The presentations, please silence all mobile phones. Your cooperation is appreciated. The mayors disability counsel Public Meetings are generally held on the third friday, of every other month. Please call the Mayors Office on disability, for further information, or to request accommodations at 4155546789. Or email or email travertine. Our next meeting will be friday september 20, 2019 from 1 00 p. M. 4 00 p. M. In this hearing room. We thank you for joining us. Lets move on to our next item which is roll call. [roll call] just for the record Councilmember Mcdonald just entered the room so she is present. And councilmember sassouni just entered the room, as well. So i take it we have a quorum yes, everybody is here. Excellent. I believe the next item on our agenda is the reading of the agenda itself. A reminder to all of our guests today to speak slowly into the microphone to assist our caption sinners and interpreters. Public comment. Items are not on todays agenda but within the jurisdiction of the mdc. We welcome the publics participation during Public Comment periods. There will be an opportunity for Public Comment at the beginning and end of the meeting. As well as after every item on todays agenda. Each comment is limited to three minutes and the council will respond to your comments following the meeting, if you provide your contact information. You may complete a speakers card available in the front of the room, approach the microphone during Public Comment or call our bridge line at 4155549632, where a staff person will handle requests to speak at the appropriate time. Cochair report. Report from the Mayors Office on disability. Information about San Francisco Navigation Center and shelter programs, responses to questions from the mayors disability counsel, counsel questions on Public Comment is welcome. The council will take a 15 minute break. 2020 United States census. Counsel questions on Public Comment is welcome. 2019 Affordable Housing bond. Counsel questions and Public Comment is welcome. Public comments, correspondence, councilmember comments and announcements. Adjourned. To receive notices of the meetings and electronic copies of the agenda please contact the Mayors Office on disability. Thank you. Do i have a motion to approve the minutes, for the agenda . The motion to approve todays agenda. Eyes second. Moved and seconded to approve the reading of the agenda. It has been moved. Were going to move forward now to the cochair report. Public comment, i am sorry. Do we have any cards . Anybody wish to speak during Public Comment . Kathy deluca. Just one second. Good afternoon cochairs, Council Members. My name is kathy deluca and i work for a livable city, the organization that puts on sunday streets in tran07. I am here today to tell you about an two events, oneofakind inaugural event that i want you all to come to that i all wanted to spend the word about. Its called getting there together, celebration of all ages and abilities. It is taking place on september 8th, here from 11 00 a. M. Until 4 00 p. M. It is a program the coalition of agencies serving the elderly in collaboration with liberal livable city, department of aging and adult services, and the Dignity Fund Coalition. My understand is that kate has been wanting to put on this big party for years. Hey party, a resource fair that is for and by seniors and people with disabilities. I am thrilled to be able to work on this. I am managing the event in partnership with case. The fair will include a resource fair area for exhibitors that will have government agencies, Service Providers will all be there for folks to come and get information from. We are going to have a stage with performers, singers, dancers and again all of those performers will be seniors on folks with disabilities. We are going to have the third section, open air all abilities gymnasium. In the open spaces of the civic center plaza, we are going to have exercise classes, seated meditation and hopefully some ball he would performances. And maybe even power chair soccer match. That is a im trying to organize. This is a super exciting event. This is just the first year case would like to have this event every year. We are going to get this event on the ground. It will be super fun, and i think it will only grow from here. I will share information with staff, the Mayors Office on disability staff about the event that they can send you all. We will have flyers, accessible information. What we are looking for is for people to come. If you want to help turn out folks. If you know someone who would be great on the stage, a performer, or someone who teaches a class, just let me know. You can email me at cathy livablecity. Org. I think i will stop there. I hope you all come. It is going to be a tremendously fun, rich, celebratory day. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other speaker cards . There is someone on the bridge line. Who would like to speak on the bridge line . There is an issue they are trying to solve. I guess they are not going to speak at this time. There is a technical difficulty. We will need to come back to the bridge line Public Comment as soon as the issue is resolved. All right. Lets go to the cochairs report, at this time. Today i have two of my colleagues who will be assisting me in this report. I should say that we are dealing with a number of very important issues with the Mayors Disability Council. I think that seems to be kicking up into higher gear. Since our last meeting, we have had the passing of joanna quigley, who was a mod staff member for a very long time. Her presence will definitely be missed. We had a special celebration of her life, i think it was last month, it was on a thursday evening. At the asian museum. It was well attended. Lots of very eloquent speeches, a few