Good afternoon. Director of Human Services agency. Thank you, mayor breed, thank you dr. Colfax, thank you director khan. What i want to do today is update everyone on the status of our hotel, securing hotels and activation and deployment and give you data on the numbers we have both secured, under contract as well as individuals in the rooms. I know im going to repeat myself from the last press conferences, but there might be individuals from the press who are new. I wanted to start with an overview. One important part of the Human Services agency role in citywide disaster planning includes mass care shelter for our most vulnerable residents. We continue to follow the latest guidance from local and National PublicHealth Experts to minimize exposure to those who dont have adequate housing. And to ensure there are enough hospital beds available in San Francisco to treat patients with covid19. To this end, we started on march 9 when we activated our operation center. We began securing housing for persons who have tested positive for covid19, or who are considered a person under investigation meaning theyve been tested and theyre unable to safely selfquarantine or isolate due to their homeless status or living situation, such as being in a singleroom occupancy hotel. In addition, were securing housing for sheltered people who are experiencing homelessness, either to reduce the capacity in shelters but more importantly, moving the vulnerable from a congregated environment to hotels. Lastly, our frontline city workers who are vital, of course, to our ability to handle the pandemic. And were securing rooms to limit their exposure to the covid19 virus as well as to prevent them from exposing their family members. Our current plan is based upon the most recent guidance from federal and state authorities and city partners, both with Public Health and the department of homelessness and supportive housing. And our goal based on the populations noted above is to secure over 7,000 hotel rooms. Thanks to the leadership of mayor breed and ive mentioned this before we recognized early on the need for rooms. We met with the hotel council. We released requests to get bids from hotels, received an overwhelming response, dozens and dozens of hotels, totalling over 11,000 rooms. As of today, we have secured 2082 rooms. These are currently under contract and theyre at 13 Different Hotel locations. We will continue to negotiate leases, identify sites and assess them and bring Hotel Rooms Online on a rolling basis to continue to meet the needs of the population i noted earlier. Our number one priority is to ensure that Hotel Operations are equipped to handle individuals that provide the resources and services they need to shelter safely in place. This is not a small undertaking. We need to provide people with everything they need to stay put, to stay safe and we need to face these challenges head on. Every Hotel Facility requires a unique plan and individual negotiation with Hotel Management to provide the necessary security, support staffing, Hotel Operation staffing, clinicians and case managers, cleaning and cleaning supplies, and meals. Also at each hotel we need to set up secure it infrastructure because were transmitting confidential medical information about patients. I want to thank the tremendous efforts of our citys Disaster Service workers for their actions, their coordination and their stepping up out of their traditional roles to help us but make no mistake, this is massive deployment of personnel. We anticipate needing as many as 600 hotel site monitors from city staff working 247, three different shifts, from again city staff as well as our communitybased provider agencies. And this is in addition to the people we need to bring on board to help make sure people that we place in these hotels are safe and have their needs met. This includes case managers, clinicians, Harm Reduction experts, all on hand with vital Safety Measures such as overdose protections. The system that we have in place now and that will continue to grow is working. Hotels weve secured by the city to ensure that people exposed to covid19 who do not need to be hospitalized have safe places for medical respite and were saving our critical hospital beds, as dr. Colfax noted, saving our critical hospital beds for those most in need. When people are experiencing homelessness and need a safe place to go after recovering or being exposed, our hotels are meeting their needs. When vulnerable adults need to move from shelter or congregate settings in hotels, were meeting their needs. The most recent example when we faced on outbreak at our largest city shelter, we had hotel rooms available to place them and isolate them as quickly as we could. No one is being discharged from the hospitals to create space for others. People are being transported from the hospitals to safe spaces, not to the streets. Now for a recap on the data. I mentioned earlier we have under contract 2082 hotel rooms across 13 hotels. Two sites are for First Responders totalling 880 rooms. The rest of the rooms, 1202, are for the vulnerable populations i noted above. The vast majority of them being Homeless Individuals from homeless shelters or discharged from hospitals. Of those 1202 rooms we have under contract, 751 of them are currently filled. 447 of that number are directly from our shelter system. Ill be on hand to answer questions after this. At this point ill turn it over to chief scott, San Francisco police chief. