there is a divide. there's also a large number of low-income families. there seems to be a disconnect between the newer residents and the long-term residents that have been here. we hope we can find a way to bring those communities together. people say it's gentrification. we want to find ways to bring people together. the budget is just as much about value as it is about numbers. please remember families with children. please remember small businesses. please remember the community- based organizations and other small businesses that are really important to our district. lastly, i would just like to say that strengthening our schools -- make sure we have safe and clean neighborhood parks, that we support passes for our youth. these are things that will continue to make our district strong. i really appreciate you allowing us to really present some of these issues to you. i'm going to turn it back over to our moderator. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mario. i want to acknowledge rhonda simmons from the mayor's office of economic development. there you are. just a reminder to our esteemed mayor, supervisors, and department heads up here, this is about listening to the community members here. please do take notes. at the end of this budget town hall, hopefully we will be able to hear your thoughts on what priorities you heard, and what are some ideas you might think to be good to apply to the next budget process. also, the different ways we can work together as a community. my neck speaker is also from district 9. i am pleased to introduce her. >> good afternoon, mayor. the director of the mission neighborhood resource center, a homeless program which has been in the district since 1967. we are one of the oldest community health centers in the country. i want to acknowledge and thank you. [inaudible] we know that this year, we're hoping you will commit to the same -- in some ways, this very important role. for the district, one thing i want to tap into what mario said, 1/3 of the mission district district lives below the poverty level. when we talk about a tale of two cities, some of the city departments are serving very poor people. some are very specific. some in district 8. these are the problems we want to make sure to urge you to prevent from any cuts. that would drive the folks that are leaving -- the bad story of the mission, driving them into the streets and driving them into more desperation. also, interdependency. i will touch on four programs that are very interrelated. first, maintaining housing. last year, we were here asking you for the same. 55 units of support of housing in the mission. as you know, our housing stock cannot meet the needs of homeless individuals. there are currently 800, as individuals waiting for placement. 1/3 dealing with the start of hiv aids. outside the delores hotel is probably the largest number of spanish speakers. also, the loss of those units could cost about $1 million per year to the city. we also want to preserve hiv aids services in the mission and throughout the city. our community is very grateful you have made the savings through june. we know we are expecting cuts come as the supervisor has already mentioned. we will face a 20% reduction in funding. at least half of our patients, about 200 patience. most of the severe cuts will impact the most important services for people living with hiv. it is vital to preserve clinical services. many of them -- they are some of the most fragile patients. protect mental health services in the district. the potential funding will result in the loss of 1040 hours of mental health services. the loss will institute -- [inaudible] we are piloting this integrated model, which served 594 patients last year. it is estimated that 50% of the clients are up in marginal health. this potential cut will result, as we said last year, and higher costs, such as emergency care and patient hospitalization, and potentially cleesplays seen our clients at greater risk of homelessness. there's a cut coming -- this is as a result of the priorities changing. this will impact both good samaritan -- with less access to learn esl, critical job skills, and literacy, which is the only way to have any hope for a job. we want to make sure we ask you and urge you to help us find jobs. we hope this is a list of our priorities. three are for comfrom communityd organizations that serves spanish speakers. if we lose those services, we are losing services for the spanish speaking community in the entire city. thank you very much for your support. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. there are some things you are hearing from the two speakers that just spoke. needs around supportive services, prioritizing education, affordable housing, making sure opprobrious services are available to vulnerable populations. i'm sure there are some things from the next two speakers, as well. now we will go to speakers from district 8. brett andrews from positive resource center. [applause] >> thank you, rachel. if someone is so kind to take a couple of these. [laughter] good evening, everybody. i'm the executive director of positive resource center and the vice president of the hiv aids provider network. i see i have some colleagues and partners in crime here. bill hersch and courtney. thank you for being here, along with so many other community- based organization representatives. you did a great job. mr. mayor, you and i have been working closely together with supervisor chu and specifically with the leadership of supervisor wiener and supervisor campos. you've done an extraordinary job of helping us with the supplemental piece of legislation for $1.5 million around these ryan white cuts we were dealing with. that great work we have done, we know there's so much more to do. i handed out a presentation for you that's about six pages long that basically lays out the challenges that we face. over the last 11, 12 years, we've watched the hiv aids infection rates to continue to go up for those who are aware of their status and for those who are not aware of their status and the city and county of san francisco is up. we've watched funding go down between a blend of federal cuts, state cuts, and even on our local level of adding general funds. we've watched funding go down from just under $40 million down to just under $20 million. obviously, the need