tears being shed. It was really a grand time. Of course, i remember joanna quite well. I can remember one time, i was a rookie cochair, a couple of years ago when i came into one meeting, it was about 1230ton time and she goes jim, i need to coach you. We spent a few minutes with me . I did. And i never regretted it. We have a certificate in her honor i would like celie to read it. Yeah, i would just read the certificate. The Mayors Disability Council award for excellence is hereby granted to joanna for her passionate advocacy and commitment to disability rights and excellence in the server to the Mayors Disability Council dated july 19 and signed by the cochairs and the director of the Mayors Office on disability. I will just add the certificate is lovely, but it doesnt begin to address what joanna did for the Mayors Office and this council, she will be missed tremendously. Okay. Now, lets move to our next certificate yes . Yeah, that is where im going. What would i do without denise to remind me . We have a second certificate for tatiana. She has been a member of the mdc forever. She came on board before denise and help. She has been around a long time. I dont want to know quite how, maybe when denise speaks in a moment with her part of the reports, she can tell us a little bit about her. Anyway i remember tonya quite well. What i will say is that she was a very kind, compassionate, understanding and just an intelligent woman. I learned a lot from her. I stand on her shoulders. She served three, three year terms. Nine years total on the Public Authority governing board. She will definitely be missed. So here is her certificate. Yes. This is a certificate of appreciation. Tonya has retired and moved away. This will be sent to her, i presume. The Mayors Disability Council certificate of appreciation is hereby granted to tatyana for her many years of service, outstanding work and contribution to the Mayors Disability Council. Again, signed by the same three individuals. I wish her well in her retirement. Yes, thank you for clarifying yes she is retiring and in southern california. Now i want to bring on denise, my colleague, and she is going to talk about a subject matter concerning bart and she might have a few words to say about these two people. Thank you. There were several issues of the Mayors Disability Council that we have been working on. One of the highlights we have heard from the Disability Community and im sure everybody has seen in the media is the design of the new fare gates at the richmond station. And some of the problems i have been causing. The council got together, how to meeting put together, a letter, sent it to the board to address the safety issues with regard to the design of these dates and the concerns that we had. The first thing around safety, and since then there has been a report of people with disabilities, blind and visually impaired have had difficulties going through those gates. One, because of the timing of the safety area that is impacted , the gate just seems to shut on them. They cannot get completely through. The second thing with regards to the timing, someone in a mobility device, wheelchair, there is an instance where the gate actually shut on somebodys headrest. These are concerns. Our letter went to the bart board. The most important thing besides the safety issues, is on the new art express they would like to hear from the community on ideas on how to make these gates safer and their input. we really appreciate that. We would like bart to consider people with disabilities, and seniors as part of shareholders to get that input, as they implement or change their design, or go forward to please include these stakeholders. We are dependent on public transportation, and we appreciate, you know, the problems of the fair jumpers. Again we are talking about Public Safety and the people that need access to transportation. Please consider that. We do not want to hear stories of people getting hurt before something is done. We are here to help and advise. Please include us in those discussions or correspondence in the Disability Community. Have focus groups. That is the first thing. The second thing with regards to the individuals have artie been said how incredible that joanna was an advocate and we will miss her and her years of service with us. I met her a week after she joined the Mayors Office on disability. Her friend chip our friendship was invaluable to me. I will miss her. I would have to say the same about tatyana. She was here before me, i think about maybe two yeaefori came on board. It was a pleasure working with her. I also miss her. Shes a an amazing amazing advocate. She did have some health issues. No matter how sick she was she managed to come to meetings when she could. She would have focus groups. She would have counseling sessions for people with disabilities to discuss issues that were happening. So, she will be missed and i wish her good health. Thank you for my report. Thank you. The issue with the bridge line has been resolved and we have a person who would like to speak for the Public Comment portion. The person on the bridge line, you are on for the next three minutes. Thank you. My name is that, can everyone hear me . Yes. Thank you. There was some technical difficulties earlier. I did sign in at 1 00 p. M. For this meeting. Im speaking as loud as i can into my microphone. I havent spoken before about how useful these meetings are and how grateful i am to the staff of the work that they do for people with disabilities. I do have some recommendations for improvements and things that could be improved not the least of which is the technical difficulties with the bridge line. With recorded audio to let people know theyre still on the line, its really confusing calling into these meetings, even