From the department outlining the plan for their shelter in place rehousing and site demobilization plan. This response to this request has been forwarded to everyones office today. We are still in a pandemic, and just today, mayor breed and dr. Colfax announced the rolling back of our reopening. We are concerned about the process and timeline of shelter in place rehousing and demobilization of our shelters. I want to acknowledge the work that the department of homelessness and Supportive Housing and the department of Emergency Management have done in collaboration with our Service Providers during this pandemic in keeping our people safe, but we [inaudible] is transparent and ensures that no one, especially our most vulnerable populations, exit back onto the streets. Today, we have, as explained, the department of homelessness and Supportive Housing, department of Emergency Management, some of our Emergency Management and controllers speaking otoday, ad i think its very important that we understand, and i hope we get a further explanation from the department of homelessness and Supportive Housing, that the numbers havent matched in anything that ive received or seen that says that as we move folks from s. I. P. Hotels, that they will be going back into shelter and not back on the street, which is a commitment weve made as a city, and we must make sure that we dont do anything that would put folks back on the street. Thank you so much, president yee. I believe youre on mute. President yee thank you, supervisor walton. Now, we will go ahead and have a presentation from ben rosenfiel rosenfie rosenfield, director, and director of the department of Emergency Management, mary ellen carroll. And ive asked them to be precise about their presentations so we can move quickly, so mr. Controller, ben ro rosenfield. Hi, actually, this is mary ellen carroll. Im going to kick it off for this evening. President yee my script says youre last, so, you know, hey welcome, mary ellen. Okay. Yeah, im happy to very pleased to be here this evening with you, honorable board of supervisors. Again, im mary ellen carol, and im the director of the department of Emergency Management and here representing San Franciscos covid19 command center. The covid command center, which is physically located at moscone south, its structured to manage our overall Emergency Response to this global pandemic. This includes the shelter in place hotels and the operations associated with them and with citys reimbursement commissions to fema, the federal Emergency Management agency. Since july, we have been in this what we called unified command structure. The departments that represent the command organization at the open are department of public health, department of Emergency Management and Human Services agency with the department of homelessness and Supportive Housing. So the city in addition, the citys administrator office, the Controllers Office, and other departments play major rolls in this roles in this unified command, and today, im joined by my colleagues, ben rosenfield. So at this time, im going to turn it over to ben rosenfield, who will talk about the operations. Thank you. Good afternoon, supervisors and president yee. I was asked to provide some very high level overview on the budget for this program, so i thought i would run through a couple of highlevel comments, and then, after abigail presents, id be happy to answer any questions on the boards mind. As you know, the s. I. P. Budget is roughly 178 million, and its heavily reliant on federal services. [please stand by]. Second, the budget assumes that placements of clients in other Housing Alternatives p predominantly in the second half of the fiscal year would allow the city to ramp down this s. I. P. Program as the other programs are ramped up, and thats essential because were planning for our world in unknown timing where the city will work to have these individuals housed but without the fibenefit of fema reimbursements. Our latest projections, which we published earlier today and which you all have, indicate that some early costs with some modest delays in the implementation of the project, its projected to go beyond its costs by approximately 75 million. The plan is heavily heavily re fema, and id be happy to answer any questions that the board has after abigail presents. President yee abigail . [please stand by]. Many who come from all over the city as well as our nonprofits have our deep gratitude for rising to this occasion, and our commitment to rehousing of everyone is stronger than any community that we are aware of in the country. This has not changed. These were always intended to be temporary, and i will be candid, both one of the biggest opportunities and challenges that the city has ever faced in the homeless face. Im going to continue to underscore that this is the first that any locality has tried to do a massive rehousing during a pandemic. As you heard from the controller, h. S. H. Has some, little, no control over many of the key funding resources, and we do know quite a bit about the Economic Outlook in the city, as well. Were subject to the will of the pandemic, and so while were put approximating our best foot forward based on National Best practice, plan, and guidance, were using our data to guide along the way. So from a big picture perspective, the s. I. P. Hotel was successful in protecting the public during this pandemic time. Thousands of people were able to shelter in place and be kept safe from the virus. As the pandemic continues, they have become a nonsustainable portion of the response. They are not housing, they are shelter. As we respond to the early crisis of the pandemic in anticipating this, we simultaneously developed a plan to bring on more short, medium, and longterm resources for people transitioning out of hotel. To supervisor waltons point, we dont have those at day one for all the 2,300 guests, but we have some of these new resources now as well as resources in our current portfolio, and we need to begin to move people into stability to continue to protect them from the pandemic, and we are seeking another request through prop c and other pandemic resources. In these plans, people will not be going to shelters and safe sleep. This has been misunderstood in the media, and i want to clarify that. We know that people in these hotels are covid vulnerable. If ultimately and this is really quite important. If, ultimately, the rehousing requires more bridging and time at the end, we will address that, but given the fiscal realities and uncertainties you heard from the controller, we need to begin to rehouse people now, and we need to do so with urgency. Last week, we started at three hotels with a pilot to learn. We had a series of appointments for everyone who wanted to participate in the building. If theyd done an assessment, we matched them to housing. If they had not, we had that problem solving diversion conversation, and we did the assessment. Because the pilot only wrapped up yesterday, were still digesting this data. But, for example, when the week began, this site had 45 participation in housing