with a master's degree, and homeless. not by my own oddness, but i have a unique situation in that i have been in the new york system of homelessness, and also san francisco. i have been in san francisco for 25 years, part of the bay area for 35 years. i have taught high school for 38 years. there is no reason i should be homeless. i did when i was supposed to do but it was the government -- the system here, it treats people very badly. i have seen very sick people waiting for it their bed. some people cannot walk, and some people are hungry, they are tired and depleted, and some of them do not get a bed. it is a sad thing to see their faces. i have been in the next door, and they sent me once to something called sanctuary, and i gave them the bed and said i would not sleep in this place, where the garbage and the beds are in the same place. and it smells like a pigsty. i was upset. next door is a little bit cleaner. some people who are there are a very mean to other people. they have been mean to the other people. [appla

i was a homeless advocate. i am a homeless advocate and i'm still living in the street. i don't have that job. i am back in the streets. this is sad. i got a salted for trying to get a bed i missed two minutes late for my past. i am back in the streets. guess what happened to me, i got rate, i got my jaw (town -- guess what happened to me, i got raped, i got my jaw broken. i got hard. there is a two years waiting list to get into the city council in. i need help now. >> thank you. >> i was in the military and i fought in desert storm. they told me to go for it. one thing that they want to say about being homeless, this is nothing fun. i work at fedex, i have a job and i'm sitting outside because i was kicked at the next door shelter. i was not even a client. i get off every morning it off of the concrete slab with a smile on my face. i wherewear diapers. i'm trying to get me and my dog off the streets. it is not fair. i worked at nighttime. i was kicked on to the streets for defending my wife. that is a lie and everyone knows it. i want to take a shower, i have to get up

i have been homeless for seven years. and for the seven years that i have been homeless, i have stayed most of the time -- this is a government place. i don't have very much experience in lying or dead, because i don't have the patience, and i know that the shelters are not very much safe for me. i have experiences as a four months ago. and so -- i prefer this -- i feel more safe. and so, i cannot offer very much about this because i did not experience that very much. and also, i sell flowers at night, in the north beach area so i can pay for my expenses. today i bring my flowers hoping that he will buy all of them so i did not have to go to work tonight, because i often finish work at 3:00 in the morning. i expect you to have a house -- so that my life will be better in the future. thank you. [applause] >> i am with the coalition of homelessness. i am angel, and i just want to speak in regards of dr. martin luther king and his memory. mr. lee said -- he became the mayor because of the memory of dr. martin luther king. i

according to the city's last homeless count, 53% of homeless people were experiencing homelessness for the first time. in the last homeless count, more than half, 55%, reported a disability. this is just to show you an example of just how many people are sleeping on the sidewalks because they are either choosing not to do the runaround that jenny just described -- a lot of them are seniors, disabled in wheelchairs, and the preference would be to sleep outside a reservation site, so the they will hopefully be one of the first few people to get a reservation. this is actually what is happening. this is 3:08 in the morning. this is what we saw. again, the line goes up and down. living outside complicates efforts to treat injuries and illnesses. these outcomes are disastrous. homeless people suffer preventable illnesses at three to six times the rates experienced by others. this is just one example of the health impact of what you just saw with people sleeping outside. again, they are choosing that because, typically, there are just one-night beds available. instead of going through the te

and as someone who personally has dealt with homeless veterans as a landlord reaching out to homelessterans programs to try to get them more standard and stable housing situations, i have seen it firsthand as a manager and an operator of facilities, small apartments to insure they be able to move through and get some housing. um, let me ask you if i can, and you made some comments to the chairwoman regarding what can the va do differently. do you think in your experience, and this is actually going to go also to you, linda, the same question, and that is, do you think the va has the capacity within their operations as an organization to do the services that are necessary? in other words, reverend, you make a very good point. i, when i was mayor, we worked with a lot of faith-based groups, and we put aside this whole debate over church and state because we had homeless individuals and veterans that we needed to deal with and had to solve the problem. >> yes, sir. >> and we were not interested in hearing the philosophical debates, we were more interested in hearing about what we could d

we have a homeless family team. we conduct three urgent care clinics at hamilton family emergency shelter. we serve both the emergency shelter and a six-month rooms. we also do health education for children groups. i also provide daily consultations for shelter staff, case management on client at health and safety issues. we do a weekly clinic and covers connecting point, which is also basically an urgent care clinic. as public health nurse, i am and medical adviser for the homeless family consortium to prioritize the families on the priority list for shelter rooms. hours shelter health and wellness program consists of dr. bourne, myself, and a registered dietitian with a couple of nursing students here and there. i also provide consultation on a daily basis to all the shelters on client and environmental health and safety issues. we do policy recommendations, staff training, provide materials. we are working on the emergency response is, hygiene and in the station, and primary care referral is a big part of our job

