Shelter from them . Okay. Maybe commander lozar can start. Okay. Ill start, but my partners are coming. Theyre going to jump in. This is trying to get as many people as possible to get out of the tents and get out of the Navigation Center, etc. Youll hear tonight from others that will say theres a large waiting list, and there is a waiting list. And it really is a balance. You know, when i hear from a handicapped individual that says i cannot get out of my house and go down the sidewalk because the sidewalks completely blocked, i have to go into the street. That concerns me for Public Safety reasons. When i listen to what happened in san diego, with the hepatitis a outbreak where people were getting sick because the camps were unsanitary, that concerns me. Theres a criminal element again, very, very small percentage. I dont know to get quoted by saying thats what this is, but when theres a little bit of criminal element in the encampments, whether its prostitution, robberies, drug sales, we have to address that. So to your point, commissioner that happens in all of the homes and apartment buildings. And the bars. And the cities you asked me commissioner. I just want to be able to go line by line as to what we think about it. Commissioner hamasaki i understand. I understand. President hirsch one at a time. Commissioner hamasaki lets start with a threshold. In the last year, how many tents has the department of public works and the Police Seized from individuals . I think the last count president hirsch we need you at the mic. Larry stringer, public works. The last count for the year that i remember seeing was 73 total. I think that was actually presented to the board [gavel]. President hirsch come on. I think that was presented to the board for six months. I can get you that data, but thats the number that we presented to the board when we presented earlier this year. Commissioner hamasaki so let me ask you this question. This is to both the d. P. W. And the department. Do each of you track each time you see somebodys tent . Yes. Commissioner hamasaki department . Yes, we have a [inaudible] hsoc d. P. M. Commissioner hamasaki so you can give us a report when you come back. And again, i think thats not consistent with, i think what the concerns ive heard and i think our next presenters will probably address, but commissioner, im going to say commissioner hamasaki go ahead. You asked for tents that were seized. Commissioner hamasaki okay. I should be clear. Seized and tags. President hirsch come on. We have bag and tags, and then tents that are seized on citation. Commissioner hamasaki but what ive witnessed is them throwing them into garbage trucks or in the back of a truck that arent in any way bagged and tagged, to use the term. You would have to give me specific examples. Commissioner hamasaki so youre saying that d. P. W. Never seizes items and disposes of them without bagging and tagging them . If theyre asked for disposal and its garbage and abandoned, we pick up garbage all the time. Commissioner hamasaki that wasnt my question. Okay. So the question if we have a bag and tag that were asked to do commissioner hamasaki so if someone the department, an officer says hey, weve got tents out on 18 street, come out there, what happens . It depends, occupied or unoccupied. Commissioner hamasaki okay. So say its occupied, and somebody says, this is my tent, this is my home, i dont want to leave . The most were going to do is clean it up and ask them to leave the sidewalk. Were not going to seize their tent. Commissioner hamasaki commander lozar . There are more special circumstances than in the last six months where we just tell individuals please pack up, and we have to clean the sidewalk and cleanup your encampment and off they go. Theyre not required to leave, but they basically go somewhere else. And that means that were not seizing it. That means that were not bag and tagging it, were just telling individuals, please clean this up and well help you throwaway anything you want to discard and go from there. Thats happening, as well. Commissioner hamasaki i guess, this is kind of anecdotal. This is hard to say without having real numbers. Does anybody have real numbers that say for every interaction, this is what happened . So we do have reports of the bag and tags that we have on a monthly basis. We also have a report of any tents that are seized as evidence as a result of a citation. President hirsch and we can get those reports. Yes, and we can provide those for you. Commissioner hamasaki and then from the departments side, so somebody goes out there, somebody doesnt want to leave and i understand that weve talked about that. Theres a process. If they dont leave, you can seize their tent legally. Well, if they dont leave and we have shelter for them, weve confirmed that we have a place to bring them right now, drive them in a police car over to the Navigation Center. The individual says no, ill refuse to leave. Ill just remain, and theyve done that many times. We fail to convince them, then, the officer has the option of issuing a citation, seizing the tent, and making a court case out of it. What were not talking about is the many circumstances that the officer will say, can you just clean it up with me, can you just pack it up. And in most cases, theyll say officer, no problem. Well do that. And then, the officer will say, do you know where to go to get a hot shower . Do you want us to contact a hot team member . Those are the conversations happening on every interaction. Commissioner hamasaki let me ask, can you seize their shelter if theyre not willing to go to a shelter. Are these onenight shelters where they can only bring a bag and they have to leave their belongings behind or is this something a little more substantive where they say hey, it would be good to get off the street for a longer period of time. cause i can see that if your life is in a bag and tents. Ive dealt being in criminal defense, weve dealt with the shelters i mean, i have