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. First i want to thank again our mayor, mayor breed, for her outstanding leadership during this pandemic. As we work to all flatten the curve and stop the spread of covid19, its important that we hold each other accountable. From the beginning of this pandemic, ive talked about our first and foremost job was to educate the public rather than go straight to enforcement. I think weve done and continue do a good job of that. Ive also made it clear we will not hesitate to move against those who knowingly flaunt the Public Health order in order to hold these people accountable. It should be abundantly clear to everyone by now this is matter of life and death. And were seeing, for the majority of people, really good compliance in our city. Unfortunately, there are a few people who continue to act in a careless disregard for the health and safety of both themselves and others. So it is in this context that over the weekend in collaboration with the San FranciscoCity Attorneys Office we were able to shut down an illegally operating underground nightclub on shafter avenue in the bayview district. We were able to make this actually to shut this illegal club down following investigation initiated by the City Attorneys Office. And after the City Attorneys Office secured a warrant that allowed us to shut down the business. Just to give a little detail. On friday night we were alerted that this club was intending to open friday night. And what we have learned is that it has been opening in the wee hours of the morning in the weeks after the social distancing and stayathome order was put in place. We posted officers at this location on friday. And lo and behold, wouldbe party goers started to show up. They were turned around at the door and this business was not able to operate on friday night. We effectively shut it down on friday night. On saturday, our officers from our bayview station and our Tactical Unit officers armed with civil search warrant executed that warrant and seized the following materials from this location. D. J. Equipment, fog machines, nine gambling machines with approximately 670 in cash inside of those gambling machines, two pool tables, cases of liquor and other items that indicated evidence of an illegal nightclub. There were individuals detained and those individuals are still under investigation. In terms of us getting to the bottom of who is actually operating the club. As a reminder, under the Public Health order issued in march, march 16, bars and night clubs are not allowed to operate in the city and county of San Francisco. Nor are they allowed to operate in the state of california. This illegal club has been operating out of an industrial business and were told that it lacked proper sprinklers, fire alarms and exits for a building that is open to the public for the purposes of nightclub. None of these things existed. Evidence gathered during the investigation has shown previous incidents of dozens of people entering and exiting the building during the Early Morning hours with loud music being played and security guards posted out front, frisks people as they entered the illegal nightclub. Were also investigating an incident in which shots were fired in the vicinity of the location a few weeks ago. And we are determining or attempting to determine whether that activity is connected to this club. This activity indicates a willful and reckless disregard of the health order. And for those who are operating this illegal club, they need to be held accountable. All the people that have ended this club entered this club prior it to it shutting down have put us and others that theyve come into contact with at risk. That is unacceptable. The investigation into this activity is ongoing and may result in possible civil sanctions and or criminal sanctions and that is yet to be determined. But just to recap where we are so far. Illegal and dangerous operation has been shut down. All the property inside has been seized. The landlord has moved to evict the tenant according to our City Attorneys Office. And we hope that this is a lesson to anybody that plans to do this type of activity while were trying to save peoples lives by social distancing and shutting these type of businesses down. Again, we believe that the majority of people in our city are compliant with the health order and were seeing that with our own eyes, however, there are a few who must be held accountable for their disregard to the health and safety of themselves and others. Now id like talk about this past weekend. It was said by our mayor, this weekend we had challenges with people out, really just trying to enjoy the Easter Holiday and the weather. And for the most part, we saw more people in our parks, saw more people out trying to get exercise and fresh air. We anticipated this and the San FranciscoPolice Department along with our rec and parks and our park rangers were deployed at several parks around the city where we thought wed see an increase in activity. Our cadets were teamed up with officers and worked in conjunction with our park rangers and we were able to spread the message and education. There were 67 warnings given on sunday, just sunday alone, in our parks. Id like to say, by and large, after warnings were given, people complied. Thats what were after. Were after compliance and after, in the bigger context, of people separating and staying six feet apart. How we get there is really not