I went through a lot of struggles in my life, and i am blessed to be part of this. I am familiar with what people are going through to relate and empathy and compassion to their struggle so they can see i came out of the struggle, it gives them hope to come up and do something positive. I am a community ambassador. We work a lot with homeless, visitors, a lot of people in the area. What i like doing is posting up at hotspots to let people see visibility. They ask you questions, ask you directions, they might have a question about what services are available. Checking in, you guys. Wellness check. We walk by to see any individual, you know may be sitting on the sidewalk, we make sure they are okay, alive. You never know. Somebody might walk by and they are laying there for hours. You never know if they are alive. We let them know we are in the area and we are here to promote safety, and if they have somebody that is, you know, hanging around that they dont want to call the police on, they dont have to call the police. They can call us. We can direct them to the services they might need. We do the three one one to keep the city neighborhoods clean. There are people dumping, waste on the ground and needles on the ground. It is unsafe for children and adults to commute through the streets. When we see them we take a picture dispatch to 311. They give us a tracking number and they come later on to pick it up. We take pride. When we come back later in the day and we see the loose trash or debris is picked up it makes you feel good about what you are doing. It makes you feel did about escorting kids and having them feel safe walking to the play area and back. The stuff we do as ambassadors makes us feel proud to help keep the city clean, helping the residents. You can see the community ambassadors. I used to be on the streets. I didnt think i could become a community ambassador. It was too far out there for me to grab, you know. Doing this job makes me feel good. Because i came from where a lot of them are, homeless and on the street, i feel like i can give them hope because i was once there. I am not afraid to tell them i used to be here. I used to be like this, you know. I have compassion for people that are on the streets like the homeless and people that are caught up with their addiction because now, i feel like i can give them hope. It reminds you every day of where i used to be and where i am at now. Valencia has been a constantly evolving roadway. The first bike lanes were striped in 1999, and today is the major north and south bike route from the Mission Neighborhood extending from market to mission street. It is difficult to navigate lindsay on a daily basis, and more specifically, during the morning and evening commute hours. From 2012 to 2016, there were 260 collisions on valencia and 46 of those were between vehicles and bikes. The mayor shows great leadership and she knew of the long history of collisions and the real necessity for safety improvements on the streets, so she actually directed m. T. A. To put a pilot of protected bike lanes from market to 15th on valencia street within four months time. [ ] valencia is one of the most used north south bike routes in San Francisco. It has over 2100 cyclists on an average weekday. We promote bicycles for everyday transportation of the coalition. Valencia is our mission fits our mission perfectly. Our members fall 20 years ago to get the first bike lane stripes. Whether you are going there for restaurants, nightlife, you know , people are commuting up and down every single day. I have been biking down the valencia street corridor for about a decade. During that time, i have seen the emergence of ridesharing companies. We have people on bikes, we have people on bike share, scooters, we have people delivering food and we have uber taking folks to concerts at night. One of the main goals of the project was to improve the overall safety of the corridor, will also looking for opportunities to upgrade the bikeway. The most common collision that happens on valencia is actually due to double parking in the bike lane, specifically during, which is where a driver opens the door unexpectedly. We kept all the passengers the passenger levels out, which is the white crib that we see, we double the amount of commercial curbs that you see out here. Most people arent actually perking on valencia, they just need to get dropped off or pick something up. Half of the commercial loading zones are actually after 6 00 p. M. , so could be used for fiveminute loading later into the evening to provide more opportunities or passenger and commercial loading. The five minute loading zone may help in this situation, but they are not along the corridor where we need them to be. One of the most unique aspects of the valencia pilot is on the block between 14th street. We worked with a pretty big mix of people on valencia. On this lot, there are a few schools. All these different groups had concerns about the safety of students crossing the protected bikeway whether they are being dropped off or picked up in the morning or afternoon. To address those concerns, we installed concrete loading islands with railings railings that channel channeled a designated crossing plane. We had a lot of conversations around how do you load and unload kids in the mornings and the afternoons . I do like the visibility of some of the design, the safety aspects of the boarding pilot for the school. We have painted continental crosswalks, as well as a yield piece which indicates a cyclist to give the rightofway so they can cross the roadway. This is probably one of the most unique features. During the planning phase, the m. T. A. Came out with three alternatives for the long term project. One is parking protected, which we see with the pilot, they also imagined a valencia street where we have two bike lanes next to one another against one side of the street. A twoway bikeway. The third option is