus. i'm sitting there. everyone jumped up. what are you waiting for. i thought. no that was my big mistake. i thought. >> i said it was scary. the first night. what in the hell have i done?

i'm a gay man in the united states. they could not mess with you perform i said god give me my strength you will make it and it was a unique experience i was 32 when i went in called me grand pa. and thanks to discipline of the old school they grab you by the shirt. this one was good there. and it was unique experience. at 32 i learned how to grow up to survive. and reach out to your comrades to help each other that was the best responsiblesful knowing i'm serving my country when i go hope i still will by helping my fellow veterans. >> what were highlights or challenges you faced during. >> challenge was i was 32 years old most were 18. i'm thinking how will i make it. the first time we did a drill you gate the knapsack and 500

pounds of stuff you don't need and marching and said, mac. you owled hound you are doing it see that man up there. he said if i thought they would kick my tail he will not i will keep up. and it was young pep that encouraged me and i was able to encourage them saying that you guys are young and i'm older we need to work together. to me that was the idea of joining the service is making good friends and knowing you are look out for your country to have our freedom and go accomplices and do things. and -- when i put my uniform on i was a proud soldier. i had to take leave. u neefk experience i dolled it gwen if i had the chance to. >> one of the obvious challenge for me was coming from san

francisco as chinese-american and in the bubble. and going serving in the military and being exposed to everything new. my ship of 400 i was the only chinese guy there were 12-15 asian people in general. trying new things. seeing and trying new things. pig in a blanket the random normal things, meat loaf i never tried it until i was in the service. it was a hard adjustment at first. but i think as i got to the ship upon then you know you start creating the core friendships with people. whether in the trenches with you know your you know realistic

like i think -- somehow it got past the point of like whether you are black or white or brown or yellow and stuff like that. we are part of the same team and fighting for our country. it felt strong especially like a few moments where our ship was one of the first notoriety uss cole when they got bombed and when 911 happened. that was my 4 yearn verse row in the navy on that day, 911. it was like this everything changed at the moment but the same time everyone left and always got each other's back. felt like we can do anything. how about you alex? most challenging thing i had in the service was being in the navy air bourn.

[inaudible]. and for people who would not know what that means or what is this? so. the 82nd air bourn can deploy around the world in 18 hours or less. so with this type of you know background requires training and things like that. you know. a lot of operations and involved and just take a toll on the body but it is rewarding. which is cool. >> yea. that was the hardest in my career. >> wow >> that is awesome. >> chris? >> my first [inaudible] which a it was 16 weeks. went to school for electronics. and from there you how to fix missiles. and bradleys [inaudible] came out later.

from there i went to 101st airbourn and assault they had similar mission as 82nd they had to deploy within 18 hours. and we had just forces that were -- part of 101st. our group was stationed there. and it was eye opener. they have an incident in africa that jumped up and sent one of our teeps out in the africa with the infantry. and went out on this mission. >> dang, that's crazy. crazy how there is so much. other than seeing the movies how much like stuff we don't know upon what happened.

you know behind the scenes and like -- and -- obviously we are here. and we are here living our life and enjoying a cup of coffee on there is like so much crazy stuff going on. you know. it is amazing. tanner. >> the most challenging things that challenged mow in the mentally in the marines my last unit i was stationed combat service support schools. and we had i very small combat team. as a video. there are 3 of us. and out of the 3 we had we over the course of a little over a year and change, we covered every school in the marine, army

and anywhere the marines would train we would travel and do all that. and i think i put in like 14 or 1500 hours after work to get everything done for editting. you know always driving and moving. like that last year i did not have a life. but you know we got it done. [laughter] and -- yea. i money i loved the fieldoms. i don't know how you live on the navy ships. [laughter]. like ape mont and i was like never again. please. get me off this ship. but yea. i think working with the triple s was the hardest thing we had to do. everybody with the normal job you get off and you are done with us behind the scenes is

