Transcripts For SFGTV Mayors Disability Council 81916 20160905

In some ways we are not. We have a long way to go. The city of San Francisco is using the most Innovative Technology available. These devices allow people to remain out in their communities, doing things like shopping. It is great to be able to walk as a pedestrian in this city and cross streets safely. Good afternoon and welcome to the Mayors Disability Council here at city hall in room 400. Friday, august 19. City hall is accessible to persons choosing wheelchairs and other assistive mobility devices. Wheelchair access is provided at the grove van ness and mcallister street via ramps. Wheelchair access at the public street guarding entrance is provided by the wheelchair lift. Assistive listening devices are available in our meeting is open captioned and simon which interpreted. Our agenda is also available in large print and braille. Please o stopper any additional assistance. To prevent electronic interference with his room the sound system, and to respect everyones ability to focus on the presentation, please silence all mobile phones and pdas. Your cooperation is a pretty appreciated. We welcome the publics participation during Public Comment. You may complete a speaker card available in the front of the room. Or, call our bridge line at, 1415 554 9632. We are staff person will handle request to speak at the appropriate time. The Mayors Disability Council meeting are generally held on the third friday of the month. Our next regular meeting will be held on friday september 16 2016 from one4 pm here in San Francisco city hall in room 400. Please collimators office on disability for further information or to request accommodations at 1415 554 6789 voice or by email, at l mod at sf gop ductwork. As a reminder to all our guests today to speak slowly into the microphone to assist our captures and interpreters. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you councilman. [inaudible] may we have the color looks [call of the roll] supanich, present. Senhaux, present. Penzvalto, present. Lets move onto reading of the agenda. Agenda item number one, welcome introduction and roll call. Agenda item number two, action item meeting and approval of the agenda. Agenda item number three, Public Comments. Items not on todays agenda but within the jurisdiction of the mdc. Each speaker is limited to 3 min. Agenda item number four, information item. Cochair reports. Agenda item number five, information item. Staff report from the Mayors Office on disability. Agenda item number six, information item dahlia San Francisco housing portal development. The dahlia San Francisco housing portal is a first for the city developed entirely with the priorities and needs of housing searchers in mind. Staff will discuss the particular accessibility efforts undertaken on behalf of users with disabilities. Presentation by Michael Solomon, senior ias Business Analyst and mary roeder, Cedar Community Development Specialist Mayors Office of housing and community development. Agenda item number seven, information item. Lighthouse for the blind. A presentation on the courses offered by the lighthouse for the blind, including the enrollment process and offer a lowcost meeting space at its 1155 Market Street location. Presentation by Lisa Lisa Marie martinez, director of Community Services by lighthouse for the blind and debt that there is an Outreach Coordinator for the lighthouse for the blind. Public comment is welcome. Agenda item number eight information item. Serving lgbt adults with disabilities. Open house staff will present the Services Available to lgbt adults with disabilities as well as some of the nuances of providing lgbt welcoming services at the agency. Presentation by man well martinez, information and assistant specialist, aging and Disability Resource Center at open house, and happy from being housing courtney. Of the comment is welcome. Agenda item number nine, Public Comments items not on todays agenda but within the jurisdiction of the mdc. Each speaker is limited to 3 min. Agenda item number 10, information item correspondence. Agenda item number 11, discussion item. Councilmember comments and announcements. Agenda item number 12, adjournment thank you, donna. Okay we will move on to Public Comment. Is thereive one slip up here. [calling Public Comment cards] i want to thank you for all the work that youre doing in the city with a disability, the new stripes that are on the crosswalks and been very helpful. The new 8000 buses on the 19th bulk and two other lines are very helpful with the two wheelchair portals. And these new buses which god bless the city cost 1 million of these, are coming into service and they are just excellent for people like me that can climb stairs. I just want to thank all of you and this is great [inaudible] who worked with us, god bless her tthat this is coming to fruition and we are Getting Better transportation. And safer sidewalks. Also, the curb cutouts are done very well. Thank you, folks. Beaten thank you very much good any other Public Comment on topics not on the agenda . Okay. We will move on speed and next is the cochair reported i will be doing that. Many of you may have heard of the dignity fund. Its a coalition of communitybased organizations that is, that serves seniors and to the built seniors with disabilities and said attempt to increase funding for these services. As we are going to see a burgeoning in the senior population in the next 1015 years. It will be probably close to 30 of the citys population, that includes people with disability right now, its about 2324. So, there is a ballot proposal that was passed by the board of supervisors in june. And come i dont know the money totals that came out. Was less than what was asked for, but its more than we have now. So, i will call that a victory. It will be on the ballot in november and it doesnt use anytherell be no new taxes but its a setaside from property taxes. So, its moving forward and they will be happy to take donations to help them get the word out. Advertise. Once this is explained to people that almost unanimously support it. But, its kind of its a little intricate. So, you can contact the Mayors Office on disability and they can contact me. If you have questions or concerns around the pure or if you like to volunteer. Or, if your organization like to become part of the consortium. So, thank you. Next item is the staff report. Good afternoon council and members of the public. Im Heather Kittle today i like to share a couple of events that i thought would interest the disability community. First off, the Asian Art Museum invites families with death members to their family fun day. Interpreters will be onsite to interpret storytelling and handphone activity could on family fun days gallery activities grade of our projects and immersive storytelling makes art appreciation into a lively familyfriendly