Transcripts For SFGTV Mayors Press Availability 20240713

Good afternoon and thank you for your patience. Im mayor london breed and im joined by the department of human sources, trent roher and department of housing, the police chief, bill scott and youll be hearing from some of them in just a moment. As of today, we have 1,490 cased of those reported in San Francisco with chinatow covid1d sadly, we have lost 23 residents in our city. You can find out more information at datasf. Org covid19. Our tracker with a number of details around neighborhoods, of around race and ethnicity and other information on this tracker that we will continue to update. In addition, there is information on this tracker, as well, regarding our hotel rooms and the number of hotels rooms that are available and also occupied by Homeless Individuals, our Public Health and our Public Safety workers and so lots of great information on the tracker. Today, as im sure you know, that the Area County Health officers announced Additional Details regarding the stayathome order which has been extended through the month of may and the new guidelines include outdoor businesses, the ability to open outdoor businesses, like fle fle marketd hiking and fishing and golfing and these are things that can be done through social distancing and its just providing additional opportunities for people to not only have some flexibility but to get back to work and speaking of getting back to work, theyve provided the opportunity for construction to resume in our city. Thats all construction projects. And this is really great that we are at this point, but i want to be clear that we have a long way to go. And the work that the Economic Recovery Task force is doing to work with the department of Public Health, to provide guidelines for various industries as we look into the future and reduce the curves and get back to the lives we know and love, we know there will be real changes. Our goal is to work on what those changes might be and to provide guidelines in advance so that so many of our businesses in San Francisco are prepared when we are able to resume business. And i know that this will be a gradual undertaking and we appreciate, again, your patience and your cooperation as we deal with this very challenging time. Im committed to not only getting through these next few weeks, but also making sure that we are able to provide you wail a little more guidance, a little more certainty and understanding about exactly what could potentially be available. We know that so many of you are anxious to know that if you are able to go back to work, what will happen with schools, what will happen with children, what will happen with ederly parents or exposure for yourselves and those are the kinds of things we want to make sure we have the answers to as we gradually begin to reopen various sectors in our city. So again, thank you for your cooperation and thank you four r your patience. I want to talk a little bit about how excited i am that construction is able to resume in San Francisco. It not only means opportunities for the people who are working in this industry, to go bac baco work and again, there are guidelines that are been put in place to keep workers safe, but it provides the opportunity to continue what we know important construction work around housi housing. Housing production is necessary because even though were in the midst of a Public Health crisis, we are already experiencing a huge homeless challenge. And the need to make sure that we are not stopping Housing Production because of what will be needed on providing us the ability to move forward and to make sure we have this muchneeded housing. Its so important to move forward and so, we know that this has been a problem in our city and its something ive been pushing for, this challenge of providing housing and the issues around homelessness because of this crisis could potentially get worse and this is why its so critical that we continue to build housing and so, im excited about this and i know that this will make a real difference in our city and in the bay area. Housing shortages, as we also know, lead to higher costs and higher housing costs leads to more people becoming homeless. From this population, they cannot just stay at home, because they dont have a home. We see playing itself out all over the city with the number of tent encantments and so far weve placed almost a thousand people and s in hotel rooms whie been an incredible logistical challenge and continues to be. But as weve talked about before, we need hotel rooms for frontline workers who are out there, working every single day, essential workers who are putting their lives on the lines because we dont want to risk them in affecting other people and their families. In addition to securing and staffing hotel rooms, were creating alternative shelter locations, including 120rv 120 v trailers at bayview and Hunters Point. This will provide a safe place for people who are homeless in the southeast part of the city. And i want to be clear that these rvs will serve the bayview, Hunters Point community and trent roher will speak more in detail, but the hotel rooms we are provides are for people who were homeless in San Francisco before this crisis. The rvs that we are providing in the bayview Hunters Point are for the bayview Hunters Point community and we are only going to serve during this crisis and i want to be clear because ive heard a lot of conversations, a lot of talks and a lot of feedback from people out there on the frontline, where people are showing up in San Francisco from other places and asking where their hotel room is. Thats a room problem for me because again, we have a real challenging problem as it relates to homelessness as it is and i want the message out loud and clear that the people who are already in our system of care, we