Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Rules Committee 20240713

Welcome to the april 13, 2020 meeting. I am joined by Video Conference with vice chair supervisor stephanie and supervisor gordon mar and id like to thank sf gov tv for staffing this meeting. Any announcements . To protect members, City Employees and the public, the legislative chamber and k Committee Rooms are closed. However, members will be participating remotely at the same extent as if they were present. Public comment will be available for each item on this agenda, both the channel 26 and sfgov. Org are streaming across the screen. Call 888 2045504. When you are connected, dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the key. You will be lined up in the system that you dial 1 and 0. While youre waiting, the system will be silent and notify you when youre in line and waiting. All will remain online. Everyone must account for the time delay between live coverage and streaming. Alternatively, you may submit Public Comment in either of the following ways, email me at victor young. If you submit Public Comment via email, it will be included as part of the matter. Written comments may be sent to city hall 1, doctor carlton b. Goodlet place, San Francisco, california, 94102. That completes my announcements. Thank you so much, and can you please read item number one . An emergency ordinance to temporarily require private employers with 500 or more employees to provide emergency leave during the Public Health emergency related to covid19. Thank you. Any opening comments . Thank you, chair ronen. Colleagues, as you may recall, this item is to move forward one amendment that was made to the Public Health Emergency League ordinance at last weeks Roll Committee meeting. The amendments that were considering to the Public Health emergency leave ordinance applies to section 5 and it pertains to allowable uses of emergency leads and only applies to employees who are Healthcare Providers and this amendment was crafted to balance the need for Healthcare Providers and similarly are healthcare workers to be able to take time off when theyre sick or need to quarantine and balance that need with the urgent need of maintaining our healthcare wor workforce. To thithis provides leave whose employers can opt out of the leave expansion. And it goes without saying that Healthcare Providers should gott go to work when sick or quarantined. This ordinance will give them expanded pay leave to use if theyre sick or quarantined. We know that pfizer sent a letter asking for an exemption but we disagree that Healthcare Providers should be exempt. Theres been discussion with the Hospital Council and northeast medical services, a major nonprofit Healthcare Clinic that has a significant place in my district. If healthcare employers are offering paid leave, it will count towards the additional 80 hours and to ensure we dont short staff this ordinance. Its uses are incredibly narrow and only apply in cases where its in the interest of Public Health for Healthcare Providers not to go to work. And it does not allow uses of Public Health emergency leaves by Healthcare Providers for a border range of uses that are allowed for workers at businesses with more than 500 employees that are covered by the Public Health emergency leave ordinance. So colleagues, i thank you for your support in the Public Health emergency leave ordinance last week and also that the full board last week and without your support, im moving this further amendment that would provide additional leave for Healthcare Providers in a more similar range of uses. Thank you, supervisor mar. Supervisor stephanie, my comments . No, i dont, thank you. Why dont we open this item up for Public Comment. Mr. Clerk, is there any members of the public who wish to speak on this item . Members of the public who wish to provide Public Comment should call the number and present 1 and 0 to line up to speak. Please allow me to check the cue. No problem. No callers wishing to speak. With that, Public Comment is closed. Im happy to make a motion to put this to the full board to the committee with full recommendation. Can we take a role call on that motion. On that motion, supervisor stephanie. Aye. Supervisor mar. Aye. Chair ronen. Aye. The motion passes and in matter will be recommended as the Committee Reports to april 14th board meeting. Thank you so much, mr. Clerk. Is there any other items . That completes the agenda for today. Fantastic. Fastest meeting of all time. The meeting is adjourned. Have a good day everyone. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Im london breed, im mayor of San Francisco. And today we are joined by the department of Emergency Management, director carol as well as the department of Public Health director, dr. Grant coal fashion. Colfax. We are joined by police chief scott as well as our sheriff and the director of homelessness and housing services, abigail kahn. Today we want to provide a few updates of where we are and and some very serious challenges that we face. So far as of today, we have confirmed 797 cases and sadly 13 people have lost their lives due to the virus. The covid19 virus. And we had said all along that this would be very challenging, and in fact, in the past week or so, dr. Colfax and i continued to make it clear that it is of course important to stay at home as much as possible. Because the fact is the worst is yet to come. And today, unfortunately, we have a situation that we knew could potentially happen in one of our congregate living settings. An outbreak occurred at msc south, one of our shelters. And the real challenging situation that we know could have been worse will be a little bit better because of the work that we were preparing to do in order to make sure that we were able to respond quickly. Today we want to announce that we have identified 70 people, 68 members of the shelter as well as two Staff Members who tested positive for covid19. This is one of the larger shelters in San Francisco with on any given night, over 340 people that are located in that shelter. Part of acquiring hotel rooms and vending out our shelters has truly helped in this particular case because there were only 100 residents in the shelter last night which provided us the flexibility to turn this from a shelter to a medical facility. So dr. Colfax will talk more about what that means but the fact is we were on top of it. We know that there are a number of people who tested positive. And we are going to reroute our medical Health Experts and people, our nurses and other Health Support to this facility to help manage and maintain and support the people who tested positive. The reason why we are able to act fast is number one, we had hotel rooms available. And we had plans to staff up hotel rooms as rapidly as we possibly can in case an outbreak occurs. But number two, because so many of you are staying at home, our hospitals are not as overwhelmed as they could be, giving us the flexibility to handle an outbreak of this nature. We know that from the very, very beginning, congregate living settings like our shelters, like laguna hospital, like our single room occupancy hotels, we knew those had the potential of being hot spots. And so we have been preparing for that. We have been preparing for that by acquiring a number of hotel rooms, making sure that we have the Supportive Service necessary, making sure that we can keep the people that we are asking to work at these hotels safe, making sure that we can see people, that we can clean the rooms, that we can do the laundry, that we can do all that it takes to manage the situation in any place that we acquire under the new orders that weve put forward to obtain as many hotel rooms as possible. So although the news of this outbreak was definitely very troubling, the fact is i am so grateful and proud of this hardworking city workforce, the department of Public Health to the department of Human Services to the department of housing and home Homeless Services, the folks who work for these departments who are showing up, putting their lives on the line and working every single day with the nonprofit providers who help to manage these hotel rooms, they are the ones who are on the front lines, trying to make sure that they not only protect themselves, but they want to make sure that they protect others. And so we were prepared for this. We are managing the situation. And dr. Colfax will provide more information as to what is happening at this particular facility and where we go from here. I want to also talk a little bit about another very troubling situation that we know exists and because so many people are being asked to shelter at home, we know that, sadly, some people who are sheltering at home may not be in safe environments. We know that Domestic Violence doesnt stop because of a pandemic. And it is important that we continue to provide support, we continue to provide services, so that we can help the people who we know need it the most. And i know that so many Domestic Violence survivors out there are probably thinking about what we are doing as a city to protect others who have not been able to escape those very challenging situations. And i am grateful to ending Domestic Abuse and so many of the folks who work tirelessly on helping to end Domestic Violence and the work they have continued to do. They have sadly seen an uptick in the calls that they receive for help, for assistance, for their shelters. And as a result, we teamed up with the District Attorney and veritas, a Property Owner in San Francisco, to provide 20 new units that are fully furnished so that when we need to get people out of a situation, we can move quickly. So i want to thank veritas, and i want to thank our District Attorney for working with us to recognize this very serious issue and reacting quickly to provide resources in addition to the shelters and the other support that we have been able to work with nonprofit providers to provide to families who are experiencing Domestic Violence. But we know its not just about making sure we have places for people to stay. If you are in a situation at home, and you cant pick up the phone and call 911, what do you do . Its hard enough feeling like you are trapped and you cant escape. And what we have been able to do here in San Francisco, and i am so, again, grateful to the department of Emergency Management and dedicated people who work for the city who have been able to have our system and our city so if you text 911 and say help or if you are able to say what the situation is and you are in trouble or what have you, you will receive a response. And i think this is an incredible tool, because, again, we know that if theres an attack or if there is something going on, and you cant necessarily talk out loud or what have you, it is definitely difficult in order to reach out for help. So to anyone who might be hearingimpaired or others in our communities who are struggling and may be attacked or may need 911, now here in San Francisco, the option to text 911 is available. And so especially at such a really challenging time for all of us, we know that having access to support to safety is critical to being able to survive this pandemic. And so, again, thank you so much to carol and the department of Emergency Management. I also want to say to those who are looking for help and support, we are here for you, you are not alone. And we will do everything we can to support and protect you during this pandemic. If you need help or you need assistance, please call or text 911. If you need someone to talk to or you are looking for resources, you can call 311 and we can direct you to some Services Including the national Domestic Violence hotline as well as la casa, amazing organizations that continue to uplift and help those who are not only in Domestic Violence situations but also survivors. So thank you so much for your work on helping those who are struggling during this pandemic. We also want to talk a little bit about whats happening with our restaurants here in the city. Some of you during, when we werent in the pandemic, many people, including myself, used a lot of apps to get food delivered. And after we had to unfortunately close restaurants, and basically not allow them to have inhouse dining, we still allowed pickup and delivery and some restaurants chose to close because sadly, it was too expensive to even have that level of service. And others who are struggling even now with their delivery and pickup service, theyre still in business, but the fees in some cases very outrageous fees that are charged to them, basically in some cases may not allow for them to continue with their Delivery Services because they are not even breaking even in some cases. And so unfortunately with the Delivery Services there is a fee thats assessed. Sometimes theres free delivery as you see on the apps but the restaurant is still charged a specific fee as it relates to the Delivery Service which usually happens with a third party. And we have seen those fees basically go up and down. The restaurants have experienced it. And it has been hard. They want to remain open for all of you. They want to be available for all of you but they are struggling because the delivery costs are making it unsustainable. So thats why after working with the Golden Gate Restaurant Association and carefully evaluating the situation, ive decided to execute an emergency ordinance to cap the amount of fees that a third party can charge to restaurants for Delivery Services at 15 . And what this will do is to make sure that our restaurants are protected, because we know during this pandemic, which we are not certain as to how long it will last, there are going to be a lot of restaurants who may not come back from this. And we want to make sure that when we identify a situation thats problematic, we address the situation and the goal here is to address the situation with putting a cap on the amount of the percentage of which the Third Party Delivery entities could charge restaurants for Delivery Service. And i want to thank the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, and i also want to thank supervisors ahsha safai and aaron peskin for working with my office oncoming up with something that would be fair and more helpful to our restaurant community. So i also want to take this opportunity to talk about just, again, the importance of staying at home. Now, i know, having these conversations here every time theres a press conference, it reminds me of my grandmother and oftentimes because, you know, sometimes i was a difficult kid to discipline, and my grandmother would say to me over and over again, no, you cant have that, no, you cant have that or no, you cant go outside, no, you cant go outside. And i would say please, mama, please can i go outside . And my grandmother would just say no, no, no, for whatever reason. And she had to tell me that over and over again sometimes. And eventually i gave up or she gave up, who knows. But the fact is youre hearing this beating drum