Thank you for giving voice to the voiceless. The ece community. Ive been in this field since 2002. Weve been through many struggles. This is the commitment to the infrastructure. We have building and staff and children we want to support. Its time you make the investment. We have a waiting list, the whole city has a waiting list that will never be filled. I have a list of 18 months and children will never get a slot. With this bill i hope to fill desires and hopes and if you make the Infrastructure Investment in the children i hope that the housing can be passed in november at a later time. Its a good idea in policy that you invest in the children and Families First and we need a much bigger bill. 1 million would be great for housing. It could make maybe 100 units or so but not a lot. Please make this investment. Its a longterm investment for the children of San Francisco and please make this happen. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, supervisors. We havent made en endorsement but i look forward for the opportunity for the childcare measure as i puts money in peoples pockets immediately. As we know as i believe much of San Francisco and california believe, when you raise peoples wages you benefit not just that person but you benefit everybody in the economy. Thats an opportunity we cant look past and i look forward to helping members deliberate over this and other measures. I also want to say we represent childcare workers at San FranciscoUnified School District who would be a beneficiary of this measure. Were appreciative of the opportunity to consider this. Thank you. Hello. Im mary eglasias a district 8 redents. I have two sons. My husband and i. When i went back from Maternity Leave with my second son the logical thing would be to put my 3monthold where the 4monthold was in the Childcare Center. Cost of doing that would have been 3500, 3600 a month with the sibling discount and credit. Affordable childcare is out of reach for middle income and the cost of 3500 it doesnt matter if youre a lower wage or middle income family the cost is the same. I dont want to repeat too much but the issue of homelessness, for the families that are homeless now ensuring the children are in Quality Childcare settings not in cars should be the number one priority. When we think about the Business Community having employees who are coming to work every day on time with piece of mind because their children are safe is critical to running a business. Our early educators are also business people. They run Childcare Centers and Family Childcare homes and their ability to earn the wages they deserve i believe they should be called brain architects because we could pay them the way they should be paid. Theyre going to generate gross receipts to help the economy. While the initiative is to raise taxes theres output. Lastly, i want to say the debate we witnessed early i think was a perfect example of what we want to teach our kids. How to use our words, how to play nice, how to regulate our emotion and thats what kids learn in their earlier years and sets them up for life and hope the other supervisors will vote yes and endorse this initiative because it will show that we can all play nice in the sand box. Hi, my name is oscar wua tang and a family care provider. My family runs a family care provider and im on the board of Family Childcare association of San Francisco as well. I want to share a story what happened when we are meeting with hightech companies in our daycare and theyre moving out. The company is pinterest and they want to keep their employee in San Francisco and theyre moving out because they cannot find Quality Childcare in San Francisco. I dont think thats what San Francisco wants to see. If you see how. I think Quality Childcare is important and Everybody Needs to invest on it. Thank you. Hello. Im julie salem a Childcare Provider in the 9114. I search families and a third are lowincome and moderate income families. Family childcare and childcare in general, Quality Childcare provides a home away from home and a place where the previous speaker said they learn how to regulate their emotions and play fair and include everybody. When we think about housing and childcare and the kids doubled up and in sros in housing more than anything need childcare and childcare is much cheaper than housing though both are important, i think the childcare impact is very great for families. If childcare is affordable for low and middleincome families they can afford the rent increase. If its money in their pockets they can afford to support their families. I hope we can go for universal childcare in San Francisco. Thank you. Im the ceo of hamilton families and i want to come out today because i think its really difficult for us to be debating these issues separately. Families already have to make this impossible decision every single day. They dont live their lives in vacuums. They dont live it by policy. They have to choose every single day whether or not they go to work thank you, joanna ketos ceo. Im encouraged by the leadership for the measure as i believe we can leverage existing structures that support children and families such as the Early LearningScholarship Program that will allow the measure to increase subsidies for those more moderate income families and address the wage for the ece workforce. Every parent i talk to is struggle