have a coordinated system to help and if you were no in the system in thnot in the beginning, we will not prioritize you for the resources that we have available. You will not be prioritized over them. So i want to make that loud and clear. Only people who are currently in a homelessness system of care may qualify for the rooms and at bayview Hunters Point or other folks in the coordinated care system may qualify for the rvs and trailers we have available. No one from other cities should be coming to San Francisco, expecting theyll get prioritized over the people who are here. And to be clear, we are going to have we have enough challenges with trying to provide services and support to our existing residents and we are most likely not going to be able to serve everyone as hard as we are trying to do exactly that. So i just want to be clear so that we can make sure that that word gets out because sadly, that is what we see happening and playing itself out on our streets. And what i want to also talk about is density and crowding and how theres a National Conversation around the fact that places that are more dense, that have a lot of housing are places where there are real challenges with the virus. In San Francisco, in particular, we have been able to not necessarily reduce the curve but keep it relatively flat as a result of the work that we have all done together, but we also know that the lack of housing, the inability to have places for people to live where they have their own bathrooms and their own kitchens and theyre not sharing these congregate Living Spaces and more importantly, we know that the cost of living has made it difficult for families who are living with one or two families and extended Family Member exposs and those are thes of environments that make it possible to spread the virus quickly and the conditions that people sometimes live in are very challenging and this is, again, why the need to build more housing and to have more opportunities for people to not be in units where there is crowding or overcrowding is important, especially during a pandemic as we can see. Weve also seen how our lowincome communities have been hit harder, in part, because people in those communities are often forced to live with multiple roommates or other Family Members in the same unit. And this is what i moon b mean e housing impacts, the fact were not building enough faster is having a tremendous impact on our city. Although in comparison to other cities, San Francisco is relatively flat. I mean, we are the second densest city in the country. Yet, we have not experienced, you know, close to the impacts that other cities who are far less dense than we are have. So i wanted to spell the myths of the need to not produce more housing as a result of this pandemic. It is a serious need in our city executive wanand i want us to co move in this direction. Its one of the reasons why i, along with the president of the board of supervisors, norman yee, we moved forward the balance bobalboaresident projec. This will create permanent jobs and 1,100 new homes with 50 , which will be affordable right next to city college. There will be housing for teachers, for families, for lowincome residents. There will be a great new addition to the neighbor near Public Transit and near city college and this is absolutely incredible and this is what we need to do. And its really why i am very surprised and extremely disappointed that the board of supervisors yesterday decided to continue the mission rock project, the mission rock project which provides 1,200 homes, 40 of which are affordable and 14,000 construction jobs and over 10,000 permanent jobs. When were thinking about what is happening with this pandemic, we cant wait around to move these projects forward. People have lost their jobs. Over 60,000 people in San Francisco have filed for unemployment and we anticipate that 40,000 more will. We cant stop our economy. We cant stop moving forward. People are going to need tack as to Employment Opportunities and people are going to need places to live. So it would be interesting to hear exactly what the reason is for why this very important critical housing and jobs project was delayed by the board because this does not help our city move forward. Finally, i want to talk about the support we announced yesterday for workers. In San Francisco, we have a law that requires employees who dont provide insurance to pay into a fund that gives workers access to funds for health spending. And you think the citys bureaucracy is challenging, i mean this program which is meant to help workers and the challenges that they have had in maneuvering this system has made it difficult for them to access money that theyre entitled to. And were not just talking about a few dollars. Were talking about in this particular case, 138 million. Its just sitting in healthcare accounts and because of restrictions and bureaucracy, its too hard to spend and yesterday, we were able to announce what we did to fix it and i will tell you this is something weve been working on for a long time. And thanks to the city attorneys office, the office of economic and workforce development, some people from labor and other great minds, we were able to come up with a really great solution so that we can get the hands, the money from this account directly into the hands of the people who need it the most. And so, we are going to do just that. Every Single Person who owns one of these accounts and there are over 100,000 accounts, will now be able to access this money and we will make it easy and quick for them to get it. This is really something that will help tremendously with what some workers and in many cases, these are the workers who have most likely been laid off from work and could use what could amount to anywhere on average 1300 per person. So im really grateful to all of the people who worked on making this resource available. As we deal with this real challenge around Public Health, simultaneously, we must ensure that the things that we are able to do and provide, we need to do it. People need to work and theyre going to need jobs when this is over. People are going to need to have places to live. Were going to continue to need to deal with the challenges around homelessness and so, this will be very difficult and require some very difficult choices. An estimated 1. 