a Center Running twoway bikeway, c. Would have the two bike lanes running down the center with protection on either side. Earlier, there werent any enter lane designs in San Francisco, but i think it will be a great opportunity for San Francisco to take the lead on that do so the innovative and different, something that doesnt exist already. With all three concepts for valencias longterm improvement , theres a number of tradeoffs ranging from parking, or what needs to be done at the intersection for signal infrastructure. When he think about extending this pilot or this still this design, theres a lot of different design challenges, as well as challenges when it comes to doing outreach and making sure that you are reaching out to everyone in the community. The pilot is great. It is a nobrainer. It is also a teaser for us. Once a pilot ends, we have thrown back into the chaos of valencia street. What were trying to do is incremental improvement along the corridor door. The Pilot Project is one of our first major improvements. We will do an initial valuation in the spring just to get a glimpse of what is happening out here on the roadway, and to make any adjustments to the pilot as needed. This fall, we will do a more robust evaluation. By spring of 2020, we will have recommendations about longterm improvements. I appreciate the pilot and how quickly it went in and was built, especially with the Community Workshops associated with it, i really appreciated that opportunity to give input. We want to see valencia become a really welcoming and comfortable neighborhood street for everyone, all ages and abilities. Theres a lot of benefits to protected bike lanes on valencia , it is not just for cyclists. We will see way more people biking, more people walking, we are just going to create a really friendly neighborhood street. [ ] working with kids, they keep you young. They keep you on your tones on your toes. Teaching them, at the same time, us learning from them, everything is fulfilling. Ready . Go. [ ] we really wanted to find a way to support Women Entrepreneurs in particular in San Francisco. It was very important for the mayor, as well as the Safety Support the dreams that people want to realize, and provide them with an opportunity to receive funding to support improvements for their business so they could grow and thrive in their neighborhoods and in their industry. Three, two, one because i am one of the consultants for two nonprofits here for entrepreneurship, i knew about the grand through the renaissance entrepreneur center, and through the Small Business development center. I thought they were going to be perfect candidate because of their strong values in the community. They really give back to the neighborhood. They are from this neighborhood, and they care about the kids in the community here. When molly molly first told us about the grant because she works with Small Businesses. She has been a tremendous help for us here. She brought us to the attention of the grand just because a lot of things here were outdated, and need to be uptodate and redone totally. Hands in front. Recite the creed. My oldest is jt, he is seven, and my youngest is ryan, he is almost six. It instills discipline and the boys, but they show a lot of care. We think it is great. The moves are fantastic. The women both are great teachers. What is the next one . My son goes to fd k. He has been attending for about two years now. They also have a summer program, and last summer was our first year participating in it. They took the kids everywhere around San Francisco. This year, owner talking about placing them in summer camps, all he wanted to do was spend the entire summer with them. He has strong women in his life, so he really appreciates it. I think that carries through and i appreciate the fact that there are more strong women in the world like that. I met dandrea 25 years ago, and we met through our interest in karate. Our professor started on cortland years ago, so we grew up here at this location, we out he outgrew the space and he moved ten years later. He decided to reopen this location after he moved. Initially, i came back to say, hey, because it might have been 15 years since i even put on a uniform. My Business Partner was here basically by herself, and the person she was supposed to run the studio with said great, you are here, i started new Nursing School so you can take over. And she said wait, that is not what i am here for i was by myself before for a month before she came through. She was technically here as a secretary, but we insisted, just put on the uniform, and help her teach. I was struggling a little bit. And she has been here. One thing led to another and now we are coowners. You think a lot more about safety after having children and i wanted to not live in fear so much, and so i just took advantage of the opportunity, and i found it very powerful to hit something, to get some relief, but also having the knowledge one you might be in a situation of how to take care of yourself. The selfdefence class is a new thing that we are doing. We started with a group of women last year as a trial run to see how it felt. Theres a difference between selfdefence and doing a karate class. We didnt want them to do an actual karate class. We wanted to learn the fundamentals of how to defend yourself versus, you know, going through all the forms and techniques that we teaching a karate class and how to break that down. Then i was approached by my old high school. One once a semester, the kids get to pick an extra curricular activity to take outside of the school walls. My old biology teacher is now the principle. She approached us into doing a selfdefence class. The girls have been really proactive and really sweet. They step out of of the comfort zone, but they have been willing to step out and that hasnt been any pushback. It is really great. It is respect. You have to learn it. When we first came in, they