is there. the funding is not necessarily there. what we are looking for from the mayor, your leadership, and the board, and supervisor chu, is to continue the discussion and the conversation to educate and reeducate ourselves on the challenges that we face in making sure the support of the services are there. primary care is important for so many people living with hiv aids. if you do not have the support services to really wraparound, to release of for you, so you are there to show up at your doctor, to make sure you are on your medicines, and look for the other amount of emotional and social support that are there -- then you probably will not be engaging in a way that we would love for you to. the other challenges that we have around ryan white care funding is part d, which identifies services for family and children. san francisco received about $1 million in years past. that's a $500,000 cut we are facing. we are looking for to working with you on how we can address that. starting january of 2013, the cdc has slated a cut for san francisco of just under $3 million. as scott mentioned earlier, we face a little over $7 million worth of cuts in less than one year. obviously, this is a crisis for us. these are draconian cuts. we cannot stand for them. we know that san francisco has built a model of service. often, the nation looks to us for the model of service we have created, which is a blend of primary care and support of services. we are looking forward to lowe working with the department heads and the supervisors with you as we continue the dialogue and move forward on the services to make sure that people living with hiv aids can live a quality life. a lot of our organizations are significantly tighed. i have contracts with most everybody up here. sfra, ewd, i know they are facing cuts. i've been working with kate and having conversations with you. a lot of those support of housing projects that are out there and for the jri workforce development providers better in those redevelopment project areas, it's important that we keep those work force development programs going. when you are making a cut would organization, know that you are also making the cut to an organization that provides a vast array of services to a vast array of clients who are here in the city and county of in san francisco -- county of san francisco. i appreciate san francisco's participation and their constant quest for knowledge and advocacy. thank you for having another year of community dialogue. the budget process is always difficult. i know you have to make difficult decisions. because of tonight, they will be informed decisions. thank you very much for that. [applause] >> thanks, brett. bill from dbi is also here. excellent. [applause] wellcome. the next beaker from district 8 is rebecca from the lgbt center. there you are. thank you. as >> in the executive director of the center. i really want to thank supervisor wiener, supervisor campos, camposchu, and mayor lee. the center, we are 10 years old this year. we are excited spending 10 years connecting the lgbt individuals in the community the opportunity to build a stronger and healthier community. we really work across the full spectrum of the lgbt community's needs. we have very little data about the lgbt community. we are not fully counted in the census. there's very little hard data that's really known about the economic status about the lgbt community, where we live, and how we live. there's a myth of gay affluence, that we are a community of great affluence. the other myth is that in san francisco there are not problems with discrimination. i want to be clear that those are both myths. we largely reflecting world around us. we do face the civic pockets of marseillaise agent based on our lgbt -- pockets of marginal as asiaization. many lgbt folks moved here from other places of the country seeking sanctuary and a place to be ourselves. we came from places where we face significant challenges. i think some of the other challenges we face are discrimination and barriers, even in san francisco in terms of employment, housing, education, and many of the other systems that serve each of us as residents, employees, and folks who live in work in san francisco are challenged by. tolit's important for us to hold that this is one of the most fabulous places in the world for the lgbt community to live. there is still significant pockets of marginal as ization. i want to speak about youth, seniors, and the transgendered community. we see significant challenges in areas for seniors. many come economic challenges, based on a lifetime of income disparities, low rates of home ownership, lack of access to economic support for marriage equality, and are facing, as seniors, sort of going back into the closet, facing challenges for health care and many things that this older adults. youth, very significant challenges. 5000 to 7000 disconnected youth living in san francisco. 40% of them identified as lgbt for questioning. it's a tremendously high number, a hugely disproportionate to our population of young folks living on the streets. they're really facing significant and multiple barriers. we do not have enough housing. we do not have enough employment programs. we do not have enough medical care. we are facing very significant shortages. i really want to thank the mayor and maria for taking on the initiative. i am really excited about that as a new possibility and new attention to this very challenged population. lastly, i want to speak briefly to the needs of the transgendered community. in san francisco, we have rates of 70% to 75% unemployment and underemployment for the transgendered community. receiving enormously huge economic challenges for the transgendered community, we at the center of the first in the world employment program designed to provide sustainable employment for transgendered folks through the human services agency. we are really pleased. we're in our fourth year of that. we really need to be looking at very significant support for not just sigh load programs, but how to open up access to all of the employment programs, all of the programs so transgendered folks have access to services. 