1 to 1. 7 billiondollar budget deficit is nothing to sneeze at. So as we are making decisions today, we have to be mindful of that and what that means to the success of our city and the future. The success of our economy in the future. And those are the reasons why these housing projects are so critical, the Job Opportunities that they create are so critical, our work to support, our existing residence, including our existing Homeless Population and to not increase that significantly is so critical. Its why we have to draw the line somewhere because we dont have an endless pot of money available to serve everyone who needs it and that is going to be our challenge as we go into the future and make the decisions we need to make around Public Health and safety and our economy, its important that we do everything we can to support our existing workforce, to support our existing homelessness population and to get through this pandemic together. So with that, i would like to introduce dr. Kolfax is not with us, but dr. Philips from the department of Public Health will be providing an update. Good afternoon, im dr. Susan philips. Thank you, mayor brisked. Breed. Today there are 1,497 San Francisco residents with confirmed cases of covid19. And a total of 23 people in San Francisco have died. I send my condolences to their loved ones. Mayor breed also begins her remarks with these numbers as a way to honor those who have become sick and those who have died. But also an and important reminder to us all. Even though we have made tremendous progress as a community to slow the spread of the coronavirus, it is still here and can spread as easily as it did a month ago and will thrive if we let it. We announced when the stayathome order expires sunday night, a new one will take effect. That will last through the end of may, giving us time to build the systems we need to support or recovery. I know this is hard. I greatly appreciate the sacrifices everyone in San Francisco and the greater bay area have been making. When we think about the family and friends we are missing, we must remember, they are the people we are protecting by staying apart. When we think about the jobs changing or lost, we must remember or economy would Face Even Greater setbacks if we did not slow the spread of the virus and we are slowing the spread of the virus. We have saved lives. We have to keep it up. Our goal is not changing. We want to slow the spread of the virus and see San Francisco and the bay area recover. Imaginesince january 21, we havn responding to the coronavirus our top priority. Since february 25th, when mayor breed declared a local emergency, we have mobilized the entire city to slow down this deadly threat and to keep our Health System stable and ready to care for all who need it. Since march 16th, when 7 Million People in the bay area joined the fight, we have stayed home to protect one another. Today, we renew our commitment to the fight. We will continue staying home, continue covering our faces when we have to go out and continue to keep six feet away from people outside of our households. Yet, we will also make a few minor modifications when the order takes effect on monday. The new orders allow for some lowerrisk outdoor jobs and activities to resume. For example, as the mayor said, all construction may start again as long as each project follows the safety protocols in the order. Certain outdoor businesses can open and that means nurseries and gardeners, for example and it does not mean that a restaurant can open its outdoor patio. We can get outside for exercise and the city has closed roads in Golden Gate Park and mcclarin park to make that easier but we cant share equipment, whether thats a playground or basketball or have physical contact with anyone outside of our households. While San Francisco and the bay area keep up the good work that has gotten us this far, here is how we at the Health Department and City Government will prepare for the future. We will continue to follow the science data and facts. We will continue to build out the Public Health infrastructure to support a gradual reopening and eventual recovery. We will watch a state level to track our progress and these are the questions well be asking. Number one, is the number of patients in the hospital with covid19 decreasing or staying flat . Number two, do we have enough of the critical personal protective equipment, ppe, for all of our healthcare workers . Number three, are we expanding our testing capability to meet the need, especially for people in vulnerable populations . Number four, do we have the capacity to investigate every case of covid19 to trace each persons close contacts and to isolate and quarantine the people that need it . And number five, is the total number of cases of covid19 in San Francisco and across the bay area decreasing or staying flat . As we expand testing, we expect the number of cases to increase at first as we are doing more of this testing. Well be looking at the rate of positive cases to help us gauge the spread in the community and once weve billed out our full Testing Program and have increased access to testing, we then will be looking for the cases to flatten and go down. Weve been laying the foundation for recovery from day one and testing is really an important part of that strategy. We have expanded testing from when we first