also my father-in-law is in chinatown sro, too. my father-in-law's building had this bed bug infestation. when he goes to bed, all the bed bugs come out at night. so he got bitten pretty badly all over the neck, the head. he reported to the manager. the manager just did a real routine thing about the bed bugs. so my father-in-law went to chinatown cdc for help. so that was brought to the attention of the health department. so he couldn't even sleep well at night. so we are really hopeful that the legislation will help people to understand how they are treated and get better. we are living in a pretty bad situation once you have bed bugs. so we hope that we could get this legislation done really fast, so things will get better for us. we thank the supervisors to put such an emphasis on improving the environment for us. thank you. >> thank you. i'm going to call up a couple more name cards. [ reading speakers' names ] >> good afternoon supervisors, thank you, my name is jorge potio, a lifetime resident of san francisco and i want to

the central city sro collaborative represent people living in tenderloin and south of market. chinatown covers that part and part of north beach. also families united, a citywide collaborative that works with families with children below the age of 18 of which there are about 1000 families year in san francisco that live in these buildings. the way that the sro collaborative first started back in the 1990s, there was a rash of serious building fires. it affected sro buildings in the communities around. back as we heard earlier, a lot of these buildings were constructed soon after the 1906 earthquake, old housing stock. a lot of deferred maintenance. a lot were built before some of the more stringent housing codes were adopted. there are a lot of challenges to these buildings that exist. they are older; they were built at a time when they were small, even the hallways are small. back to the fire. sro collaborative were established as a response to these fires. focus on organizing the tenants and trying to come up with solutions to keep fires like this from happening. one of the main thin

collaborative, senior action collaborative, we went out and we interviewed over 150 sro tenants who live in chinatown, mission, central city area, seniors, people with disabilities. we had a wide range of questions. it is focused on being a needs assessment. to see what sort of needs the population was facing so we could identify recommendations slowly work to implement those recommendations. we have a couple of other people who will speak about those things today. i will turn it over to jessica at this point to talk a little bit more about what the results of the report were and some of the recommendations that came out of that report. >> thank you. thanks so much to the council for having us here and thank you to joanna fraguli for coordinating this. it is exciting work. it is wonderful to get into it and we see a lot of potential for making positive changes. i will pick up where josh left us, talk about the survey and the results, and go through the series of recommendations leading to one civic recommendation that is now in legislation. the top concerns found in the survey were widespread, sadly.

example, the rate of children in poverty is five times higher than in chinatown many of these kids live in non-standard, eight by 10 sroits, because their parents can't afford to live in a standard housing unit. these kids very definitely need help with their muni fares. we support free muni for youth because we think it is something that is needed, and essential. we are not discounting the need for maintenance. but we do not believe that taking money away from the youth fare program would solve the problem. we believe there's a bigger discussion that should be taking place -- extensive muni maintenance programs, and that should not impact the youth fare. by putting a band-aid on the maintenance issue, we're just kicking the can down the road. and, finally, we think that it sends a wrong message, in terms of discouraging youth involvement in the democratic process. thank you. >> supervisor wiener: thank you very much. next speaker. >> so thank you. i'm jesse michael benjamin hughes mcauthor. i'm here to make a statement not to petition anything. the kids need free transportation but actually every citizen should get fr

the central city sro collaborative represent people living in tenderloin and south of market. chinatown covers that part and part of north beach. also families united, a citywide collaborative that works with families with children below the age of 18 of which there are about 1000 families year in san francisco that live in these buildings. the way that the sro collaborative first started back in the 1990s, there was a rash of serious building fires. it affected sro buildings in the communities around. back as we heard

in chinatown for example the norm is not to have a desk clerk. people buzz each other in. they're different than the sros we see in mission or tenderloing. people preferred like that when we talk to them; they felt that they are a tighter community. we need to get more input from people who have lived in the buildings and get to hear the points of view. by a large there is a lot of room for improvement in the training level that desk clerks have. one more thing. in order to follow fair housing laws and to make sure there is coverage through a 24-hour period, taking into consideration when people are sick and out for vacation, it becomes a large expense to a hotel; we anticipated that if we want to go forward with this, there will be a lot of pushback from building owners and people who will have to bear that cost in order to comply with those laws. >> yes, they build a community within themselves and they could monitor it themselves. a second thing is, the rent is outrageous for what you get. on the private ones, there is no subsidy allowed? how does that work, you know? to reduce the rent to like 30% of

in chinatown for example the norm is not to have a desk clerk. people buzz each other in. they're different than the sros we see in mission or tenderloing. people preferred like that when we talk to them; they felt that they are a tighter community. we need to get more input from people who have lived in the buildings and get to hear the points of view. by a large there is a lot of room for improvement in the training level that desk clerks have. one more thing. in order to follow fair housing