someone who has done it multiple times in the past. Im also concerned that these meetings are only happening bimonthly now. They used to happen monthly last year. Ive spoken on this before. I think it is a poor expression of this new mayors feelings for the disabled community and the important of those things we need access to. I am also a little concerned that the agenda, for this meeting was only emailed less than 72 hours ago. I think at a minimum, the amount of time agenda should be notified to the public should be at least a week. Especially that is the only way i can spread the word. I know we all want to spread the word and get people to these meetings which are not very well attended. I spoke to people at the coalition of homelessness today about this meeting, they did not even know about the existence. That is a problem i have noticed multiple times talking with different people. People that are very active in local government and state politics they do not even know these meetings are happening prayed they do not know that mod exists. At the last meeting i put suggestions forward about noting fine people at are getting more efforts to notifying people. Dot these meetings are happening. They are very useful in good meetings. Your staff does great work. I just want to get the word out that people can come and attend. Last but not least, i want to say that i have emailed a couple of issues, one is the accessibility or lack of accessibility for notification of when our public trees are being cut down by the bureau of urban forestry. The notices are only imprint and small font for those of us sick in bed, we come out, you know, weeks later when we are able to go outside and we find out half of the trees in our neighborhood are gone. And that is somehow supposed to be okay. People with vision impairments have no way of knowing when trees will be cut down in our neighborhood. I believe the mod should work with a concrete plan to include disabled people in the notification and the process of tree removals in our neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. We are taking note. Any other Public Comment on the bridge line . All right, very good. Lets move on to our next agenda item which is the executive director of mod, nicole, give us your report, please. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone for being here today. Everyone who is watching on tv and on the bridge line. First of all lives matter one response to the cochair report. I just wanted to express my deep gratitude for everyone who came forward and spoke to mod and provided their condolences and praise on behalf of the death of our colleague, thank you so much. All of your words and sentiments were well taken and thank you also to all of you that helped put together a phenomenal celebration of her life on june 27. Thank you very much for that. As we know, Deputy Director presents is deeply missed. Some other staff news in mod. Our Deputy Director for architectural access has transitioned to the department of public works. I also want to express my thanks as we are now working to fulfill vacancies in the Mayors Office of disability. All of those positions have been approved and i are in stages of recruitment. I really appreciate everyones thoughts and patience as we are in this time of significant transitions for this department. With that said, i want to express my thanks to everyone who is still there. We are doing a phenomenal job keeping everything moving and to that end i have a lot that i want to announce today. Im going to move to that next. Switching gears. For those of you who might not know, today is the last day of the formal central acknowledgment of Voter Registration week. I just want to encourage anyone who is a person with a disability, especially who has not yet registered to vote to do so, National Data suggests while Voter Registration, people with disabilities is increasing, disabled voters are still underrepresented according to the last election cycle. There are lots of ways that you can register. You can register online, in person at the department of corrections which is in this building, city hall room 48. You can also register to vote at most u. S. Post offices, San Francisco Public Library branches. The department of Motor Vehicles , or you can contact the department of elections, and a Voter Registration application will be mailed to you. Those numbers are 4155544375. Or tty 4155544386. Next we will be hearing a presentation, in a bit, during this meeting about the importance of disability Stakeholder Engagement in census 2020, which is just around the corner. I wanted to announce that there will be an informational workshop in addition to what we will hear today as part of this meeting about census 2020 efforts on thursday, july 25 from 11 15 a. M. Until 3 30 p. M. At Golden Gate Park area just so you know, i will be sending out, following this meeting, a list of all of the announcements that i am making today, as part of this report. The next opportunity for public engagement, the bikeway separation material testing, as you may recall, in a recent meeting where we had our colleague speak on the status of market streets and the pedestrian levels bikeways, the separation material has been been installed and although the formal testing is complete there will be some open houses if youre interested in looking out the potential materials that the city is considering selecting to identify bikeway separation. Those are all going to be at pier 38, which is 801 in embarcadero. There are several dates that are Still Available for open houses. On july 23, july 24, and next friday, july 26. I will send out that information as well. So you can learn more about that if you would like to go down to the embarcadero and check that out. My next announcement is