70 percent unemployment is in spite of the fact that san francisco as a model laws on discrimination challenges for the transgendered communities. a few of the key issues facing the community. i look forward to the opportunity to work with all of you. s tthanks to our incredible leadership. [applause] >> thank you, rebecca. thank you for speaking on behalf of the constituents in district 8 and district 9. from the department of adult and aging services -- just showed up. great. excellent. many of the department and agencies are here. now the most important part of the program, the open mic, is coming up. before the start that, i wanted to review a few rules. we have a limit of two minutes per speaker. please make sure you are able to express yourself in a distinct wasuccint way. i have a set of names i will be calling out. please be ready to line up. we will be putting you on a timer. i apologize in advance that i might have to cut some of you off. we want to get to as many people as possible. again, it is important that everybody puts their thoughts and ideas on paper and submits it to the desk where they checked in. these ideas and thoughts will be compiled by the supervisors' offices, hopefully in order to be involved and engaged in the budget process. again, this is just the beginning of the budget process. on your seats, you will probably find this brochure with a schedule of the upcoming town halls and other ways you can get involved in planning for the city's budget. without further ado, and going to call the first set of names. i apologize if i mispronounced your name. destiny, apolpablo, anna martin, and luis. please step up to the microphone in the center there. address our guests here. >> good afternoon, everybody. my name is stephanie. i'm 17 years old. i'm a senior at george washington high school. i'm here on behalf of the lavender youth center. i am a queer educator. i lead and facilitate a transgendered/gender barrier community group offered to youth ages 18 to 24. it's rare to find queer organizations that cater to youth. as a queer lgbtq transgendered latino youth, lyric has been life altering for me. without it, i would not be making any money. i would not have begun saving money to go to college next year. i just really think lgbtqu -- considering how many queeer use are in the city and how few organizations that there are in the city that cater to such a young age youth -- and one of the things that has been affected at lyric -- we have not been able to have drop-in spaces. it's basically a safe space where you can hang out. it's rare to have that at lyric. it was great to see. we have so many youth coming in. now that it's not there anymore, we have less and less youth. without lyrics, i would probably still be iseverely and tight social at my school and would not be the president of the alliance or even be here today. i ask that everybody considered queer youth programs such as lyric when they are balancing the budgets. thank you. [applause] >> i am with boys and girls of san francisco. we're going to do a brief group presentation. i am the area director in the mission district. we have been in the mission district for over 100 years. we have been here since 1891. we have two clubhouses in the community. the mission clubhouse is the first clubhouse that was the boys' and girls' club facility built west of the mississippi in 1929. currently, we served over 4,000 youth. currently, 460 kids per day. through the support of the agencies, we been able to do great work from the funding. the point of tonight is to make sure that we can keep that in focus as a priority within the budget. we received funding for the after-school program. we also receive funding for violence prevention. that is our case management working with the mission station and other communities. also, the other piece -- youth workforce development for our teens. i want to have the youth, up and have them share what that means. thank you. >> i >> i am is senior leadership high-school, participant in college prep programs. through this program, have been able to get support on paying my college applications and go to college. recently, i came from visiting st. mary's college, sacramento state, and university of reno, nevada. i plan on enrolling at uc santa cruz, majoring in criminal justice and sociology, and i am here representing all high- school students who have found support at boys and girls clubs. i am youth of the year% and cisco and will be competing in sacramento later this month for the state honor. thank you for your time and for organizations like boys and girls club. ozzie >> good evening, everyone. first off, i would like to thank everyone for giving us the opportunity to speak tonight on behalf of the boys' club of san francisco. i am is senior at el camino high school. leadership is a trade that we really admire -- a trait that we really admire, but the street i never really had until i was chosen with a program. the program taught me time management, hardware, and humility. being part of the program helped me change my pattern of worked where i did not do anything and got below a 2.0 and help me get a 3.0 average when i was struggling. [applause] >> hello, everybody. through the boys and girls club program, i got into the keystone group, and i am president of this group. it focuses mainly on career academics and community exploration. that is all. thank you. [applause] and thank you again for your time, and please come up to one of our clubs at your convenience. [applause] >> again, just a reminder for folks, we have a limited number of time for the open mike, so if we could please have just one person per organization speaking, we would really appreciate it. i know everyone has a lot of ideas and thoughts they want to share, but please be respectful to the amount of time we have. thank you. >> i am en second-generation clear -- queer latina who grew up in the mission. for the past year, we have been piling a seminar for middle schools. they initiate projects to promote visibility of inclusion of the lgbt key community -- lgbtq community. this averts are complemented by training for school staff. the type of work is imperative at the middle and high school level because they are hungry to be represented and affirmed in a school community. we had a latino if greater you've got himself in front of the entire school community and be embraced -- a latino youth out himself. last year, my class began with just one out middle schoolers, but by the end of my class, half of my students have come out. this-attng