Transcripts For SFGTV 20150426

Family homelessness its a concrete solution and i urge you to support it. Thank you, mrs. Acre. Hi jennifer fredomboch manager of the agency of homelessness, and i am a mother of two. And we have a place where they share during the day and talk about the night, and its a place where they relax and play and act silly and let it all out. Or break down and lose it and able to pull it back together. Without that home its no framework and its a disaster for the kids. At the end of the school year last year 200 children without homes. Where are the alarm bells, every time we have a family that has lost their housing, the alarm bell should go off. We are doing permanent damage to these kids. And we are sitting by idly and 7 for families with kids i have been doing this job for 20 years and nothing pisses me off more, our sheer neglect and we are creating the situation and forcing children to go through this. We will put out a road map in the next couple of week, and we are sounding. All of us here i want you to stand by my side and sound those alarm bells with us sound them loud. We are looking forward over the next years and looking down the pipeline, we have housing, and not one unit not one unit for homeless households. Thats what we are talking about. Thats what elizabeth was referring to. This is a disaster. We have sky rocketing rents, and eviction crisis and low wages that are stagnant. We have a crisis here but we can solve it and know how to do it. Stand by my side and ring those alarm bells, thank you. Thank you. Hi supervisors, i am miguel carla, you pretty much know me. With my coworker jennifer talking about. And its really kind of interesting, and serious problem we have in the city. We are talking about from 2005 to 2015 and in 2005 we have 834 children homelessness, and only then we keep saying homelessness because its busy words. We are not talking about homelessness [inaudible]. Because the city doesnt see, more than 500 families living in sro hotels. This is a big number we are talking about hundreds and hundreds of children homelessness. Its time for the city and mayor and officials to put in more effort. Put in more money for better housing for all the homeless families. We do outreach in the shelters and pretty much two or three hours a week talking to families. To be a part of the plan and to be a part of the meetings to decide how we want to tell the city to create and end the homelessness in San Francisco, please supervisors, put in more effort and attention to this issue, because we need more housing for homeless families and children. Thank you very much and have a great evening. Thank you, any other members of the public would like to speak. Hi i am christen, i am apologize for not submitting a card. You dont need to submit a card. I have provided services to a homeless family and i want to point out impact on kids in particular. I worked with families who were homeless on the streets or ended up with a ninemonth wait to get in shelter. Got in shelter. And four of those families ended up in permanent housing at mercy housing at 84th street. Since i have work with the families for over a year, and i have been in discussion with the teachers and how this has affected their behavior. And able to do well in school. To focus. They show up on time. They come to school ready, prepared, fed, awake. So the impact is really, really significant of housing. Even in comparison to the shelter, that is oftentimes stressful and temporary environment. I want to add that the impact on kids is significant and it shows and a lot of providers see that. Thank you. Thank you. Buenos dis on dios, and good morning and grits, yesterday was earth day and we know that a Million People were killed in rumania, and thats what you call homeless. It was Ronald Reagan in 1986 that let out the napa valley people and went to the government and started this word what we call homeless. You know what . No one was born homeless. Homeless is a state that our government and people want to incarnate as something as terror. Today i heard you talk about sexual assault. I heard you talk about people been frightened. You know the young kids and violence and assaults and sexual things that happen in school that happen in sros, and no one really cares about. You dont want them to go from a child, but you let people stay in sros in this city. Our Police Department it has its 1 what it does to you. The Sheriff Department and the fire department. Our city this leadership is under question. In the last 10 years i have called the police over 100 times, you can go online. 415sfw gmail. Com, and the password is 1961 2015 it will show you since 2005 i have police come to sro, and you all dont care nothing about people in this city. And read this article about feelin he said this is a white california. So get it. I think thank you, mr. Edmon. Its houseless, thank you. Thank you for being here. Okay. If you would like to speak with Public Comment and please stand up so i know how many more speakers before you gavel down. I am bernis and a manager at the Resource Center and i work mostly with the latino population. And i want to put it out there its really hard to find resources. And especially housing, because most dont qualify because they dont have a Social Security or they cannot find work and not able to pay rent. And the kids are suffering as well they are born here and their parents are not. I want to put it out there that also take into consideration the undocumented ones, and thanks. Thank you very much. Seeing no further comment i will close