from me, from so many other people. Were asking you to stay inside, to stay inside, to stay inside. And i know that its hard. I know that so many of you are getting restless and getting frustrated and wondering when it would come to an end. And really what difference it does make. And let me just go back to what i said earlier about our shelter system. The fact is because so many of you are social socially distancing yourself from one another, whats happening is you are not getting infected, you are not showing up at our hospitals. We have seen a slight reduction in the number of people who are occupying our beds. And even though we know the numbers will continue to go up, even though we know this outbreak at one of our shelters has been challenging, the fact is because of what you are doing, we are able to move quickly to address an outbreak. Because of what you are doing, we are able to redeploy medical Health Professionals to one of our Shelter Systems in order to provide the resources necessary to take care of those 70 people that have been infected, because you are staying at home, you are making a difference. And when you look at other places all over the world, im sure youve seen some of the videos of the hospitals in new york, youve seen the videos of some of the hospitals in italy. Youve seen some of the videos of people who cant bury their family members. To think about it. Because you are following the order, you are making a difference for others in this city. So i just want to ask you, again, because we know that the weather is going to be really nice this weekend. We know that its so tempting, especially because its also easter, today is good friday, its easter, its its a very spiritual time for so many people who are religious. And folks are probably thinking just this one time, i miss my friends, i miss my family members. I want to have dinner together. I just want to sit down and enjoy their company. And as hard as it is to be isolated in your home, im going to ask just one more time that you dont tempt yourself, you dont do it this one time. Because that one time could be problematic. I saw on the news this past week a family that got together for Birthday Party for one of their family members and now every one of them are infected. They dont know how, they dont know where it came from, but the fact is they are all infected. We all heard about the choir in washington state. They practiced social distancing at choir rehearsal. The order was already in place there, 45 members were infected and two died. And so as hard as it is to stay at home, to continue life in a world thats not normal for us, its necessary. It does make a difference. It does save lives. And some of the things that you can continue to do is call people, you can zoom call with folks if you have that level of technology. And you can just reach out and check on folks. I also talked about the note i got from a neighbor with their email and their phone number, asking if i needed any errands to be run or just someone to talk to. Thats going to be critical to getting through this is how and social distancing is probably not the best term developed to talk about this. Its really about physically distancing ourselves of my its important that we physically distance ourselves but we continue to engage with one another. We continue to reach out to one another for help, for support, or what have you. So as we go into the weekend, we are going to be watching closely and monitoring our parks. We are going to be monitoring various locations where we know large groups of people gather. And i hope that we wont be forced to close any parks or make any adjustments because people are not following the order. We want you to get fresh air, we want you to get outdoor exercise in whatever way you feel is appropriate. We want you to walk your dog. We want you to be able to do some of the basic things of Grocery Shopping and what have you. But as you do those errands, make sure that you keep your distance from others that are not a part of your household. Make sure that after you are done, you go home. Make sure that youre not driving to locations that arent near where you live because that creates a bigger problem than what we want to happen in our city. And then it forces us to make adjustments in order to keep you safe. And i want people to have the ability to just go outside and get some fresh air and because so many of you have cooperated with this order, we are here. And as i said, as we go into easter sunday, i want to again thank folks from the interfaith counsel, michael was here on wednesday, and i continue to be grateful for your prayers and your support during this difficult time. So many people who are spiritual are really not only struggling themselves but so many are reaching out and praying for others and this is definitely a time to just remind us of how challenging it has been with so many folks who are part of our community, but also the acts of kindness, the acts of love, the things that people in the city have continued to do to just really amaze me and others has been truly tremendous. And we want to thank you all again for just being good neighbors, being good citizens of the city, continuing to put out positive messages and hope and inspirations. We need it now more than ever. And yes, we are in this together. Which is why we will get through this together. And with that, i would like to take this opportunity to introduce the director of the department of Public Health, dr. Good afternoon. Im dr. Grant colfax, director of health for the city of San Francisco. Thank you, mayor breed. I would like to start by thanking everyone in San Francisco for your cooperation, your sacrifices, and your community spirit. As we join together, we are helping fight the spread of the coronavirus. When you stay home, when you keep 6 feet apart, when you wash your hands and when you cover your nose and mouth when you cough, you are literally saving lives every day. Today i would like to update san franciscans on a few developments in our ongoing work to respond to the coronavirus and to protect our community. Todays data tracker shows there are 797 San Francisco residents with confirmed cases of coronavirus. Sadly, 13 san franciscans have died of the disease. My condolences to their families and loved ones. There are 88 patients reported in the hospitals across San Francisco with coronavirus and approximately onethird of those are in the intensive care unit. Our hospitalization numbers had been holding relatively steady over the past few days, which is positive and good news. But, and i emphasize, but, that number could change at any time. Please stay at home and do your part to keep these numbers steady. At this time, our San Francisco Hospital System has enough beds to care for all of our current coronavirus patients as well as patients who are hospitalized for other reasons. We continue to make progress expanding hospital bed capacity for an expected surge of coronavirus patients. The worst is still yet to come. And sadly, as the mayor mentioned, we have troubling news to report with regard to an outbreak. Tomorrows case of coronavirus, case numbers of coronavirus, will be significantly higher once we factor in new test results from the msc south shelter. On sunday, we confirmed that two guests at msc south, San Franciscos largest homeless shelter, had tested positive for covid19 and were moved into Isolation Hotels where they are in Good Condition. Those first steps, my Department Took immediate action to contact investigations and test people who were close contacts showing symptoms or atrisk exposure. As the test results started to come back and we saw these t extent of the spread, we moved on wednesday to test all guests and staff at the shelter. On wednesday, there were five positive cases at msc south. Today, there are 70. There are currently 71 test results that are negative and 3 results are still pending. We have always known that from the data that this virus can take off quickly. And we are prepared to provide aggressive responses, especially in congress regatt settings in congregate settings. From the beginning, a prioritized population. Unfortunately, the moment is now upon us. I would like to assure san franciscans that this outbreak does not mean there is significantly greater risk to the general public. However, it is a very serious matter. Though not expected, we are very concerned about the health of the people at msc south. Many of them have Chronic Health conditions and are vulnerable to getting very sick or even dying from coronavirus. We are doing everything we can for them and to reduce the size of the outbreak. We have taken and will continue to take aggressive action to prevent health and safety. Every step of the way, the department of Public Health has been working closely with the department of homelessness and Supportive Housing and with the operator of msc south to follow our congress congregate setting protocols and identify the contacts of the people who tested positive. These efforts continue and are intensifying as the situation changes. Currently, my department is conducting a mass testing strategy at msc south, testing all guests and staff for covid19, whether they are showing symptoms or not. Again, as of this morning, dph tested 144 guests and staff. Of these, 68 guests and 2 staff have tested positive for covid19. At this point, none of these people are seriously ill. One former guest of the shelter is in the hospital. We are now converting msc south into a medical facility to care for people who are living with coronavirus. This new Recovery Center will be staffed by the department of Public Health, nurses and doctors, experts, who will provide care, monitor patients and arrange transport to hospitals if their conditions worsen. The solution has been part of our Emergency Planning scenarios from the beginning. And its the best one to preserve the health and safety of the shelter community. It will reduce transports and patients with a dedicated stuff of Healthcare Professionals staff of Healthcare Professionals who are attend their needs. Staff members who have tested positive are being offered places in Isolation Hotels if they do not have a safe alternative in their own homes. This offering of hotel rooms will continue for staff who test positive at this and other shelters across the city. Other guests are being moved out to hotels as well. On a case by case basis, depending on the guest condition and exposure, we are working with our Partner Agencies to place each person in an appropriate setting, whether its in isolation or quarantine site or a shelter in place hotel. This is a 24hour round the clock operation and the situation and numbers are changing. Department of homelessness and Supportive Housing and the Human Service agency are leading the effort to move guests out of msc south while the department of Public Health will continue to focus on providing excellence, experts, medical care, testing and Contact Tracing. Now i would like to take a few minutes to talk about equity, specifically Health Equity and how it relates to the coronavirus pandemic. As we prepare our hospitals and our City Healthcare system to care for former patients, we are closely examining neighborhoods and Community Members that may need more access to care in this rapidlychanging and evolving situation. That is one of the reasons why we opened our first field care clinic this week in the bayview. We have also opened screening and testing sites in the Castro Mission neighborhood and the zuckerberg General Hospital in the heart of the mission and potrero hill. We know we know that the Health Disparities and economic inequalities in our community are only made worse, unfortunately, only made worse by this pandemic. Global and National Data are already showing the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on communities of color. In San Francisco, we are seeing and expect to continue to see these inequities as well. Although our current case data doesnt reflect major disparities yet, that data are also incomplete. We do not receive ethnic or race information for about a third of the test results that are reported to us. However, we have seen situations in the Latinx Community where people who live in multifamily or multigenerational homes are unable to self isolate. We have seen people in those households who must leave home to work and who have to make several trips a week for other essential supplies in small amounts due to their income stream. People in such circumstances are going to be more at risk. And we are being responsive to those needs to help mitigate those risks. We have been working with leaders in the Latinx Community to ensure that people have the information they need, that they are aware of the available resources that San Francisco is a sanctuary city where everyone will receive the best care possible regardless of immigration status. And that people continue to receive outreach in their own language in a culturallyappropriate way. Meeting our citys equity efforts, director davis of the San Francisco human rights commission, has established Community Roundtable weekly meetings. The roundtable is a Dynamic Group of Community Stakeholders who elevate concerns about the citys response and communication with communities of color, lowincome people and the lgbtqi community, specifically around covid19. We would like to thank director davis for her leadership. With this corroboration, we can and are taking action on issues based on Community Input and practices. Some of these issues include food insecurity, discrimination, appropriate culturallyfocused outreach, Financial Resources and improved communication and support. San francisco is also one of the few counties in the country that has an equity officer embedded in its Emergency Operations centerrer. The goal of this team is to mitigate inequity it is in the citywide response to coronavirus for our communities of concern including latinx, black africanamerican, asianpacific islander and lgbtqi communities. We will continue to listen to community partners, improve our response and continue to use data to guide decisions. We, i, am committed to the health and wellbeing of San Franciscos and doing everything we can to support health and full recovery for all communities in our city during and after this pandemic. Now i would like to provide a brief update on the outbreak at laguna honda hospital and the steps we are taking to protect the health of residents and staff. We have 17 confirmed cases of coronavirus at honda hospital, 13 of the confirmed cases are among staff and four are among residents. Of the staff, ten have been in patient care positions and three have not. All four positive resident cases are in the south five neighborhood. Testing of that neighborhood is currently complete. We have also completed testing for south residents, and im happy to say at this time we have not detected an additional case. Overall, to date, 301 honda hospital staff have been tested, either by