always editting and working. yea. it instilled really good what it is called? discipline. [laughter]. yea. >> key word. >> yea. >> i think even just some people are like discipline wise, some are surprised like to me like when i show up early to things. and not like on time but early. like today you showed up early they are like. of course. he is a veteran. for some reason most people it is like you know being late is okay or on time is okay but in our mind set being on time is not okay. have you to be early to everything. so you can see that. jimmie can i ask if you as a gay

man, did you have challenges being in the military? i know like that whole era of when don't ask don't tell was happening. >> i say when i went in there, it was tough. but i said i made my choice. nobody else. i said if i become out it would be the biggest embarrassment my grant father was navy and brother was vietnam vet republican. i can't do that. i will dot best i can. one thing helped break the ice. will somebody finds out. back then they could beat your ass or the commander will walk up and say you are out we don't want your kind. one experience we did camouflage. we had a drill sergeant. your best friends and times you wanted run the other way when they locked at you. and this one said, we am do

camouflage i had the perfect person who will help us out i said, oh , shit, he said mr. san francisco, i said hum. you have something to sigh. no, sir i don't want to go to the brig. i said no , i can't out of respect to let you know because people come from san francisco okay -- when i within to another i did schooling a guy come over and said you know we need to have a talk. i said did i do something. be open with me. okay. yes , sir. cool. that's all i want to know. i thought but i feel the tension i want you to know i admired and respect you. when you put your uniform on you took pride and being a gay man. that is amazing. i said it is sad this people judge because of what you do

behind closed doors they judge when you do in public that's when they did they judged mow in public doing good. and when i was in my national guard unit i took pride the minute i put this uniform on. the commander recognize today and appreciated when they needed somebodieen though i was quarter master they need me the kitchen i was there. and share this last store. i was on weekend maneuvers in san francisco during fleet week the commander said i need you. using stainless steel trace. i'm getting red it scoop potato a blue angel flew under the golden gate bridge. that was unique experience and i got sick with hiv and commander said if anything in my powers to

change things i would. excuse me i get emotional you were one of the best quarter masters this unit had. you respected soldiers before than i grab things. you taught them respect and dignity. that was part of the training i got from the military. respect. respect all your fellow americans. that's why i'm proud to be a veteran. >> amazing >> thank you. >> thank you. >> i got a story. there is in 85 when beirut was bombed. they called 101st out. we lost in the infantry unit when the plane went down when the alert came up, we were all jumping around and getting gear and stuff ready. and they looked and like, where

is tex. tex was the soldiers that was with us. worked [inaudible]. [inaudible]. and like where is tex? and opened up and found tex in the [inaudible] and -- [laughter]. hello. come on. the locker that is i good one >> [laughter]. >> so i asked everyone if you could bring something to share with the group and share why it has significance to you. what is special and share a store beit and stuff. how about we start with alex? can you share with us when you brought today. >> so i receive third degree coin [inaudible] my commander

because i was playing an important role in the operation we did. in 2019-2020. wow. got this for if will a great role there. >> how does this make you foal. >> i felt great because it was not expected. and you know it made mow feel i was a part of the 82nd at that time. it felt great to receive this coin. >> cool. >> wow >> amazing. >> can you describe what is on there. >> it is basically it is our panters this is the panther logo here. you got [inaudible] 2p... and the operations we have been on. >> that is neat.

amation perform awe some. thank you. tanner? how about yourself? >> i have my camera. cool. the reason why i like have this and it is always reminds me of my service. when i joined for cam bat camera they never gave me the photo video roll. if the military if they finds out you are good at something they don't teach you the rest of it. [laughter]. i was actually i work in the the first year in change a print master. i would take all the other photographer's photos and print them up and almost nay and that other stuff. i critiqued the hell out of them. until they sent mow in the field with my own camera i bought a sony. and had to prove myself. i always shot sewn still do. and i'm really proud i had the

prove myself and you know out did the other trained marines. awesome. >> jimmie? >> okay the one i forgot to bring was one of our late members arch wilson he served during world war ii. and gave me his sergeant in arm's pin. it was the ribbon and the sergeant of arms and the one part fell off i gota glue it back. and something else october fourth we feel had an event in this build nothing this wool invited 200 visiting people for fleet week and meet them and did a group picture and the end, commanders came up to me and saidom behalf of the uss vincent we like to present this to you. and if you like to see that.