assessments. After a few days onsite, they had 75 to 80 . It was our first pilot housing fair, and we need to keep continuing on the process, knowing that nobody knows exactly how to do this during the pandemix, but our intention would be to short up our housing process and go week after week. My final focus is really around prop c. As h. S. H. Shared with our city, our Home Committee yesterday, we are recommending the release of prop c funds prior to 2021 to support the rehousing response and s. I. P. Rehousing. It will include the immediate expansion of Housing Resources to increase and lease new units of p. S. H. , and to sustain the plexibility housing subsidy pool and expand it, which was launched by mayor breed and Tipping Point during the pandemic with just this intention in mind. Funds from the shelter bucket, which are separate and distinction from the housing process, but we know we still have many unsheltered neighbors on the street. And finally, yesterday, as i mentioned, we did present recommendations for Emergency Response to the ocoh committee, our city, our Home Committee. This month, we intend to present a proposed spending plan to the ocoh committee with recommendations to release funding to support the emergency rehousing that i just reviewed, and in december, we look forward to preventing the proposed spending plan to the budget and finance committee, as well as a process that weve been talking to your offices about to collaborate with stark holdestark with Stakeholder Feedback on the remaining portions of fund so that in december and january, we can go out with the oc ocoh committee, with your offices, and listen to feedback. Thank you for your time, and for working to ensure San Francisco is a safe place for all of our neighbors. I do want to say that weve put our best plan in place, and as we begin the rehousing effort each day, we are subject to the pandemic, and we have a lot of work to do. No one has attempted to do this during the pandemic, but we need to do it now and course correct as our data leads us along the way. Thank you. President yee thank you. Supervisor ronen, did you want to ask questions now or do you want to wait for the other presenters . Supervisor ronen i can wait for the other presenters, either way. President yee yeah, why dont we do that so we can hear everybody. Supervisor ronen okay. Sounds good. Sounds good. President yee thank you very much. So let me bring up the people, i guess, from the shelter in place hotels including sarah short, from Community Housing partnership, mary kate bucala from emergency Housing Providers. Would you li providers and [inaudible] would you like to go ahead and start your presentation . Hi. Are you there . Yeah, this is christie saxton. I believe the wrong list was sent to you, president yee, and i believe that beth stokes of e. C. S. Is going to be kicking us off tonight. President yee oh, okay. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead and take it away for us. Yeah, i wasnt listed, so i wasnt sure. Thank you, supervisors. Episcopal Community Services stands in [inaudible] in the homelessness response system in urging the city to pause its Emergency Shelter in place transition plans. [please stand by]. President yee whos next . I think youre up. We are calling for the halt on the demobilization of the s. I. P. Hotel. Were very concerned about the impact that this is going to have on the residents as the s. I. S. I. Residents at the s. I. P. Hotels have been sheltering in place. The closure of these hotels would be impacting the very community, also including our staff that is majority people of color, working class rk working poor folks. Many of folks at my community on delores are latinx and working several jobs to make ends meet. And given the fact that our s. I. P. Hotel opened at the end of july and would close in february would put a large number of our staff in the unemployment line, and our s. I. P. Hotel residents on the streets. Also, one of the things that i wanted to note around equity, is the letter provided to the board of supervisors, equity was mentioned twice, and theres no mention of how this plan will of course equity. What we do see is data on rape being incomplete for 53 of our residents, and ethnicity being incomplete for 84 of our residents. How can such incomplete racial and ethnic data guide the weight, and how can it be that this plan not incorporate the True Partnership and providers who formed this plan. Without the input from other homeless providers and the data, this plan is lacking. Thank you. Good evening, supervisors, again. Im christie saxton, and im here tonight, representing the Supportive Housing network. We also urge a slow down, and i just want to highlight a few things. As Housing Providers, we have been asking for help to fill vacant units for over a year. Prior to covid19, there was over 300 units with permanent Supportive Housing which was vacant, and they continue to be. This also highlights that moveins take a great deal of coordination, time, and above everything else, the science. We cannot simply go in and move people in without fulfilling the requirements, and its not just because people say we cant, were bound to the federal, the state, and the city. Last week, there was a 24hour notice to send some of our staff to housing fairs, where we were told we had to bring our own tables and chairs and hot spots to move residents in, and there were no supports in place for our staff. To ask our staff to go to a housing fair with no notice was unconscionable. We have to comply with all of our grants and contracted. In order to do that, we are asking our partners at the city with h. S. H. To slow down and work collaboratively with us, working partnerships. Lastly, ill say that while our staff have continued to show up every day, they are first responders, they are our true heros in this pandemic right now, and they are being paid at times half of what city worker are being paid for the same work. If we do not receive the same wages and are unable to work in partnership, sorry if this sounds dramatic, we are putting peoples lives at risk, both the residents that we are choosing to serve and our se e staff, and with that, i will offer the floor to joe wilson. Clerk joe, it looks like youre muted. Good evening, supervisors. Joe wilson, executive director of hospitality house and hespa. I would request that the clerk put up the slides on our presentation, please. We should be on slide five. I see its working on getting that shared. I believe nav or brent may have it up on our computer. Ill just start talking, then, in the interests of time. I think that the take away here is that we need to stop and rethink this. Not only do we need a better plan, we need more housing to make this successful. The aim to rehouse 2400 people in eight months is just short of implausible and incredulous. We need to be clear on the language that we use to measure success. [please stand by]. Supervisor ronen if we need to keep these s. I. P. Hotels open for longer, what would be the different costs to the city . Where would be the different pots of money that we could