because they cant afford or cant find a slot and they cant stay in the profession they chose and every provider is also struggling to attract, recruit and retain teachers. Thats a huge issue. The key to ending this funding drought for early care and education is for the ballot measure to address the key challenges. I urge you to continue to support and stand up for children, families and the providers doing this work. Thank you. Good afternoon. Happy valentines day. Im pat sullivan the director of the Family Care Association of San Francisco. I think if you look at the group of people that spoke most are women and people of color. Have you to start asking yourself who do you want to listen to in the city. Business leaders are probably not women or people of color. Though they may have a vested interest of how to things go in the city, they probably dont live here or send their kids to school hore here and probably dont vote here. This say womans issue and childcare measure has the biggest bang for the buck. While we spend a lot of time talking about supporting, this is going to be a bigger impact faster and will impact more lives than the housing measure thats currently being discussed. Thank you. Thank you, next speaker. Hi, im michelle lundy. A retired Childcare Provider. I had a preschool in glen park for 33 years. Im for both measures. I dont want to be campaigning against housing but its an impossible situation here with the two legislations. We need both. I brought you valentines yesterday from our children and i hope it can be worked out. We need both. I was on the state board of the Family Childcare association and San Francisco for years has been a leader in what we did fer what theyve provide and this measure will help children and families and when i got signatures in glen park it was easy. Were having a baby boom in glen park. Just stay on the playground and get signatures but glen park has changed as my supervisor was saying. When i bought my house 45 years ago it was a working class neighborhood. Thank you very much. Supervisor stefani, i have another valentine for you from parent voices. Next speaker. Good afternoon. Im salary large the executive director for the past three decades of friends of st. Francis Childcare Center. The past chair of the San Francisco planning and Advisory Council and board member of the San Francisco childcare association. My staff turn over has increased. My staff earns less than the subsidized children we serve. San francisco has invested in many remarkable quality features in the past few years. We have pfa coaches, Mental Health consultants and other resources but each year we train a new crop of teachers because staff cannot afford to stay in this career. Even if they have housing, they cannot afford to send their kids to college to pay for transportation, to start planning for retirement plans early in life to have enough to live on when they retire after a long career in Early Childhood which they realize they cant do. The city quality money is like a turnstile. If we invest now, however, in ece wages teachers can stay in the career and use Affordable Housing and other necessities theyll be able to pay for. Please vote for the ece part of this initiative and lets Work Together to get housing funds as our next priority. Ec workers care for the Homeless Children and were committed to helping these families find and keep work and obtain housing. Thank you. Good afternoon. Im beth stokes of the episcopal chapter of San Francisco. Not known as the provider of service for family. Ecs provides nearly 100 units of Supportive Housing for families. And our portfolio in that arena continues to grow as were asked to step up and provide more Supportive Housing to families. What we know is families would benefit from affordable chi childcare. Theres no doubt. Im support of locations where one building in particular cannot afford a Childcare Center thats operating out of the building in which they live. Thats hard to hear and difficult to see and ecs has 300 employees living with minimum with, many of them, and many would benefit from affordable childcare and struggle to live in the city. Many dont live in the city. Many would benefit. Thank you. Hello. Happy valentines day. Sorry, i didnt bring v valentines. Im rebecca browning. I would like to say in support of the measure because every parent living in San Francisco its hard to maintain normalcy in terms of having housing food and transportation and everything and affordable childcare is needed and the [indiscernible] board though they officially come out they do support it. Thank you and have a great valentines day. Next speaker, please. Im brad chafin im on the board of the milk club and we havent taken a position but im speaking for myself. Its difficult to be vulnerable when talking about these things but i think its important. My mother was a foster child and had me in high school and worked to get an Associates Degree in childcare partially to afford to have childcare for me. My mom, who had no support at all would never be able to support childcare in the city like this. You have to think of how different it may be had i not had the support i had growing up. The most critical time in the Brain Development is from birth to 3 and the brains capacity is 90 developed before a child reaches age 5. San francisco has more than 2400 children on a wait list for quality care and more than 1600 of these children are under age 3. Those early years play such a Critical Role and when we think about whos most vulnerable, middleincome folks getting housing is much less urgent than children who desperately need to be supported and to be successful in life. The rest of their lives depend on this. I dont think theres comparison. These things shouldnt be put at odds with one another but there is something more urgent and more vulnerable. Thanks. Im vonda david cincinnati and worked at the crosscultural center for over 20 years as the executive director. The next year well celebrate our 50th anniversary. We serve 362 children in 13 centers and Different Centers and outer richmond, the tenderloin and hayes valley. 