since the beginning of my career. And from, you know, ptsd to Mental Health reasons, people have a hard time being in those onenight shelters where they might feel exposed, where they might have some Mental Health issues that might provide challenges for the shelter staff. So the department of homelessness and Supportive Housing thankfully has provided the sfpd with 15 sevenday stays at the Navigation Center. But lately, we were provided additional beds for providence in the bayview for onenight stays. And the officers were reporting that not only individuals did not want to go, which is understandable, abecause you have to cleanup all your belongings for a onenight stay, but the officers didnt think it was fair for just one night. So we backed away from providence, so the Police Departments not involved with providence just in the last two or three weeks. Hirs president hirsch commissioner, id like to move on to some other commissioners. Commissioner hamasaki okay. When im done. So would the seizure not occur with the onenight offer . So these are policy discussions for the chief and for us to probably have offline. Commissioner hamasaki, were definitely open to suggestions, and we work as a group as a policy group. Every week or every two weeks, we meet, the department heads, and discuss polishes. I just want to emphasize for the first time in anybodys memory in the city history, all of the departments that have a stake in this are working together. We know that its a work in progress, but we are trying our best to do this compassionately, humanely. I know its not a perfect solution. Youll probably hear from many tonight that point out many flaws. But the bottom line is people are dieing on the streets, and we as a city have to do something, and weve figured it out that were better off doing it collaboratively. Its not perfect. Everything that you have recommended, well take back to the policy heads and discuss it, and we will take it to the department heads. I just want to emphasize that we do our best to do it compassionately. Commissioner hamasaki and i acknowledged that in the beginning. I just wanted to identify the concerns that have been raised with me since even when we first spoke about this issue. Im almost done, president hirsch. President hirsch all right, please. Because we have a lot of questions and a lot of commissioners. Commissioner hamasaki well, i think this is a good point that the chief raised. There are people dying on the streets, and theyre likely to die without shelter. So id like to reinforce the idea that we do need to address this issue, and i do understand the citizens concerns. I share these concerns, but as the chief said, we need to make sure that this is done in a humane way. President hirsch commissioner dejesus . [inaudible] commissioner hamasaki i understand, bob. Do you support this policy of taking away tents from unhoused people . Anybody that supports this policy of taking away tents from unhoused people, just raise your hand. Okay. Thank you. President hirsch thank you. Commissioner dejesus. Commissioner dejesus i know i wanted to say, were taking a long time, but we waited four or five months to have this scheduled. I know we may be taking a little longer, but its our opportunity to have both of you here at the same time. I want to thank everybody here for being here because its a complicated issue. What it comes down to is what commissioner hamasakis talking about. If they refuse a onenight stay, they lose their belongings and their tents, and thats a high price to pay, especially with the winter we just had. So bear with us as we ask these questions. Im sorry. Im sorry, commissioners. E. M. S. Captain. President and commissioners and chief, so this whole operation is done in a very thoughtful way, and we always try to offer those of our members that are living in the tents on the streets, we offer them emergency sevenday beds at the Navigation Centers. The Navigation Centers allow folks to bring their tents with them, to bring their belongings, to bring their partners, even their animals to come inside, to live inside, where we can connect them to medical care, case management, things of that nature. So we do give our Community Members that are suffering on the streets inside of tents, we give them the opportunity to do that. So both e. M. S. 6 and the Police Department have the ability to give someone a navigation place to bring all their belongings, so were not taking their belongings away from them. We understand thats an important part. Commissioner dejesus no, thats an important part. Im responding to what commander lozar said, that under the 647 e, that he offers them one night, and if they dont take it, they confiscate it. Im not saying that to be tough, because i dont want to impugn on your integrity or heart or hard work. But when it comes to the department, i do want to ask some questions that are pretty pertinent. If you could bear with me, and i certainly dont mean to insult anybody. With that said, i want to talk about data. When you were here in february, i asked you how many citations are given to the homeless, how many of those citations do the District Attorney prosecute, and how many of those citations you gave got their equipment back. And i think offline that you told me that you dont have that data. We dont if you can you tell me how, on a monthly basis, how many citations have you given to the homeless, how many citations the District Attorney actually prosecuted, and how many of those people who have their tents bagged and tagged actually got their belongings back. So you have my word that well go back and do our homework and supply you with any information that you need, any data that you need that we have. Thankful for the Controllers Office whos helping us keep on track. The one example that i gave about the 73 citations from september to may, the District Attorney charged 47 of those cases. It was kind of a pretty high number, comparing the amount of citations we issued. I will