draw from to meet those costs, etc. Its all very vague, and i just dont feel that we as the board of supervisors have been presented with the detailed information we need to weighin in a meaningful way. And ill end by saying that the law that this board of supervisors unanimously passed to obtain 6,000 s. I. P. Hotel rooms has been ignored by this administration and has been violated since day one. President yee ben rosenfield, are you still here . [inaudible]. I can speak to what we know and dont know about fema because its all so up in the air at the moment, and i will talk about some of your programatic question. Like fundamentally, the declaration of emergency at the federal level is controlled by the executive branch, so its fundamentally controlled by the president. It will remain an unknown for us, though, looking ahead, and while i will say that the majority of the way that fema has handled this emergency is to declare it an indefinite emergency, and theyll tell us 30 to 60 days before they cutoff this program, at this point, california help for housing at a noncongregate basis is continuing. But i think there is the risk that fema will fall away at some point. I share your belief that its not going to happen in the current fiscal year. I think its worth reflecting that this program so demobilize a 200 Million Program that weve set up, we need to do it at some point because regardless when we do, we need to do it, we probably will be facing a World Without fema. So your question about kind of the programatic costs, one way to view this is we currently have a 200 Million Program in place for the current fiscal year, and we have 300 million in general fund money supporting it, with the vast majority of the rest supported by fema or other emergency resources that come from the state. So emergency continuing that program indefinitely without those Financial Resources would be crushing for the city. Supervisor ronen but what i i want this i want to see the i want to see the projections. I cant do this kind of math in my head. I want a spreadsheet that says, you know, this is what weve spent so far, this is what assuming the fema reimbursement continues, this is what it will cover each month, this is the gap that we have, these are the potential places that gap money to come from. If we cut the program by half over these period of times, these are the continuing costs. Were just not presented with enough information to be able to weighin in a meaningful way right now. We have been told, as a board of supervisors completely contrary to the unanimous legislation passed by this administration, that this program is being imminently shutdown between now and february, with no opportunity to weighin before now. And i find this irresponsible and extremely frustrating, especially given the fact that the crisis rages on as do the People Living in dire straits on the street. So i hear your doom gloom economic project doom and gloom Economic Projections here, but we dont have them on paper. I appreciate your comments, supervisor. Wed be happy to follow up with you for the kind of information that youre looking for. President yee thank you. I think thats a good idea, because im curious, also, about the projections, and if we and theres a lot of scenarios to play into these projections. You know, we could say if this happens, we need this. If it doesnt happen, we dont need this, so we have to understand that, so i agree with supervisor ronen about that, and we need some better, you know i know everything elses sort of guessing, but we dont even, i dont even have the information to guess, you know, at this point. Supervisor ronen, im sorry. I didnt mean to cut you off. Supervisor ronen no, i appreciate that. I mean, i feel out of this, this is what this committee as a whole hearing is for, and so i dont were basically being asked to take your word on it, you know . And, like, i we have had significant disagreements between this board and this administration on how to ad the homeless crisis during this pandemic, and taking your word for it is not something im willing to do. So i would think, at a committee of the whole, in front of the entire board of supervisors, that wed have some meaty information to discuss, and i dont feel that im armed today with the information that i need, so maybe what im going to ask from you after this is over, president yee, and supervisor walton, is if we can continue this hearing and reschedule it for another day because, i mean, we can all pontificate here, and i dont have all the details before me today. Supervisor walton and we did ask for this to be presented tonight. President yee so supervisor ronen, i will, later on, entertain that motion, okay . Supervisor ronen thank you. And im wondering if we could hear and i know that many of my colleagues could speak, as well, but from abigail, her response on that. There are no alternatives. The shelters are filled to capacity, in their limited capacity. The shared spaces are filled, so where theyre going to go . President yee so the question was asked of abigail. Would you go ahead and answer. Thank you, supervisor ronen and president yee. One of the things that i want to clarify is were not closing them just to make sure we all have the same information. This rehousing and wind down process is anticipated to run through the end of june, and what i want this committee and this committee of the whole to hear very clearly, if we get to the end of the first phase or the end of june, and we havent successfully rehoused people, we are going to need to make an adjustment at that time because the commitment to rehousing is peel. However, if we pause now, we just get farther behind schedule. And so while i do understand we would like to have sort of a perfectly delineated plan before we launch, where we keep everybody in housing, and we keep people well, kind of in limbo, whereas opposed to having permanent Supportive Housing available now, and as youve heard, it does take time to move people into permanent supportsive housing, so Supportive Housing, so we need to begin now, and that is my suggestion to the committee of the whole. We will make adjustments as we go. We already know what worked well and did not work well at our first housing fairs. We know what information we need to get to s. I. P. Hotels and providers. We know we need to drive up advancements before we started at a hotel. We needed to start somewhere, but i wanted to reity raerate,s not february, its june. President yee supervisor ronen . Renaud thank you, president yee, and i will pass this onto the rest of my colleagues who want to weighin here. But even if we get everybody in s. I. P. Hotels in a permanent sort of housing, which would be all of our dreams, okay . We want everyone to have permanent Supportive Housing, we just cant build that housing fast enough to accommodate everyone that needs it, so we have to have [inaudible] for people, and theres not mean options. Theres shared sleeping, theres shelter, theres the street, and theres s. I. P. Hotels. And what really concerns me im not saying you shouldnt wind down some or we shouldnt have this