events. Projects change radically. The event takes place on sunday, august 21 from 11 am2 pm and the Asian Art Museum is located at 200 larkin st. For more information about this event speak please contact angel mungo at 415 581 3689. Or, you can email her at, ime you and gal at asian art. Org. Another event i would like to inform you about is the death counseling advocacy and Referral Agency will host their annual job fair. Specifically, for death hard of hearing, deaf blind and late death and job seekers. This years decorum is probably working in partnership with the department of rehabilitation. The event takes place on tuesday september 27 from 10 am12 pm and 1 pm3 pm. It will be held at the edit roberts campus which is located at 3075 adeline street in berkeley and thats right up the ass pete bart station so very easy to get to. If you would like more information to register for the event, you can visit the website, www. Dca ra. Org. Registration will be open until friday september 2. Seating is limited to so to make sure to register early if youre interested in participating in this event. Thank you. Good afternoon council. Staff members of the public. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce the newest member of the Mayors Office on disability. Her name is roxana barcas green in. Shes an architectural axis Compliance Officer. Roxana is a licensed architect in the state of california with 16 years of experience in architecture and urban design. Her work includes a diverse range of projects such as Affordable Housing Mix Use Development and commercial projects. Prior to joining the Mayors Office on disability, roxana worked as a project manager for the cities Science Program with the office of economic and Workforce Development where she implement it multiple accessibility projects for commercial buildings in San Franciscos commercial corridor including the bayview, central market, ocean ave. , excelsior, chinatown, and lower 24th. Please, wednesday of the words beaten thank you, do. Its exciting to be part of the Mayors Office and city team. I want to mention im an architect and also i work with the [inaudible] where i worked closely with Small Business owners providing assistance through facades and improvement programs regarding the 88 compliance and also connecting assistive upgrades for their businesses. Also, as part of the my background, and i work [inaudible] architectural Compliance Office service. My interest is primarily in Affordable Housing through the rental assistance demonstration program. I am very happy to be working on this project and in a way that this project Service Helps poor low income communities as well as provide disability upgrades for Affordable Housing. Thank you. Thank you. Anymore for the report . That concludes my report thank you, donna and heather. Next up is a presentation about dahlia the San Francisco housing portal. I have Michael Solomon and dairy road are. Welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon councilmembers. I Michael Solomon and as my colleague gary roeder would must housing and community development. We are actually here to update you on a presentation from a few months ago regarding our citys brandnew we collect dahlia San Francisco housing portal. Which, our goal is to be an online onestop resource for all kinds of Affordable Housing programs listings, and resources. To make it easier for folks looking for Affordable Housing in the city. Heart of that is, you know one of our primary goals is feasibility and include with usability ease of use of the system, is taking into account all kinds of people using the system and including all kinds of abilities and disabilities and language and just every level of reading level. So, even taking that into consideration as we started building job we are now listing below market rate rental listings currently. We also have an eligibility tool and we currently also have list of resources for people who may need other resources. In about a month or two, were going to online applications for below market rate rentals. As well as, account creation. Again, using the feedback and issues and concerns we heard from you last on, those have been incorporated it would look forward to talking about what weve done and hearing more of those ideas from you today. So, with that amount handed over to gary roeder my colleague on the team. Good afternoon council and members of the audience in attendance. I might as michael said we been working hard on the San Francisco housing portrait only speaking from this six slide deck very quickly. The first slide you see is a representation of our existing home page which is as michael indicated that some limited functionality now soon to be followed by additional subject of vibrator to the specifics michael was referring to. So, by way of reference, the big problem of coarse i think a lot of you are aware of, is that theres a lot of places to look for housing in the city Affordable Housing,. The good news is theres a lot of programs. The bad news is theres a lot of programs. Its very fractured. A lot of work. For what can often be not a lot of opportunity. Because of the situation we have in San Francisco. So the idea was to make it simpler for people to find things. Also to apply for them. So, one important thing that michael touch on is that we have been focused into the development we have done has been usercentered. That is, we regularly meet with people who have either applied for our listings or intend to apply for our listings. To ask them what are the features they need. To ask them is this a site that works for you. To ask them, is this the size of the button and where should it go on the screen. Those kinds of things that were pretty excited about that because thats an uncommon and Government Software development. The features we currently have our intend to act with our next release in the next month legally to browse listings as michael indicated some calculators to help you understand what properties youre eligible for. Also, the ability to complete a short form application. You may not be able to see that on this slide, but i highlight that because the way it currently is is that if you are a real go getter youll go all over town and fill out up to 20 page applications with numerous agencies only to be put on a wait list one rolled in a lottery. We are changing that so that you will file a short form. If it were printed it would be effectively four pages. One of those pages is actually demographic information thats optional. That application will stand in our system with your permission, to apply for a number of Different Properties including into the future as things become available. Also, were moving all our lotteries through the system as well. That allows us to better communicate to people how they do in the lotteries. They are in weightless. Things like that. There some other