the heard vicinity evervennes 8 the uss. it was know honor i will carry this to the day i go it men a lot. some stay is just i coin. men to you a coin but to veteran its is special and it is meant to give honor. and i get -- when you look back you say i remember when this happen third degree day and got to meet wonderful veterans. >> chris. um -- i got a lot of coins when i was in this one i got from commissioner wilyom barnacle veteran affair's commissioner for san francisco. >> wow. i was having a hard time with homelessness and trying to

survive in san francisco on 1200 a month. that was my military retirement. sword to plow shares got me in a place and i went up from there and guardualy built back up and got my benefits and i was suffering from both upon mental and physical disabilities. and commissioner barnacle when he gave this to me, its got his commissioner on it and his nameful integrity first and service and excellence in all we do. that -- i tick that to heart. this means a lot to me. so. he is airforce veteran. and what i liked most is this

veterans coming together whatever branch they are in coming together and doing good things for the community and doing things for other veterans. it means a lot. so. that's what this means i carry it with me every where i go. >> thank you for sharing that. >> great, wow. i brought a picture. of my family. and this was from 2001 fleet week we came to san francisco. the first time they ever came on my ship my mom, dad, brother and his wife and my grand pa. and it had ash lots of significance to me because -- you know they honest low did not know anything about what i was doing had no clue other than movies.

right. and you know having this really bad relationship with my dad it kind of put something new in him that saw me on the ship working with the people like being responsible for millions of dollars of equip. right. and you know this was literally the first time he said he was proud of mow this time he visited. we were not a family that says like, i love you or what a good job thing, you know. the first time he said that to me. it meant a lot. and it is like this moment of weird. this moment of like not being accepted by my family but being like almost accepted as if like i was a true american feeling. because like growing up it is like balancing 2 cultures you know. and so but having them like a small family of chinese people

walking through a ship with the others and everyone is wondering, what is going on. but then all the sudden they also felt proud to be an american, too much being in this country as well their son was serving for the country and stuff like that. it was like a really, really great moment just having them see what i do and -- yea. and you know. forever that just this memory is just will be with me forever. joy like to comment on this photograph. it moves me. i'm an emotional people it moved me. i never met this gentlemen. shared the story how dad said, i accept you. you are a veteran and serving. that is moving, today e approximately in the gay community there are fells that you are gay, get out of here. i'm thankful my family accepted me and i relate this where his father get out.

but when you put this uniform on it opened his eyes. i just thank you for sharing that. i wish every family could be like that. that is my goal. if you are a veteran your family should accept you. thank you for share thanksgiving with us this means a lot >> the tough part of adjusting that to and it is wored for mow to say civilian life i feel like a civilian but i'm not and i am but get back to civilian life we are used to this structured life. you know having food cooked for us and having the medical bay ready for us. and knowing when we will do from literally 8 a.m. to sick p.m. every day and stuff. so,mented hear that it -- if it was how was this transition back to civilian life? >> when i came back home it was

interesting because -- they had not passed the don't ask don't tell. i was living in the castro 4 our 407, 17th street. il live my life. if that is how you knoll is your problem. i served prud low. one thing i noticed i went it golden gate park helecopter came. i doe to the trees. got out of basic training. got it. it was neat. i was still very gung-ho. what is wrong with him. he came out of the military. how du survive. you learn to keep your mouth shut and go with thefully. now we say what we want.

