my name is portia dixson. i'm here -- good morning -- oh, dang. okay. i was a -- i was raised right here in the tenderloin on leavenworth. actually, i was one of the peoples -- i started selling drugs out on the street corners at 13 years old. by the age of 34, lucky i had the support i had. i stopped selling. now i started working for the gubio project. i work for hospitality house, i work for sort. now i save lives, and i also help people get off the streets and get jobs now, but i'm not coming with the extensive background, but i'm one of the people, and i'm shy, i don't know what to say, oh, this is too much, whoa. >> chair ronen: you're doing great. just -- just tell us who you are and what you want to do and speak from your heart. >> i'm here to take people off the streets and not to jail because jail is not always the way. i'm one of the people, and jail didn't help me. it didn't make me stop. i kept going. what worked was the support from other people, so i've got to go. >> chair ronen: just so you know, you did really, really well. thank you so

dennison, and portia diction sdiction -- dixson. >> hello. my name is pedro florez. i've worked with the national council on alcoholism and i've led our prevention and diverse programs while working there, so working closely with many families in the tenderloin, which are immigrants and are forced to live there under the circumstances that we're trying to remedy with the task force. what i would like to do is offer my service, both my insights professionally and my experience in public health and my listed experience as a resident to help support this work. now i realize that this is coming from -- it's not coming from one of your districts, but i hope that this can be an invitation for partnership, because although the tenderloin is burdened with this problem, it is not just in the tenderloin, it is a problem for all of san francisco. thank you. >> hi. my name is jessie james johnson. i'm a poet and a 20-year resident of the tenderloin. i believe i qualify for seats 1, 2, and 3 and/or 7 and 8. i have letters of support from several community-based organizations, a b

and i also wanted to call jessie james johnson, sam dennison, and portia diction sdiction -- dixson. >> hello. my name is pedro florez. i've worked with the national council on alcoholism and i've led our prevention and diverse programs while working there, so working closely with many families in the tenderloin, which are immigrants and are forced to live there under the circumstances that we're trying to remedy with the task force. what i would like to do is offer my service, both my insights professionally and my experience in public health and my listed experience as a resident to help support this work. now i realize that this is