important. Whats more important is that we get compliance. We know how difficult this pandemic is on the public and we know how difficult it is on all of us, but we ask for the public to stay the course. We need your compliance. And the bestcase scenario is if that compliance is voluntary. In terms of enforcement, there are two additional citations since our last press conference that id like to inform you about. They were both businesses. One was a salon that was cited. Its a nonessential business that was operating and we closed it down and we cited the management owners. The other was a liquor store that was opened after the hours of 8 00 p. M. And this store had been warned already. As i have said over and over again, were not going to warn you more than once. Particularly if youre a business doing operations. Thats a bigger risk and bigger exposure and its much different than people just going out trying to get air and get out of the house. So were not going to warn you twice. This business had been warned. We had to go back. They were cited. As far as crime, this past this week over the week prior, Violent Crime was flat. There was a 0 change in Violent Crime. Our property crime, there was 29 decrease over the past week which equates to 130 fewer crimes. Overall, there was 25 decrease in overall serious crime. We know that all crimes are not reported. We encourage the public to report crimes as they occur, particularly Violent Crimes. We talked about our 911 for those particularly those people suffering Domestic Violence and cant get to the phone to make a call, you can text 911 as well. We encourage you to do so. As stated, if you need to report a crime and its a nonviolent or nonemergency situation, please call 415 5530123. And again, you can call 311 to utilize services or the San FranciscoPolice Department website. And we can take reports that way as well. Again, id like to close by thanking our mayor and the city leadership for getting us through this pandemic. And we ask that you comply. Just one more thing before i close. I want to reemphasize about what mayor breed said about 420. We are working with the city agencies and we will be there in full force to make sure that we dont have gatherings of people on april 20th, who are trying to celebrate 420. We encourage you to zoom or whatever conference teleconference that you use to do this the privacy of our own home. Please do not come to San Francisco and gather to celebrate 420. Do it responsibly if youre going to do it at all. Do it safely and in a manner that is consistent with the Public Health orders of our state and city. Thank you. Chief, if you can stay. Well ask the first questions for you. With the warmer weather, weve been hearing complaints of people not doing enough social distancing. Has s. F. P. D. Noticed increase in citations issued and can you discuss the circumstances . What we noticed this weekend, there were a lot of people out and by and large most people were doing what they have been asked to do. What is difficult with this is and ive been out there almost every day making my own observations when you have two or three people walking down the street and you dont know whether theyre in the same household or not, many officers are engaging and trying to determine that. If you have a large gathering at a park, thats a different story. When we see that, were warning. By and large, when we warn, people comply. As i stated earlier, the spirit and intent of this is to get people to comply so i dont have these issues to begin with. By and large that is happening. For those individuals, particularly the businesses like i just mentioned, we warn. But if we have to come back, were going to cite. We did that over the weekend and will continue to do that. For the wouldbe nightclub, that is unacceptable. Luckily, some person actually alerted the City Attorneys Office to that and the investigation proved true and we were able to shut that down. But there are different situations for different occasions, but the bottom line is, were trying to get to compliant. That will be a combination of warnings, cites when reasonable and appropriate, and continuing to engage and educate the public as much as we can. Reporter the next question are for mayor breed. This question is from melanie. Does the moratorium on eviction apply to commercial businesses that are on a monthtomonth lease. Mayor breed yes, it applies to all on a monthtomonth lease. If youre a business and experiencing challenges with your landlord, please reach out to us at oewd. Org or call 311 to be directed to the office of economic and workforce development. Reporter thank you, mayor breed. The next questions are for dr. Grant colfax. Public health. The followup is sorry. Okay. Apologize. The next questions are from dr. Grant colfax. Reporter doctor, this is from abc7, the institute of Health Metrics and evaluation predicts a peak resource use will in april 13 in california. Today . Its april 13th, correct . Correct. As i talked about in my remarks, we are currently able to manage the burden of covid19 patients in our hospital system. I think its very important, though, to realize that we may not be near our peak and as i talked about in the remarks, were particularly concerned about increasing numbers of hospitalizations in our vulnerable populations. So we are continuing to work to prepare for a surge and we are also looking we are also looking at other models that suggest a surge could happen much later. Reporter