i think one thing that bothered me a bit was you go to a store or something and say, do you give discount for veterans. it is amazing the number of people are appalled why shoe get special treatment. excuse me? we served our country we are entitled. people say, glad to have you here. others look at you like, i say, you know it it is sad. i served my country you can do things like that, that's okay. that's okay well are men good people that appreciate us veterans. once i realized i'm here and people will accept me or not and i said, you accept me that's cool. again until i got sick and i had to take early leave i put my uniform on every among. went to san mateo unit served

and came home and live aid normal life. as normal as could be. [laughter]. chris? 20 years in and retiring -- i'm still wing on getting back. because -- you get in that military mind set. you look at like i go back to my mentor. and i have flash backs of seeing the kids in the situation they were in and it affected me. a lot and so it is taken akwhiel. i have ptsd and depression

because of physical injuries. would i do it again? i would. because it is for my country. >> amen to that. >> yea >> and to get in more like for me, the doctor said i had ptsd it was adjustment disorder. it was like going to a new environment, new setting and trying to hard to figure out how to do that. for you like -- was it something you seeked out help for or something. >> absolutely. absolutely. i it was not until i got to san francisco, because -- well, let me go over the story. after i retire friday the service i moved up to virginia and hired as a senior logistic's

engineer because of my electronic background. and worked on turrets as well. so when i was there, i was around military people and the marines and colonel talked to me and asked me, brad low have a manual site. i said, yea. how committee did not put one on [inaudible]. near the marines. i was like because an over look today and messed up. that was in the my exact words but. he appreciated that because i was honest with him. and they went become at this time drawing boarded and took care of that problem. they were trying to get marine updated equipment. i will felt like -- i did feel

before seeking help and -- it was not -- i don't know a weird thing like i know a lot of my friends had suffered a lot of mental health problems and hearing what they were going through. i felt bad for them. i never thought that -- whatever i was going through was as series as what they were. i never thought i should get help. and so i think once the doctor gave me a diagnose it was more accepting and found help and got help. before this i was trying to avoid it. or at least not name it. i don't know. >> to go on top of this. it is a military thing inspect general where they teach you to

not seek help. if you are seen at the medical office you are weak. >> yea. >> unfortunately that's the modo but at the same time, sloulth you should reach out. it will not make you weaker. >> i didn't get much treatment until 7 years after i was out. a diagnosed me with migraines and it was but -- later down the road i knew i needed help for the other things going on with flash backs and different things like that. once i got to san francisco i got this help. san francisco has the best va out there. and they to being me to and i had a personality disorder.

i was not used to hearing that. i went to the different programs they got for mental health and it helped me to come out of the shell and become in society and stuff like that. and appreciate being around my fellow veterans and not worrying about this is coming back in my mind and stuff. and it is helped me grow and move forward and move on. with my life. and helping other vet residence get through it, knowing veterans coming out of the service. not prepared because they were not briefed ahead of time. when you are in face at this

time out tempo is like really strong. we work 18 hour days. 7 days a week and you are programmed. into that. coming out it takes awho i to decompress. decompress and get become to normal life with your fellow people in the country. >> yea. fellow citizens >> i'm glad you got that help, years ago my company wanted to send me to a psychiatrist because of homo sexuality. i'm glad you receive third degree help and there are people oust there this need help. we'll talk about this we need to start reaching out to the people approximate. sometimes people were afraid to ask. don't be afraid to reach out.

anything we can do as a fellow veteran. get medical help. talk with somebody that will help you. i'm glad you were able to get this treatment you deserve it as a vet wan ran and personful i'm glad you are doing better. >> thank you. jowl are welcome. >> great to hear. >> alex i know upon it is different for you you are in serving now but. i still struggle. [inaudible] the [inaudible] what i have been through or is going through. will you know tough to slope and stuff like this. and always red ready to go even if we don't have to do anything it is always there in the mind. it could be difficult you know, transitioning back to civilian life.