knew us as those girls. They didnt know who we were. Finally, we came enough for them to realize, okay, they are in the business now. It took a while for us to gain that respect from our peers, our male peers. Since receiving the grant, it has ignited us even more, and put a fire underneath our butts even more. We were doing our summer camp and we are in a movie theatre, and we just finished watching a film and she stepped out to receive a phone call. She came in and she screamed, hey, we got the grant. And i said what . Martial arts is a passion for us. It is passion driven. There are days where we are dead tired and the kids come and they have the biggest smiles on their faces and it is contagious. We have been operating this program for a little over a year all Women Entrepreneurs. It is an extraordinary benefit for us. We have had the Mayors Office investing in our program so we can continue doing this work. It has been so impactful across a diversity of communities throughout the city. We hope that we are making some type of impact in these kids lives outside of just learning karate. Having selfconfidence, having discipline, learning to know when its okay to stand up for yourself versus you just being a bully in school. These are the values we want the kids to take away from this. Not just, i learned how to kick and i learned how to punch. We want the kids to have more values when they walk outside of these doors. Thank you they are joining us today because we know this work is not easy. Im joined here today by the director of Mental Health reform, grant colfax who is our director of the department of Public Health as well as yolanda who has been a client here for some time and she will be speaking to you later today. Thank you for being here and all the folks who are doing the hard work. We know that Mental Health there is a Mental Health crisis here in San Francisco and i know that we often times hear that were being thrown around loosely. But the fact is that as someone who grew up in San Francisco and know that we have had challenges in this city, including issues around homelessness, what i see is something that ive never seen in my lifetime of growing up in the city and that is people who are in serious, serious crisis. Serious need. And the fact is, in San Francisco, the frustration is that we have a lot of resources. We have a lot we have a lot of dedicated revenues to help spousht support people, but we have discovered that the coordination has to be better and more efficient to really help people that we know are struggling. So we have people who have, as we unfortunately know, theyre homeless. They have challenges with addiction. They have a number of other ailments, including Mental Illness, and unfortunately have nowhere to go but the streets. We need to make sure were prepared to meet people where they are. We know that people are cycling in and out of our Emergency Rooms and only to be released, to be back right on the streets where they came from. Our jails and theyre having trouble staying stable in our Shelter Systems and trouble maintaining housing. When i was on the board of supervisors, i had a number of clients that i was specifically dedicated to, to have a better understanding of how the system was working and whether or not it could help to reach them and, sadly, those three clients who im still connected with, are still struggle on our streets. We have to end the cycle. We have to do more and we have to be prepared to make the hardest decisions that weve ever made before. Residents like yolanda are amazing Success Stories and she has been a client here since 2009 and has really turned her life around and im really happy to have her here today. The good news is that, you know, when the city focuses and works together to address these issues, we can actually accomplish great things. Back in march, i announced that we were hiring a director of Mental Health reform because that is exactly what we need to do with this system. Dr. Anton will be speaking a little bit later about what hes been doing suns he has taken over this role back in march to get us on track. Today, we are launching an initiative to help those who are the most in need. At those Cross Sections of homelessness, Mental Illness and Substance Use disorder. And our plan is to better coordinate the care. Now i know youve all heard about the numbers. But the fact is the data with the numbers and the information wasnt necessarily clear. And that is a big part of what we want to talk about today. What is actually we see it. We know it is happening. We heard that there was data, but the fact is there wasnt really data in really clear, coordinated efforts. And so the ability to address this issue comes with understanding what is going on with the people and that includes the data. And analyzing the folks who are in and out of our system, understanding if they were offered services or why they refused services and where theyre located after their refused services. Through this analysis done by the health department, through dr. S nagusaplan and the department of Public Health, we have been able to identify 4,000 people with the characteristics of the population who are really in need through these various diagnosis. And of the 4,000 individuals that weve identified who struggle with these particular challenges, 41 are in crisis, which is demonstrated by their high use of the Emergency Psychiatric Services and 95 suffer from alcohol use disorder and the sad reality is what were seeing is there is a real issue of equity because 35 are african american, despite the fact that we have a population of not even 6 of African Americans here in San Francisco overall. This is just the beginning. The first step of this initiative that we are proposing today is understanding the data, analyzing the data, and also making direct impacts on the particular population and
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