next question is from fax news. Dr. Golly says by this summer, 30 of the population there will be infected. At what point does delaying the peak get without weighed by the outweighed by the economic devastation were seeing, especially with hospitals with unused beds . Our focus is on Public Health and ensuring we slow the spread of the coronavirus, particularly so it delays the spread into the vulnerable population who are most likely to have bad outcomes and die from the virus. Its been just over a month since weve been engaging in the shelter in place orders. Those will go through may 3rd at this time. Well continue to follow the data, science and facts. I think if you look at the experience in other countries. You look at the evidence. These sorts of orders, if theyre lifted too early, you rebound and start back you can rebound and things can get very bad very quickly. So right now with regard to shelter in place orders, we need to stay the course. Reporter followup question. Do you see shelter orders being relaxed or opened up fort relatively young and healthy who seem to be coping well with the virus . As i stated in a prior answer, we need to stay our course at this time. The data that we have show that our curve on the number of hospitalizations is thankfully relative flat. That number will likely increase in the coming weeks and possibly months. We need to stay our course. Reporter next question, cnn. Please clarify the status of m. S. C. . How many have tested positive . And where are the people now . So as i stated in my remarks, we have tested 182 people in the shelter. 91 people tested positive. M. S. C. South is closed. And the residents, the guests have been moved to hotels where theyre being monitored by a support staff and health care workers. Reporter followup question. When will the Medical Center be open and who will take it who will it take . So, we are in a rapidly evolving situation. And looking to determine as we grow our Surge Capacity what the role for m. S. C. South will be. The current plan is for it to be a medical Recovery Center for People Living with covid19. I dont have a time line to share with you at this time. Reporter next questions are from vivian at the guardian. Why wont the city track and publish data on the Housing Status of positive cases . Im sorry, could you repeat is this why dont the city track and publish data on the Housing Status of positive cases . I very much want to be able to provide those data. Heres the situation, though. Our testing information, when a test is done, does not require people, organizations, companies who are doing the testing to report Housing Status. So when a test result comes in, we do not necessarily know that the test result is from a person who is experiencing homelessness. Generally, we know the age. Sometimes we know the race and ethnicity, although you can seen 0 the data tracker that some of those are missing. We are working hard to get a comprehensive perspective on how many people are experiencing homelessness have tested positive for covid19. We are using our data teams at the Health Department to adapt our h. I. V. Data system tracking which has the number of People Living with homelessness who are h. I. V. Were adapting that to more fully monitor the impact of the covid19 on the Homeless Population. I do i will say that currently within our zuckerberg San Francisco hospital, the safety net hospital for the city, we have which takes care of a large number of people experiences homelessness, of our hospitalized patients, approximately 20 of those hospitalized with covid19 are people who report being homeless. Reporter the followup is, does the city know how many unhoused individuals, not just shelter residents, but all unhoused individuals have tested positive . So as i said, i have the numbers for zuckerberg San Francisco general. We shared the numbers about the numbers testing positive at m. F. C. South and weve had other cases in other shelters and navigation centers. And were moving toward a system and i hope to be able to share more comprehensive data sometime soon. Reporter next question. S. F. Chronicle. Does San Francisco track covid19 cases by neighborhood . If so, why hasnt it released the data to the public . So we are working on analyzing the covidpositive data, testing data by neighborhood and we hope to be able to release that information very soon. Reporter okay. Next question is for trisha, s. F. Chronicle. How many s. R. O. S have been inspected and cited in regard to the march 10 health order regarding cleaning . Im sorry. Could you repeat. How many s. R. O. S have been inspected and cited in accordance with the march 10th health order regarding cleaning . So there are 504s. R. O. S throughout the city. And pursuant to the health order weve inspected to date, 494 of those. And there have been 284 violations reported. And those are being corrected and debated as we speak. Next followup. How many of the 32 people in s. R. O. S who have tested positive for covid19 have been quarantined . We work to ensure that people who test positive or people under investigation have adequate resources to quarantine and isolate per Public Health recommendations. If they do not, we support them and their families in transitioning to an alternative, which could potentially be a hotel room or another alternative for that individual so that they are safe in quarantine or isolation. Reporter next question. How many total have been tested and how many