dialogue and i am very aware that we have significant physical challenges in front of us. What i am feeling frustrated about is that this decision was made without consultation of this board in complete contradiction to legally passed legislation by this board without full information so we can have a meaningful dialogue on it without any consideration with what happens to the people that are still on the streets and that are still, you know, losing their homes and ending up on the streets, that are still in r. V. S all over district 10. You know, the Family Living outside the bernal library on courtland street. We have dozens and dozens of examples than just those people in the s. I. P. Hotels, and to take away to make this decision without consulting this board, and to take away one of the most successful strategies that weve ever had just makes no sense to me, but ill end there. President yee thank you. Supervisor haney. Supervisor haney thank you, president yee, and supervisor ronen, for those comments. This has, as everyone has said, been such a critical part of our response as a city and is directly connected to some of the successes that weve had in preventing the spread of the virus. Weve seen very early on a rapid spread in our congregate shelters. Weve seen the virus spread among vulnerable populations, and so it is the people, together with h. S. H. In uni so that this is unconscionable, and infeasible. This plan, to the extent theres a clear plan, is dangerous. So what i want to ask is a general question and then, i have some specific budget questions to director stewart kahn. Today, the mayor decided to pause some of the activities related to reopening, and i wonder if you could comment on whether we should similarly consider to pause this plan of demobilizing the s. I. P. Hotels in approximate a similar way for similar reasons, which is the ongoing threat that this virus poses to residents of our city. President yee director stewart kahn . Thank you, supervisor haney and president yee. Excellent question. Im just pausing to think about it. I think the reality is, given the fiscal constraints, and i know thats frustrating to hear, and the ongoing pandemic, what i want the message to be here is that we need to begin. We need to begin now because we have to push our systems and ourselves to figure out how to do this faster and better while we continue to build the exit resources necessary. Supervisor ronen asked the question, not everybody is going to be eligible to get p. S. H. , and thats correct. Not everybody is going to get p. S. H. , but we have our flexible housing subsidy pool, and p. S. H. Now. So while we have these resources that are more Cost Effective and provide the same stability of shelter in place hotels and hote hotels and tenancy rights, we need to move now. We are constant constantly str. Stakeholders have said, okay, lets get started and learn, and so thats my message here tonight, because of the fiscal environment, we and the availability of housing exits, true faith housing exits, we need to move to this first phase. We are pausing our housing fair today in order to digest the first three pilots and improving on it. We are collecting the input and of course provide it here, but its not the first time weve heard from our Housing Providers how that went well and did not go well. We are a Housing First community, and so we know we are asking our providers to move people in as quickly as possible, and we do understand and respect how hard that work is. President yee supervisor haney . Supervisor haney thank you, and thank you for your answer to that question. You know, i want to ask, in approximate light of that, you know, how hard are the deadlines that you have put forward here . Is there flexibility to them . I think for folks that are listening, why were so concerned about that, we dont see adequately the housing exits in place. We also know that we are at a point where our normal time homelessness response system, shelters in particular are greatly reduced. I believe were at, you know, about a quarter of occupancy of where we would normally be at, at a time when things are going to get cold, and it would be at a time when wed want to usually expand. I understand you want to start, but what we see here are actually closure dates for those hotels. Are thee closure date these closure dates in that youve closed the contracts or leases in terms of where we need to be in terms of the housing efforts . Thank you, supervisor haney and president yee. In order to present a balanced budget and a plan that would work, we needed to create a model, and i hear controller rosenfield saying that hes happy to come back with more financial information. What i said in my opening presentation was if we get to the end of a phase, and we still have people working on their housing exits who are waiting to move in, whose rapid rehousing is not available for them, we of course will need to adjust at this time. I think, supervisor haney, you know me well enough and the members of our Provider Community dont want anybody on the streets as much as anybody else thats speaking tonight. So that is the citys commitment, is to rehouse these individuals. My communication conundrum here is that when people were waiting in hotels with no closure dates against them, there was not a lot of motivation for us, for our partners, for our guests in our hotels to start to take steps to end their homeslessness, and so we need to create a sense of urgency, and we need to kind of show up at these sites. And what we know from our colleagues and our experts across the country that have worked in disaster zones, this is the rehousing moment after any disaster or during any disaster is always challenging. First, people dont like what they have been given to moved into. I think we all remember the stories post hurricanes, and then, theres a moment of tremendous anxiety when you start to rehouse people. When i talk to people in hotels, they tell me theyre getting have you confusing messages. Theyre getting messages, stay here, dont engage with your housing community. I spoke to somebody who was figuring out if she could stay a few more months. She had a job and was figuring out if she could save enough money to move out on her own. I said thats an exit plan, and i know we can help you with our first months rent. So if people out there are listening, or if you can help me get that message out to hotels that we need to begin the system of exit planning, thats what we need to instill in our system. Thats why i say we need to begin now, and we get to the end, and people are deeply engaged in their exit planning, thats what were going to when were going to have adjust our planning. Supervisor haney have plans already been put in a place to secu end the hotels even if we dont have a place for people oh, excellent question. Through the president , president yee . President yee go ahead. Thank you. So some hotels have specific contracting requirements, and theres 29 sites, and i will be honest that i dont have them all memorized, but we would have the ability to consolidate hotels. We wouldnt have