can you can be in the service still [inaudible]ful i can only imagine transitioning to full time civilian. is it an active is it is more talked about now. as far as take careful mental healing >> especially from everybody's time in the service it changed a lot. but i will say, you know, it is broefed to you but you have to you know push yourself as well, to get the treatment as well. i will say sometimes, those things are then out to a soldier or service member. it is briefed to get help if you need it. [inaudible]. >> yea. >> it helps with other veterans you know to see that.

and they reach out. i don't know if everybody knows, congress is mandated through law that we reach out to all veterans and make sure that they get a chance to if they need benefits they get them. and -- so it is roaching out to veterans and trying to there is one veteran that would not and he slept in the train station in powell street. he wanted nothing to do with society. and they tried everything they could to get him to come in but -- >> yea. just it was sad. and i don't want to leave a veteran behind. because they did in the leave me in combat. they did not leave me when i was going throughout training next

to them of everybody was hey, let's pick him up and bring him along. and -- that's the biggest thing about vet republicans and the bond we got is because it is a team player. and -- you help one another get through what you are going through. >> yea. i had i friends that he was sharing to me it was tough because you know he was doing these group therapy sessions with other veterans. it felt not weird but there is impostor syndrome. you feel you don't belanguage there. like hoe is probably in this group with other vet republicans that lost a limb or severe and

he is more depressed but feel like he belonged being injured or having something wrong with him. and like so sometimes, when other veterans can talk to each other and rbi violet each other and share their story whether how good, bad or worse it is you are going through that. everyone is going through their own journal and he it is very different. but we all deserves to get help and because what we sack filesd and done for our count rope and stuff. it it is hopefully they can offer the service but it is for us to go in there and get the service. but we have to try to share that you know whether it is how easy or accept today is or not like something this makes you weak or something this is like you know, a bother some for others. because you might feel like i

can do it on my own i don't want to bother my mom or dad to take me. we want to try to make sure everyone is okay. you know. >> yea. >> i got my e mill from merge legion headquarters and love they reminds you, dot calling tree. that is where if you have not seen you in i couple weeksil call and you -- don't be afraid i'm sorry i need to be by myself. that's fineful let them know. sometimes i seen people are like they feel nobody calls you. why should i live? we all ishmael live and be able to have somebody we say i will call and you weville coffee. talk about when you need to talk about to get it off your chest. sometimes we are like a few minutes to talk to somebody. that can be a life changing experience knowing that somebody took time to care for me.

that is important. we need to have every vet republican to call the v. a. and not put on hold for 5 months. you need help you should go in today and immediately get treatment. and there is no reason why we can't do this. i wish there was a way i could go to congress and kick tail and tell them. look you need to get your act together the people served their counsel row. they came home. my brother came home as a heroin addict from vietnam if you were not buzzed by 9 in the morning you did not survive. they needed the help and should not be denied the help. never if there was a way to make that bill effective immediately no veteran would be turned away for anything. >> i will show that you bill. it is in there what we need to do is let people than it it is in there. >> i done know this.

you tuesday today. i'm learning. them is important. get together and talk you pleasure you share and that's how you roach out to help others. i thank you for this. >> yep >> absolutely. >> very important. >> your approximation you know i have been watchingior passion with when you were speaking to 200 veterans navy veterans and the airforce. marines -- you can see this in your voice how you are caring. and they seen that. and that let's them know, hey, we are taking the time and moving on and we got people back here that supports us. that is so personal >> thank you that was think honor. let them know i know most of you are many miles away from home. you are on active duty we want to make sure you know we are

your family today and step and up be family for every veteran 365 days a year. >> i like to see more. >> yep. veteran is veterany when you get deployed you christmas time. you are not home with your family you are on the battle field. >> uh-huh. >> and knowing that somebody is back here that got your back. and stuff like that is important. >> yep >> when could we say let's say for alex still serving, what could we say or advice for him as far as like taking care of his mental healing or even. one day i don't know soon or later you will get out of the service. what is like advice we learn said mental health we can pass on to alex? >> i think you should be able to

go in and see the if you are having depression or having a moment, you should be able to go in to the tmc and be seen without having repercussions oh , he has depression electric at when hoe is doing. it is not like that. >> right. we can function and still do our jobs but have the depression and have ptsd. we need coping skills. >> you know. >> but we are still an active part of getting the job done and the mission done. and so that's what i would tell you is -- you know don't be afraid to go in and talk to them and say, tell them what is going on and stuff like this. or each your fellow veterans.