another event that is being cosponsored by the office of economic and workforce development. The Dignity Fund Coalition Community Living campaign, and jobs now, which is an older adult hiring fair. On monday, august 5, 2019 at the war memorial green room at 401 venice on the second floor. This job fair is an onsite interview job fair. Bring your resume with you. The time is between 10 00 a. M. And 2 00 p. M. On that day, monday august 5. Mayor breed has been invited as a special guest of attendance. You can register by going to adulthiringfair. Com. Please mark your calendars for that. If youre interested, prep your resume, if you have not already done so. Theres going to be employers in the areas of administration, technology, security, healthcare and many others. The getting there there together celebration has already been announced through Public Comment, just a reminder that it is september 8. Mark your calendars for that. My final item for today is awareness items for the council. That you may want to consider for a future public meeting. The first is the mobility permit harmonization process that is being led by mta. That is looking to make sure we are strategically looking at how we are permitting devices on our public rightofway especially mobility scooters. There will be more coming forward about that, but the mta has asked the council to participate and provide feedback in this process. For your information we will be following up about that. Another item that i wanted to announce today, this past friday, july 12, the San Francisco hazards and climb resilience plan workshop for Community Leaders who work for communitybased organizations was held on friday july 122 really start to look at how our long longterm hazards and resiliency plan is addressing the needs of many populations including people with disabilities. I just wanted to highlight that one of the items of concern that was addressed, in that meeting, was the Public Safety power plant that is coming forward from pg e. I know this directly impacts, along with many hazard and climate concerns, but especially power degeneration impacting people with disabilities. This is to let you know that there will be followups specifically on this issue. I highly encourage council to prioritize learning more about this process and what we can do as a city to support informational efforts, in the event to an unanticipated power shut off. That is all i have for today. Thank you, nicole. Lets go on to our first presentation. Its an informational item by scott walton, manager, Navigation Center and shelter programs, department of homelessness and Supportive Housing. Welcome to the council. Thank you. It is an honor to be here. This item has been one we have been trying to get on the schedule for a number of month. I was presented some months ago with a series of questions about the council had for the department of homelessness in Supportive Housing regarding our Emergency Services which include Emergency Shelters and Navigation Centers. Im going to do a brief overview answering some of those questions, but also saving time for your questions on top of that. First to just give you an overview of what is included in our Emergency Services. We have an Adult Emergency shelter system that serves adults that do not have custody of minor children. We currently have nine sites with 1203 sleeping spaces. Of those, 574 are beds that are accessible 24 hours a day. Another three and a 40 beds are accessible, much of the day and when they are not accessible there is a rest and recline area we do have just under 300 beds that are in sites that are only available to us to use for shelter, at nighttime. Placement in our shelters is done by reservation, and we have four reservation centers, and Resource Center sites that are available. 311 has an information, and also 311 operates a waitlist for the people that are interested in getting a 90 day reservation. That way we treat all users of the shelter system equally. People do not have to stand in line, they simply call 31 want to get on the list again when it is their turn they are given the available shelter reservations choose. For the clients and individuals who are experiencing homelessness who are also receiving county Adult Assistance Program benefits, they get access to shelter as part of the benefit project under the cannot cash legislation passed in 2,002. They get their shelter reservations from the county Adult Assistance Program office which is located at 1235 Mission Street between eighth and ninth streets. Along with our Adult Emergency shelters which by the way also includes one shelter that targets traditional transitional age youth between 1824. We also have a family Emergency Shelter system. Our family system serves any adult or adult couple, adult family that has custody of minor children. We have 59 shelter rooms for families. We also have 100 beds in congregate settings. Placement in the family shelter is through our family access. Again, that information is available through 311. What is exciting to say is that we have sufficient shelter beds that no unsheltered family should have to be on the streets area they have a choice of going first to a congregate site and then being slated into a single room site. Unfortunately we do not have that in our adult system. But our family system we can say that we can offer shelter immediately to any unsheltered family and we work closely with the San Francisco Homeless Outreach team which is part of our department. We work with 311. We work with the San Francisco Police Department and others who do outreach on the street to make sure they are aware of this opportunity for unsheltered families. Finally, about 4. 