them ending all on the day that we are trying to rehouse everybody by. We have demobilization and back up plans that we can history to, but if we pivot to. But if we continue to rely on that, we will come to that 30 to 60day notice that controller rosenfield talked about, and we will have too many people in our hotels for San Francisco to sustain on their own. So im hoping to make this much more clear is the reason we need to begin now and consolidate so that if fema disappears, we can manage we have a more manageable number of pop that we can people that we can work to rehab. Supervisor haney got it. I just want to ask you, and i have one question that i want to ask of the controller. Ill make both quick. So i had the opportunity as a d. S. W. To work with your staff, who were extraordinary, and the s. I. P. Supervisors, who are just incredible and make far too little, i think as we can all agree. What is going to happen to them . Ive heard that with these sites potentially closing right before the holidays, that we would have hundreds of potential layoffs. How are you looking at our responsibility in a very short period of time, candidly, that i think many of them would like to continue working for the city if there are opportunities, but these are people who are very vulnerable and contributed to the covid battle in our city. President yee director . Absolutely. Thank you for the question. What weve heard from our colleagues across various cities is this is a difficult thing. Many of our providers who are runni Running Hotels are saying this is okay with me, abigail, because we stretched to try to do this, and so we can pull some of these folks back. Thats not the case for everybody, and so what weve asked, weve called on partners who are rising to the occasion, the Controllers Office has put out a memo about Technical Assistance being made available to these nonprofits so they can work to get as flexible with their existing contracts as possible to pull people who are temporary employees at s. I. P. Hotels or if they moved their permanent employees there for various reasons to pull them into their existing contracts so we can try to be as flexible with citys resources as possible. I need to sort of hold the clients and getting them rehoused, and my responsibility as a steward of public funds in balance with supporting those individuals to retain employment. Supervisor haney well, i appreciate that, and i hope that we can play a role in facilitating some of that. I know that there are a lot of permanent Supportive Housing providers that need staff, and if we can help facilitate that in some provisions and job fairs. If i can, president yee, one last thing of the controller, if controller rosenfield is here and this speaks to some of the things that supervisor ronen was asking about the budget. So the budget i could say for s. I. P. Hotels for 2021 is 170 million. Thats my sense of where what we could see. And then, based on the cost of july through september, it looks like the cost per month of the Hotel Program is 16. 2 million, which, at that rate, we could sustain the s. I. P. Program as it exists for almost 11 months. Could you explain the budget pressure to start shutting down the hotels by the end of this year as it relates to what has already been allocated within the budget . Sure. Thank you for that, supervisor haney. I know you asked me questions about the budget earlier this year, and i provided them to you. We are not yet at the targeted level of rooms, nor do we have providers approved or other measures in place. Suspending through the year was kind of our plan, but we look at it month by month. Weve built models that do that, and id be happy to go through questions regarding if you step down in this way, what would that look like, and if you step down in this way, what would this look like. It would give a one book end or oneperson perspective. If we take the plan that currently h. S. H. Has presented, and you delay all dates by one month, either because its operationally infeasible to make that work or for other reasons, that results in approximately apologies. Let me pull that up. Supervisor haney i think i have it here. If approximate we pushed out phase one one month, it would result in 13. 5 additional costs by the end of the year. And thats actually if you delayed all phases by one month, so just push the whole plan back by one month, wed incur additional costs of 13. 5 million. And based on the costs estimated by fema, that would be about 4. 5 million. Supervisor haney that sounds like a 35 cost to the city. Why is that a 35 cost . Are we not expecting a state reimbursement or are we expecting a lower federal reimbursement . No. Weve talked about 75 reimbursement rates under fema, but i think its important to remember that the 75 is for those that fall under the c. D. C. Guidelines, so its those over 65 or with Underlying Health conditions. We do have those in the s. I. P. Program that dont meet those criteria, so the budget assumes that 15 of clients dont meet those requirements. I think of s. I. P. , the vast majority are eligible for reimbursement services, but theres certain aspects that wont be reimbursable, so its not as simple as taking the total cost and taking 75 of that. Supervisor haney i think it would be good, as supervisor ronen said, could have a report around the various costs and so forth. I realize why this recommendation is being made, but at the same time, were seeing more people out on the streets, were seeing inadequate housing, and all of that can also cost money and all of it can also cost lives if we get it wrong, and i know that were all committed to protecting our residents here. So thank you for answering those questions, and looking forward to hearing questions of my colleagues, as well. President yee director, can i ask a quick question, a followup question to people that might be might have been hired more recently by the nonprofits to ramp up, and all of a sudden, theyll have a too many Staff Members at the end of the day . Is it safe to say that im just curious because i know for the longest time, we talked about the prop c and Mental Health s. F. And other types of provisions as a city that we need to wrap up these positions. Is it safe to say that these positions can be good positions for these people that may be available for looking for jobs, if theyre trained in this area . Thank you, president yee. Certainly, as additional funding unlooked through c and other resources, having experience as a temporary employee in the homelessness response system is going to be an incredible job credential. I think during these really difficult economic times, people who are willing and able to do this critical work are going to be hard sought after. When the pandemic began, our colleagues were struggling to keep their doors open because they were stretched so thin. And we need more people, and we need more money as the program unlocked. Thats why were asking our city, our home, and the Budget Office to release the funding so we can create the program and have the staffing necessary with it. President yee supervisor walton . Supervisor walton thank you. Im going to sound like a broken record on a couple of things, and i have a few questions. I know for this hearing, we requested a detailed fiscal analysis. Even on the Event Planning group, i talked about what was our plan for purchasing hotels, when we come out of the crisis, ask specific questions about prop c possibilities and other presources, and its just hard to accept this horrible resources, and its just hard to accept this horrible fiscal picture while we need these additional resources. But i understand we have to do something that ensures that we are fiscally capable of continuing the programming thats in place. But i wonder why we would stop intake, and rehouse which, by the way, im struggling with the rehousing because took folks off the streets or out of shelters and put them in hotels. How are we saying that we are rehousing them . That is something that ive continued to struggle with as i look at this plan, as well. But even with that said, you cant put a date on when were going to folks from s. I. P. Hotels without identifying exactly where these folks are going. I have emails coming in today that are going out to the Mayors Office asking why we have so many People Living in their vehicles around district 10, so many People Living in their vehicles around candlestick. Ive been in communication with hsoc when theyre talking about slowing down the programs that they have in place reaching out to the people sleeping on the streets and in their cars because of the announcements made by the mayor and dr. Colfax today. Were rolling back, in fact, pulling back some of the advancements that were already allowed for some of our businesses. So i dont understand why we wouldnt definitely be having a conversation about pausing, removing folks from hotels and putting them in places that have not been identified. That just doesnt make sense to me, that we cant tell you where folks are going. Were still developing concepts of the plan, based on the powerpoint presentation, while weve still got folks in hotel. This program talks about putting folks on the street, and i dont know how we can experiment with that, knowing that if were not successful, folks would be put back on the street. I would love to get a Detailed Analysis of what the numbers look like, what the gaps that are proposed, what the potential resources are, what possibilities exist, with the changes at the national level, what conversations were asking with the state for the resources to couple me. I know you and i have talked about this, director stewart kahn, about the planning process and hotels being important and vital resource during the pandemic, and of course, even, as we try to make decisions for the future and keeping folks off the street. And we dont have any information we need to to understand this plan and, you know, the numbers dont match in terms of why and when were starting to remove folks without being able to say where theyre going, and i havent seen any of that in this plan that is spelled out in a way that demonstrates the date folks are leaving, where theyre going, and what were going to do outside the later phases. But right now, we have to know where folks are going. We cant experiment with folks lives. I guess i dont have a question, but i havent seen where folks are going to go, and we cant experiment with peoples lives, but we cant continue to develop a plan when folks dont have somewhere to go. Its just not going to work. So a few things. I havent spoken tonight, as this committee on the whole was called about the rehousing plan. I havent spoken tonight about the mayors larger homelessness recovery plan, so this is one big huge list that is a part of the recovery plan, which is moving people from shelter in place hotels to housing, and youre 100 correct that rehousing is sort of the wrong term. Its whats being used nationally, but because theyre not housed now, its a misnoeme misnomer. We need to move them from shelter to housing. Were working to reopen shelters in approximaway that safe. That is also a limits resource, but there is more composite coming online. We basically, well continue the planned expansion of the two Navigation Centers that have been in the pipeline for sometime, and those have been moving forward during the pandemic with plans for opening in early 2021. We we can intend to maintain safe sleep, although we have the funding only through part of 2021, the early days of 2021, when well be asking the budget and finance committee and the our city, our home group to take a look at the shelter bucket of prop c and if if it could be unlocked to mainta maintain safe sleep as an asset during the pandemic, and we need to focus on targeted outreach prevention. We havent talked about the pending eviction actually, i believe supervisor ronen really articulately spoken about the pending lifting of various forms of eviction more atorium, and we need to get ahead of that with targeted homelessness prevention, which im very happy to come back to the board and speak about it at length. Were working in realtime on that, as well. And, for example, supervisor walton, what we shared with the our city, our Home Committee yesterday was that weve been listening along with you at the advanced planning committee, in various Public Forums about other needs that the city really does need to have a look at the rest of the prop c many, and i would tent to agree, supervisor walton, that an approach to vehicle in the bayview need to be addressed. So these things are separate and distinct from rehousing. Since you were touching on them, i wanted to provide some context. I think also i just want to be careful with long. From my perspective, we are not moving people from hotels. We moment, we are moving them into permanent at the moment, we are moving them into permanent available Supportive Housing, and we need to continue to ramp up other forms of resources. It is true during a pandemic, diversion or problem solving, we need to have an understanding. Weve had limited access to our home ward bound program, but theres people coming from s. I. P. Hotels saying i think i want to go home, and we need to continue to have that as a resource. But what people dont talk about are things like onetime grants, where we match you to an apartment, and we give you potentially the first months rent. We want to work flexibly, and weve heard loud and clear from our providers that we need to be as flexibility with those dollars during the as flexible with those dollars during the pandemic. The woman that i spoke about earlier, she doesnt want permanent Supportive Housing. Shes quite clear about that. She doesnt need the social services aligned that are wonderful that come with permanent por tisupportive hou. She wants to use her employment to get into permanent housing herself. And we know that the people who are experiencing homelessness, they are as diverse as every community, if not more so, and so we need, you and i, supervisor walton, time and time again, about the array of permanent Supportive Housing. We are bringing on the medium term online of rapidly for the record jarred