the Health Department or by their own provider and 208 residents have been tested. As part of our ongoing response, we continue to test staff and patients throughout the hospital that had been identified as being exposed to contact investigation or have other risk factors, including showing symptoms of the virus. Unfortunately, we do expect more positive cases. But it is crucial that we know the facts so that we can continue to take evidencebased informed action to preserve the health and mitigate the spread of the virus in the institution. We continue to work with the cdc experts on the ground to reinforce and inform our aggressive response. As we continue to fight the coronavirus pandemic, i would like to remind you that our Top Priorities continue to be reducing the spread of the virus in the community, flattening the curve through the physical distancing that we are continuing to enforce and ask you to do, protecting vulnerable populations, healthcare workers and First Responders, preparing our Healthcare System for the expected surge of hospital patients and expanding testing capabilities. In all of this work, we seek to continually do better as we incorporate the latest science, data and facts into actions and recommendations. We are working quickly to integrate new information all the time and adjust our recommendations accordingly so that we are providing the very best most up to date advice to you to the community that we can. Thank you. And director of homelessness and Supportive Housing will now provide remarks. Hello. The city and our nonprofit partners are battling two simultaneous health emergencies. The ongoing crisis with homelessness and the compounding issue of covid19 pandemic. This has taught us time and time again that everyones health is intertwined, the homeless and the housed. Protecting the health of people experiencing homelessness is essential to safeguard their health and all of our health. Therefore we must focus not only on improving the health and safety of our shelters and programs but also moving people to safety as quickly as possible. When people do not have homes to reside in and reside instead in Public Places and congress congregate shelters, they have less access to healthcare. People who are homeless and unsheltered are far more likely to have Underlying Health conditions. The city has taken many proactive steps to improve the health and safety of people experiencing homelessness. Today i want to focus as dr. Colfax did on msc south. Thank you to our staff at hsh provider st. Vincent depaul and all our City Partners who under the mayors leadership have wrapped their arms around this site its guests and its staff. For the last many days, we have been working on this, both preventively and since we had our first positive test. This is a large shelter, with 340bed capacity and a 70person dropin center. Due to our early and Rapid Actions to limit the spread of covid by pausing shelter intakes, we reduced the census to approximately 175 people. Before and since our first positive test at this site, we have moved over 70 people out and now have a census of approximately 100. Our partner staff are focused on the site 24 7. As you have heard it is now a medical shelter. We are also moving Vulnerable People from other sites rapidly and have been for the past several days and ahead of positive tests. We are deploying the plan we have created, and while this virus is dangerous, we are working urgently and taking all the necessary steps. I also want to provide you an update on our first covid positive test family shelter. This one is operated by hamilton families. The same plan that has been in place for Division Circle and for msc south is in effect with this site. The individual who has the positive test is in Good Condition and is off site already. Our thoughts are with Division Circle msc south and hamilton and our gratitude is with every san franciscan today. Thank you. Good afternoon. I want to start by first thanking mayor breed, her team, the team of our District Attorney bodine and Mary Ellen Carol and her team at the Department Department of Emergency Management for allowing us to have the resources to help our Domestic Violence victims. We think the text 911 will be a game changer and will enhance Public Safety in our city. So i want to thank and and applaud the mayor and director carol and our District Attorney for making that happen. To be able to provide the lifeline for those who are distressed but cant call 911. Often people who arent in a safe place cant call 911 so this resource is a game changer. Our citys Public Safety dispatcher at the department of Emergency Management do a fantastic job every day. And they do the dispatch of our Police Officers to particularly Domestic Violence calls are critical. Those situations can be time is of the essence. So we are very thankful for them and for the partnership. We also want to thank the people who made this come together, the text 911 service will provide an important way for people to reach out for help. And it will help us to effectively respond to those calls for help. So whether you use text 911 or call directly, we want you to know our city Emergency Responders will be there for you and be ready to respond. I want to emphasize, though, that calling 911 is always the best course of action if it is safe for you to do so. If you cant, you can use the new text 911 feature. Next i want to talk about enforcement over the easter weekend and resen forcement, let me resident enforcement. Let me frame that in the context of compliance. As the mayor and doctor said that by and large, san franciscans are complying with our Public Health orders and thats really good news but we need to keep going. We need to keep in. We are not out of the woods yet. Please listen to the Public Health officials. We need to keep this going. So what you can expect to see from the San Francisco police department, you will see us out. You will see us in the parks with park rangers. You will see us in the business corridors and your residential communities. And we are going to continue to spread the message of social distancing. And as i said in other conferences, news conferences, for those that have been warned, we are making a record so we will not warn you twice. Today we have had notifications and a number of those have been nonessential businesses that have been, we make sure those businesses stay closed when they are supposed to be closed. We have not had an issue with businesses reopening. We are still issuing citations we have not issued any citations since the first two. I want to reemphasize what mayor breed said, please, this is going to be an easter weekend where we are used to family gatherings, attending religious services, being around people, going to restaurants and really socializing. We know its hard. And this is a change for all of us, believe me. But we need to adhere to the Public Health orders. This is a matter of life and death. So please comply and lets all make San Francisco safe. As the mayor said a number of our religious organizations supported this effort. Michael pompas from the interfaith counsel is very supportive. I know this weekend is a holiday, and thats difficult for people, but again, the religious organizations are asking that everybody comply. Shelter in place throughout this weekend. We are still seeing a downward trend. We have had some burglaries and we are going to be in those areas to make sure that our Business Owners are safe. We ask you to all 911 if you see crimes occurring, particularly violent crimes. You can also call or utilize our website to file police reports. We are taking reports. We have a call center. Do not let people of this nature into your homes. Somebody asks to come into your home to inspect or give away masks, they are not legitimate, we are not doing residential inspections to peoples houses. You will see our Disaster Service workers passing out fliers and information pamphlets but they are not going to anybodys home so if you see that happen, please call 911 because it probably is a scam. Information is key and we want to make sure that the public is informed. That distribution of information does not include us asking to come into your home. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So for those people that are offering something that sounds too good to be true, please get a second opinion, investigate it before you act. Dont carry large sums of money. We have seen a couple of Home Invasion robberies. Please dont have large sums of money in your house. We ask that you use your Financial Institutions for that. And dont open your doors to people that you dont know. Its as simple as that. Use simple, basic safety precautions to keep yourself safe. The last thing we need is for people with all the anxiety of this Public Health pandemic to be worried about their safety. So use good, sound Safety Practices and good common sense and lock your doors for people you dont know and keep your doors locked. With that i ask that you please help us this weekend, help yourselves, keep your family safe by complying with the stay at home orders and social distancing requirements and have a happy and great easter weekend. Thank you. Dr. Grant colfax. Good afternoon. The city considered closing some residential streets off to traffic in order to provide more safety and social distancing for residents who like to go out to walk, jog and bike. Its very important that we keep physically distancing from each other. And while we understand, and i wont encourage people to get out and exercise i will encourage people to get out and exercise and get fresh rare, we want to make sure that crowds do not congregate those areas. As the mayor said, over the weekend, its very important that people respect and have no plans but to stay in quarantine. Question from tan with nbc bay area. Can the bay area afford to send resources such as doctors to other areas such as new york to help . How quickly could we get resources back if we have a surge of cases . I cant speak for the institutions that are sending aid there. As a provider myself, i respect the need for them to do that. And i certainly would also respect if the situation worsens here that we would be able to respond to the cases we have here and keep the resources in San Francisco. We have an ongoing need for testing supplies in order to increase our testing capacity. We have a great need for personal protective equipment to protect our Health Workers and First Responders. Those are dire shortages in San Francisco across the country. So we need to ensure that we are meeting our local needs as well as when we have the ability to help our colleagues who are struggling with the pandemic in certain regions across the country. Another question from nby bay area. N nbc bay area. Are the rest of the staff and guests there being [off mic] is the department of Public Health tracking the cases in hotels. The cases we know about are really through contract investigations. So that person either tested positive or we find a case that was tested as a result of a contact of another case. So we will be recording those data and ensuring the data if and when they are accurate. A followup to that, how is department of Public Health handling any positive cases at sros in terms of Contact Tracing and isolating vulnerable residents . We are aggressively Contact Tracing residents in sros and we are ensuring that if necessary they are providing with hotel rooms to self isolate and protect themselves and their families and the rest of the members in that sro. A question from janey at associated press. Are the 70 people who tested positive at msc south connected to the two people who tested positive on sunday . Tested positive on sunday i need a clarification, what two people . I believe what shes trying to ask is we announced at some point last week that the original two cases at msc south are these cases related . Yeah, i think its i really i certainly cant say affirmatively that those two cases are directly related to all the remaining cases that we detected. The point is from a Public Health perspective when we assess the situation, when we look at the patterns of engagement and interaction at the shelter, and as we tested more people, it became clear that the outbreak was widespread, and thats why we are testing everybody in the shelter and made the decision to test everybody in the shelter at the time as well as staff to ensure that the people knew their status, that we can monitor them appropriately, house them and ensure that they get the best medical care possible as well as taking aggressive steps to protect other people from potential infection. A followup to that question, which i hope im clarifying correctly. The two we previously talked about, we understand those folks were moved out of shelter. The remaining 68 guests, where are they now . So, again, its a rapidlyevolving situation and as we talked about, the msc shelter is now going to become a covid19 Recovery Center. So many of the people who are of the guests who tested positive at south will be in that shelter being taken care of by expert medical professionals, our excellent doctors, nurses, and social workers from the department of Public Health with support from the department of department of homelessness and Supportive Housing as well as the Human Service agency staff. Question from john king of the San Francisco chronicle. Will testing now be done on all of the residents in all shelters given the number s found at south . We are again looking at the evidence and Contact Tracing cases and shelters and will make a decision on how many people need to be tested depending specifically on the case and really using Christian Science monitor in terms of how best really using science in terms of how best to trace and when Contact Tracing is needed a followup question to that from mr. King. Given the turnover at shelters from night tonight, how are you finding people to test if they are no longer sleeping at the shelter . So, again, we are working with the experts on that shelter system. Our colleagues at the department of homelessness and Supportive Housing are colleagues at the Human Services agency, as you know, they run the shelters and the support systems for those shelter across the city along with our contact investigation teams. We are literally going through, case by case contact by contact to take sure that we are doing everything we can to find people who are at high risk to ensure people who are at high risk for bad outcomes are placed in hotels and to ensure people who had a high risk exposure for covid19 are receiving testing. The final question for you from Wilson Walker at kpix. With the outbreak in the shelter does that give you any added concern that you also have spread among the unsheltered population on the street as well . Well, i think really if you take if you think about where we started when we were when we started talking about this pandemic in february i always said that vulnerable populations were most