support provided by the system that i wont touch on but we are tying to make it a robust supportive experience for people. On the accessibility front, from the very beginning we considered the needs of multiple populations. The first thing we did is we did a Research Process with existing federal standards. I know atf and Us Digital Service, you may recognize the Us Digital Service as the entity that president obama created in the aftermath of challenges with the Affordable Care site. Registration. But we were looking at sort of highest and best practices for Government Software but software in general. To make sure that we developed it for standard tools. So screen reader, screen modification. Also to make sure that its mobile optimized. So, to translate that, we want to make sure that the tools accessibility tools most often used, are things that interface well with our site. We, in fact, discovered something in the process of our Development Related to the building of tables in the particular type of coding language we were using. We made that discovery, made some proposals that are National Level that since been adopted and so we are grateful to contribute to that good as michael indicated we also at work on the wing which considerations. Making sure we dont use the jargon the pmr and amr and this and that. Then, also, were working on additional Language Access so that more and more of our site features are available in additional of the San Francisco official languages. So, theres another aspect of accessibility that we like to think about it of course, because we are doing with physical properties, units, and buildings, that may have communication or physical accessibility issues, we are working in conversation with the Mayors Office of disability to make sure that we provide information in our listings about what those units and buildings offer. So, just to not only provide information as i indicate here, on things like site arrival pointed to kitchen, bathroom, communication features, and other but also to create standards for those listings, if you will. So that, someone with particular accessibility needs can always come to a listing and look in a particular place and we sort of develop a standard language in San Francisco around what units and buildings have or should have. As i indicated before, weve been working from the perspective of user centric research. Thats really important good in shorts, if we in our office or in a relatively isolated group design something without rigorous and thorough and regular testing with people that actually need to use it it wont be a success. We need to make sure it something that as we launch it, which we have, and as we continue to build on it is something that truly of use of the population we seek to serve. We are looking to build our site accessibility testing. We have done some work things to the help of the lighthouse for the blind staff. We are seeking additional endusers as we call them for Additional Research that provided my email address there. Barry, dot rotor at sf g. Org and my phone number 4157015568. We would very much like to speak with you if you be interested in becoming part of our testing team. Thank you. This i conclude your presentations. Live questions from councilmember . No . I have a couple. Ive written them down here. On page 3, you were talking about the listings and the applications the shortterm, short form application. And how much easier it will be to know whats available. So, say you fill out your application. Now, will the system notify you if a property comes up that youre eligible for or do you have to go back and look through the listing every week . The notification feature is not yet available. But it is within scope. So right now you would have to go back and check. However, we have a 30,000 , plus, a look housing alert email list that people immediately get notified once whatever kind property theyre interested in becomes available. Great if i could add to that the translate scope, it is in our vision and on our budget, etc. To build a feature that would say, hey, you apply for this. And you said it was okay to keep your information. This listing has come up that matches would be applied for before. Are you interested in hitting eight, yes, with perhaps checking your income and household to state the same and then you are good. That sounds great. Next question came on page 5. You list all of the accessibility features that you are including. But i was wondering, will you also include information about homes that can be modified for people with disabilities as so they can age in their homes and communities . We certainly can add any kind of information and in fact thats one of the reasons why here to hear that kind of feedback. Id like to learn more about that at some point but we certainly could add that information very easily yes that it prevent institutionalization or people having to leave their homes and communities for somewhere else. Great. Then, my last question. If i can find it. I thought i had another one. Maybe not. Yes, i do. On page 4, will there be a Smartphone App . It already works very well on your smart phone. Wonderful. We ashley talked about it being usercentered. We know most of the users will be using it on Smartphone Gets it works best there and happens to work on your desktop as well. Okay. One of the things we like to do if you have it open on your screen, housing dot sf. Org and you know how you can change the size of your browser window. As you do that menus collapsed and they become drawdowns and you get to see exactly what it looks like. It is designed to work on any screen size and fits itself automatically. Terrific. Just courteous regarding the endusers can you elaborate on the profile . [inaudible] were to be looking for . Began sure, thank you. So, our focus to date has been on finding potential users that aligned with the listings we are developing could for example, we focus on pmr listings. Within that we try to touch on different segments of the population that would be potential in this case emr applicants. Because of the first lease had limited functionality only showing listings. We were able to live again with our sincere thanks on some help from staff at white house for the bind some of whom are present today to get their thoughts on some of our development efforts. But we want to expand that as we launch online application because we think its very important to get some more detailed feedback. So, we would ideally looking for home seekers in the most broadest sense who have given accessibility needs than the standard population. So, folks that would access the site through screen readers can access the site whose ring magnification, or any of the standard sort of screen accessibility tools. We would want to know their experience to make sure that the site is in fact accessible to them. Thank you. Any questions from staff . Do you have any outreach material available to distribute two numbers of the public to recruit the endusers . Because that something our office could probably assist with. We could email that . Sure, that is great. Thank you. Mr. Come by that had offered in an email exchange i believe we had that [inaudible] an email list and we had a couple initial conversations about how we might access about. I think we should repair some things to send you. Once about current concerns we have is figuring out how towe would hate to have thousands of people respond and not be able to use their services, but that sounds at something we can work out but thank you for the invitation and we need to follow that up. Began great. Another question you mentioned is going to meet Resources Available on the portal. What type of resources are you looking at adding to the portal . Sure. Right now, we ashley work with a number of agents we call them housing counseling agencies that people looking for Affordable Housing or work with. We are able to refer people to those. We either way be with extra help finding listings one application or need a language oh. Our Housing Counseling Agency is at least one for each language. Also, we also have right now, kind of pdf sheets and the different languages to instruct people with that we need to. We are going to have a whole site in all the multiple San Francisco languages. But that takes a little time because we had to make sure everything is working. So we will get there but in the meantime we do have those kinds of resources. Down the road, like i said earlier, well to be a onestop shop so much as have property listings, but also hopefully, you be able to put in your entire situation the system will be able to recommend, hey, this is nonprofit out in the sunset that does something you may need. So, really, we want to expand this to our goal. Our goal is to expand this to every nonprofit resource in the city whether we fund them or not. The 10 great. I think it would be c coupled to of resources on their about peoples rights, how various housing laws. Rights to reasonable a commendation and reasonable modification for their [inaudible] based on disability. Because theres some extra recommendations beaten legal resources, perfect. I just want to thank both michael and barry for being here and just to follow up with heathers question, that barry and i should be in touch in the next week or so about hoping we get some more endusers to help you get this so i thought. So thanks for being here. Thank you so much. Just one comments. Talk about what had talked about. I think it would also be good to have more legal information about eviction defense, the ellis act, and so people know they have rights around these things. And what they are. Even if i may just add come i think thats an excellent comments. We are in a parallel process, although it is behind our work on dahlia that housing portal to completely revamp our city website to do a clearer job of explaining some of those rights. To do a clearer job of exciting what we do as in the department. To help People Find Services that apply to them through eligibility tools. So, you tell us just a tiny bit about who you are and we can show you not only be him or and units but also these other programs such as eviction of defense. We are figuring out as we go how much of that lives on the portal and how much of that lives on the website. But to make sure in either case, its easily accessible. Great. Thanks. Do i have any Public Comment . Yes, sir. Could you come forward and speak into the microphone, please . Thank you. I want to ask a question that i dont have a computer and i [inaudible] at the Downtown Senior Center could we be cooperating with organizations such as these at Senior Centers on things so the person can put in an application or other required paperwork with the means you have . Absolute. Theres two things were doing. Thank you for that question. Because you remind me to underscore that although this is an electronic system, we will never require an electronic application we walls happy birth applications available at our offices, available at the developer Site Specific to the unit being offered and also available at the housing counseling agencies that we fund and on top of that, and when you mentioned is one of themthat we work withon top of that, we actually have a budget in this current fiscal year to do a training with the counseling agencies in San Francisco exactly about this system and how to use it and address questions they have. So, absolutely. Is there any further Public Comment . Anyone on the bridge line . Okay then thank you mr. Solomon and mr. Roeder. We are going to move on to item number eight, serving lgbt adults with disabilities. Id like to welcome and well martinez and abby, nine. Are they not here yet . I skip one. I am sorry. I turned the page. Anticipation. So, we are going to have a presentation from lighthouse for the blind by lisa maria m penis and that the arab veterans in. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Lisa Marie Martinez and i am the director of Community Services at the lighthouse for the blind. With me today i have my colleague, that berenson who is our community liaison. I knew fresh title given were two days ago. So, were here to talk about a little bit about the lighthouse and what we do. We recently moved to midmarket as many of you know we are now located on the top three floors of a 1155 Market Street. We have been there for 3. 5 months now and we are so happy to be there. We really were outgrowing our previous location and we are so happy to be in a much more spacious and beautiful location. So, the lighthouse we have been around for 114 years. We primarily are here to promote the quality and selfreliance of people who are blind and low vision in northern california. We have sites in eureka, marin, berkeley, san andreas and headquarters are here in San Francisco. We also have a [inaudible] location. So we promote the quality and selfreliance blind and low vision people by providing linus for trying and things such as cooking, braille, orientation and mobility and access to technology training. We also change the life of blind people by providing them employment skill training and we work in job coach with blind folks to find their own jobs. In fact, we have a Employment Immersion Program thats been around for almost 6 years and in that time, we have employed over 40 of our participants, which is a high rate of placement. Their combined salaries equals to 2. 