more need to be tested in connection with m. S. C. South . So, again, we offer testing to all residents of m. S. C. South. And the 182 people have been tested, including residents and staff. We are conducting contacttracing and depending on the exposure of people through that contacttracing, those people will potentially be tested as well. Reporter what about calls to test all those in shelters . Is that impossible because of lack of testing equipment . So, we are testing based on aggressive contact investigations. And also based on symptoms. And were testing based on those contact investigations, were testing people who have had close contact with someone who is covid19, those showing symptoms and those most at risk. We continue to be faced with a lack of testing supplies. I just want to emphasize that this testing supply issue is not only in San Francisco. Its across the bay area. Its across the state as i think everybody has read in the news. Its across the nation. Due to the lack of a centralized system by which we have clear understanding of what supplies will be available and when, we have a supply system that is, unfortunately, not dependable and we have a shortage of testing supplies at this time. We are working at the Health Department, were working with other incredible city departments, were, working with other partners to ensure we expand our supply. But some of these circumstances are beyond our local, regional and from my understanding state control. The next letter. Nbc. Now that there has been outbreak at m. S. C. South, do you wish you would have moved the homeless sooner or done things differently . From day one, i talked about the need to focus on people in the vulnerable population. The Homeless Population, those must be our focus because those are the people most likely to die from covid19. In collaboration with h. S. A. And h. S. H. , we have moved many, many of these people into hotel rooms where they can be monitored, tested if they have symptoms and well continue aggressive contact investigations in the population experiencing homelessness as well. Reporter followup question. Can you tell us whether the city has accepted u. C. S. F. Offer to test residents in homeless shelters . Theyve been an incredible partner during our response to the pandemic. Weve ive been on daily calls with leaders at u. C. S. F. Ensuring that were responding to the best information that we have. There are world leaders, many of whom i talk to on a regular basis to better understand how we can improve our response at the local level. As part of our response, u. C. S. F. Has been very generous in providing additional p. P. E. And additional testing capacity. I think there is confusion with regard to testing capacity, which is basically offering capacity in the machines that run the test. Unfortunately, that is not the same thing as getting swabs that you need to collect specimens please. And both continue to struggle with the shortage of the swabs. It is true that u. C. S. F. Has generously through the Zuckerberg Institute and other bio hub, excuse me, have been generous in ways to scale up to what it takes to run the test in the machine. Its different than getting the swabs to collect the test. Thats our limit across the city and the region. Reporter this is the last question to dr. Colfax. N. P. R. How many of the positive cases from m. S. C. Have been underlying conditions or older than 60 . I dont have that exact information to share. I can tell you that most of the residents who tested positive are in good condition. But were monitoring them carefully for any symptoms that would require additional care. And then a followup, how many have been hospitalized and what is their condition . As of friday, we had one person in that group that was hospitalized and were getting Additional Information on the status of the remaining people. Thank you, doctor. Next questions are for director abigail stewartkhan, director of homelessness and supportive housing. Reporter the first question. Huffington post. How many people in total in the city have been moved to the hotel rooms . As i said in my earlier remarks, as of yesterday it was 750 and we know were moving people actively today. Its important to note that people experiencing homelessness are coming to hotels through many different means. Some are coming from hospitals. Some are coming from shelters. And theyre going into Different Levels of hotel rooms in terms of the needs of their care. Reporter what is the citys current criteria and plan to move homeless into hotels . And by when . Thats a great question. So as dr. Colfax and director rohr have shared, were prioritizing vulnerable individuals because of their risk of mortality. It is not that other people may not contract covid or were not concerned about that, were deeply concerned about it. At this stage in the epidemic, we need to, according to the department of Public Health, work towards preventing mortality among the most vulnerable. So were working towards the most Vulnerable People who are sheltered. We should have completed most of that by the end of the day today for those who are accepting our offer of hoteling. And then we will be moving to the most vulnerable unsheltered in the coming days. Reporter next question. Associated press. How are you making sure that hotels having Vulnerable People remain covidfree . Thats a great question because it is very difficult to do. So i think what we all need to understand, what im learning