began testing in our Public Health laboratory on march 2nd and well continue to increase testing in San Francisco. To date, weve collected close to 18,000 test results and expanded testing criteria as supplies permit. Today, we are able to test anyone with any symptom compatible with covid19, as well as people without symptoms we find through Contact Tracing and investigations. The next steps in our expansion of testing will include People Living in congregate settings and healthcare workers and were working with the zuckerburg initiative. Theres Research Underway that using testing to help us learn about the prevalence of the virus in our communities. And three recently announced or even started projects will test residents in the mission, a random sample of the pay area and healthcare workers. Each of these will provide important data and insights to help us see a clearer picture and make wellinformed decisions. We are also getting ready in other ways. We are learning everything we can about this virus, developing more sophisticated responses to outbreaks and training a small army of contact investigators. Were working with the Human Services agency and the department of homelessness and Supportive Housing to provide safe housing in hotels and shelters for people experiencing homelessness with and without covid19 and we must continue this focus on our vulnerable populations as they will remain at highest risk from the virus as we start to open up. That means people who are over 60 or with certain Chronic Health conditions and we must continue to prioritize them and People Living in congregate settings, such as longterm care facilities, homeless shelters, sros and jail. As we look ahead to our renewed stayathome order, let keep these Vulnerable People in San Francisco in mind and remember that the virus exploits longstanding inequities and lets Work Together to protect everyone we can. Thank you for continuing to stay home, for staying six feet apart, for covering your face when you go out, for washing your hand frequently. S frequently. Together theyre make a big difference and were making a big difference. Lets use the next month to get these habits engrained so we can open as safely as possible is ill now turn the podium over to chief scott. Good afternoon, everyone. Again, i would like to thank our mayor, london breed, for our outstanding leadership during this time and our director of health and his Leadership Team including dr. Philip for their leadership. We continue to staff to help prevent the spread of covid around the city and our officers are out in parks and some of our more popular spots and they will continue to remind people about social distancing. In some cases, we provided Face Coverings to help people to comply with the Public Health orders. Weve received complaints regarding alleged violations of the Public Health orders and they are taken seriously and investigated. Were finding, as ive said in previous preferences, that the majority of people in San Francisco are cooperating and complying wi with the health ors but we have cited individuals who have flouted the order. We have 19 citations that weve issued, up several citations since we spoke. The breakdown is ten businesses and nine individuals and weve admonished or weve issued 86 warnings and as ive stated from, those incidents in which we have taken reports. That breakdown is 52 businesses and 34 individuals. You can visit our covid19 website on the sfpds website to learn more about the enforcement protocols. We continue to use a path of progressive plans and that means education, asking for voluntary compliance, warnings and citations when necessary. We work with director cheryl davis, with our hrc and other Community Advocates in trying to get the community with us to help spread the covid19 virus, to help prevent the spread of the covid19 virus. And that has been largely effective. We want to continue that path and again, when you see our officers out there, we will be engaging with the public and well do everything that we can on this weekend and moving forward to help prevent the spread with this latest renewal of our Public Health order. Were glad to work with the community and i would like to specifically thank, again, dr. Cheryl davis and many of the other Community Stakeholders who have been working withs. Were still seeing decreases in crime overall, 19 decrease in Violent Crime and 34 decrease in property crime this week and a 23 decrease in overall crimes which equates to 142 fewer crimes. But we have had some issues that i want to point out to the public because were going to need the publics help to make sure that number one, we look out for each other. Secondly, when you see crimes, we need you all to report crimes. A couple of things i want to make note of, yeartodate, we have two homicides above where we were last year. We have 14 homicides year to date and we were at 12 last time this year. A disturbing trend that were seeing is weve had four ederly victims robbed, some at gunpoint, over the past 11 days. These are all women and they were all robbed of their purses and this is just simply unacceptable. So i ask all of you to please lets look out for our most vulnerable population, our ederly and our city and lets not have this happen to our most vulnerable population. And these folks were, in some cases, thrown to the ground and a couple of them were at gunpoint. Our victims were ages 85, 69, 70 and 84 and thats simply unacceptable. And we have enough challenges in our city with the covid19 pandemic and this is just that we cannot tolerate. So look out for your neighbors, report crime when you see it, call 911 when you see things that look suspicious, text 911 when you make the call but we need these crimes reported, but we have to make sure that we dont have people in our city victimized. Weve also seen a couple of