just get in a group. we used to -- play quarters and talk. after -- and but -- we never got too far gone with drinking. where we couldn't help our fellow veteran. and that comradery -- is you have it while you are in and you got it when you are out. we are here also. >> so. >> i recommend if you have access that you go years ago, if you said, you mention it, put this person at the end of the line buzz they are nuts. it is not we are nutings we have emotional problems. and being active person there is in reason why you should in the got on person and say, i'm

having a problem can we have a talk. you should have that instantly. because he went through a lot he was tough. got the help. i would not like to see you where you are like, they didn't care. no that should not being you are active they should take care of you immediately and retired vet residence should be no questions asked if you need help. get this instantly. absolutely. when you deny veterans this is a slap in the face to the veterans in the country. i had a friends this every veteran should have free medical and go it dental. i echo that. every veteran who serves free

medical. period. >> and one more thing. we heard in the news people come to the country flowing from country the persecution and they are willing to serve our country. by god if you take your head and swear an oath to the country i think you should become a citizenship. it is sad we see you served now it is up 3 them back that is wrong if you are willing to serve of the cubs row this country for the military by god the minute you take you were hand and say, iup hold, you say, yes i'm a citizen. and that law should be in ascii. and if there was a way to get this law enacted today i would be so happy. i seen where families are torn apart you did your job, get out. you served this country and deserve to stay and be a citizen immediately. >> yep. i see that.

>> >> so it has been more recent since i have been out in 2017. transition is ridiculous. you gentleman from having absolutely your entire life is schedule and maintained you don't think you will just do it. and then you show up in the civil yen world and everything is different. everybody islet. it is like -- [laughter] not like you don't have to show up exactly on that specific time. but like even now i still show up early to things. i thank you is helps me as a person. remember but mriek you always still carry that sense of urgency and the stress this come with temperature you manage it now and talking to the psychiatrist and getting help is something that is a necessity.

dwro especially you know we are coming out of covid this hit everybody hard. i'm still coming become with my social skills you don't talk to anybody for 2 years. especially in the civilian side and going to college. you know that was really rough. a rough time. i got help through that. and that is -- is needed. so funny enough in the marines

we called the psychiatrist. to me like a no-no word. they are loishg, no, no, no don't talk about this stuff. we called them wizards. [laughter] they do magic. [laughter]. yea. when we have like our marines and when i picked up sergeant i tried talk to my marines to get them help of the prior they were not like that. you know they would almost see everything in the opposite to keep you away from medical or psychiatrists or anything. it is not a sign of weakness. it is more a sign strength on you. you are able tom recognize that -- something is off and i need help. and lastly the last question, and thank you for sharing i know it is a tough but accepted topic to talk about. if we are not experts and don't know how to talk about mental health it is a great conversation to have. especially hearing from fellow veterans. lastly, so, knowing what you know now, y'all experiences good and bad, would you do it all over again? yes. absolutely. >> in a heart beat >> yes. >> i think so, too.

>> i think i always say, there were a lot more negatives than positives but came out a better person. and you know and something like that, i -- would have -- something you can't take away and like -- i could not imagine myself my life if i never went in. and served i feel like you know -- of course there will be negative with every experience whether college, marriage, you know different chapters in your life but what you learn from it or who you met. and friendships and all the things that all of the other positives. we pay attention to negatives this sticks with us more. but would do it again. anyone elsement to comment. i would do it again the u neefk part of i went in as an old man.

