Addition were constantly assessing home and Community Factors that may affect the learning and as you imagine they present with complex overwhelming and often paralyzing issues and have externalized and internalized behaviors and thanks to the partnership with this group we are chipping away at the needs. Not knowing where you will lay your head down can be delibtating for the youth and i am glad to serve as the bridge between the schools and Community Based organizations such as hfc. They have served as an imperative connection and create a fluid day for the families which is exactly what they need. I wanted just to mention i have one family and thanks to hamilton its changed their lives and kids never thought they could succeed in school and made a difference and transitioned to high school and one student is in sixth grade and doing really well and i want to say of the utter need for services to exist and grow exponentially so that we can do our job and help these kids. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening supervisors and commissioners. I am the Deputy Director for Hamilton Family center so right now as i come up to you guys my heartbeats and what is happening is the cortisol level in my body is rising will homeless children, children who are experiencing Adverse Childhood Experiences and the Traumatic Stress of homelessness they have this heartbeat increase in cortisol rising everyday on a consistent level. Research has found that children who are experiencing these traumatic effects of homelessness have physical as well as Mental Health effects for the rest of their lives. Thus for the future of our community its important to invest in keeping san franciscan families housed and housing san franciscan families. According to the San Francisco department of Public Health exposure to stress and trauma amongst children such that experienced while homeless can lead to permanent changes in learning, behavior, and longterm physical health outcomes. Children exposed to pervasive poverty can show developmental delays as rly as nine months old and exposure to toxic stress is linked to Health Issues throughout life including asthma, Heart Disease and cancer. Hamilton Family Center has repeated found that investments in housing subsidies and Affordable Housing solutions for families have a direct correlation to the number of families who are experiencing homelessness in our city. What this means for the children and families now they have a safe place to call home. Theyre heart isnt beating like mine consistently and dont need to be uncomfortable with peers when planning sleep overs and complete their homework and get rest before school and taking the new common core test or consent curriculum. This is working and we need to keep it working now. How . By following the road map to end family homelessness and investing in proposals to keep san franciscans housed and house san franciscans, continuing to invest in private market subsidies for families, both short term and longer term subsidies, placing homeless house olds in Affordable Housing and moving homeless households into vacant units and preventing homelessness and providing eviction defense and mediation and culturally and linguistically appropriate help in San Francisco. Thank you. Thank you debra. Thank you again. I am with Hamilton Family center. Really what i would like to do is share some very good news. In 2006 a number of homeless families in San Francisco started to increase dramatically and as supervisor kim mentioned those numbers doubled by 2013 nearly. There were over 2300 students homeless in the San FranciscoUnified School District and the wait list for the shelter was consistently about 70 to 80 families to a high mark of 287 families. About a year ago at this time during the budget season compass, Family Services and hamilton and Catholic Charities and Raphael House and providence and along with trent and cindy and joyce from hsa and leadership from supervisor kim and supervisor farrell and mayor lee and president breed all came together and decided it was time to scale up some of the interventions that we know work. That meant there was increased investment in rapid rehousing and increased investment in housing for homeless families and increase investment in eviction Prevention Strategies. We also reached out to some of the Corporate Community and folks like sales force and especially our friends google that stepped up with large donations in the millions of dollars to help this effort to end family homelessness and today i get to stand before you that the waiting list is down to 137 families, a drop of 150 families. The numbers that kevin truit showed that the numbers at the end of the school year last year have actually gone down. We are being successful folks and this just isnt about the school district. This is about the whole city coming together to work on this program. We are making progress. However we seen surges in funding before where the numbers dipped down and went back up again. What is important right now we invest in the things that work and rapid rehousing and eviction Prevention Strategies and permanent housing and access to Affordable Housing and if we do these things i think by christmas the waiting list will be below 100 and if we follow the road map that others are presenting on we can effectively end family homelessness and we have a great emergency system in the city but its overwhelmed and people are waiting too much for services and as mentioned the longer children have to wait the greater impact on the brain development. We need to get families housed within 90 days of being homeless at the most and were moving in that direction so i am so excited to announce all of this to you. I hope you continue to support this partnership, will support more funding because i think it would be such a great thing for San Francisco to that were one of the first to end family homelessness and i think we can do that so i am grateful to all of you for taking the time to learn more about this and together as a community we can end family homelessness so thank you very much. Thank you and i really appreciate your longterm leadership on this issue and will you be able to stay through Public Comment because i have questions but i recognize there are many members waiting for a while and i want to get to the members of the public before we ask questions and i want to hear more and its great news and have a private entity like google to fund this pilot to see what is possible but i do want members of the public, many of the families here to speak first and maybe ask questions after public if that is okay with the community. I know we have a member of the public that has to leave and i will call the next 10 cards. paused . Pretty much a lot of places were closed down and no disrespect to the womens but i got closed down and i am 24 hours a day. The thing is [inaudible] i need a place to stay. Hamilton is nice but i see improvement. Sleep on the jail bed. Okay. Maybe thats the best you could do but hamilton did give me room and board and i love the staff there but you have to make it more Family Friendly and card toonos the wall and the food and kid friendly and my son is not eating and its like dog food and no disrespect to the place but this is my experience. I walk through the city of San Francisco. I look