shootings that are very concerning, including one overnight in the bayview Hunters Point area, where over 100 rounds were fired. Now, nobody was hit, thankfully, but this is, again, unacceptable. Our investigators are working hard to make sure that we try to solve this crime and put these folks where they belong and that is in jail. But we cant allow this type of violence in our cities and although crime in down, we have challenges we need to tack example we will need the publics help in working with us to keep our communities safe. Weve continued to investigate reports of burglaries in our city and as ive stated in the preferences, crime overall is down but weve seen an uptick in burglaries, particularly commercial burglaries. Our officers have been on patrol, and weve made arrests and to date, weve had 34 instances of books where additional challenges of loots have been adding because these burglaries occurred during a Public Health emergency. I want to again thank the District Attorney and his office for working with us on that. This weekend, moving forward, tomorrow, thursday, and through the week, i want to remind everyone that if you have to travel, travel only when its necessary and essential. Act responsibly and maintain a social distance of six feet. Please wear your Face Coverings and we will again be out in the hot spots this weekend and well enhance that deployment this weekend to make sure were educating the public, but also for those people that arent complying, we have to go to a more aggressive nature on making sure we get compliance on social distancing and the wearing of Face Coverings. So well be out and about moving forward as we have been, but well step it up a notch. I want to thank all of the people in San Francisco and people who come to our city to work and to visit, for their compliance up to this point and we want to continue to keep the momentum going and to prevent the spread of this virus and flatten the curve. So again, i ask for voluntary compliance but know that the San Francisco Police Department is out there. Were go tokin go go to be engae need your assistance to make sure that we stop the spread of this virus. Again, i want to repeat, the Crime Reporting numbers as i close, for those individuals who have a nonviolent or crime that has occurred where you dont need Immediate Police services, call 415 5530123. Or you can utilize the 911 or the San Francisco Police Department website to file a report or to request a report. Again, thank you all for your cooperation and lets keep our momentum going so we can stop the spread of this virus. Good afternoon, im the executive director of San Franciscos Human Services agency. As ive spoken about before, the Human Services agency role in the Emergency Response includes provision of mask care and shelter. From the onset of this crisis, our mayor and the city agencies have prioritized safeguards for populations who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus, including our homeless residents. Were following the latest guidance from Public Health experts to minimize exposure for those who do not have adequate housing, to safely shelter in place and to ensure that there are enough beds in our hospitals to treat patients with covid19. And to this end, we focus not own on improving the health and safety, as ive said before, inside our shelters and navigation centers, but moving individuals who have heightened risk due to age or Underlying Health conversations from our shelters, streets and hospitals into hotel rooms. San francisco continues to adapt to the needs of out residents and adhering to the Public Health guidance at a pace weve never seen before. Im incredibly proud of the achievements of our city workforce, our public agencies and under the leadership of the mayor to provide thousands of hotel rooms to some of the most vulnerable residents. With the addition of the alternative Housing Program dashboard, to the citys open data attacker, the publi trackee better insight for those in need at this difficult time. As of today, we have 2,741 rooms under contract at 19 Hotel Locations throughout San Francisco. The city has moved over 950 people from shelters, the street or hospitals into Hotels Thanks to the careful guidance and coordination from the department of Public Health and Supportive Housing. I want to emphasize and to clear up any misunderstanding that the city continues to implement or hotel plan and we continue to bring hotel rooms and other Housing Options online to meet the needs of these vulnerable populations. As i said, we have 2,741 rooms cutely under contract and wcurre have 2,153 rooms. Its important to note that these are all in a negotiation stage and at different stages of the negotiation and some are farther along than others and from our experience, we know that even if we move far along in the negotiateds negotiationss we cannot come to an agreement. The mayor mentioned pier 94 and the trailers and recreational vehicles that we are going to activate. And i want to provide an update and detail on that today, as well. In march, as the city continued to strengthen this response to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, we announced the leasing of recreational vehicles to provide indoor spaces for Homeless Individuals to help protect them from covid19 and to help protect the surrounding communities. The city is now operationallizing a temporary shelter using these lease recreational vehicles to new resources provided to us by californias office of emergency services. 