5 years ago we expanded our shelter system with a new model that goes under the name Navigation Centers. We currently have five sites open, and we have 494 beds, in those programs. Those programs serve adults, they are not serving families. Placement into Navigation Centers is by referral from specific organizations. The Homeless Outreach team can place people. We have now introduced programs in our department called, coordinated entry, where all people are assessed the same way related to their history of homelessness, their vulnerability and their barriers to resolving their homelessness. That helps us determine who gets offered permanent Supportive Housing and in the case of the family shelter system it helps to prioritize people into our family shelter single room stays. That is also a process used to place people in our Navigation Centers. If weve identified and unsheltered homeless person who is a priority for housing placement we want to get them into a safe space and also a place where we can work with them most effectively and efficiently to get them into housing, which resolves their homelessness. Finally we also work closely with several programs, the homeward bound program, the Police Department, homeless unit that works with people on the street. They also have the ability to place people into our Navigation Centers. That is a brief overview of the current status of our Emergency Services. I am very pleased to say that mayor breed issued a may oral Initiative Last fall that supports us to add 1,000 additional shelter beds and 500 Supportive Housing units between last fall and the end of 2020. We are in that process of expanding. We have done some expansion already. We have about 750 additional beds we are trying to add to the system now. In addition, the mayor has provided her support behind our Department Strategic framework. That framework is available on our website which that address will be added to the screen. The strategic framework is really our Department Plans for how we will address and reduce homelessness here in San Francisco. It also clearly state what we need to accomplish that. The 1,000 bed goal was part of our strategic framework. The mayor has endorsed that and given us a timeline to do that. But we have other solutions in that framework because no one solution will solve homelessness for everybody. Our strategic framework also includes the implementation, which we now have implemented coordinated entry for families, adults and transitional aged use 1824. What is really empowering is that somebody who is 1824 who may have a child can be assessed in either the conditional aged youth assessment, or the adult assessment. We have individuals and families expensing homelessness that moved back and forth with these populations and these three assessments work in a coordinated fashion. The mayor is also very supportive of our other system change efforts which includes expanding problemsolving. We have long known that permanent Supportive Housing is one of the best, or one of the Effective Solutions to someones homelessness. Our city and county cannot provide permanent Supportive Housing for every person expensing homelessness. We are expanding other problemsolving efforts, shortterm subsidies, onetime assistant efforts, and so forth to help people end of their homelessness, if they are not prioritized for placement and Supportive Housing. Finally, one of our departments significant transitions that the mayor has also been supportive of it as a full of what we call the one system online navigation and entry system that is a single database prior to this department being created which we celebrate our third anniversary next month in august. We had a 1517 databases across our different programs. We are in the process of trying to draw those into a single database. Therefore if somebody touches an Emergency Shelter system and later goes into, applies to, or shows of her rapid rehousing we are able to not have to ask them for all of their entry data again and also we have a better sense of their history which helps us serve them better. Those are some of our initiatives. Some of the questions i was asked to address is how are our Emergency Services working to be as accessible as possible . We have, in our shelter system, accessibility, although not every part, of every shelter is fully accessible. In order to have all of the beds we have, we do have some upper bunk beds. We do have some shelters that are only open overnight, and we can only offer mats on the floor. Because we have to set up and take down the shelter every single day. Therefore we have set up systems that have allowed us to offer the appropriate placements to people as they are available, and that is done through our Resource Centers for the Adult Emergency shelter system. We also have some sites that are not on ground level and do not have elevators. We have the majority of our beds are fully accessible. Unfortunately, as ive already stated, some of our shelters are not open 24 7. This is not a desire of ours, this is us trying to have as many shelter beds are not wanting to give up any of the shelter beds that have been active , many of them a longer than ive been involved which is 15 years. So that we dont lose beds, but we are in the process with all of this new effort to make sure beds are fully accessible, sites are fully accessible. We utilize a system of trying to meet people with their needs, transferring people as necessary , letting people select which shelters they want when they are on a weight list, doing our best to meet those requests. The one thing that has helped greatly, and i too want to recognize, joanna, for a program that is offered to all staff people of the adults and family Emergency Shelter systems and Navigation Centers about access to Emergency Services for persons with disabilities. This training we worked closely on when we first implemented