2 million. We are very proud of that. We do, as i said, a lot of rehabilitation gibner serve about 3000 people throughout the year. I would say maybe our crowning jewel of our rehabilitation services, the independent living skills we teach them are changing vision, changing life. Some people call the blindness boot camp or blindness 101. Its a weeklong training that sometimes takes place in our napa camp location and now that we have residential quarters in our new building we been holding changing vision, changing life retreats in our new location. But, during this weeklong training you learned basically, you get introduced to Assistive Technology. You get introduced to braille could you get introduced to using a long white cane. And you get used to thinking about ways to adapt your life or changing things around you so that you can be a little bit more selfreliance as your vision changes. People come to us up in gradually losing their site in their later years, and are coming to us because all of a sudden, their vision has progressively or all of a sudden their vision has changed and now they want to continue to lead the New York Times or they want to cook french toast or play with their grandchildren and they want to do it safely. So, thats what we do and most the time we have students who come out of that retreat and we do more extensive followup and more oneonone training. So, lets see here. I talked a little bit about orientation and mobility and braille. We do a lot of the Assistive Technology, and i want to expand on that a little bit because many times people think of Assistive Technology as a computer with really big print on the screen. That is one thing computers can do for blind low vision people, but we also introduce people to screen readers or accommodation screen readers and screen magnification. We also work a lot with folks who want to start learning how to use tablets and smart phones. So, we might have someone come in and they only want to use an ipad to vacant face time with her grandchildren and we can teach people how to do that. We enjoy teaching people how to do that. So, we can go on and on about all of our wonderful rehabilitation resources we do. But, i really want to give back a stab at some of the things that we also do that are not necessarily under the umbrella of blindness skills training or the hard skills training. Maybe the more softer skills during the confidence building and so alternate over two bath. Because okay. Hello. So theres a lot of other fun things going on at the lighthouse. Lots of stuff. So, what other questions youre probably asking is, okay can we all do this place of that lisa marie just told you about but how do i as a San Francisco residence, pay for that . Lots of services are free to people who are over 65. In livingim sorry, over 55. Its new york. My head in my mouth dont work together. For people who are over 55, or, a person with a disability who lives in the city and county of San Francisco. A lot of our services are provided by a grant from the department of aging and disability. Aging and adult services. We also get money from the state, state department of rio the location for people who are over 55 who live in the bay area. We cover the counties of San Francisco alameda, contra costa and marin. We had an information concierge. So, if you have any questions about what the lighthouse does about what your rights are, you can always call us because we work with people who are just blind or visually impaired. So, were sort of the experts in in this. And, you can reach our information concierge at info lighthouse sf. Org. You can ask her almost anything and she can give you the answer. You can reach her by phone at 415 6947323. We also have Youth Programs. Our Youth Programs work with preteens to early adult, young adults. We have outdoor activities. We have mentorship roles. We have one of the big things is we have cooking classes and we have a lot of family nights. We want the families to get involved and also mentor each other. We have lots of things for people who are working age. We have a group called, 30 and growing, and that title refers to the 30 of the blindness population who are looking for jobs to have become employed. So, we want to grow that number to over 30 . They do happy hours, movie nights, game nights. We also love Counseling Services to help people either oneonone or with families to adapt to vision loss. We have camped. Camp is held in napa at Enchanted Hills. It is for adults and youth. We have several different Specialty Camps including music, horse camp, we work with people who are blind and also have Developmental Disabilities, as well as people who are deafblind. Theres a camp for you and family camp, where one person in the family needs to be blind could be the children. It could be the moment that it could be everyone. Basically, you just have fun. My favorite part you get to go swimming. We also have a deathblind program that serveslet me read it. Service the entire state had one of the big features of that program is the deathblind Communications Grant and that is a federal grant that the lighthouse in partnership with Helen Keller National Center helps to administer. It basically gives people who are not able to communicate because of deaf blindness a piece of equipment in training on that equipment so that they can communicate with the outside world. To get an application and find out if you are eligible for it, you can call [inaudible] which i am going to i think you can email silky. I will spell it for you. Sookheechoi. I will also give you an email. Schoi lighthouse sf. Org. We also have a store. We have a lot going on. We have a store that sells low vision aids and also sells braille tools. It sells some technology. Everyone is welcome to come in. It is located at 1155 market st. , 10th floor. Our hours are 105 pm weekdays. They also do mail and phone orders. So give them a call at 415 694 7301 good on the jumping really quickly and starting those ini can tell you exactly when i can but soon work that one date a week with extended hours into the evening to 7 pm and one saturday a month when the store is open. Wow. See, more things were doing. We also have media accessibility laboratory. Media accessibility design latitude. I wouldve just said mab lab but you would not have understood. They do tactile mapping. They do 3d imaging. They have done mapping for burning man. If youve got a burning them anyone to a map. Talk to us. Also, uc berkeley has requested mapping and if youre going to disneyland, please asked him for tactile map because we have done all the Us Properties for distant. Other things that would be of interest here we have this gorgeous new building and we have lots of space. One of the things we are doing is we are renting out the space at very reasonable prices to both government, nonprofits, and private businesses or private individuals. So, that is something if you would like to come see what it looks like and talk out room rentals, please let me know and ill give you my direct line. 415 694 7322. Also, are enchanted hope camp is also rentable and it is becoming a huge venue for weddings and you cansimply want to check out. You can contact Dave Fletcher lighthouse sf. Org. Other services that