29 recreational vehicles and 91 trailers arrived at seawall lot 344, known as the backlands of pier 94, to provide indoor shelter for Homeless Individuals living on streets or in shelter in district 10, including the Bayview Community and southeast sector of the city. I want to give a huge thank you to the port of San Francisco commission for approving our landuse agreement for this critical need last night in a unanimous 50 vote. Following the assessment of several public lands, the city selected this location for the rv and trailer deployment because it provides land management, utilities and rent relief through a partner city agency. , adequate ac acreage and a direct benefit to people in neighboring communities which i want to speak to now. Weve come to understand that across the nation, people of color and lowincome communities have been hardest hit by the coronavirus. Sadly, we know these disproportionate impacts are found here in San Francisco. Weve heard from dr. Kolfax and the department of Public Health that locations in the city that are most affected by health despairties, income quality and social racism are the most affected by the pandemic to date. This data trend of positive cases in our communities of color demonstrates the citys ongoing focus on equity and efforts to support vulnerable populations during the coronavirus response. During yesterdays port hearing, the Port Commission president characterized district 10 as ground zero for the coronavirus in sanfrancisco. This district has the second highest rates of those experiencing homelessness in the city, more than 1800 people and the majority of which are living unsheltered. We hear the communitys call to bring forward Immediate Solutions and strategies to address these inequities. The new shelter location will provide temporary housing resource for at least 120 individuals in the eas in the st sector of the city. We will prioritize those aged 60 or older or Underlying Health conversation making them extremely vulnerable and susceptible to covid19. By prioritizing people experiencing homelessness, the shelter site will not only prevent people from getting infected but help to reduce the spread of coronavirus in the community. The temporary shelter site plan for pier 94 will be developed and managed by the Human Services agency, the department of Public Health and the department of homelessness and Supportive Housing. It will include 24 7 site monitoring and security, asle well as meals and animal care. Were drawing on the expertise to implement screenings that will continue to protect the guests from the spread of the coronavirus. Similar to our leased hotels, we want to provide people with what they need to shelter in place. While the location does not have any immediate residential neighbors, were approaching the development of this temporary shelter in a responsible way, addressing the safety and Health Concerns of the surrounding port tenants and the supporting community. I want to express our sincere gratitude to our partners, at the port for preparing the staging area and the utilities and all of the trailers and rvs have been delivered and are on site now. We anticipate the shelter being ready to accept guests next week and will operate throughout the duration of San Franciscos declared health emergency. Weve said before that are our capacity to contain the coronavirus and flatten the curve to stop the spread depends on the ability to protect all people in San Francisco, to acquire compassion from every Community Across San Francisco to step up and take action. This shelter is an important part of the larger city efforts that we continue to implement to provide equitable, temporary Housing Solutions for vulnerable populations in need during this stayathome order. Ill now be available for questions. We will begin the q and a questions with dr. Roher, and this is from the San Francisco public press. Question is there still a plan to lease 700 hotel rooms for First Responders and covid19positive Homeless People in San Francisco . As i said in my remarks, the city continues to implement the plan that we announced seven weeks ago. I dont know and im not aware of an announcement that went out that said we were ceasing this plan, despite comments in the community. We continue to implement this plan. Weve brought online over 2700 units and our negotiation with 14 hotels, totaling over 2,000 hotel rooms. Question can you provide an update on reaching that goal and a timeline for filling these rooms . Its difficult to project a timeline. Each hotel has to be negotiated individually and sometimes the owners are local and sometimes on the east coast and sometimes international groups. Each contract has provisions unique to the hotels and its difficult to estimate the time for negotiation. In addition, weve said before once the hotels are under contract, it tables takes a nuf days to secure the appropriate staffing, supplies and then to move individuals in the rooms. And so i cant give a definitive timeline on when we will reach our goal of 7,000, but i can say is that we have brought on, as i said earlier, 2741 rooms, at 19 Hotel Locations and our negotiation with 14 other hotels, totaling 2,153 rooms. Its also important to note that the response to this pandemic requires multiple Housing Solutions. In addition to the hotel rooms, i talked about the 120 rvs and trailers and we have 643 beds at congregate sites to provide places to shelter for folks who have passed through their theird phase and theyre now no longer infectious and well be placed in congregate shelters and we are planning for sites, for covidpositive individuals who need more intensive supervision and medical support in a congregate setting. The next questions are for mayor london brisked. Breed. Madam mayor the first question is from kathy novack. Question imgrant and undocumented workers are calling for my assistance beyond the 5 him thousand from givetosf for 200 gift cards. Will more help be available for more undocumented communities. We have identified around 6 million for undocumented people who have been laid off, as well as many of our lowincome families and we havee working on philanthropic support and