[laughter]. so after -- [laughter] and grandpawhat are you doing. i love the wardrobe and the -- accommodations and meal is wonderful. bring me ring the bell in the morning. >> and -- it was a unique experience i thought i'm not going to maker it. i said to myself. you made the bed you slope in it. i said i will be determined to do that. of the discipline part was ease the old days i will knock you overwhelm if you electric at me crosside. physical was tough. i did it. the one thing i was glad when i got to virginia, my pt got cut due to age. all them pushups and sit ups. it was u nobodying and i got to be platoon guide. and i was still they claim i had

to promote. i will share you learn how to do marching my first day i learned. move them over am turn them right. i could not remember platoon halt. i'm like stop. and my first start dpoog. -- the next day they made me do drill time for 3 hours i know it properly now. it was a unique experience and would gladly do it again. i love my country and u unique. when i went to -- still fortlee? i wake up and step on the floor my feet were numb. i went to the doctor and he said

we will see what is wrong. when i step it is numb. okay. he turns what is this there. took a cigarette lighter. ouch. this is better. no you don't have put your boot become on and get to class. my first few weeks of boot camp they gave mow the wrong prescription gla glasses they are called bc, birth control glass they are so thick. and [laughter] first few weeks i kept 3ing up and would not fix t. deal with t. then they told me one day i broke it. i need to glasses and they if i canned my prescription. ridiculous. chris.

would you do it over again? i would definitely do it over again. and hinds sight is with me, there is a few things i would do different. i got the special force course and all that stuff. because of car accident i had there was an alert and i come on a curb and 2 hill billys -- parkod that side of the road headlights on and had to veer right and hit a dumpster. 2 of them. and my old 41 end of the car was smashed up. i was going in an alert first and that hit this affected me. i did not realize how bad until san francisco v. a. got a hold

of me and now they are looking at tv guys and all that stuff. i would do it over again >> yea. alex? >> aloment of things i would you know wish could have done as well. like. [inaudible] [cannot understand speaker]. jumping with what i wanted to do and do it. >> yea. >> [inaudible]. >> how about you >>. absolutely i would in a heart beat. like the physical stuff that was my favorite. right going in the field and a month out with guys pouring rain you near north carolina. and rains more than you have sun. you live next to the swamps.

but -- you know that was my favorite. being out outside with other marines or other military always working. like you know the civil yen lifestyle that is a thing that changed. i could not go out and keep working and will doing all the stuff now we are on sets. you know dealing with fake lighting all day. you go in the dark and leave when it is dark. and i miss the sunlight. yea. yea. do it gwen in a heart beat. >> one last. what was it like the minute you jumped out of the plane the first time? >> i have been curious. >> i was on a rope. >> okay. i'm sure i had a different experience for me -- i never had a problem my first time when we

were getting red to jump when they open the door this is scare you are don't know how the wind will be or your left laning will be. it it is i had a problem my legs would shake come when we moved that's when everything guess out the window and you know. once you jump out it is different. it is more calm and everything like that. but going on the ground is scary. >> wow. >> yea. thank you. thank you. >> thank you so much for coming today and sharing. appreciate it. i think likely all said need to roach out to veterans and you know to story a dialogue and you know have that excuse to say what is up and have a coffee or see how they and are check on each other from time to time and stuff like that and want to

really thank one voice for putting this getting you together and giving us a pace to film. appreciate them as well. so. thank you, guys. >> thank you. >> head's autopsy look out for each other. when i leave i go to the store and get my post member cough syrup. this is reaching out he said you know i always have been take care of others and forget to take care of myself. his 47 said, call jimmie. don't say i hate to brother you. it is in brother you pick up the phone and call me i will go to the store and get you cough medicine that's what i like to see more dot acts. kindness. thank youenge here for being here and the production staff it was an honor. thank you very much. >> thank you, guys. >> [music]

. welcome everyone to the our city our home oversight committee. it's january 23rd, 2025 and we're going to start with a call we're going to call this meeting to order so we'll start with roll call. >> thank you chair williams vice chair de antonio