110 of those children are ages 4 month to 30 months, infants and toddlers. I want to tell you, first, about our families and then about our teachers and caregivers who devote their professional careers to caring for and teaching these very young children. First, the families that we serve, live in low and middle income neighborhoods and over 50 receive subsidized care through the department of education. For the the most part theyre janitors, grounds keepers, grocery clerk baggers, bus drivers, hotel house keepers and restaurant employees to name a few, a very few of the types of jobs that support our beautiful and wonderful city. The industries they support are tourism and Internet Technologies and medical technology, research and international and National Financial institutions, museums and institutions of higher learning, urban and Natural Resource leaders of the world. These depend on the infrastructure and fort of families who live here. Thank you, maam. Good afternoon. Im with the fresno Childcare Providers association supporting childcare teachers throughout San Francisco. I have redrafted what i going to say several times in hearing others. I want to speak to those who want to claim out of poverty and cant keep being put as a second priority. I dont know if you know of the story of the federal bill put forward in 1971 but mondale put it forward after looking out his window and saw a young boy, 6, 7 years old crossing the street. That little boy was crossing the street because his younger brother was at home would childcare and went home every day and bought his younger brother food from his childcare. That 6yearold, 7yearold boy was hit by a truck and thats when mondale put the childcare act forward. Depending on what lens you look through and what priority you can give to housing or childcare, it is different. At that point the childcare ended that childs need for any further housing. I think we have to be careful about putting priorities on human needs. Now is not the time to make these priorities. Its the time to unify and raise revenue for all these important issues. I support the Early Childhood measure. Thank you. Next speaker. Im worked in this industry for 18 years and was a parent in a subsidized program which allowed me to do these things. Thank you. Ive experienced for all these years the benefits that early care programs provide for the child, the family and the community. I think by now most people know about Brain Development and in longitudinal studies know about quality programs to the child and you heard this from a couple parents today. There are many other benefits. The parents, grandparents can enroll and knowing their children are safe and happy and can be more productive at work. Children receive vision, hearing, dental and sometimes sensory motor and other assessments. Children who have special needs can start to receive these needs early and then sometimes when theyre ready to go to kindergarten because they received Early Intervention they can go in to a regular classroom and sometimes they still need an individualized Education Plan but they started with us and dont have to wait years to have someone discover their special needs. Parents can receive help if they need it or share periences experiences from other parents and learn from each other. Programs are often involved in their community. At our Program Children sang for seniors on special occasions. In other programs they participate in Community Events and staff and parents develop community leadership. So quality Early Childhood benefits everyone even those may i have a question of ms. Baker if we can have your final thoughts to have your microphone on. Id hate to see this in competition with housing. Everything i know and ive experienced, ive experienced parents whose children are in their cars who come in and say theyre at their workplaces but they cant continue to work because its not going to be allowed. I know for children this is the road to success, i know from my child who has spent all her life working in social services. Its a benefit for not just the parents but the Community Benefits as well. Thank you, maam. Next speaker. Good afternoon, supervisor. Im with the tenderloin development corporation. As my colleague mentioned before, our organization has not formally taken a stance on this measure but im here today to speak to the really extreme importance of the babies and Families First fund. No matter what angle you come from its an acquisition situation and it would be transformative for many to stay in their city and be functioning members of their community. People talk abo