he said we would end homelessness. that is going to happen not because he said it or because i am here. that is going to happen because of the passion of the local people dealing with this all across the country. it is the people's passion that will make this happen. this is a difficult situation. it will be easy to turn a blind eye to it. it would be easy to ignore it. it would be easy to blame them. we could put a token effort or mandate on it to say we did something. or we can take this on as a national commitment. it is our call. it is your call. i think the fact that you are here today, the work you do every day, says a lot about who we are as americans and how we will continue to support those who have answered our nation's call. we do not owe this to the veterans. as you heard, it is not something they are entitled to. it is something they have earned. they have protected our freedom. in their time of need, we need to protect them and help them out. [applause] this national program is to make uthe call. sometime

that will not end homelessness. i have been part of trying to change that program to make it more robust around housing and not taunting shelter beds. -- and not counting shelter beds. >> moving on. >> i have already discussed the fact i do not think in san francisco we can do what mayor giuliani did in san francisco -- did it in new york. i say that as a former prosecutor who knows that would be impossible to find 12 people who would put somebody away for aggressive panhandling. this is why i support the committee justice center, moving forward with supportive housing, but i agree with john avalos, one of the real issues is expanding affordable housing. i am proud of my record of expanding affordable housing to the homeless veterans, seniors. just last night we passed a piece of legislation for transitional teenaged use. we passed legislation that we have to commit as a city to investing more, expanding all of our housing opportunities, and i am proud of the fact of the past year i have helped move forward the crea

homeless coordinator. region 21 encompasses northern nevada, all of northern california, hawaii, and guam. i want to make sure we have enough resources to end homelessness for veterans. i am proud to be here. i want to welcome all of you to our kickoff event. this is to help launch our national tick off event. the purpose of that is to make the public aware of all of the services available for ending almost as. there were 28 sites. to run the country. san francisco was one of those. they wanted us to do a kickoff event and let each site decide how they wanted to showcase their program. we got together and said we could not do this without our community partners. the purpose of the networking breakfast was to acknowledge the 30 or more community providers that are here today to help us figh homelessness and end it by 2015. that is the goal of the current administration. [applause] we had our breakfast this morning. people may still be hungry. there is coffee and other goodies. thank you to the salvation arm

they heard about this government's of homeless center to serve homeless veterans, and she took the time to come and to tore and see what we were doing at 13th and mission. i was a young social worker at the time, and i was very impressed, so thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. it is a personal pleasure to be here at the salvation army today. thank you so much for your hospitality. coming here, walking through, almost double-seen this a beautiful space came as a surprise, but how appropriate that it is here for our homeless veterans but i am honored to join the major. thank you mr. mayer for being such a great mayor of san francisco and your commitment to veterans. we're proud of the work that is done in the community here, and it serves as a good example nationally. bobbi is a wonderful person. her persistence in this i know has been paying off for our veterans and will continue to do so. i am pleased to be here with mark leno, another member of the official family in san francisco as well. thank you for your leadership. i join my friends in welcoming you, mr. secretary, dr.,

i was formerly homeless. i have worked in mother brown's kitchen, i worked in homeless tonight, i feed the homeless on wednesday evenings down on sixth street, and i worked in the food pantry every tuesday. and i speak a little bit of french. i know that is not handy in the shelter so much as spanish. other than that, are there any questions? that is pretty much what i have told you in the past. >> are there any questions? ok. can i ask what you would hope -- hope to accomplish? >> there are times when i was in the shelter, they weren't listening a lot, when i came up with suggestions and sometimes there are better suggestions than what is in place. i like to listen to people in here with they have to say, and if there is a way to do this better than it is being done, this should be in the year of somebody. i would like to make things better than they are, and whenever this takes, i would like to work at trying to make things better. and i want to do what i can to help. and i like the people on people connect

it should also help the homeless exit homelessness. i have done several things between the 10 meetings, feeding the poor and homeless, just a little bit of what i could. just to throw this out zero quick. i do not know if you have it. i did submit five letters. this is part of it. that is just one of them. this one is from several members of the local homeless coordinating board. the other one is martin depores. commissioner elsbernd: we have that one. >> i do not think i submitted this one, but this one is from david beale. he came and spoke on my behalf as well. i think the thing that i do parlay his pontificate about myself. [laughter] i am here, i have a lot of new and innovative ideas as to how we can make this shelter system better. i think it is radically needed. i think you need somebody that has had my experience of at least three years attending different meetings and being very vocal about how things could change and would be changed. i feel like i have studied a lot of the documents regarding it. i just really wonder if som

homeless connect but housing first. got in touch with people who cared about them. talked about what they needed and now are in long-term permanent housing. isn't that wonderful? that's the way to do it. it's not good moving people -- about moving people off the street or shuffling them from one corner to another, it's about care. it's about humanity. it's about how they do if right. and that's how we get people to look at their long-term future. if they're not caring about themselves and they don't think anybody else cares about them, we're lost. we're going to increase our homeless population. so we're doing it right. we've got to plan, the plan is in place. ten-year, plan and reflects our policy here in san francisco that is permanent housing, long-term care for people. that's how we involve ourselves as better human beings. thank you for being part of this great, great cause in our city. thank you for producing the wonderful hours you're going today. thank you for volunteering your work and also thank you for changi