from colleagues at the department of Public Health, during an epidemic, its not possible to guarantee that any location any of us go to is covidfree this is the impetus behind the shelter in place. Every location you or i go to m may be covid positive. Were taking temperatures. Were screening upon arrival. We cannot guarantee that. Reporter next question. N. P. R. You described the challenges that behavioral and Substance Abuse issues pose putting Homeless People into hotels. Are you actively working toward preventative hotel rooms for nonVulnerable People . Thats a great question and one that has been carefully considered by the leaders in the city. I think what is important to note, while were talking about the behavioral and Substance Use individuals into hotel rooms, people who have these complexities in their lives also often have medical vulnerabilities. So were not prioritizing people with behavioral or Substance Use needs. Its important to slow down on that point. Were prioritizing people based on age of 60 and over, or medical preexisting conditions. The reality is that trauma compounds illness, illness compounds trauma, and all of these things can have an effect on behavioral and Substance Use issues. So the individuals who are coming into our hotels have very complicated lives. Reporter next question. This is the last question. From noah from San Francisco public press. Considering that u. C. S. F. And the study of San Francisco said they lack adequate resources to test all occupants and staff in homeless shelters, who will you approve for tested on why . Thank you, noah. Questions about prioritization for testing are best directed to the department of Public Health, but as you heard from dr. Colfax, the focus is around contact investigation. So when we have a positive case, the department of Public Health speaking for them since dr. Colfax just explained this, they do a deep contact investigation. For example, at Division Circle we had a positive case. That individual was already at a quarantine site. Immediately contact investigation had begun. We learned who that individual talked to, worked with, what case managers they worked with, who they slept near in Division Circle. Those individuals were considered exposed and recommended for testing. So it goes from there. Once you have more positives, it became important to look at a different strategy. How many people have had contact with those who tested positive at m. S. C. South . Thank you for the opportunity to clarify the status at moscone west. It is not being used for shelterthinning. Shelter thinning is being moved into hotel rooms. Moscone west is in the process of being developed for medical stepdown, people who are post covid and still require shelter but are safer to be in a congregate setting due to their medical status. Thank you. Those are your questions. The next questions are for director trent rohr, Human Services agency. Reporter first question, from San Francisco examiner. Of the 15 who died, could you tell us how many were homeless, how many were in Nursing Homes and if so, how many City Employees and how many died in hospitals . That question is most appropriately directed to the director of Public Health. Okay, so why dont we go ahead and go to john sing, San Francisco chronicle. Mayor breed stated it is not easy to ensure staffing. What is done to ensure there are enough case monitors . Similar to the Human Services agency, we have a department of Operations Center here. The Citys Department of Human Resources also has an Operations Center located here. Theyre charged with activating what is called the citys Disaster Service worker deployment. And what happens, they receive from the Human Services agencies operations, the number of staff that we need, including job descriptions and qualifications were looking for and recruit from the Disaster Service worker program, which is basically any city employee. The process is lengthy. Each of them have to be trained. Each of them have to be provided with personal protective equipment, deployed to particular hotels where they have to be retrained by the particular site manager. We have a system of flow in place working with our partners at department of Human Resources so ensure we have the individuals to be the monitors or case workers. In addition with our nonprofit partners, many of whom have employees who actually provide this work, conduct this work in permanent housing sites, were appealing to them as well to provide support. As director khan mentioned before, these agencies are stretched dealing with their own programs and services under this pandemic, but were appealing to them as well. Final question. Does the city still aim for 7,000 hotel rooms or are Hotel Operators having second thoughts . So our goal is not dependent on the hotel owners and what they have to offer. Our goal, numerical goal is informed by the need. The need among the 19,000s. R. O. Residents who may need to be quarantined. The shelter residents who need to be moved out and the general Homeless Population and others who cant selfquarantine. I walked through the populations were targeting earlier and among those populations we feel that 7,000 rooms is what we need to provide the appropriate quarantine and isolation for those individuals. Reporter okay. Thank you. That is our final question. This concludes our press conference. 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 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