also say that in a case where we seize a tent as evidence, when the case is dismissed, the individual has the right to come back and pick up their tent, but for some reason, were not seeing them come out to the storage and get their items. Commissioner dejesus so what you told me offline is most of it is destroyed. They dont come get their property back. No. We explain that they can come back and get their property. If the case is dismissed, we tell public works that its a bag and tag, and they can come back and get their belongings. Commissioner dejesus no, but im saying that the property is destroyed. So after 90 days, in the case of bag and tags, we do. We have Something Like four or five containers of stored goods. At the end of 90 kaydays, thos are disposed of. However, in those cases, we get word from sfpd that the cases are dismissed, and they can come and pick them up, and after a certain period of time commissioner dejesus whats the percentage . I dont have the number, but i would say its relatively high. Our experience is that usually they dont come and pick up their belongings after that. Commissioner dejesus that was my point. They normally dont. So im looking for data. How many are you taking, how many are being destroyed, how many are charged . That number is going to help us, its going to help the homeless coalition, its going to help the city understand how effective this program is. I have more questions. Do you want to answer that . So we have good data on the belongings received and how many come to retrieve them. Commissioner dejesus by the way, on saturday, when i was preparing for this, i didnt see this in the packet. Was it there . No, it came late. Commissioner dejesus okay. I thought i was prepared for today, and for some reason, it just came today. Okay. I want to know if theres any data, whether hsoc has reduced the citation of homelessness. In tonights presentation, we show the reduction in arrests, reduction in citations. The calls for services by the public has gone up lately. Were hovering at about 650 pending calls for service through 311 at any given time right now in San Francisco related to this issue. Commissioner dejesus so do we have hard data or a congreggate of percentages . Thats where i got confused during the presentation. Is it an actual percentage or gone down 5 . I didnt have a chance theres public Data Available about Police Incidents and whats happening, so we use that information . We also are tracking the officers in the field are i shared that in the slide in the last slide i shared, the officers in the field are sharing their engagements. We dont have hard numbers from that force. We have other methods that the Police Department have been using, but there is some amount of data from the last year or so from the Police Officers themselves, so a an aggregate of Police Department data and what we know. Commissioner dejesus thank you, miss controller. With you do you know so we have been working with the Police Department on new forms. The new version of the form they had been tracking engages. We tried to develop forms most people were asking, and that went live the beginning of this month, so we wont have data until a couple of months from now until we start to aggregate and compile it . That will be spread across the incidents or responses that the hsoc linking officers are engaging in. Were also exploring whether homeless officers in general would use them, and we also use them in hsocrelated operations, like hsip that dea deanna talked about earlier, for different interactions in the field and what happens with them. Commissioner dejesus thank you. Youre a person with numbers. Let me ask you another question. Im going to try to stay on the data part of it. It might be awkwardly worded, but what percentage of responses to the encampments of people by hsoc is there aa department of public works or outreach person present or is it just a Police Officer on every single one . Do we have that data . So the way it works right now at hsoc, our Encampment Resolution Team comes together to look at any team with six or more tents, and they organize outreach to those encampments. So with each of those that are identified in the quarterly tent counts, we first do outreach with the Outreach Team and Public Health. Thats where we do health fairs and where there is going to be an encampment resolution, we try to go in and offer People Services initially . And if we dont provide services at the same time that the police and public works are clearing encampments. Its a separate its a separate process. Commissioner dejesus so that is our understanding that when they actually come and clear it, theres not actually a homeless person present. Go ahead. Part of the new forms of data being developed involve some of the comments made earlier in our presentation about how officers interact with hsoc itself during their engagements, which they will call hsoc to request support when they have identified someone who wants that type of support either from h. S. H. Or d. P. H. , and they speak with the liaisons onsite to determine whether they can dispatch or triage something for that person immediately. Deanna mentioned the process that occurs when an officer links someone to hsoc, they are addressed through those processes . So as our data gets developed, we will have a better sense of how officers are attempting to link specific individuals with care at hsoc and individually what and what care individuals started to receive, so that piece is still under development. Commissioner dejesus i guess what i was getting at is when d. P. H. Goes in and confiscates, and theres not a homeless person there, if the police or somebody finds someone who is interested in services, theyll make that call and theyll come in. And thats what were hearing, the police are doing actions, and theyre connected with you, but its not necessarily in conjunction, at the same time. Okay. Thats i want today clear i wanted to clear that up. Couple more data que