we offer. We offer Technology User groups. If someone is, like the dahlia people, if they want one of the things we couldve done is we can help them recruit users to see how it works, how their website works with individuals. Individuals who are blind or visually impaired. And come i think that is it could we we glad to answer questions. Thank you very much. Speed and really exhaustive list. 11. Can you name three of the things we do . Do i have any comments or questions from councilmember . Sure. Thank you so much a great overview of services and what you do. How you do impact the work. I was interested in two things. One, you mentioned you had a blindness skills training. Is that open to anyone or do you have to be a person who is blind or visually impaired . Secondly, it just in case you want to have that information or experience [inaudible] secondly, id like to hear a little bit more about your Mentorship Program that you also mentioned with the mentorship specifically [inaudible] can i answer the first question . Our trainings offer people blind and visually impaired, but one of the services we offer is that we do offer training to different, either private businesses, government organizations, and blindnessthe best way i can explain this. Blindness etiquette. So, get in contact with me is that something you would like to have some Additional Information on. We can absolutely, thanks. To answer the second question, we have Different Levels of mentorship that go on depending on the program. For instance, in our Youth Program which is one of the programs i oversee, we are constantly looking for professionals and college students, anyone who may be just a little bit ahead or a lot ahead in life of where our youths are currently so that they can come in and talk with our students were given presentations, or read an activity. You know, yesterday we had our 30 by ms. Professional Network Night and blindness professionals and friends of blindness professionals, they were both fair and are used coordinators was there and he came back with five business cards potential speakers. So, our Youth Program is constantly looking for any type of person whos willing to give a couple hours of their time and their talents. We also do mentorships in some of our other classes like vision changing life class. We have students who have done the program, or have done skills training at the lighthouse who come back to student teachers. So, its reallyits very powerful to see, they just want to this class a year from now and look where they are at now. I can get there, too. So those are some of the Mentorship Programs that we have. Thats wonderful. Very helpful. Thank you for that. Any other questions from councilman was . I have a few. I try to keep it to three. The first question is could you talk a little bit more about the residential units at 1155 market spirit who they are forced on how many there are, and when theyll be available . Began yes. They are available ticket we have 29 beds although one of them is for overnight staff so we can accommodate up to 28 students. And theyre a mixture of doubles, triples could we one quad. If i ever get evicted from home thats my family going to move to. I love that. We can pick up to 28 students and, right now, about once a month they are reserved for our changing vision changing life class which is a week long i might and they can also be used for various other reasons. We have the first week of november we have a group of people coming to learn how to safely [inaudible] as a blind person and some people are coming from out of town. So they need overnight accommodations and we can provide that. Our Youth Programming is saturday Youth Employment workshops, and some of our students come from the school from the blind and the school for the blind is a Residential School and they usually the students go home on the weekends. Theyre there to participate in something here locally during the week and they need overnight accommodations we can accommodate those students. There are also meant to be there for people who might want to come from a far distance but they want to come to us for intensive skills training and maybe technology or oh and him and prevail and for whatever reason, they feel like lighthouse is great. I want to go to lighthouse and go to dedicate a month of my life to this. So we can have a room for them while theyre doing intensive skills trained. Because, for the most part, we are just a Training Center, a daytime Training Center we are not a residential Training Center but we do intensive immersion retreats. He didnt think. One other question. You mentioned that one grant funded by [inaudible] the state city and the feds for various services. The deal with grandson they sometimes go up and they sometimes go down. Theyre not a reliable source of income completely. Do you do fund raising . To have eventually try to get some unrestricted funds into your organization that you can help balance this . Do you see that is becoming more of an issue . We have a very active Development Department, which i was in for five years. The answer is, yes, we do a lot of fundraising is a lot of hard work. We do several appeals a year for specific programs and for just general Lighthouse Funds that are unrestricted and we raise, we used to raise about three quarters of 1 million 1 million just for individual funds alone. We get grants from many other places. We get requests. You know, you cant rely on request but we have not, to be quite honest, we are have not been known ourselves in the last eight years ive been at the lighthouse to host our own fundraisers. We have a lot of Board Members or patrons of our camp who might host fundraisers of their own to raise money for the lighthouse and we are very successful in supporting those individuals who want to do that. But, i see our department our Development Department going towards realizing the necessity to put together events meant to raise funds. We actually had a lot of luck in raising funds by mail appeal. Thank you. Just a quick comment. I want to commend you on pending to the mental [inaudible] needs of folks. But sometimes discounted in this country and its essential for a happy life. Absolutely. Thank you. By cochair has a question . I dont have a question. I just wanted the menu on your services. As a consumer, ive been going to go through the process of the department of rehabilitation in acquiring services and Employment Program and him on a time frame and also received some equipment and some training, and ive been very impressed and appreciative not only from a funding resource although services of the lighthouse. Early, i am very pissed off is so accommodating so knowledgeable and any questions i have about adaptive technology, resources, employment services, besides what you have mentioned. So i thank you for the work you do and support you provide to the blind and visually