Of South Carolina led the hearing. [taps gavel] all right. Hearing is setting members up for success. I now recognize myself or five minutes to give an opening statement. As is usually the case im not going to take five minutes because we are doing Something Different today. Those of you who have attended past hearings no as committee sometimes likes to shake things up, and today, were looking at ways to develop the next generation of leaders in congress, which is part of our committees mandate. We figured what better way to showcase the next generation of leaders would be to future this committee of to feature this. Ommittees freshmen members we have benefited from their unique perspective as freshmen members. Resentative tendons representative tendons representative demings dutifully gets here early and waits and waits and waits to question witnesses. His patients has not gone unnoticed. I will yield to the representatives. They are running the meeting today. Vice chairman graves, i
There is a Mental Health crisis here in San Francisco and i know that we often times hear that were being thrown around loosely. But the fact is that as someone who grew up in San Francisco and know that we have had challenges in this city, including issues around homelessness, what i see is something that ive never seen in my lifetime of growing up in the city and that is people who are in serious, serious crisis. Serious need. And the fact is, in San Francisco, the frustration is that we have a lot of resources. We have a lot we have a lot of dedicated revenues to help spousht support people, but we have discovered that the coordination has to be better and more efficient to really help people that we know are struggling. So we have people who have, as we unfortunately know, theyre homeless. They have challenges with addiction. They have a number of other ailments, including Mental Illness, and unfortunately have nowhere to go but the streets. We need to make sure were prepared to me
All right. Better late than never, the meeting will come to order. Sorry. The constitutional obligation of the job. I will now recognize myself for five minutes to give myself an opening statement. I will not take five minutes because we are doing Something Different today. Those of you whd past hearings no as committee sometimes likes to shake things up, and today, were looking at ways to develop the next generation of leaders in congress, which is part of our committees mandate. We figured what better way to showcase the next generation of leaders would be to future this committee of to feature this. Ommittees freshmen members we have benefited from their unique perspective as freshmen members. Resentative tendons representative tendons representative demings dutifully gets here early and waits and waits and waits to question witnesses. His patients has not gone unnoticed. I will yield to the representatives. They are running the meeting today. Vice chairman graves, i know you will a
They are joining us today because we know this work is not easy. Im joined here today by the director of Mental Health reform, grant colfax who is our director of the department of Public Health as well as yolanda who has been a client here for some time and she will be speaking to you later today. Thank you for being here and all the folks who are doing the hard work. We know that Mental Health there is a Mental Health crisis here in San Francisco and i know that we often times hear that were being thrown around loosely. But the fact is that as someone who grew up in San Francisco and know that we have had challenges in this city, including issues around homelessness, what i see is something that ive never seen in my lifetime of growing up in the city and that is people who are in serious, serious crisis. Serious need. And the fact is, in San Francisco, the frustration is that we have a lot of resources. We have a lot we have a lot of dedicated revenues to help spousht support people,
And thats how i see our investments, as an opportunity to make sure that good things happen for people here in San Francisco, and we create a Better Future with these incredible investments. So make sure, all the departments, you spend this money wisely. You dont take pen and paper home that you dont need. [laughter] and you do your very best to show folks in this city that we are the greatest city in the world because we put our money where our mouth is, and because of that, we are able to create a more thriving, equitable, safe, and secure city for all san franciscans. Thank you all so much for being here. [cheers and applause] with that, i would like to turn it over to our budget chair, supervisor sandy fewer. [applause] thank you, madame mayor. Good morning, everyone. Wow. On behalf of my 80,000 residents in the Richmond District, i would like to welcome you to this part of town where our summers look like this every day off mac. But where we are doing good work to strengthen and g