Public Comment at this time. [gavel] i want to thank all the members of the public that came and stayed. I know that we had nine cards that probably had to leave that we did not hear from. I want to apologize that we were not able to hear from you. And the testimony was powerful. I give Committee Members the time to speak or ask questions. I heard one question a lot of folks had talked about the fiveyear plan and i dont think that everyone is familiar with that fiveyear plan. I was going to bring up two for those questions, any members of the committee that want to speak. There was a question about what is the fiveyear plan that members of the public eluded to support for. We are in the process of working on and a lot of Community Members and families are working on this. Its a fiveyear road map of how to end homelessness in San Francisco, it would cost 11 million for five years. And it would build on successes we have and put several hundred operating subsidies into Affordable Housing projects already being built. And expand the access to private market subsidies. And taken altogether we have been able to identify about 2300 exits out of homelessness altogether, including the efforts that the city is currently funding that you have been hearing about today. Thank you, that is very helpful. I would add to that its building on, when we spoke about the wait list dropping and the numbers in school dropping its building on the successes we already have. And the past year is proof that the fiveyear plan actually will work. As liz said if we pull back the numbers will go back up again. Right; right. You know i want to i want to thank, because i hear a lot from our providers, a lot in the district that i represent, which is awesome. I hear so much from hospitality and uf, and compass point, and seeing an unprecedented number of families in the dropin centers and on the shelter list. I am curious and for a lot of folks in San Francisco, what are the primary drivers you are seeing behind this . Why the increase happened . Uhhuh. If you look at homeless single adults for example, and the single adult Homeless Population in the city we had good results and significantly decreasing that population by 25 . And other cities are seeing increase, San Francisco has done an amazing job to hold the numbers steady or continuing to decline. However the same level of investment has not been made in permanent housing in the city. 40 or more of the Affordable Housing built, in the past 10 years it was for homeless single adults. Whereas the number of units for homeless families is 7 of that amount. So thats a huge driver is just the lack of investment in Affordable Housing during that period of time. As well as the recession had a huge impact on familys earning capacity i believe i heard in the past few years the lowest income levels of people were 60 and below have lost in the past two years, 1100 of their buying power. And folks at the upper end had tremendous increases in their buying power. And all of these things have caused this dramatic increase. All right, and the other piece is eviction there is a large chunk of homeless families that become homeless because of eviction. Depending on the data source 3540 , and many families are evicted and stay with families and friends and not able to last. And because of the sky rocketing rents and the living arrangements and to find housing. For example when a Domestic Violence incident occurs, they are disappearing. Families are stuck in a way they havent been in the past. That is helpful, what is disheartening to me one of our most successful programs is rental subsidy program. That many of you advocated at the board of supervisors and funded here in the city. And we find that rental subsidy that prevents families from being homeless, and keep them in place, isnt enough anymore to keep up with the market rent. And its getting more expensive for the city to continue to house our families that are threat of becoming homeless or vulnerable to that. I just want to thank everyone for coming today to speak. This is a really really important issue. Its an issue that really brings together both the city and the school district. And having served on both bodies, i just know that sometimes we work in silos, even though we are working with the same kids or families. And its great to see that we finally have funding to bring our Service Providers directly into our schools. And to provide Additional Support for our teachers and principals, and jeff your story is touching that the social worker that cried, because they wanted to support the children in the schools and didnt have the resources. And the fact that that connection is happening, really matters. But having a supply of Housing Units and being able to fund that is a key piece of ending homelessness. I appreciate the effort. Not just to bring the stories up but to bring concrete solutions we can fund to make this a reality. None of us want to see more youth and families on the street. And they are often the invisible face of homelessness. Why single adults get so much attention, thats who is seen on the streets and viewed as homeless. And we often forget to take care of the folks more invisible that are couch surfing and not making that connection. I dont know if anyone wants to make closing comments before closing this item. Wow so yes, i realize we have gone long. I am going to make a motion to file or motion to continue . Okay. We will make a motion to continue this we can do that without opposition. Seeing no further items, mr. Clerk. No more items. Meeting is now adjourned