what we have done to make Resources Available from the state. We know some may not qualify for benefits and that its important to provide the resources and we definitely plan to. The next question is from sf chronicle. Question the board of supervisors is exploring legislation for sanctioned encantments in the city. Are you open to the idea . Why or why not . So we have already begun exploring locations for sanction ten encantments in the city and we want to make it clear that our priority is for the people, the Homeless People who have been in San Francisco before this pandemic and the priority has been our hotel rooms, dealing with our challenges, with our shelters and focusing on our vulnerable populations, the trailers that we Just Announced today. So moving full speed ahead in trying to make sure that we are meeting the need and in the process, we have identified a number of locations that we are seriously considering and as soon as we are able to get those up and running, wel we will. The next set of questions for dr. Susan philips, the department of Public Health. Questions for the chief . No questions for the chief. Your first question is from mission local. Question why does the city have the capacity to do 4,300 tests a day, but its only doing 700 or so . Why not use the unused capacity to test at congregate living places . Thank you for the question and opportunity to elaborate. We think testing is an important component of our moving forward as we outlined in the five indicators that well look at. So while we do have 4,300 test Slots Available in our laboratories that we directly work with, both at our Public Health laboratory, at the clinical laboratory, the San Francisco General Hospital and with our partners at ucsf, we need to match that test with collection supplies. So we need to get the specimen from the patient, take it to the laboratory to be run in that capacity and both numbers have to match. Until last week, we were having real challenges with our supply of testing specimen collection materials to do the tests. That has improved and so now we are more able to ramp up testing. So one of our main goals is to increase that number, the 700 number that was cited, that you cited is higher than it had been a week ago or days ago and so were heartened by that and we need to continue to increase that. So now we recommend that people can access testing for a wide range of symptoms that are compatible with covid19. They also should access testing if they speak with one of our skilled investigators and are told they may have been in contact to a person with covid19. So with both of those expansions, we are anticipating that testing will increase. We are also focused on trying to ensure safety for populations in congregate settings. Testing is one part of that, but not the own part, there is a lot of prevention work our teams are doing in those settings. But expanding testing to those sites is a priority. So you will see the numbers reported of tests completed go up over the coming days or weeks. The next question is from wilson walker, kpix. Question in regard to the city testing well below current capacity, do you think people in San Francisco are aware of the testing opportunities now offered by the city . Great, yes, again, another Good Opportunity to reinforce and clarify the importance and the increased access that were promoting now to testing. So its only been within the last week that we have increased or expanded the symptoms that were qualified from testing and weve brought online more testing capability within the city. I want to remind people that testing may also be quite available through their own providers. There are private providers in the city that have access to testing and the ability to get those results back in much faster time than true even a few weeks ago or months ago. And so that is important to understand and continue. The city expanded options for testing, including our city test sf sites which are important for people to know about. Theyre located in two places and one is at piers 30 and 32 on the ebarcadaro and so ma at seventh and brandon streets. People can gone online through sf gov and sign up to have testing there without requiring providers authorization if theyre not able to easily access the test in any other way. People experiencing any of standpoints osymptoms with covit opportunity to get tested and this is a Good Opportunity to make people in San Francisco aware that resources are available to them in addition to their routine care at their provider. The next question is from joshua sabatini. Question under the health order, can the citys golf courses open as early as next week and are people permitted to play tennis under the new health order, as well . The answer for golf courses is yes. People are able to utilize golf courses and those can be open under the new health order next week. For tennis and other sports that utilize shared equipment, even though people are able to maintain their fisca their physl distance, theyre sharing the ball and that would not be allowed. Question there appears to be confusion over whether summer camps are allowed under the new health order. Are summer camps allowed . So childcare provision or Recreational Activities such as summer camps are allowed to provide childcare for workers doing essential work, including under the broadened definition of these orders. Ithey cap cap allow for cleanin, Face Covering and groups with dedicated caretakers and teachers so the answer is question but there are caveats to keep people safe. Question how will the city enforce safe distance orders on construction sites. Through the department of building inspection. Question is the city presuming workers coming down with covid19 were exposed on the job. So for people who develop covid19 and tested and are positive, we interview every single one of