housin record affordable housing. One thing that i havent been able to underscore here, if we are able to work effect lively with our prop effectively with our prop c committee, to build 1,000 newhousing units in San Francisco. When i say build, i dont actually mean construct in this case. That is also ongoing through the mohcd pipeline. You better than me know how long it takes to build housing in San Francisco. When i say develop, we have many, many building vablz available as the city now, if we can utilize them to build permanent pSupportive Housing. We are not experimenting with peoples lives. We have exits available, and so we need to begin, and we need to move with urgency. President yee thank you. Supervisor walton thank you. Thank you, director stewart kahn. I just have one more question at the end and one more question. When we talk about shelter capacity, it is frustrating because were talking about reopening shelters in the same of safety and capacity. I dont see how we can open up shelter capacity when we cant congregate indoors. Im glad that you talked about the p. S. H. Available. Where are people going exactly number by number. If you could breakdown that number, it would be great. Where are these people going, and to where . So just to clarify, when its clear, when i say we are reopening some shelters, that is to the covid safe level with regard to distancing. We will not open further until d. P. H. Changes its guidance, so just thanks for the opportunity to clarify that. I agree with that, that would be concerning. So unfortunately thats not how rehousing works or the Homelessness Program works. Thats why we narrowed it down to a three hotel pilot and we need to work closely with partners and planning so we need what theyre eligible for. When we know what theyre eligible for, thats when we make the plans to move. And again, if we get to the end of that, we would adjust and bridge. Supervisor walton sorry, director, but thats when i say when youre talking about experimenting with peoples ability to stay in a place thats safe and have shelter because you dont know where folks are going, and thats a problem. And im not sure how we can say rehousing doesnt work like that. Im not sure how we can say not getting housing and putting them back on the street is different from anything weve got planned. Theres no room for anything to be fuzzy, and its real simple. Math is not my favorite subject nor my best thing, but i know what one plus one is. If you move people from somewhere, they need to be going to a space, and i havent heard that in any of our presentations. President yee okay. So supervisor walton, are you finished . Supervisor walton i am, unless youre able to tell me the answer to that . Through the president , so when somebody moves from a hotel, we will know where they are going. Thank you. President yee okay. Supervisor preston . Supervisor preston thank you, president yee, and thank you to my colleagues who asked a number of the questions around my mind, and i will try not to repeat any ground they covered. You know, i do want to start by just recognizing that and thanking all the folks who have made the Hotel Program work, and, i mean, this board has spent a lot of time, the administration has spent a lot of time on this issue on the use of hotels and an enormous amount of work has gone in. As we are looking for permanent suppo Supportive Housing for folks who are in s. I. P. Hotels and absolutely having option instead of being on the streets, its absolutely been successful, and i think if you talk to folks in s. I. P. Hotels, thats clear. I want to say over the many months, weve seen lots of reasons advanced by you know, by not just folks in government, but folks commenting from outside around all the reasons why a s. I. Pichlt s. I. P. Hotel would not work. Its not perfect, but i just want to recognize the work of a lot of the folks here, the h. S. A. Folks, the administration, the nonprofits, the d. S. W. S, who have made this a real success. Im not saying that i think everyone we have disagreements with the administration about the number of rooms. Thats been a point of contention, but i think we have all been in agreement that its been very successful in if getting thousands of people off the streets and into a safe place. You know, i think given that, that informs where we are headed, and any plan that involves closure of the one thing that seems to be working very well, particularly something that has the level of reimbursement that were seeing at both the state and federal level, and as we approach the winter months and the surge of cases and the things that my colleagues have talked about seems like, really, a not a wise time to be scaling down and closing s. I. P. Hotels. At the same time, i think we all support moving folks from s. I. P. Hotels into permanent Supportive Housing. Theres no disagreement on that. The disagreement is, what happens when we do that . Are we moving people out of those hotels or into those hotels . And given what weve seen on the streets, that has to be an absolute last resort. I hear the opinions stated by supervisors ronen and haney and walton around the numbers, and i think its important for this board to evaluate the claim that we are at this last resort point where we cannot keep these s. I. P. Hotels going and need to have this plan. So with that, i want to jump into a few questions. [please stand by]. So of that 50 million is a Gross Expenditure from july to september, not including the reimbursements that will reduce that . Thats correct, correct. Supervisor preston right. So what is assuming the reimbursements that we expect to get from that period of time from july through september, what do you expect will be the outofpocket for the city after reimbursement . Sorry, thats not math i can do off the top of my head while were here tonight. I can follow up on that question. Supervisor peskin then president yee supervisor peskin supervisor preston if i could just i would love to get the hard numbers on this, but youre stating were getting a 75 reimbursement on an estimated 85 of the people in that hotel, that i cant do that off the top of my head, plus some level of state reimbursement that i dont think this board has anything thats quantified that. President yee so supervisor preston, i think it would be helpful earlier, when supervisor ronen was asking a similar question, i thought he gave the annual budget, and of all the possible budgets coming in of the 178 million, whatever it was, that the city would be chipping in from general funds about 3 million, was it . Supervisor presto. Thats correct, president yee. Provided that fema and other emergency sources are in place, and i think thats the major uncertainty were grappling with. Supervisor preston thank you. Do we have any indication that like, i understand nothing is for sure in the future, but have we been told that fema reimbursements are going to be cutoff, reduced, or eliminated in any way . We have the history of how fema works, which is, as some point, they will declare an emergency over, and the program will end. I dont pretend to know when