. -- homeless program. community agencies in fy 2011. to assess whether program funding was successfully aligned with a program priorities. when identified opportunities and made recommendations to strengthen congressional oversight. -- prevention and oversight. -- prevention oversight. to measure bed capacity and the needs services, to accurately report a outcomes report out -- report outcomes. and improved oversight of the providers participating i the program. we found vha lacked guidance for things expected fo homeless operations, such as female veterans living in transitional housing. almost 1/3 to not adequately address safety services. halls and stairs without sufficient lighting. female and male residents on the same floor without access restrictions. we also found that 27% of the program providers did not ensure the safe storage of homeless- medication. a review of dietary report services showed 12% of providers did not consistently offer adequate and meals that were nutritionally balanced inapprop

many of them are homeless or people living on the edge of being homeless. we are worried about that. it is is also important to point out that we are also looking at cutting, dropping services for homeless folks. this is happening at two different organizations for the proposal. one is a drop-in center that is specific to women. it stays open 24 hours and is a low threshold location to give women a safe place to stay at night, if they were not able to access our shelter system or find any other place to sleep at night. the other is central city hospitality houses drop-in center program. between the cuts proposed to those programs, we are looking at 571 people losing access to bathrooms, losing access to very basic services, like simple meals and snacks, and a safe place to rest. when homeless folks that are disconnected from other services lose this one very basic service at a drop-in center, this is something that we are all going to see an impact of. whether people living or working in the neighborhoods where they are, or whether they are people trying to

after that, at a hearing on homelessness among homelessness. and the agencies customer service. >> often "washington journal" -- we rewired for chan"washington" will talk to mike allen and evan thomas on their new e-book. we will take your questions and comments about the bullying in the nation's schools. it will be joined for the national center for education statistics. it is live on c-span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> this sunday, the u.s. senate youth program. >> i got the of attendee to meet both my senators appeared just able to meet them. >> he talks about how important it is to be financially sound. is it going to be worth it because we do not have any money? >> high-school students from 50 states participated in a leadership program. share their observations and experiences as they interacted with members of congress and the president. >> there's a lot of partisanship going on. i am the one who is reaching across the aisle. everyone we have met here has said that. that makes me wonder if there's a discrepancy between what they're

we have a lot of people complaining about homeless, a lot of tourist are complaining about the homeless. i want to know why this system is set up the way that it is. they need for-six months to get housing. i am wondering why the system is the way that it is and why it cannot be changed. we have neighbors coming complain of the homeless and we need to move beyond these lines and have been accessible system. we need one that is fair, humane, and equitable parent to we don't want people paying rent for shelter beds and being cast aside. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am a former shelter resident, i am a former member of the shelter monitoring committee. the contracts between the shelter providers should be based on bed occupancy, not bed availability. what i mean by that is that you are paying shelter providers the same amount of money if they have 50% vacancy or 5% vacancy. there is no incentive to have full occupancy. there is no incentive to have easy access to the shelters. secondly, i heard the statistics today, you have 3% vacancy and 99% full occupancy. the problem regarding the

could be homeless, but for services like hours each year. we do that through permanent supportive housing, shelters, education and employment, and senior service programs. we are a key partner with the city and its work to prevent ending -- prevent homelessness. we need some help. since 2007, our health insurance costs have increased by 76%. our workers' compensation coverage, the premium has cost more than 200% more. we will spend half a million dollars on workers' compensation this year. our food costs have doubled, are rents have increased by 2%. the effects of no increase, first of all, these good folks have not had any raised since the end of 2007 but for more modest longevity increases. in fact, we have decreased their wages by discontinuing our employer contributions. we have lost 18 jobs, effective last july. our senior service center is not open every weekend. we do not teach in the evenings. each of our staff members have a higher caseload. we're not able to support our recently house employees, which puts them at risk for return t