at all of Million Dollar buildings and i was born and raised here and see all of the buildings and what are you doing for the kids here . Its about the kids. I have a eight year old boy. I love him but i am looking for a better place for him. You know me. I am looking for help. I dont know if you do anything for guys. I dont know but if you want to experience what i experience and grand a nephew or niece and with a suitcase and find resources. Now calling for a bed. If you dont get a bed you will sleep on the floor period. On a jail bed, jail it is so i dont want to sugar coat it and they need more places like the hamilton. They do. The staff is great but make the food a little kid friendly and change the bed if you could, the jail beds if you could if you can find the money. Put some cartoons i am sure you can find artists in San Francisco to paint the walls if i can ask you to wrap up and we appreciate you waiting. Thank you. Its just emotional. I am emotional. Its like fire works and everywhere so i try to keep composure with my son and going to be all right. Like right now he knows im going to a meeting and going to ask how it goes and i dont know. I have to ask you guys and have the same experience and walk the streets and pretend you dont have a place to go and where are you going . You will sleep on the floor. You need more places like this with beds. Thank you so much for coming to speak. Im going to call up 10 speaker cards. [calling speaker names] good evening. I am wilma and a grandmother if you dont mind speaking into the mic and the meetings are recorded so people can hear. Thank you. I am a grandmother and work and go to school here and grew up in San Francisco haitd ashbury and want to thank pl lee for cleaning up the streets up and i am at the Hamilton Family shelter and its hard. And i have grandkids skipping houses and having one graduating in new orleans and this is one and at john mu and made me. Feel like a human being again and i can wash and clean and i can sleep by myself and i prayed. I asked mr. Lee and also wrote senator boxer and asked for the 13th Street Center so we can wash the clothes and kids and you have no place. I am at the hamilton and i am appreciative of the roof over my head and the food and we have technology we got a dollar for a bus stop and [inaudible] i want to be here and go to school. I dont want to go outside the city. This is my city. I want the city to be given back to the families and open your hearts and money to us and at 13th Street Center and i want to thank senator boxer and mr. Lee again. Thank you. I know its hard to get the stories out and its a time constraint. Good afternoon commissioners and supervisors. My name is helen lamar and i am the executive director of the Providence Foundation who works in coordination with some of the members and hamilton and others to provide Emergency Shelter. We operate three sites in the city and one is the Friendship Baptist church and have spaces for homeless families. We built a 73 unit building in which we put 55 homeless families with a total of 120 children. We have been in operation since 1997 and our main focus is homelessness. We have three shelters and at one point we had five but we do house people that are in need. We feed them and clothe them when necessary as well as give them Emergency Shelter each night. We have been doing this since the year 2000 sounded by the city and county of San Francisco funded by the city and county of San Francisco. Thank you. Thank you. I called up eight other speakers. At any time please come up. Feel free to line up. [speaking spanish] good afternoon. Her name is maria. [speaking spanish] she was homeless. She didnt know where she go. She didnt have a job, no where to go and has a daughter 10 years old and she was a single mother. She went to the different shelters. [speaking spanish] and she finally accepted in the shelter [inaudible] and she dont know how give food to her daughter and she finally i dont know at the house. [speaking spanish] thank you. Thank you for speaking. Good evening board of supervisors and commissioners. My name is judy and im the united families coordinator of [inaudible] and i am here to read a letter from a client in a sro and not able to come here. March 2014 is when i came to california from the philippines and excited and hope that our life would be better and u. S. Is a first world country. However when we arrived life was not as good as expected. During the first few days we transferred from one residence to another because we didnt have money to rent rooms or have jobs because we had to wait for Social Security cards and id. Fortunately we got food stamps to help and we found a hotel on Market Street [inaudible] its too hard to apply for low income housing. Since this time we suffer too much airchg wis we encounter anxiety everyday and due to the bed bugs and and interrupted our sleep. I send my clinics to checkup and cleanups and the ventilation is not good and all of us get sick because four of share the same bed at night, but despite there are families and others to help us attain the dreams of the future. We understand the homelessness cannot be solved and if the City Government would invest in this. Thank you. Thank you. [speaking foreign language] paused . Thank you. [speaking foreign language] i lived in an sro in chinatown for over eight years. [speaking foreign language] i am very happy to share with you that i moved into a new apartment last month because of a program called loft and its very difficult living in a sro. [speaking foreign language] okay. However there are still over 450 families living in chinatown sros. I hope the government can do something to help these families to have adequate housing. Thank you. Can i ask were you placed in Affordable Housing or placed in private . They were referred to an apartment in chinatown. Great. Thank you. Congratulations. [speaking foreign language] hi. Supervisors and commissioners. I am julie. I live in chinatown sro building. [speaking foreign language] im a single mom with my son living in a very tiny room. [speaking foreign language] i wish could afford paused [speaking foreign language] i know that there is a pief year plan to five year plan to end family homelessness. I hope this plan can become a reality so many families can benefit and have better housing. [speaking foreign language] i hope i would be one of the lucky family that get into the housing so my son will have a good place to study, to live and thats my wish. [speaking foreign language] so i hope that our city departments and supervisors could support this five year plan so our families have a better place. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you ms. Lee. Im going to call up more because i realize we have one more speaker. [calling speaker names] oh im sorry. I am still calling names and we have one more speaker if you dont mind up lining up. The line is over there. [inaudible] she is speaking ahead. Feel free to line up. [calling speaker names] [speaking foreign language] supervisors and commissioners good afternoon. [speaking foreign language] i am glad to have the opportunity to speak before you. [speaking foreign language]. I live in chinatown sro building and there are three people in my family. [speaking foreign language] my son and husband live in this unit. change of captioners