that will be, so i just want to characterize that as a major risk here and something that the board needs to consider when theyre asking their questions. Unlike the rest of the emergency here, which the federal government has declared in perpetuity given notice that its ending, this notice has come from the government for noncongregate options by the end of the year. Our expectation is they will extend that month by month by month, that the federal government is leaving us on a very short leash here for the federal reimbursement program. Supervisor preston they told us in september it was going to expire in october; they told us in august auguit going to expire in september. I understand in your role as controller, you have to acknowledge that we havent gotten any sign from the federal government, and all we have is a new administration thats looking to look far more favorably on the homeless than the current. Is that right . I concur, its an unknown, and theres a risk. We dont know whether the fema reimbursement for this program will end next july or a year from now. I guess the point that i would make is simply that fema reimbursement will end at some point, and in the process of shifting people in to other alternatives will begin, and that those other alternatives, permanent Supportive Housing is roughly half the cost of the s. I. P. Hotels. We could buy twice as many u us of many units of permanent Supportive Housing as s. I. P. Units. Supervisor preston i agree, but theres nothing ive heard in this committee of the whole hearing theres nothing that ive heard theres any loss of reimbursement thats more likely that were going to lose now than three or four months ago. The issue is, are we going to, when we place people in permanent Supportive Housing, are we going to close the s. I. P. Hotel . And thats where im pushing back, and just to get back to the cost here, we have people in the streets. Where are they going to go . If they go to a safe sleeping village which many of us on this board support, as well we dont get fema reimbursement, and we are paying about the same amount, and we dont get any fema reimbursement. Is that correct . Is. Thats correct. Supervisor preston and i dont know if your office has estimated the cost of services for people being on the streets, is that something that youve estimated . Its not a question that weve got. Can i briefly comment . Supervisor preston sure. From my perspective, the fundamental question here is how quickly can we lineup housing programs underneath the s. I. P. Hotels to inloo up people from hotels to house to lineup people from hotels to housing. My sense in talking to members of this board of supervisors and the mayor is the citys goal is to lineup Housing Alternatives underneath the s. I. P. Program as quickly as can we can to lineup housing programs with the s. I. P. Goals. How quickly can p. S. H. Units be developed . We do have several hundred units of existing have a cant permanent support vacant permanent Supportive Housing. I dont at least i havent viewed this as a financial question of closing the s. I. P. Hotels because weve run out of the budget. Its more of a question does the budget need to bend until we have options . Supervisor preston thank you for that clarification. I think the question has been presented to us, not by you, mr. Controller, but as a need to close the s. I. P. Hotels purely because of budget reasons, but thats certainly been my push back. So i will just make final comment, thank you, president yee, for all the time, and i know other colleagues have comments. I just want to say that i really think we need to be doing both, both exiting people to permanent Supportive Housing and sticking with a model that works, and with i look forward to getting the more detailed numbers, but i will say that my sense of the cost here that were not talking about is that if we continue to move homeless weeks into s. I. P. Hotels and we have a commitment to house them in permanent support h Supportive Housing, but thats exsp expensive, but we need to do that. I wonder if were undermining our own success. We have chances to have people move into s. I. P. Hotels as a transitional moment to then move into into have a vant Supportive Housing and other exit options like, we have an actual system that offers a real comprehensive solution, and until i see numbers that convince me otherwise, the idea of winding down s. I. P. Hotels amidst that makes no sense to me. Thank you. President yee thank you. Supervisor peskin . Supervisor peskin thank you. I want going to ask a lot of those questions, but provider preston nailed it. When mayor lee was alive, he was a proponent of creating the office of homelessness and Supportive Housing, and its a relatively new department. Its brought together many different functions that were stylized, all that, before the pandemic. The pandemic obviously exacerbated all of that, and then, we had an unprecedented opportunity, as every hotel in San Francisco was havevacant, that became the place where many of our unhoused people went. I think i was the first of many of us to go out on the street and take a cell phone video of a gentleman whose name i probably shouldnt, as a matter of hipaa law say his name who is now housed in one of those hotels. Supervisor ronen did that, provider preston did that, provider waltl supervisor preston did that, supervisor walton did that. The delta here to relative reimbursement is between the age of 60 and 65 if those people do not have underlyingtiunderlying conditions, and most of those people who ahave underlying conditions, so most of them are eligible for fema reimbursement. Mr. Rosenfield, i believe your protections go to the end of this fiscal year. Is that correct, ben . Thats correct, supervisor peskin. Supervisor peskin and then, to miss stewart kahn, i have to say, i do agree that, at some point, there will be some need to trip people from s. I. P. Hotels, and maybe now is the time that it should start, but you and i had a very candid conversation, and i apologize for divulging it publicly, but i believe that you said to me if you could have another month or another couple of three months to put together a more solid plan for that transition, you would youd prefer that. Is that true and correct . President yee i think thats a question to the director. Supervisor peskin yes, thats to miss security kahn. Thank you, president miss stewart can. Thank you, president yee. So i think what i was trying to say was during a pandemic, we never have as much time as we would like, and yes, we need to start planning for housing now, and yes, i wish i had more time to answer all of these questions and all of the data answered. But with Housing Available now, im not understanding why we wouldnt move forward, and i dont hear this board asking that either. So i think to clarify the conversation that you and i had, i would like to have higherup take a coordinated assessment data, certainly. Im really pleased that we now understand how to kind of bring urgency to that, to supervisor prestons questions, and so we are going to have to keep moving. [please stand by]