those people as part of our Case Investigation and Contact Tracing work that you heard as another pillar of the work that we need to build up and be ready to do as we loosen the shelterinplace orders further into the future. We would be interviewing people and through that answer view, we woulinterview, wasthis a resulte exposure or Community Exposure and we would do further investigation before assuming it was or was not. Question can you please explain why some outdoor businesses, like flea markets, have been cleared to open while restaurants with outdoor seats have not . Yes, and i want to remind everyone that the orders are regional orders and thats really important because as all of the orders have been taking this regional approach ensures that we have the best possible outcomes since we cross the county line so often. This was by the health officers. For flea markets and other Outdoor Markets such as that, the transaction can happen with relatively small amount of contact and the seller and buyer can wear masks the entire time. For a restaurant, even if they were able to do spacing of the patrons, space them out, its very difficult to maintain spacing for the server, for the actual restaurant employee. And in addition, in order to eat, sit down and eat at the outdoor space, people are removing their masks and that combination of risks to the workforce and the risk potentially to other patrons with having masks removed was the reason that restaurants, outdoor spaces were not allowed under the new order. To follow up, what progress has been made to determine Additional Health code regulations for restaurants when they do reopen. Yes. So i think that that will be in progress over the next month and there are steps that restaurants and other businesses can take now and many have adapted their models to really focus on takeout or delivery, but there are models put in place to think about spacing for patrons when that is allowed for ways in which the weight staff and other restaurant workers can be kept safe. So there will be more guidance and information to come specifically to restaurants. Thank you, dr. Philips. The next question is for dr. Abigail kahn, homelessness and Supportive Housing. Question is the rvs will be reserved for the bayview Hunters Point area, what resources will be offered to the Homeless Community throughout the area. I think you heard a part of this answer from dr. Roher from the services agency. I want to underscore, because a part of the values of the department of homeless and Supportive Housing are to be as honest as possible with people experiencing homeless and i want to underscore while unsheltered Homeless Individuals are on the list to move into hotels and we are working as fast as we possibly can to stand up more hotels, those resources are limited and standing up hotels is a significant piece of work. And so, what i want to underscore is that while we know all people in San Francisco and vulnerable residents are really suffering, its really important that those who have been in San Francisco and who have roots in San Francisco and known to our homeless response system, these individuals have been waiting for ten years on our streets to get help and these are the individuals that we will be looking for. When we do have rooms available. And we are looking for vulnerable individuals based on age and medical conditions as weve discussed many times and we need all of our counterpart sister communities to be doing the same kinds of work and we know that they are. We talk with them twice a week and we know that hotels are a part of the plan for all of the surrounding areas. And so, if youre experiencing unsheltered homelessness in San Francisco and youre not from here or known to our system of care, you are not going to be able to move in quickly to a hotel room in San Francisco. Thats part of the honest city thahonesty thati need to provid. Its not that we dont want to help you. It will take a tremendous amount of time and we need you to return to your Home Communities and get the resources there. So we will be placing people in our system who are known to our system who are vulnerable. To the specific question around gegeography. Are they in our system and have San Francisco roots and where are they located . This is similar and we know where people are experiencing homelessness and know where its increasing. Its increasing in the bayview, and increasing in the tenderloin and hence our focus on the tenderloin to move people from that community who have been unsheltered in that community historically into hotel rooms and we will be looking at impacted neighbors across the city with the same lense. Thank you. That concludes or questions for todays press conference. s press conference. We are definitely pioneers in airport concession world a world of nationally if not entirely or internationally everybody is cop us right now. The people that were in charge of the retail this is where that began. I didnt think we would have a location at the airport. Weve set the bar higher with the customer commerce. Telling me about the operator and how you go about finding them and they get from being in the city to being in the airport. So first, we actually find a table and once we know what we want a sitdown we go to the neighborhoods in San Francisco and other people seminary of the retail let us know about the rain water and are excited to have the local operators in the airport. We have to go going through the conceive selective process and they award a lease to the restaurant. They are planning on extending. We that you could out the china and the length evens and the travel serve and fourth your minds and its all good. How long for a vendor to move through the process. I would say it could take 80 up to a year from the time we go out to bid until they actually open a restaurant. I dont know