potentially affected by coronavirus and would unfortunately suffer the greatest consequences based on data from interNational Data sources, china, italy. We have seen whats happened unfortunately in new york. Im very concerned when we talk about flattening the curve and when we talk about our current hospital capacity, i am very concerned about the spread of coronavirus in the population experiences homelessness. Unfortunately we know this population suffers from greatest Health Disparities without a pandemic, higher rates of chronic respiratory diseases, higher flu rates, higher rates of hospitalization. Unfortunately, this pandemic will only put those inequities, those disparities in greater relief which is why my department is working as hashed as we can with Key Community partners, other key departments to ensure that people are getting the testing they need, the care they need, and with hsa and with hsh, that people who are at greatest vulnerable from bad, bad outcomes from this business are placed in hotel rooms to protect them and our community. One final question from the San Francisco examiner. To we know how many of those 70 people testing positive at msc have had underlying conditions or in the age range to be more vulnerable . I do not have those numbers yet but certainly some of them have those chronic conditions and we are looking through those numbers right now. I want to emphasize that we are deploying our team of medical experts to ensure that people who have tested positive, whether or not they have a chronic condition, are getting the best care possible and certainly if need n need of greater levels of care they will be transported to the appropriate medical facility. Thank you dr. Colfax. The next questions are for Abigail Stewartkahn. A twopart question and a followup from nbc bay area. Inside city shelters are Homeless People now being sheltered in a way that allows for safe social distancing . If shelters need to be thinned out to achieve that, when do you expect that to be complete . Days, weeks, months . Thank you. Just to clarify, so we are following guidance from the federal state and local authorities around creating six feet of distance, physical distancing in our shelters. And as the journalists notes, this is very difficult to accomplish. Our shelters are very close and compact, and they vary significantly from site to site. We just know that that puts these folks at more risk. We began implementing creative physical distancing at all of our sites several weeks ago. And i really want to thank our providers who found space where there was no space to make this possible, even before we were able to start moving people out of sites. We are well on our way to reaching what i am calling shelter equilibrium which involves moving the most vulnerable individuals out into hotels. And we should be able to accomplish that very shortly. A followup, what is the total amount the city has spent so far on hotel rooms for the homeless and what is the range of the daily Hotel Room Rates . Thank you. So i will take this question on behalf of director ror, the director of Human Services agency. As we have articulated at past press conferences, under an emergency, Human Services agency is responsible for mass care and shelter so im happy to provide this response on behalf of the Human Services agency. So the numbers that have been shared with me are that for the first three months of all of the hotels that have been brought online and under contract by the Human Services agency, is a total cost of approximately 35 million. Much of this is reimbursable by fema and other sources of information. And i think there was another question in there. I apologize. I think thats it. There is a related question from robert of nbc bay area about those hotel rooms. What is the current number of leased rooms for unsheltered people and how many have checked in . Thank you, robert. So ill give all the hotel numbers briefly because i think its important to understand the scale and magnitude of this challenge. Again, these are numbers from the Human Services agency not from my department. The hotel rooms for all priority populations that are under contract right now is 1,892. Approximately 880 are for First Responders and approximately 1,012 of these are for vulnerable populations as we have articulated in the past. Thank you. And another question from robert compos of nbc bay area. To date, how many Homeless People from tested positive with the coronavirus and what is their condition . Thank you for that question and for your care for our unhoused neighbors. The department of Public Health is not analyzing and separating their data in that way in particular. And so we may have other we likely have other individuals who are experiencing homelessness and are also covid positive but are at isolation and quarantine rooms. We know the majority of people are either from sros, semi congregate sites or shelters or the unsheltered population. What we know now is what we cant speak to is who is positive in our shelter sites and that is one at Division Circle, one at hamilton and the 70 that have been discussed today at msc south. Thank you. Question from kerry. Is there an effort to move unhoused residents off crowded sidewalks, especially in the tenderloin, into public open spaces that are currently underutilized . Yes. Thank you for that. So immediately at the beginning of this pandemic, and ill speak here on behalf of the department of Emergency Management, which oversees our unsheltered operations but we are in partnership with them. So immediately at the beginning of this epidemic we know our unhoused neighbors are vulnerable. So all removals of tents, what people refer to as encampment resolutions were paused and the operation went into a mode of educating and providing services. As things back to shut down, access to restrooms and food, it became the job of our outpreach providers to outreach providers to be the voice of education, knowledge and linkage for people who are unsheltered and experiencing homelessness. We know that more people have become unsheltered because of our need to pause shelter intakes. This is a significant and important population for us. What we want to do critically and urgently is to move the vulnerable individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness into hotels and we will get to work on that and we are working on that as we speak and we are also working on continuing to remind people will social and physical distancing while unsheltered and looking at and starting to explore possibilities for safe places to be. More to sharon that in the coming days. Final question from kat of kcbs. You have talked about the group of unsheltered people who will be prioritized when it comes to moving to hotel rooms. Will that change now because of the news of the outbreak and will more people be moved quickly into hotel rooms . Thank you for that question. I said from the beginning that we are very concerned with individuals living in congregate living. We are talking about thousands of people. And if you include sros we are talking about tens of thousands of people. So this is a task, moving these individuals into shelters is a task that has never before faced our city in the scale and magnitude. So i want to use this opportunity to talk a little bit about what it takes to take on this massive undertaking. So first Human Services agency has secured sites and rooms, youve heard about the scale they have been able to reach there. For each site, the city and nonprofit staffing has to staff up immediately, visit the site, understand the site, staff enough people, everything from monitoring to security to medical to counselors to all of the supplies that need to be onsite, thinking about meals and hygiene, thinking about things like accessibility for people in wheelchairs and with other accessibility concerns. We have to do a screening for vulnerable vulnerability to understand who should be moving in when we arent sure. We have to do an assessment of ability to self care. What that looks like is if you cant self care, you are still going to come inside but we need more care wrapped around you. We have to work on transportation which has proven challenging because of the physical and social distancing required. So the buses have to be big with very few people in them. We have talked about meals and hygiene kits. We have to look at things like individuals with Substance Use issues and we have to look to support people with Mental Health concerns in a Harm Reduction environment. And then we have to think about what comes after this, where do people step down when they are able to step down to a lower level of care and what do we do after we move through this pandemic . All these things have to happen for every site to come online so its really a massive undertaking that has the citys entire focus now. Thank you. That concludes our press conference. Thank you. [please stand by] chair fewer i am sandra lee fewer, chair of the finance committee, and i am joined by committee supervisors Shamann Walton and supervisor raphael mandelman. Okay. We are also joined by supervisors ronen and haney, and supervisor haney, are you here . Supervisor ronen has joined us, and our clerk is miss linda wong. I would also like to thank Samuel Williams from sfgovtv for broadcasting this meeting. Madam clerk, do you have any announcements . Clerk yes [inaudible] clerk Public Comment will be available for each item on this agenda and sfgtv. Org is streaming the number across the stream. Public comment will be available via phone by call 18882045984, access code 3501008. Pound, and then pound again. When you are connected, press one, and then zero. [inaudible] clerk speak clearly and slowly and turn down your television or radio. Alternatively, you may submit Public Comment in either of the following ways. Email me at linda. Wong sfgov. Org. Thats lindadotwong sfgo vdotorg. Chair fewer thank you very much, miss wong. So i want to say before we move into the agenda, i want to acknowledge the incredible work of the Clerks Office in coordinating three Committee Meetings today and for accommodating this special budget meeting. Colleagues, we have one hour for this meeting, and must conclude the meeting by 12 30 p. M. In order not to jeopardize the start of the Building Committee meeting. No matter where we are, we must stop at 12 30. Madam clerk, please call item 1. Clerk item 1, emergency ordinance to require the city to secure k8 250 private rooms by april 26, 2020, through Service Agreements with hotels and motels for use as temporary quarantine facilities for people currently experiencing homelessness, people released from hock will hospitals with covid19 exposure or exphex, and frontline workers in the covid19 crisis, waive the requirement under charter, section 9. 118, that the board of supervisors approve the Service Agreements for private rooms, require daily reporting to the board of supervisors on the citys progress in procuring and providing the needed room does, require congregate care facilities for the hockless to comply with social distancing practices and implement covid19 screening protocols, and direct the city to use best efforts to enable people from leaving congregate care facilities for temporary rooms provided by the city to subsequently return to congregate care facilities. Chair fewer thank you. Supervisor ronen . Supervisor ronen today, supervisor haney, peskin, walton, preston, and i are introducing an emergency ordinance requiring the city to secure 8,250 private hotel rooms by april 26, which is the anticipated peak of the pandemic in california that will serve as temporary quarter te quarantine facilities for people suffering from covid19, and frontline responders responding to the emergency. When we talk about people currently experiencing homelessness, that includes people that are doubled up in s. R. O. Hotel rooms and do not have a safe place to quarantine in place. San franciscans have been ordered to shelter in place since march 16. Nearly 3,000 people experiencing homelessness in congregate shelters. 5,000 individuals and 19,000 People Living in s. R. O. S across the city are still unable to selfisolate and face a much greater risk at contracting the virus. For weeks now, my colleagues and i have stood alongside medical professionals, community activists, and faith leaders in urging the mayor and City Departments to temporarily house residents of congregate shelters and the individuals living on our streets in hotel rooms where they could safely shelter in place. There are over 30,000 vacant hotel rooms in San Francisco right now, and Homeless Service providers have told us that they are ready and willing to staff up these facilities immediately. But instead, the city has held onto a backwards policy of waiting for individuals to first become infected before finally placing them in a private hotel. Last week, we reached a new level of urgency, when the city confirmed the first covid positive case in a homeless shelter. Once they are exposed, Homeless People have a much higher mortality risk due to community exposure. As members of the board, we have done everything in our power to move residents out of congregate shelters and into temporary housing as soon as possible, including supervisors preston, haney, and waltons efforts to secure private hospital rooms through private funds and securing every available resource to us as supervisors. Every hour we delay puts more Homeless People at risk and endangers our collective Public Health as a city. We have no moment to waste, and we will stop at nothing until every person that needs care is brought to a place where they can comfortably shelter in place. This city requires at least 8,250 hotel rooms for parents who do not require hospitalization, quarantine units for our First Responders and health care workers, and units where our infected homeless can safely quarantine. Finally, the legislation establishes standards of care at existing shelters, Navigation Centers, and other congregate care facilities for people experiencing homelessness that ensure proper social distancing, regular health screenings, and covid19 procedures pursuant to Public Health guidelines. If there is one thing that we have learned during this, is that it is our health is inextricablely link inextricably linked to all of our neighborhoods. So far, our City Government Public Health response has failed people in congregate settings, and people who are unsheltered and put all of us at risk. With this emergency ordinance, we will correct our course and move Homeless People into individual shelter like those of us that are blessed enough to have a home. I am happy to answer any questions. I can get into details, how we reached that number. I can compare that plan with what the city is currently doing, and i can talk about cost if you have those questions. But first, i wanted to turn it over to any of my other colleagues who had comments. Cha chair fewer i supervisor fewer, you are on mute. Chair fewer thank you. I want to turn it over to Severin Campbell for a b. L. A. Report before i hear anything else. Thank you, chair fewer. Severin campbell from the budget and legislative analysts office. We show the types of beds and people that would be covered under the ordinance in our report. Table 2 outlines the cost. We estimate a onemonth cost for rooms and services of 58. 