impaired community. Certainly, it opened my eyes into all the good work that you can get of course, i been familiar to the association on the council but ive never actually gone through the prospect so, as a consumer i thank you for being there and i look forward to you continuing to work with you thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions from staff . I just have a couple questions and make comments. Lisa marie, and that thank you for being here and for the around for 114 is. You guys look fabulous. [laughing] i actually was a super supper last year which is Enchanted Hills and it is, i will say a fabulous spot. When i was there there were blind science campers there. Yes. It was really cool which leads me to the question, do you partner with like the School District or nonprofit agencies work with people with maybe Developmental Disabilities or is that just sort of a hit and miss . Is that an ongoing thing you do . Ive been with Community Service two years now and i know one of the things im really striving for is to do more partnerships with other agencies across the bay area because my goal in Community Services is to make sure that the blindness community isnt coming to the just come into the lighthouse for services but going out into the community and becoming active, successful independent Community Members. To me, its really important to demonstrate our belief in blind people integrating and being independent by joining forces with other agencies and saying, hey, you can do this. This is cool. This is just a really long of saying, yes, we do partner with people. We partnered with folksy do the chemistry camp. Thats a partnered with the school for the blind mice able to do wilderness education camp and im in conversations with the superintendent at the school for the blind in fremont for our use folks to go out and do a monthly workshop on career building and College Success at the school for the blind in fremont. We are consulate looking for partners. You know, in every aspect of the community and so if anyone has bright ideas, brilliant ideas, let me know. Im always happy to see what we can do in terms of programming or services together. In my old role as information and resource coordinator, i got calls on a pretty regular basis from Regional Centers for people but multidisability. We work with the Regional Centers are pretty regular basis and we have several clients of yours that are also clients of ours that, on all kinds of different basis is. We also have a camp, the camp specifically for people with Developmental Disabilities. We were blind babies on a camp. So, like greece lisa marie said were always looking for more people. So the thing is due where are the experts of blindness and low vision but binders are a crosssection of society and by people of other needs another stabilitys and other abilities and so its important for us at least in my mind to partner with people by the experts and specialists in those areas. Thank you. Anymore from staff . Public comment. Anyone like to make a Public Comment . Yes, come up to the podium. Bath[laughing] you never know who youll meet at these meetings. Hello everyone my name is [inaudible] and i work with it and every Jewish Museum as the accessing Community Engagement manager. Im also the cofounder of a professional learning network that focuses around accessibility and empowering using atoms and cultural organizations become more welcoming. I want to speak specifically or make a comment specifically about our partnership through both of those capacities. With the lighthouse for the blind. Someone had mentioned super fast and for the last three years which is our 30th anniversary, and we are really a very very proud institutional partner to host superfast and i think it is allowing us to grow our organization to also be an ally in changing views of disability and museums but also to become an ally also in supporting disability arts and culture in the bay area. So, i wanted to thank the lighthouse for the blind not only for bringing superfast and special disabilities in San Francisco to the cj him but also they been instrumental in training our staff so all of our frontline staff, security. Weve coasted to trainings. That was there and she mentioned disability etiquette around blind and low vision. But also, they have provided, helped us market and create outreach to the community so that were putting a message out there that we are welcoming and we want our museum to be representative of the diversity of our community. So, i just want to do a plug for superfast but also do a shout out to the amazing amazing work that their entire team is doing and there building is phenomenal. Yes. So, community partnerships, i would say, really really phenomenal work. I hope that more using atoms and more cultural organizations can consult with the lighthouse for the blind because i feel its a really Important Service thats often not representative and not given enough weight. So, thank you thank you. Through the chair, if either lisa marie or bath would like to talk about for people that dont know what superfest but before you do that ill tell you i was actually at superfast. I can be timed out on the person[laughing] at the Enchanted Hills, theres a group of us that literally in one weekend watched about 45 films. It was really fantastic and affords limb not able to do it this year but if you would be so kind as to tell the audience and people may be less than what superfest is that would be great absolutely. Superfest is the longest Running International Film Festival and lighthouse for the blind and [inaudible] institute on disability has been working the last couple years to host superfestival and as you heard we worked with [inaudible] museum to Jewish Community museum as the site that shows the movies that has made the cut. Theyre really great films made by or made about people with disabilities and its really cool and really fun and october 2223rd is superfast i think the website is superfast. Com. If not you can go to light house page and find it should be superfest. Com. Im not in development anymore. I dont know the things. [laughing]. Its great and we have trailers online that you can take a steep peek at some of the movies that have made it to the final cuts. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other Public Comment . Anyone on the bridge line . Okay, think. Thank you, ladies very much. Now, we will move on to information agenda item number eight. This is a presentation by open house. Serving the lgbt adulthood disability on a welcome man well marketing is and abby calming thanks for having us to do i am abby and this is man well. We are here today from open house. Open house is an agency that serves lgbt older adults and adults with disabilities that leave in San Francisco could we have a variety of social services that we offer and today were going to give a brief overview of our services, talk about little bit about why lgbt older adults and adults with dispose might be more vulnerable and what we do to cater to those populations in our office in the castro and also in our new building at 55 [inaudible]. So, one of the reasons why we are here today is because lgbt older adults they particularly vulnerable and lgbt seniors are often also people with disabilities. They face Significant Health disparities compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Lgbt seniors are particularly wonderful, 50 of people with hiv our 50 . 