it, teaches the staff of our providers. Most of our sites are run by a nonprofits. It teaches them how to address, recognize, respond to requests for accessibility and how to best coordinate with our office when the site cannot accommodate. What i am pleased with it is since we have introduced that we have seen a great reduction in the number of complaints and issues raised. We still have a great relationship with the Mayors Office on disability to address any concerns that do come up. Some specific accessibility questions i was asked to address. Our attendance allowed to help people with disabilities in shelters . We have the basic fundamental operational need to say that people must be able to selfcare although that selfcare can be done with the help of an attendant. I shelters are not in the place to offer that assistance themselves, nor can they immediately provide connection to that kind of service. But, we worked very hard to help people access inhome support services and the like. But we do need to ask people have some ability to selfcare, even if it is with the assistance of others because of the nature of congregate settings on the number of people that are in one program with a limited number of staff. We also work very closely with the department of Public Health to help identify how we can resolve issues. They provide staff to our clinics that are in some of our site and help assess people. They also work with hospitals to make sure hospitals understand the level of ability that is necessary to be placed in one of our Emergency Shelters. If somebody does not have that ability that we work with the department of Public Health to try to identify other levels of care. What we do know is that we can allow somebody who has an import services worker, we can allow them access to the shelter to assist. I was asked how many shelter beds are needed in the city in order for everyone who is homeless to not be homeless . We know from our point in count which was done in january of this year, there were about 8,000 people expensing homelessness and about 5,000 of those people identified as being unsheltered. We do not today have enough shelter beds for all of them. As i said, we do have enough to offer family immediate placement. But for adults, we do not. We are working to expand those thousand beds. Our reason for setting part of our strategic framework was not was not a standalone. We are also trying to expand our housing and our problemsolving to help address this. In at fiveyear Strategic Plan we hope to end family homelessness, transitional aged Youth Homelessness and reduce chronic homelessness with adults by 50 . I was asked specifically to address rules and issues with pets and Service Animals in our Emergency Services. Service companion and support animals along with pets, in the facilities are welcome in some facilities, we do not have where we can accommodate we always do. We consider transfers were possible and what we rely on is that the owner of the animal is in control of the animal at all times because these are congregate settings. We rely on the person for their care and control and what i am pleased to say is that our Navigation Center model which tries to be as low threshold as possible is open to pets as well as companion and support animals. I was asked to address the question, what is the protocol if a homeless persons animal is aggressive, or . As i said or a threat to others . We require the owner to be in control or provide control over the animal. If the pet is aggressive, jumps up, bites or knocks people down, we address that with the owner. At times we have had to tell that person their reservation does not have to fozthree, but that animal cannot be present in our facility. We work with control to try to address these concerns. We do have to look at the safety for all participants in our facilities. That is a lot of information. I have more, but i was asked to leave time for your questions. Obviously what we dont get to today, we will look for other ways to provide further information. I do thank you for this opportunity, because our relationship with the Mayors Office on disability has been really critical for us to effectively make our systems as successful as possible. Thank you for that presentation. Stay right there for a few minutes. That was a lot of information, you are correct. We want to stay in touch with you after the meeting. People can approach you if necessary. That would be great. I want to go to my councilmember colleagues. Do any of you have questions for our presenter . Yes. I will keep this a. Thank you for your presentation. That was a little bit overwhelming. That was a lot of information. 4311 that is not accessible for deaf people. You need the full phone number with the air code just so you know. 311 does not work for deaf folks. Another question i had or comment is the lack of communication. Do you know of any person who is killed with sign language. Im not talking about someone who has a minimal or beginner sign language skills, but someone who is fluent in sign language so if there is a deaf person who is there, like how they can get the care. For example a social worker how did they get housing. I know the process can be very overwhelming for a lot of people. There is a lot of different systems that you have to go through in order to get the housing sometimes. To have one person that they connect with who can understand, i do understand and know there is a lot of homelessness and people who need services right now. However, i do understand the challenges that come with it. I do understand it is a first come, first serve system. Since the number of people with disabilities is smaller than other homeless folks, how do we make sure they can be a priority and get the services they need . Also, how