6 million. This is actually based on existing contracts that the h. S. A. Has for these types of services. These numbers come from h. S. A. We do estimate there could be additional costs for onsite management per month of 1. 6 million to 1. 7 million. Those are some reports that weve done looking at onsite management for other types of facilities. There would almost certainly be some sort of fema or office of cal services reimbursement. We estimate that could be up to 93 of costs or eligible costs, but what is uncertain is what these two agencies would determine as reimbursable, so we did an equation in case fema and cal health did not include a lot of our needs in their criteria. Our guess would be that the number would call somewhere in between that in terms of monthly reimbursement. We do consider the legislation to be a policy matter for the board of supervisors. Chair fewer thank you very much, miss campbell. I believe we also have Kelly Kirkpatrick and Ben Rosenfeld available. Thats correct, madam chair. Chair fewer okay. I have a few questions for mr. Kirkpatrick and mr. Rosenfeld. [inaudible] chair fewer than what is reported in the b. L. A. Report. Either way, i think the question that comes up for me in terms of understanding this is that if we cannot get reimbursed for all of these funds, will these also be come interesting the genercome coming from the general funds . Madam chair, good morning. Ben rosenfield, controller. I think these funds would be drawn from the general fund. Whether that would be the general fund or general fund reserves, that would have to be determined or made, but i think whatever other sources after that would be a general fund cost. Chair fewer and when will we know what that impact will be to the general fund, either . I think it would be sometime as it relates to this portion of the response in part because the fema and cal Health Reimbursement process are likely to unfold over the coming weeks and months, and it will be directly related to who occupies these rooms, and what percentage of rooms are occupied at a given moment on a given day, and then, how femas advice evolves through this pandemic, so i think all of us can agree this will be a fluid Financial Impact for sometime. Chair fewer and then, supervisor ronen, in your legislation, i notice that this does not include patients that are at laguna honda, just a hot bed for outbreak across our nation, and that 100 of those residents are vulnerable. So i am wondering, does your legislation also include perhaps the moving of patients at laguna honda, which is probably the largest nursing facility in San Francisco. And then, also, does it include rooms for our patients who are in Nursing Homes . Supervisor ronen it doesnt include Nursing Homes because were focused on individuals that can selfcare, and at laguna honda and Nursing Homes, its not very common for individuals to be able to selfcare, and so the level of supervision and assistance is greater. Chair fewer would you be open to having it include some ihss patients and nursing home residents and also people at laguna honda because these are people in this age group, 70s, 80s, and 90s, that would need more acute medical care if they test positive . Supervisor ronen sure. I would want to ask d. P. H. About that, whether or not it is safe to move individuals in Nursing Homes and laguna honda into individual hotel rooms or whether or not they need a higher level of supervision and care, but i would be happy to add them if that is considered safe by d. P. H. Chair fewer well, i think there is a range, quite frankly, of individuals that do not need extended care. We could be offering care for these patients that need care, meaning, helping with feeding, helping with clothing or cleaning, while still in a setting where theyre not with many other patients that are vulnerable. Supervisor ronen okay. Chair fewer thank you very much. So i see people in queue, but first, i want to make some comments. And i know thats unusual because i normally wait until everyone has spoken. If my colleagues will allow me this one indulgence at this time. I wanted to share my thoughts about todays legislation, and i do believe that securing hotel rooms in the thousands to prevent unhoused residents from becoming ill and to prevent the preventible death of those we know are vulnerable to covid19 is a priority. I also wish that there was a way to move this priority in a way that did not fall into the trap of our tradition Political Division because in this moment, now more than ever, i believe that San Francisco needs to be united in our approach to save lives, meet peoples basic needs, and protect our most vulnerable residents. For the past week, i have been at the Emergency Operation center as has my whole office. I understand better now how this city is torn in its response to covid19 and have deeper appreciation for the tireless work that is being done by City Department staff. Has never been done perfectly . No, and truthfully, from the local to the state to the National Level and beyond, it has shown how unprepared our systems were for a pandemic, and how already vulnerable populations are at even higher levels of this now. I understand these Community Advocates who are fighting and cheering for these people. Unhoused, those in s. R. O. S, and those in shelter and care facilities. So many have been struggling for so long and now are at risk of major Health Impacts related to covid19. As a former community organizer, i understand the need for the city to be better and to move faster to address that. I want us to be both responsive to that push but also rise above the temptation to tear each other down during this crisis. We have to help our entire system to be a success, which is why my whole office has been helping out, and i call on every office to help out. In terms of this legislation, and im going to be forthright, this is an incredibly short timeline. And i agreed to hold this meeting only six days after this legislation was introduced, and i urge to pass this out of Committee Without recommendation as a Committee Report so that it can go to the full board for a vote tomorrow, allowing an additional opportunity for every member of this board to read the full legislation. So i make a motion to move this legislation as approved out of committee with no recommendation. With that, i turn it back over to supervisor ronen. [inaudible] chair fewer supervisor walton . Supervisor walton thank you. And i want to thank the Clerks Office for being so prepared and ready to conduct an emergency meeting and also chair fewer for being able to do this in an atypical manner. I do want to say that we are 100 in a pivotal time for us to be working together as city leadership, and that goes for our executive branch, our city branch, and our entire bureaucracy. In my opinion, it is a little disheartening that we are forming legislation that goes against our Health Department, who told us we could shelter in place. There are just three things i want to emphasize. I dont want to belabor the point and supervisor ronen did a good job of telling you why this legislation is in place and what the purpose is. One, we have a shelter in place order. It is confimperative we do everything we can. As weve seen within the last week recently, once we had one case at a particular shelter, it spread almost overnight dramatically in terms of when we were able to test and when we were able to find out the number of Homeless Individuals in that particular shelter who had contracted the virus. So as we know, as we look at all of our Navigation Centers, all of our s. R. O. S, the opportunity for spread is tremendous. Third, i just want to say as we work to be fiscally responsible during this crisis, im glad we got a b. L. A. Report on this, we do know there is a possibility we could be reimbursed up to 93 of costs, but our b. L. A. , as amazing as they are, they made sure that they gave us the most conservative numbers and figures in terms of what we think we could get for reimbursement, which still, in a time of emergency, is an advantage for us. This is a matter of life and death. And as we look at being in an opportunity to actually use resources to save lives and prevent the spread of the virus, that is something that we are fortunate number to be in a position to do that. I truly understand were going to have so many concerns and Economic Impacts and so many things that were going to have to mitigate as a result of this crisis. But the reality is this legislation, this focus does save lives, and thats what we want to do during this crisis is make sure that we keep people alive and keep people from contracting the virus. So in the spirit of working together and in the spirit of doing whats right, this is why we put this forward. And again, i want to thank chair fewer for allowing us to have this conversation so quickly because this legislation is something that needs to move forward immediately. Chair fewer thank you, supervisor walton. Thank you also for being available for this meeting. Supervisor haney, thank you for joining us. Supervisor haney thank you, chair fewer, and i also want to thank you for having this emergency meeting, and i want to thank supervisors ronen, walton, preston, mar, and ronen for authorizing this legislation. We delayed for weeks actually bringing forth legislation. We did a resolution. We, a month ago, had a hearing where we brought up our desire to see this happen and the urgency around it. Weve had dozens of calls with mayors leaders and d. H. C. , and we didnt feel like we had any other option as supervisors and make this a full legal requirement by the city. A month ago, we had a hearing, and director rhorer and others were there, and they made it clear that this was not part of their plan, to actually put the number of homeless in hotels to shelter in place. So over the past few weeks, we had tried to work in partnership. We had calls with them that said, let us know how we can help, yet during that time, there was a failure to move people quick enough, and the 70 people in my district who contracted it who are unable to shelter them in place, that is putting them at risk, and that is putting all of us at risk. So i would respectfully say that we did everything that we can work in partnership. This was never about politics, this was about saving peoples lives, and that is how we peoples lives, and that is how we approached it from the very beginning, and a lack of working together is what led to the biggest outbreak in a homeless shelter in the country last week. We have a duty as elected supervisor to protect the public and protect them from the spread of this virus, and that has not been done. We should have introduced this legislation weeks ago, and any further delay will put people in danger, and the idea that we havent try today Work Together with the mayor and tried to Work Together with the mayor and others is frankly not true. I am now representing a district where thousands of people are still on the streets, where thousands of people are still in shelters despite the fact that a month ago, we told them if they did not move the people from the shelters, and we would do everything we could do to help them, that did not happen. Every minute that we wait to fulfill our responsibility not just as a city but as the board of supervisors, we are failing San Francisco, and we are putting Vulnerable People in much greater risk. So i just want to make sure that people understand that we started this process a month ago. The shelter providers have reached out to me nearly every day in my office, saying that people are at risk, and so what were doing here is putting forward a plan, and we certainly home that its implemented fully and in partnership with the mayor, h. S. A. , department of Public Health and everyone else, including the Public Health officer who, a month ago, said this should be the approach thats taken. So i hope that we ultimately unanimously pass this as a board, and i hope that we have the support of all of the supervisors because people in my district, people throughout my city are being put at risk unnecessarily, and if we dont change how slowly this has happened, people are going to die. Chair fewer thank you, supervisor. Supervisor mandelman . Supervisor mandelman thank you, chair fewer, and thank you for your suggestion. I think it does make sense to get this to the full board so that everyone can vote on this tomorrow. I think i dont think there is a member of the board of supervisors who does not believe that we need to use as many hotel rooms as we can to address this crisis. And, you know, i think theres clearly a lot of that anxiety and fear right now throughout San Francisco. It is a challenging moment for everyone, including the people who actually have to do the work of unlocking these hotel rooms. And one of the things that i kind of wanted to dig in a little bit if we have the time, and maybe well do this tomorrow at the board meeting, as well, i wanted to understand i seem to recall this administration a month ago talking about how they were hoping and intending to use hotel rooms as part of the response and committing to move on that. I also note from my history, having worked in the city attorney, anything that involves lawyers and contracts is complicated, but i think ensuring safety for the people that have to staff those hotel rooms, and how we are using those hotel rooms. So i think everybody on the board nobody wants to let up or say that we shouldnt be moving as quickly as possible to get thousands and thousands of these hotel rooms used, and i think we have an obligation to understand what some of the challenges are along the way. If were going to be telling people what we think they should be doing, i think we need to search for the people that may be watching at house we need to explain for the people that may be watching at home why it took as long as it took. A week ago, we got a letter or president yee got a letter from trent rhorer, kind of explaining as of that time where they were in making hotel rooms available, sort of broke down for tenplus hotel rooms, where it was in the process, contract negotiating, contracted, and how many beds were available. Id like to hear kind of an update, and as i look at the list of rooms that has actually been contract executed, one of those contracts was 30 rooms for laguna honda. So to the question that chair fewer raised earlier, it actually appears from that and again, we are not the implementers, we are the legislators, but it appears that the implementers at least had in mind that some of the services that they are trying to acquire for folks coming out of Nursing Homes