homelessness. from january 2010 to january 2011 alone the estimated number of homeless veterans declined by 12%. we have created momentum and the homeless program. much remains to be done to end veterans' homelessness by 2015, and the 2013 budget is a presentation of how we continue to do that. we're now developing a dynamic homeless veterans registry. i think you appreciate that much of what we understand about homelessness is an estimate of real numbers. we're not able to count everyone out there. but it's a valid statistically valid process. in the meantime, over the past three years we've been building a registry of former and current veterans by name, so we know who they are, what their issues are, the individual level of concern that has been expressed here, what their issues are, where they reside, and whether they are migratory and move from one va footprint to the next. so as we think about adjusting the footprint, based on what we see day to day, we want to be careful that we're not doing

people have a stereotype of homelessness, but lots of them become homeless for different reasons. maybe they cannot find a job. i never thought i would be one, but now, i think the city needs to help these people. i ask you, supervisors, to help us. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you, ms. canti. >> hello, supervisors. my name is -- and i work as a community organizer with a corporation. for a number of people that work a lot of part-time and odd jobs to make ends meet, i know how hard it is an difficult it is. especially the poor folks. they pay the most out of their paychecks for rent, and consider what would happen if there were no apartments kept affordable for them. they would all have to leave san francisco and live in oakland, richmond, and they would be kicked out. affordable housing keep san franciscans and san francisco, and these are the people who bust your tables, all your trash. these are the people who make san francisco what is. we need the funding to keep more affordable housing, and i ask you, supervisors, to do a better job with housing, whether there is a mark

my concerns are with the proposed dph cuts to a number of services but to be homeless and formerly homeless, including 109 units of supportive housing. there is a proposal to relocate tenants to new housing coming on line, so it would be a net loss of 109 units. i am also concerned about the proposed cuts to drop-in centers, cuts to youth programs, and others. if there is a way to make sure there is enough financing to restore some of the proposed cuts in the health department's budget, that would be great. ultimately, it would save money in terms of -- dph is facing serious issues, but the cost of the system elsewhere -- it would be much greater his people can access the vital services that people need. thank you. [applause] >> good evening, everyone. i am, -- for the elderly. thank you, mr. mayor for your local hiring policy so as to provide more opportunities for san francisco job seekers. thank you to be office of economic and workforce development for funding in the house in the academy. there is still something missing, however. we know the government-funded work force development for

we have the homelessness going on in the daytime. we hoped that our very active neighborhood court would be able to do some been to address these issues. especially when neighborhood court, the polk street neighborhood court was charged with handling of that -- all the prostitution cases within san francisco, in addition to our regular cases. unfortunately, as an example, last tuesday in our regular monthly neighborhood court session, we had a full slate of panelists, a full slate of observers. we had two cases scheduled for all of the prostitution in san francisco and our homelessness and other issues on polk street. two cases scheduled and nobody showed up. this is a court that was a very, very active for a very long time. so it seems to be a very promising solution is turning out to be nothing. the neighborhoods are wanting to be involved. we're wanting to be out there and working with the police, with the district attorney's office, with dpw. wanting to be there. but we're not getting what we need to make these solutions a realit

i am the director of the housing and homeless division for human services agency. i come before you today with a list of questions that supervisor kim asked the department to respond to. the first question is based on heard january 18 state in the next door shelter. her first question is -- what are the number of beds assigned on a 90-day basis? approximately 700 resourced center beds are available -- resource center beds are available, and these are all a sign for 90-day reservations. another 390 beds are set aside. on average, five to 25 of these are not assigned by late afternoon. these beds are available for one-night reservations. the remaining 40 beds are used for a program we have with the veterans administration. wednesday, january 18, there were 36 beds or 3% of the 1134 beds not used in our single adult shelter system. these are primarily due to clients with light passes who did not show up and those unable to get to providence, and providence had 16 of the 37 vacancies in our system. question two -- how many shelters seekers were turned away at the reser

the relocation of 109 people would leave 109 eoplpeolpple who are homeless homeless. it would cost around $2 million the first year. it doesn't make sense we we would cut -- we would cut housong aning