40 of lgbt seniors have one or more physical disability. 15 have seriously considered suicide in the past you. Thats also accompanied by Mental Health challenges and is often much higher rates of ptsd in the lgbt team senior communities. So, what we are doing is catering to those communities by offering programs like a Housing Assistance program. I work as a housing coordinator at open house so we offer housing workshops. We work with people oneonone to counsel them when theyre facing eviction. When the housing becomes unstable or as maybe they can get their stairs anymore, they are aging and moving to a place that is more accessible based on their needs. So, we counsel them based on what they might need in terms of housing in the future. We also have a Case Management program and an aging and Disability Resource Center which meant well is going to tell us more about. We have a really robust Community Engagement program. So some of what we do is have a really incredible calendar of events every single month. It ranges from seminars on spirituality and seminars on aging and wellness, on transhealth. We have arts groups. We have support groups. We have somebody different events almost every single day of the week at our Castro Office and Senior Centers around the city. We also have a friendly visitor program. Many of the constituents that we serve the people who maybe are not so mobile. Maybe isolated in their homes and we want to make that connection to the Lgbt Community so we offer Family Visitor Program which means we match Community Volunteers who will visit them on the monthly basis, twice a month for about 45 min. Or an hour each and theyll be in the Community Members homes and go out and outing. Depending on what the accessibility needs are of that senior and those are several ways that we try to support our lgbt elders. Man well is going to tell us about Case Management and are Disability Resource Center hello everyone. I am man well mechanize the information and Research Specialist at open house. I do not specialist for many years before open house [inaudible] i was also out stationed at lighthouse for the blind assisting Community Members fill out forms and giving them resources. So, open house was funded two years ago to do one of the 12 Resource Centers in the city. [inaudible] what we basically do is we serve as a onestop shop. Basically Community Members come to us to find assistance for whatever resources whatever type of for seniors and adults with disabilities. Sorry. I forgot to mention that. The majority of the people i serve our seniors but we dont relieve and ask for proof of disability. It can be anything that these people are not [inaudible] we dont ask for that. As i mentioned they can come to me, going to mention some of the resource i normally referred to did not all of them but just as some examples. Some of the agencies i can refer to independent living Resource Center. We partner with them. White house photo line human Speech Center and also the senior and disability action. I provide information on food and nutrition from pantry and do home delivered meals, home delivered groceries for those homebound. Also, i provide information on different places by district where they can go to get a hot plate. As abby mentioned, before, some of our Community Motors have a little mental challenges that we refer to different support groups including some of them we have inhouse and other agencies such as good luck space and the Mental Health association. Reduce some referrals for employment and training opportunities. I how people to fill out applications for transportation for the rtc, for people with disabilities. And for those who qualify Financial Assistance for the different organs that might be available to them through the city. I speak english and spanish well mostly spanish and a little english, but so i provide translation for those who need that also filling out forms for those who need that type of assistance. Also, i do some referrals so services from ihss, some private pay Home Services also emergency ihss ashanti program emotional and practical support that is also very helpful for some of our Community Members that hivaids. Also, deftly by the aging and Resource Center basically what i do i just provide them with the services and the client can go and do that and i do provide some followup but i do not open a case with them. They basically i tell them how well the resource worked out for you or not . But in case we understand for so many other challenges some of our Community Members are unable to connect with the service. So were funded also to provide Case Management for those people were unable to connect with the services. Basically, it would be the same but the Case Management program will open a case. We will have goals and a plan to achieve those goals and its also funded to Service Specific result of self identified lgbt seniors or adults with disabilities. So, that is basically a little bit of the big difference between the two programs. The Case Management is more comprehensive. Its a little more sometimes handholding. I dont want to say that but depending on the needs of the Community Members so they can connect with the Services Available to them. Thats basically a little bit about the two programs. I dont know if you have questions . Any questions from councilmembers . I have just some comments. At the beginning you talked about how lgbt seniors and people with hiv have kind of are likely to have more disabilities. Some other factors play into that. Theyre more likely to live a loan and theyre more likely to be isolated but theyre more likely to find themselves in neighborhoods that have gentrified and theres nothing left for them in those neighborhoods. If theyre on disability or Social Security there is no incentive to get out of the house and go. They often live in old victorians with a lot of steps. Then, they also a lot of them dont have not had children so there is no family to help out and take care of them or possibly move in with. So, just to emphasize the needs of this population are just very high. Thank you. Does that have any questions or comments . I have a question. But abby and then well its been a long time we were trying to get your. Im glad to hear finally. I have a question about Getting Services through open eyes