thats at least laguna honda, and i assume that would be a particular hotel room that would be at. I would love to hear because people dont always tell us all the work that theyre doing. I would love to hear an update on what were doing in terms of people moving into hotel rooms this weekend. Where are we . Chair fewer okay. Weve had some people that have joined us. I think maybe d. P. H. About the laguna honda patient question, and then maybe danielle taplin no, h. S. H. About where we are on the sheltering the unhoused people in hotel rooms. Sure. Im on the phone. For laguna honda, we did do an assessment to see if they could selfcare in a hotel room as you mentioned or if they would require some ihss support or stay in a hotel room. There was a small group of people, and i believe the last i had heard about half of them had been moved. I do believe that laguna honda wants to respect patients autonomy, as well, so they wanted to try to work with them on that move, but i can check back on the final numbers. Chair fewer thank you very much. And then, Abigail Stewart kahn from d. S. H. Thank you, chair fewer, for allowing us to speak about the population that we care about, as always. I think in terms of projecting numbers and where we are, that would be great to get from dan taplin. What i can say is of the prioritized populations that were shared a month ago before i was interim director and included many of the populations that you have talked about, as of yesterday, we have moved a total of approximately 750 into various kinds of hotels with more in motion as we speak and more hotels coming online. Those will be questions for dan kaplan. These are all vulnerable folks in shelters who are moved before significantly before covid positives have occurred. The thing to note before i have to jump off and then youre in expert hands with emily cohen is that the process here is really significant. Were optimistic and creative, and our nonprofit partners are coming to the table every day. Our divestment individuals are coming to the table every day, and they have complex lives and potentially more complex. We know that supervisor mandelman understands the work very, very well with all the work that hes been doing since coming into office. Theres amazing work that dan kaplan and his team have been doing, and then, theres enforcement checks, thinking about isolation and quarantine and peoples selfrespect and liberties. Managing crisis, managing Behavioral Health issues and Substance Use issues, providing care coordination and access to care. Transportation is more complicated than it would be, say, after an earthquake when i imagine it would be pretty complicated. You think about a bus or an ambulance to transport people, and the fact that people need to be 6 feet apart in a bus would mean that weve moved between 750 and 900 folks in a short period of time. You can imagine how many times that trip has happened, and in between, everything needs to be cleaned, everything needs to be disinfecte disinfected. This is all for us to wrap our minds around, but because they have a community and are in a congregate setting, some have declined, and well go back to them and help councsel them to go to a hotel. I think by the end of the day, we will have succeeded in moving all of the people in our shelters and Navigation Centers into hotels and motels, so our next step will be going back to the people that werent ready to go. I really want to can commend the supervisors who have done this work in other locations. Your philanthropy, i think thats a fantastic cross section, and they are doing that with work contracted by the city. And thats maybe okay, but these places have to be staffed, and these individuals have to be cared for in their hotel. Chair fewer excuse me. I wanted to say we have to be done with this meeting by 12 30. Okay. Chair fewer okay. Now dan kaplan. Chair fewer, sorry for the interruption, there are members of the public wishing to speak. Could we open Public Comment at this time . Chair fewer so sorry, supervisors. Lets open this up for Public Comment. Are there any members of the public wishing to speak . Please remember to speak what is that, again . Clerk one and zero. Chair fewer to be placed in the queue. Clerk madam chair, operator is checking to see if there are any comments in the queue. Please let us know if there are any callers ready. Caller i have four callers at the moment. Please let me queue the first caller. You have five questions remaining. I am with yimby action. I think what they say is potentially a really important thing for the full board to be considering. We do need to be getting people off the streets as quickly as possible. I think the question about fema reimbursement is probably top of mind. We will probably have to spend this money out of our current reserve. It is likely that fema will not be reimbursing for those who have not been found to be testing positive, and those who are not in an atrisk group, and therefore, we will need to think about this, especially in the budget, the longterm implications of this. It doesnt mean we should go forward with it. I think we should, but it does mean that a larger budgeting thing should be held over the longterm. I hope that you can join with other City Governments and councils to demand that fema reimburse for that. I think if we can get a larger group of people demanding that fema reimburse for that, well have a greater chance because we know that testing is not happening in our homeless population, so i hope that can spur an advocacy for fema reimbursement. We have a loud voice at the federal level, so i hope that the board can use their voice to call for that policy change. Thank you. Chair fewer next speaker, please. You have eight questions remaining. Hi. This is sonia charo. Hello . [inaudible] speaker . All right. Can you hear me . Yes. We can hear you. All right. Hi. Im here. All right. We dont have to take the hotels word for it. This is sonia trout. Other cities seem to be Getting Hotel rooms around the world half as much. The other thing is s. R. O. Rooms will be empty. Im looking forward to everybody getting together to show the mayor that she has the widest support possible. Thanks. Chair fewer thank you. Next speaker, please. You have seven questions remaining. Hello. My name is sarah ogilby. Im with yimby today, and im in full support of the ordinance. If we do not house people immediately, we risk losing all progress made in flattening the curve and conserving hospital resources. Supervisors, please make a well articulated argument to the federal government to cover this need. We can both spend our money now and demand federal reimbursement, ask federal representatives to priorityize this, and use your political power. This is an unprecedented Public Health emergency exacerbated by a housing emergency. Decades of substandard policy are now having an impact on our state. We must accelerate housing productions of all kinds to put thousands of workers in an Industry Position to deliver San Francisco from economic cata strophy. Housing will become a key component to restoring and rebuilding our city. If were going to have to overcome the age of covid19, were going to have to agree that housing and production in the medium term become our mandate. Thank you. Chair fewer thank you. Next speaker, please. You have seven questions remaining. Hi. Thank you very much, supervisors. My name is mary indicakate ape. I support the ordinance. I think its important to get people inside, not merely those who meet the established criteria, but those in vulnerable situations. Those who cannot get inside, families are being discharged from the hospital for reasons unrelated to covid, and they have to live in their cars and shower at truck stops and are in a medically trfragile situations. I would like to see the legislation expanded to include pregnancy . Finally, i want to say that a lot of logistical and physical difficulties are being referenced, and some of them are important for consideration in this city process . I think its essential that the e. O. C. And h. S. A. And h. S. H. Profit with the Nonprofit Community . Were operating essential services . Family providers are collaborating services to hotel rooms. Weve located a site and a block of rooms, and were crowd sourcing money which is flexible. At the same time, millions are available from the state, and there are federal funding extremes. I think we need to put our heads together, decentralize the process, and maximize the funding streams to help the most in shelters. Thank you. Chair fewer thank you very much. Next speaker, please. You have six questions remaining. Linda chapman. I dont know if you have received the letter from current action team yet. I was one of the people who prepared the letter, and i thought it was absolutely essential to get people off the street and into hotel rooms. But equally important is not to use the hotels that were originally found to be Residential Hotels and that have been converted most illegally or through various tricks because they should not be rewarded with extra money, and then, you would be putting yourselves or the city, rather, of being in a position from almost being estopped from taking action against them. May theyre the ones that have alrea [inaudible] now im speaking for myself. I am surrounded by the kind of hotels that people have illegally changed. Apart from the fact that i was on the, you know, the committee that passed the Residential Hotel controls back in the first place, and in one of the neighborhoods in nob hill in order to have that passed in the first place, i worked more recently with sue hester to try to make the art academy restore its buildings, some of which were Residential Hotels aon no hill, so im very sensitive to this. I worked with supervisor peskins office when he was doing an incredible piece for technical corrections to convert rooms in other venues. Certainly, s. D. A. Is in favor of it, and c. A. R. A. Supervisor peskin got a quick and dirty version of what changes would need to be made. You have to get these people off the street. I did work for social security. These were our clients, and we worked in an office building, and the other people who used the elevators to get to other offices were not too happy with our clientele in some cases. Obviously, many people just because theyre not living in a house because theyre in a shelter or something are not going to be a problem. But the people that are drug addicts, and they got their checks, instead of having it put in an account, money management, they would be youre going to have some problems to deal with. Chair fewer speaker . Clerk operations, could you please set up you have five questions remaining. Chair fewer okay. We are very short on time now, so could we please have two minutes on speakers . Good morning. My name is francisco, member of united season the mission and member of San Francisco day labor and woman united save the mission and member of San Francisco day labor and women united. We are a program of delores Street Community services which houses mission as our collective collaborative where we have already had participants of the program be sent home after being diagnosed positive and then infected family members because there was no other place to keep them. Our membership is among the most vulnerable during this crisis, exposed to the weather, sleeping under bridges, sharing spaces where they can only rent a sofa from a neighborhood, and the sofa is only for sleeping without the ability to shower on a regular basis. One of our members got permission to shower with buckets under a bridge last week. At least 50 of our members face shelter insecurity and covid19 infection unless they can find a place to stay in shelter. California Health Departments already given us a directive, and given this reality for our health and safety of our entire city, together with the delores street commission, i am asking the supervisors pass this emergency ordinance and that the city and mayor act immediately to sign agreements to secure rooms for our most vulnerable neighbors or use commandeering power to secure rooms which cannot be secured through trade agreements. This can save lives. Thank you for your vote. I know that los angeles had the power to move thousands. Please act swiftly. Vote for this emergency ordinance. Thank you very much. Chair fewer thank you very much. You have four questions remaining. Hi. My name is olivia park, and im a graduating medical student from ucsf, and im in favor of this much needed ordinance. Supervisor haney was right in that this outbreak could have been prevented. [inaudible] San Francisco is one of the most well resourced cities in the country economically as well as the services for the homeless community, yes somehow we manage to allow the kind of humanitarian disasters to happen before our eyes. We need to move 1,000 individuals from shelters every day, and if we dont, were going to see greater than 64 of the shelter population, including city staff, contract covid19 by next week. The mayor needs to use her commandeering status now to move 1,000 people into hotel rooms a day. I want to see the power of political will. We are San Francisco. We can do this. Thank you. Chair fewer thank you very much. Next speaker, please. You have four speakers remaining. Hi. My name is juliana morris. I am a family care doctor in San Francisco, and i care for many people experiencing homelessness. Its been heartbreaking to support this population at this time. They know theyre going to be discharged to the streets, they know that theyre going to be unable to protect themselves, and my heart goes out to this population and other people that are vulnerable. I just want to reiterate the call to house all people, nin addition to the most vulnerable. This is to stop the spread and get them the care that they need. The medical Service Providers and organizers that work inside the congregate setting, they know what they need to stay safe and to care for themselves within the hotel setting, and they should be able to be directed into those settings and not spread out so that we can make sure that everyones needs get accounted for. And then, in doing this, we need to be housing people before they get sick, not just afterwards. I also want to mention how afraid i am how this delayed and inadequate response is exacerbating illnesses within the city. The African American population and latinx population are experiencing much higher rates and morbidity from covid19. Thank you very much. Chair fewer thank you very much. Next speaker, please. You have three speakers remaining. My name is mike chen, and im a member of yimby action. We imagine a future where everyone has access to Affordable Housing. The big thing that im concerned about is making sure that we have the funding to do this. We need to make sure that my understanding is that fema guidelines only allow for housing people who test positive. We need to use our power as a city to make sure that we get more