do they get interpreters as well . That is the other portion of that as well. Thank you for the comment about 311. I will make sure to add the phone number for tty and access to other presentations in the future. In terms of access and interpretation. We have limited access across our entire system. What i would encourage any adults or family to come forward as go to one of our access and make their needs known and we will work to try to provide the interpretation they need. You mentioned housing, which i did not speak a lot about, and that is very involved for filling out an application. There may be times when we seek something more than just using interpreting services such as tty. To assist a somebody an application, we do try to provide materials in a variety of different parameters, and we use language lines and tty. But we do not have, sign Language Interpreters at every site. We would encourage people to let the need be known and we will do our best to respond as quickly as possible. And assist them through that process. Thank you for the question. We have those same concerns and regardless of the percentage of disabled or challenged individuals in our population. We want to serve everybody equally. It is a matter of looking for the best place to do that. Thank you. I have one more. Most people do not use tty anymore. The technology has changed. Most people use phones. Anyway, just wanted to let you know that tty is an older technology. We have found with cell phones and so forth, if people have the ability to read, it is a really quick way to communicate. We are trying to move our processes forward, and provide as much accessibility, we have funding that is always a challenge, especially when we are trying to add as many new beds as we are trying to add. I think you for bringing this forward. Do we have any other Council Members who would like to councilmember madrid and then mcdonald afterward. Thank you for coming. I just want to clarify one thing , if someone came to you guys without any support, did you say you would send them to public beds at hospitals . I just want to clarify that. One of our basic transit was again is that people in shelter must be able to selfcare, must be able to handle the functions of daily living without the assistance of the shelter staff. What happens is people come sometimes and are sent to shelter and they expect their shelters to handle wound care or administer administer medications where people will lay down in bed and not be able to get back up. These are not skills that we have trained our shelter staff to do, because that is a higher level of care. Therefore, when those things happen we sometimes have to rely on 911, and make an emergency call. Sometimes we have to find out who referred them to the shelter and contact them and see if we can resolve the issue. At times we use dph to help do an assessment. Because there may be some medical care that will help the client, though the individual become more self functioning, and we work with that. When you have our larger shelters which have 340 people in a building, we cannot have the staff responsible for assisting everybody in and out of bed. They are not trained with the proper skills to do that, nor do they have the time to do that when they are trying to monitor the structure for everybody. We dont just put them out on the streets, but we do have to call in Emergency Services many times, because these people are not able to function. If the staff can assist in simple ways, sometimes somebody who has vision impairment, walking the path away from their bed, to the bathroom, or so it is closer to the bathroom may be sufficient assistance. But if those attempts do not work that we have to contact our partners in the city to say we are unable to care for this person in the setting. There is no one single answer. We try to treat these on a casebycase basis. This is one of the great challenges we have across our shelter system. Less so in the family system, because generally if someone needs that kind of assistance, the other family members can provide. In the adult system, people are on their own and do not have somebody identify to help them. We cannot assume that. And we have to help with another kind of resolution. The last question i have is [inaudible] when people go to make reservations we generally assume that they can selfcare. If they have questions, and they need someone to manage the medication, they will tell them this is not a provider that can do that. But, what happens is, you know, we take an approach where we try to provide people the service, and only when it shows that they cant provide it, they soil their beds several times in a row, or they are not able to selfcare, they cannot get up and down when they are in the shower, in the bathroom or on their bed, these are things we have to address because we do not want them to be injured, nor do we want the problem to exacerbate our ability to manage the overall shelter. It is not an automatic denial. That is why we rely on the assistance of public help to assess what might be solutions for these individuals. We try to educate the Hospital System when they are releasing a homeless person to help us determine can the person handle functions of daily living required to manage in the shelter. These are not simple answers, because we deal with each person individually. We do have a system where we treat everybody fairly. If its the only bed that is left when youre out a reservation station is an upper bunk, and you cannot access that , we contact the shelter and we try to swap someone out. We cannot hold beds, any bed that is not claimed it will be released for one night use, even if the person can return tomorrow night for the reservation. Thank you
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