clarification from fema such that this is funded. At the same time, we need to make sure that in case fema funding does not come through, we should be leveraging all funding sources, including private donations. We need to learn how to balance the budget to fight a major crisis. For housing, please consider that thats how we can use construction jobs to jump start the economy, creating a saferer and more Affordable Housing for safer and more Affordable Housing for everyone. Chair fewer next speaker. Next speaker on the line . You have two questions remaining. Hi. My name is lina core, and im a fourthyear medical student at ucsf. [inaudible] and continue to do the social and Public Outreach in the face of this pandemic. Weve seen studies coming out of ucla, university of pennsylvania, and boston university, theyve projected that Homeless Individuals that contract covid19 are two to three times for likely to be hospitalized, two to three times more likely to require Critical Care in an i. C. U. , and two to three times more likely to die. When people who are experiencing homelessness are in congregate living situations like shelters, theyre unable to take the necessary precautions to shelter in place and social distance. Ive talked to folks who are sharing bathrooms, living in close quarters and are failing to social distancing, lacking the care that they need. Its critical that all homeless persons be offered a hotel room before they test positive. I urge you, the board of supervisors, to save lives, and move people experiencing homeless chair fewer thank you. Next speaker, please. Is the speaker there . You have one question remaining. My name is anabel, and im a nursing midwife and a student at ucsf. Im speaking related to problems with depression and post partum. I want to make sure that pregnant and birthing people and people with newborns are being considered especially in this crisis . Its covid19 is unlike any of the other coronaviruses that we have seen, and women are going to be more likely to be impacted by this illness. We do know there are very raptly changing guidelines around social distancing. [inaudible] chair fewer thank you very much. Any other speakers . You have zero questions remaining. Chair fewer seeing no speakers, Public Comment is closed. Colleagues, i apologize. I know your name is on the roster. We want to get this to the full board to vote on it, and we are already past our time. The Clerks Office has allowed us to be here until 12 30, so i am going to ask my colleagues to save their comments until tomorrow. I made a motion, and its on the table. I make a motion to move this to the full board. Roll call. [roll call] clerk there are three ayes. Chair fewer thank you. Is there any further business before us . Clerk theres no further business. Chair fewer thank you. This meetingss adjourned. Francisco. My name is fwlend hope i would say on at largescale what all passionate about is peace in the world. It never outdoor 0 me that note everyone will think that is a good i know to be a paefrt. One man said ill upsetting the order of universe i want to do since a good idea not the order of universe but his offered of the universe but the ministry sgan in the room chairing sha harry and grew to be 5 we wanted to preach and teach and act gods love 40 years later i retired having been in the tenderloin most of that 7, 8, 9 some have god drew us into the someplace we became the Network Ministries for homeless women escaping prostitution if the months period before i performed Memorial Services store produced women that were murdered on the streets of San Francisco so i went back to the board and said we say to do something the number one be a safe place for them to live while he worked on changing 4 months later we were given the building in january of 1998 we opened it as a safe house for women escaping prostitution ive seen those counselors women find their strength and their beauty and their wisdom and come to be able to affirmative as the daughters of god and they accepted me and made me, be a part of the their lives. Special things to the women that offered me a chance safe house will forever be a part of the who ive become and you made that possible life didnt get any better than that. Whove would know this look of this girl grown up in atlanta will be working with produced women in San Francisco part of the system that has abused and expedited and obtain identified and degraded women for century around the world and still do at the embody the spirits of women that just know they deserve respect and intend to get it. I dont want to just so women younger women become a part of the the Current System we need to change the system we dont need to go up the ladder we need to change the corporations we need more women like that and theyre out there. We get have to get to help them. Roughly five years, i was working as a high school teacher, and i decided to take my students on a surfing field trip. The light bulb went off in my head, and i realized i could do much more for my students taking them surfing than i could as their classroom teacher, and that is when the idea for the city surf project was born. Working with kids in the ocean that arent familiar with this space is really special because youre dealing with a lot of fear and apprehension but at the same time, a lot of excitement. When i first did it, i was, like, really scared, but then, i did it again, and i liked it. Well get a group of kids who have just never been to the beach, are terrified of the idea, who dont like the beach. Its too cold out, and its those kid that are impossible to get back out of the water at the end of the day. Over the last few years, i think weve had at least 40 of our students participate in the city surf project. Surfing helped me with, like, how to swim. Weve start off with about two to four sessions in the pool before actually going out and surfing. Swimming at the pool just helps us with, like, being, like, comfortable in the water and being calm and not being all not being anxious. So when we started the city surf project, one of the things we did was to say hey, this is the way to earn your p. E. Credits. Just getting kids to go try it was one of our initial challenges for the first year or two. But now that weve been doing it three or four years, we have a group of kids thats consistent, and the word has spread, that its super fun, that you learn about the ocean. Starting in the morning, you know, i get the vehicles ready, and then, i get all the gear together, and then, i drive and go get the kids, and we take them to a local beach. We usually go to linda mar, and then occasionally ocean beach. We once did a special trip. We were in capitola last year, and it was really fun. We get in a circle and group stretch, and we talk about specific safety for the day, and then, we go down to the water. Once we go to the beach, i dont want to go home. I cant change my circumstances at home, but i can change the way i approach them. Our program has definitely been a way for our students to find community and build friends. I dont really talk to friends, so i guess when i started doing city surf, i started to, like, get to know people more than i did before, and people that i didnt think id like, like, ended up being my best friends. Its a group sport the way we do it, and with, like, close camaraderie, but everybodys doing it for themselves. Its great, surfing around, finding new people and making new friendships with people throughout surfing. It can be highly developmental for students to have this time where they can learn a lot about themselves while negotiating the waves. I feel significantly, like, calmer. It definitely helps if im, like, feeling really stressed or, like, feeling really anxious about surfing, and i go surfing, and then, i just feel, like, im going to be okay. It gives them resiliency skills and helps them build selfconfidence. And with that, they can use that in other parts of their lives. I went to bring amy family o the beach and tell them what i did. I saw kids open up in the ocean, and i got to see them connect with other students, and i got to see them fail, you know, and get up and get back on the board and experience success, and really enjoy themselves and make a connection to nature at the same time. For some kids that are, like, resistant to, like, being in a Mentorship Program like this, its they want to surf, and then later, theyll find out that theyve, like, made this community connection. I think they provided level playing fields for kids to be themselves in an open environment. For kids to feel like i can go for it and take a chance that i might not have been willing to do on my own is really special. We go on 150 surf outings a year. Thats yearround programming. Weve seen a tremendous amount of youth face their fears through surfing, and that has translated to growth in other facets of their lives. I just think the biggest thing is, like, that they feel like that they have something that is really cool, that theyre engaged in, and that we, like, care about them and how theyre doing, like, in general. What i like best is they really care about me, like, im not alone, and i have a group of people that i can go to, and, also, surfing is fun. Were creating surfers, and were changing the face of surfing. The feeling is definitely akin to being on a roller coaster. Its definitely faster than i think you expect it to be, but its definitely fun. It leaves you feeling really, really positive about what that kids going to go out and do. I think its really magical almost. At least it was for me. It was really exciting when i caught my first wave. I felt like i was, like it was, like, magical, really. When they catch that first wave, and their first lights up, you know their face lights up, you know you have them hooked. I was on top of the world. Its amazing. I felt like i was on top of the world even though i was probably going two miles an hour. It was, like, the scariest thing id ever done, and i think it was when i got hooked on surfing after my name is alan schumer. I am a fourth generation san franciscan. In december, this building will be 103 years of age. It is an incredibly rich, rich history. [ ] my core responsibility as city hall historian is to keep the history of this building alive. I am also the tour program manager, and i chair the city advisory commission. I have two ways of looking at my life. I want it to be i wanted to be a Fashion Designer for the movies, and the other one, a political figure because i had some force from family members, so it was a constant battle between both. I ended up, for many years, doing the fashion, not for the movies, but for for san franciscan his and then in turn, big changes, and now i am here. The work that i do at city hall makes my life a broader, a richer, more fulfilling than if i was doing something in the Garment Industry. I had the opportunity to develop relationships with my docents. It is almost like an extended family. I have formed incredible relationships with them, and also some of the people that come to take a tour. She was a dressmaker of the first order. I would go visit her, and it was a special treat. I was a tiny little girl. I would go with my wool coat on and my special little dress because at that period in time, girls did not wear pants. The Garment Industry had the at the time that i was in it and i was a retailer, as well as the designer, was not particularly favourable to women. You will see the predominant designers, owners of huge complexes are huge stores were all male. Women were sort of relegated to a lesser position, so that, you reached a point where it was a difficult to survive and survive financially. There was a woman by the name of diana. She was editor of the bazaar, and evoke, and went on and she was a miraculous individual, but she had something that was a very unique. She classified it as a third i. Will lewis brown junior, who was mayor of San Francisco, and was the champion of reopening this building on january 5th of 1999. I believe he has not a third eye , but some kind of antenna attached to his head because he had the ability to go through this building almost on a daily basis during the restoration and corrects everything so that it would appear as it was when it opened in december of 1915. The board of supervisors approved that, i signed it into law. Jeffrey heller, the city and county of San Francisco oh, and and your band of architects a great thing, just a great thing. To impart to the history of this building is remarkable. To see a person who comes in with a gloomy look on their face , and all of a sudden you Start Talking about this building, the gloomy look disappears and a smile registers across their face. With children, and i do mainly all of the childrens tours, that is a totally different feeling because you are imparting knowledge that they have no idea where it came from, how it was developed, and you can Start Talking about how things were before we had computer screens, cell phones, lake in 1915, the mayor of San Francisco used to answer the telephone and he would say, good morning, this is the mayor. At times, my clothes make me feel powerful. Powerful in a different sense. I am not the biggest person in the world, so therefore, i have to have something that would draw your eye to me. Usually i do that through color, or just the simplicity of the look, or sometimes the complication of the look. I have had people say, do those shoes really match that outfit . Retirement to me is a very strange words. I dont really ever want to retire because i would like to be able to impart the knowledge that i have, the knowledge that i have learned and the ongoing honor of working in the peoples palace. You want a longterm career, and you truly want to give something to do whatever you do, so long as you know that you are giving to someone or something youre then yourself. Follow your passion and learn how to enrich the feelings along the way. People of San Francisco. I am proud to introduce the honorable mayor of San Francisco, london breed. Mayor breed all right. First of all, thank you all for coming out here. As you know, thousands of people take caltrain in and out of San Francisco every day. Since 2009 we have seen ridership increase by 76 . We know that this is the location where we have at least eight municipalny lines that frequent this neighborhood. As people move around this an effort to get to their train, their bus, hospital on the bike, walk around, move around, we have to continue to develop safe Transportation Networks so people are able to move around safely in San Francisco. The improvements here today we are excited about do just that. It allows for people to get around safely, which is clearly what we care about the most. As our city grows, as more people are working in San Francisco who are coming from all parts of the bay area, we know that we are going to have more crowded city. Making sure that people could use different modes of transportation to get around safely is critical, whether by bicycle, jogging, scooter, or vehicle or what have you. Our ultimate goal is safety. That is why we are committed to moving forward the changes to our infrastructure that will ultimately lead to what the goals are about, no fatalities on our streets. We know in 2019 we had about 29 people who died on the San Francisco streets. In fact, this year we have already had two deaths. That is two deaths too many this year. We have to do more. Last year i set a goal of doing 20 miles of bike lanes throughout the city. So far we are at 7. 5 miles of those dedicated bike lanes. We are on the way to meeting that goal. This is not about pleasing one group over another. This is about Public Safety. It is about making sure no matter how you are trying to move around San Francisco you know you can do it safely. San francisco is changing. We want to make sure that people are moving around in a way that provides an opportunity for us to feel safe and secure. I am excited about this project. It looks great down here. The streets are clean and smooth and paved. Your bus ride wont we bumpy in this section of townsend. I want to thank s. F. M. T. A. , San Francisco public works for the work they have done to move this project forward quickly along with other projects in San Francisco that we have seen improvements on. I want to thank walk sf and the Bicycle Coalition and the folks who advocated for improvements that are going to lead to a better experience for all of us here in San Francisco, and also ultimately saving countless lives. That you also much for being here today. [applause] i would like to introduce the acting director of the San Francisco department of public works. Thank you, jeff. Thank you, mayor breed. It is great to be here this morning. It is a beautiful day. As i stand here, this is an amazing project. It shows we as a city can do. This is a city that has traveled with folks off buses, bicycles and skateboards. It takes it all to come together to make this happen. It was public works and urban foresty that constructed this island we are on right now. They built the bus pad and loading zones. Overall, and the workers and 1300tons of asphalt on this project along with 750 cubic yards of concrete. Keep in mind, this was a project not done by just public works. It was a collaboration with m. T. A. , San Francisco Bike Coalition along with walk sf. Again, i want to say thank you all. After being here today, public works is happy to be part of this celebration. Thank you all. [applause] next is the partner at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. Good morning. I am claia. I am the organizer for the Bicycle Coalition. For the last five years i worked on advocacy in district six. You grew up in the tenderloin and live in the south of market. Traffic is superimportant to me. I know what it is like to bike, skateboards and bike on streets without the proper infrastructure. It is not safe. Town send is one of the important streets in soma for biking, walking and transit with bus lines connecting. Town send is a critical connection to get through soma and beyond. When this project was under threat of a years long delay we made sure the city didnt drop the ball. We are thrilled today we get to celebrate these improvements we won together. Before the changes people were walking in the streets because there was no physical sidewalk in place. People biking had to compete with buses, uber and lyfts. Now there are dedicated, safe and welcoming spaces for people to bike and block. A block long boarding island separates the chaos. This is smart design to make the street so much more inviting and will encourage more people to walk, bike and take transit in one of the busiest neighborhoods in San Francisco. When we set the bar high for City Planners they can rise to the challenge and deliver. We want to thank the hardworking staff at the s. F. M. T. A. And matt haney to see this through to construction. Setting a high bar we want to thank mayor london breed for pushing the s. F. M. T. A. To deliver 20 miles of new bike lanes within the next two years. We will work with you all and the City Departments and our membership to make streets safer for pedestrians and people on bikes. I would like to introduce jody, executive director for walk San Francisco. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you, mayor breed, berrum m director and our partners of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. I am the walk San Francisco executive director. This is one of the places in San Francisco where there are huge numbers of people walking every single day. For so long it is dangerous for pedestrians. No sidewalks, mixing with cars and unable to get to the Caltrain Service where we heard of the buses and trains and people moving about the bay area. Today town send is making a step towards safety for thousands of people every day. I want to give the s. F. M. T. A. A big thank you for doing this very quick league. We encourage them to keep it up. How can we do this more often . There is no time to waste in ending fatal traffic clashes. We have a goal to end all fatalities and serious injuries in the next five years. There are so many more areas where thousands are walking every day need to be made safe asap. We need to create streets that put people and safety first. This is reality for San Francisco. Thank you to the staff at the s. F. M. T. A. , department of public works, mayors on the Supervisors Office who are part of the important project to keep us all safer. Thank you so much. [applause] i am jeffrey tumlin, director of transportation for the San Francisco municipal transportation agency. I am so proud of my entire agency and the San Francisco department of public works who collaborated together. The planners, engineers, work crews representing a dozen different trades, concrete, asphalt, signs, striping. They all worked to advance the quick build project which for the first time is designed to accommodate every mode of transportation. I am very proud of the spring design decisions they have made. For example right here, the curb work to allow us to save 5 million and two years of delay required to move the utility polls. This is quick build. We moved quickly. Everyone worked and we delivered this is a city family to serve thousands in San Francisco in a part of the Transportation Network where every mode comes together. Caltrain, public and private buses, light rail, pedestrians, bikes, scooters and the entrance to the central subway observing a year and a half from now. This is amazing work. I hope this is considered the pilot for another five years worth of intensive quick build work that we owe deep gratitudes to the staff of both agencies but the leadership of the board of supervisorboardof supervisor. I would like you to join us to cut this ribbon. Mayor, would you like to lead us. Five, four, three, two, one. There we go. [applause] as latinos we are unified in some ways and incredibly diverse in others and this exhibit really is an exploration of nuance in how we present those ideas. Our debts are not for sale. A piece about sanctuary and how his whole family served in the army and its a long Family Tradition and these people that look at us as foreigners, we have been here and we are part of america, you know, and we had to reinforce that. I have been cure rating here for about 18 year. We started with a table top, candle, flower es, and a picture and people reacted to that like it was the monna lisa. The most important tradition as it relates to the show is idea of making offering. In Traditional Mexican alters, you see food, candy, drinks, cigarettes, the things that the person that the offerings where being made to can take with them into the next word, the next life. Keeps u. S us connects to the people who have passed and because family is so important to us, that Community Dynamic makes it stick and makes it visible and it humanizes it and makes it present again. When i first started doing it back in 71, i wanted to do something with ritual, ceremony and history and you know i talked to my partner ross about the research and we opened and it hit a cord and people loved it. I think the line between engaging everyone with our culture and appropriating it. I think it goes back to asking people to bring their visions of what it means to honor the dead, and so for us its not asking us to make mexican altars if they are not mexican, its really to share and expand our vision of what it means to honor the dead. People are very respectful. I can show you this year alone of people who call tol ask is it okay if we come, we are hawaii or asian or we are this. What should we wear . What do you recommend that we do . They say oh, you know, we want a four day of the dead and its all hybrid in this country. What has happened are paper cuts, its so hybrid. It has spread to mexico from the bay area. We have influence on a lot of people, and im proud of it. A lot of tim times they dont represent we represent a lot of cultures with a lot of different perspectives and beliefs. I can see the city changes and its scary. When we first started a lot of people freaked out thinking we were a cult and things like that, but we went out of our way to also make it educational through outreach and that is why we started doing the prosession in 1979. As someone who grew up attending the yearly processions and who has seen them change incrementally every year into kind of what they are now, i feel in many ways that the cat is out of the bag and there is no putting the genie back into the bottle in how the wider public accesses the day of the dead. I have been through three different generations of children who were brought to the procession when they were very young that are now bringing their children or grandchildren. In the 80s, the processions were just kind of electric. Families with their homemade visuals walking down the street in San Francisco. Service so much more intimate and personal and so much more rooted in kind of a Family Practice of a very strong cultural practice. It kind of is what it is now and it has gone off in many Different Directions but i will always love the early days in the 80s where it was so intimate and son sofa millial. Our goal is to rescue a part of the culture that was a part that we could invite others to join in there there by where we invite the person to come help us rescue rescue it also. Thats what makes it unique. You have to know how to approach this changing situation, its exhausting and i have seen how it has affected everybody. Whats happening in mission and the relationship with the police, well its relevant and its relevant that people think about it that day of the dead is not just sugar skulls and paper flowers and candles, but its become a nondenominational tradition that people celebrate. Our culture is about color and family and if that is not present in your life, there is just no meaning to it you know . We have artists as black and brown people that are in direct danger of the direct policies of the trump a administration and i think how each of the artists has responsibilitie responded ss interesting. The common usf donates 100120 pounds of food a night. For the four semesters we have been running here, usf has donated about 18,000 pounds of food to the Food Recovery Network. Im maggie. Im nick. Were coechairs of the national led organization. What food recovery does is recover and redistribute food that would go wasted and redistributing to people in the community. The moment that i became really engaged in the cause of fighting food waste was when i had just taken the food from the usf cafeteria and i saw four pans full size full of food perfectly fine to be eaten and made the day before and that would have gone into the trash that night if we didnt recover it the next day. I want to fight food waste because it hurts the economy, its one of the largest emitters of Greenhouse Gases in the world. If it was a nation, it would be the Third Largest nation behind china and the United States. America wastes about 40 of the food we create every year, 160 billion worth and thats made up in the higher cost of food for consumers. No matter where you view the line, you should be engaged with the issue of food waste. Access edible food that we have throughout our Lunch Program in our center, i go ahead and collect it and ill cool it down and every night i prep it up and the next day ill heat it and ready for delivery. Its really natural for me, i love it, im passionate about it and its just been great. I believe its such a blessing to have the opportunity to actually feed people every day. No food should go wasted. Theres someone who wants to eat, we have food, its definitely hand in hand and it shouldnt be looked at as work or a task, were feeding people and it really means so much to me. I come to work and theyre like nora do you want this, do you want that . And its so great and everyone is truly involved. Every day, every night after every period of food, breakfast, lunch, dinner, i mean, people just throw it away. They dont even think twice about it and i think as a whole, as a community, as any community, if people just put a little effort, we could really help each other out. Thats how it should be. Thats what food is about basically. An organization that meets is the San Francisco knight ministry we work with tuesday and thursdays. By the power of your name i have faith to move mountains because i believe in jesus. I believe its helpful to offer food to people because as you know, theres so much homelessness in San Francisco and california and the United States. I really believe that food is important as well as our faith. The San Francisco knight ministry has been around for 54 years. The core of the ministry, a group of ordain ministers, we go out in the middle of the night every single night of the year, so for 54 years we have never missed a night. I know its difficult to believe maybe in the United States but a lot of our people will say this is the first meal theyve had in two days. I really believe it is a time between life or death because i mean, we could be here and have church, but, you know, i dont know how much we could feed or how many we could feed and this way over 100 people get fed every single thursday out here. Its not solely the food, i tell you, believe me. Theyre extremely grateful. Its super awesome how welcoming they are. After one or two times theyre like i recognize you. How are you doing, how is school . I have never been in the city, its overwhelming. You get to know people and through the music and the food, you get to know people. We never know what impact were going to have on folks. If you just practice love and kindness, its a labor of love and thats what the Food Recovery Network is and this is a huge i believe they salvage our mission. To me the most important part is its about food waste and feeding people. The Food Recovery Network National Slogan is finding ways to feed people. Its property to bring the scientific and Human Element into the situation