Well be reporting out on those. The bills where there was no action, they could come up again, but today is the first day to the legislature reconvenes. So we dont know what bills theyre going to bring up or what new ones they may add. Senator weiner has a bill, sb 1103, on bicycle yielding, similar to the legislation we have here in San Francisco where you can yield the rightofway. You can yield and dont have to come to a full stop. The joint ledge committee has been opposed to that and thats in suspense at the moment, so well see what happens there. Today is the first day of the legislative session. Next monday, the budget has to be submitted by the governor. One of the things ive added to my report is what the legislative calendar is by quarter to kind of levelset what needs to be done up in sacramento. The 12th is the last day for the policy committees to hear and report to the fiscal committees and vice versa on anything that came up in the odd numbered years, so thats in the regs. And the 19th is the last day for any committee to hear and report on floor bills that were in the house last year. They have a tight time frame over the next couple of days. The 19th is also the last day to submit requests to the office of legislative council. And the end the month is the last day to pass bills introduced in the house last year. And february 16th is the last day for bills to be introduced at all. So well see a flurry of activities over the next 67 weeks. So the Senior Legislature met in november, theyve issued a press release. They have two bills that are two areas theyre supporting that have come up before and we talked about over the last couple of years. One is on Prescription Drug labelling and this measure would require physicians and surgeons to indicate why the medication is being given and what its for. So that easy to and then the second one is to increase the medical needs allowance. That would be things like, personal supplies that someone on medical may need to pick up. Most of the others are around housing, tax contributions, a lot on housing, hunger. Elderly financial abuse, grab bars in public rest rooms and toilet heights. There is three bills. One is Fall Prevention and grab bars. Adopt regulations to the Medicare Program and the third is california Chinese Railroad workers memorial day, memorializing the congress and president to enact legislation that would recognize may 10 as a federal holiday of remembrance to honor Chinese Railroad workers who labored from 1865 to 1869. So im sure there will be more than these 13, but well report on those in coming months. President serina thank you, diane. A quick question, im asking this question out of naivety. Its the joint legislative committee, do they deal with regulations or strictly legislation . Strictly legislation. I was concerned a little bit when i heard that the current administration, federal administration scaled back an obama era policy on levies fines against residents in nursing homes. I didnt know where that fits. We can take a look. A thank you. President serina did the governor explain his reason for vetoing the elder abuse bill . I dont remember, but ill check that out. I can put an addendum when i send my report to bridgett. President serina thank you. Any other comments . Commissioner lang question, on all the bills that youre presenting, is the joint council in support of all of them . Not necessarily. We will i will usually report if weve sent so we have in the case of senator weiners bill, weve sent a letter i believe of opposition and one of our Council Members, dr. Marcy edelman has spoken with the senator staff about why were opposed. In terms of safety. To the bill. But if we take if we write a letter, we usually tell the commission that we have in fact. Commissioner lang i appreciate that, its just good to know which ones you guys yes, and we can probably add that in the spreadsheet. Commissioner lang thank you. President serina any other comments or questions to the commission . Any comments or questions to the public . Thank you very much, diane. Longterm coordinating council report. Good morning, marie representing the Long Term Care council. We did meet in december on the 14th and we, like you, have a real interest in the progress on the dignity fund, so we got a report letting us know that the survey piece was done, 1300 surveys submitted. That the focus groups were halfway done, probably completed by this point. Daas was working on the equity analysis, looking forward to seeing that. And there are important meetings coming up over the oversight and advisory committee. One on january 22 and the second february 12. Those will be opportunities to really learn what we all heard from this process and figure out how it impacts policy and funding decisions going forward. The melissa also provided an update on the funding that has come as a result of the dignity fund. Youre seeing the fruits of some of that today, which is the Community Service pilots will be i proved on the agenda and there are a few more to come, but it looks like things have rolled out nicely in terms of moving the funding out into the community to do good. The next meeting, if you want more than the cliff notes, is the oac meeting on january 22 from 35. Commissioner is the representative to that body and the longterm council has representatives there. The longterm care council benefits from funding from the scan foundation, so we approved renewal grant from them to continue the work with them and other communities around the state. The Nomination Committee was busy. We learned at the end of last year, that tracy was stepping down as cochair of the longterm care council and the nominating committee didnt have a hard choice, they suggested and recommended Shireen Mcspadden to be the cochair. It was a hotly contested race there, but she was enthusiastically and unanimously approved. So she will be the new cochair serving with continuing cochair ann. The longterm care council plays a role in the budget process and has refined that activity over the last few years with the finance and policy work group, helping shape proposals that come to the council. There were two, one that was approved by the group, focussing on housing. Housing subsidies and legal defense. There was a second which was a holdover from the previous year. That didnt go through the policy group, but folks felt strongly should be considered. The original vote scheduled for december is now to happen on january 11 and it will be on all of those proposals, but in the meantime, all of the Council Members have been asked to set up meetings with supervisors, so we have those meetings proceeding as scheduled now after the 11th of the month. Those proposals and all the information goes on the longterm care website. You can go there. And again, our next meeting of the longterm care council is january 11. President serina thank you, marie. Any comments . I just wanted to let you know that on december 19th, grace cathedral, the chapter room, the Interfaith Council convened, we had ten people there from different faith traditions and different aspects of our work and we exceeded the time limit they gave us, which is not surprising for religious folk. How much over . It wasnt substantial, well protect the staff, but it was a very engaging conversation and im looking forward to seeing the results of their synopsis. President serina any other comments or questions to the commission . Any questions or comments from the public . Thank you very much. The tacc report. Cathy russo. And case report. No case report. Thank you, valerie. Any general Public Comments . Any old business . Moving onto new business. 7 a. Requesting authorization to enter into a new Grant Agreement with project open hand for the provision of nutrition and Supportive Services during the period of january 1, 2018, through june 30, 2020, in the amount of 1,333,001 plus a 10 contingency for a total grant amount not to exceed 1,466,301. Thank you, tiffany. Good morning, president , commissioners and executive director. I am presenting to the commission this morning for approval this new Grant Agreement with project open hand to provide nutrition support through meals, groceries, counseling, education, that is tailored to an individuals chronic disease. This Grant Agreement is the result of rsp 772, nutrition and Supportive Services for healthy outcomes that was released in the fall of 2017. And was issued in response to the dignity Fund Allocation plan for fiscal year 1718, that included funding for nutrition and wellness. Food and security is closely connected to poor health and negative health outcomes. Healthy food is one of the best things that can be done for longterm health and when tailored to a persons needs as it relates to their chronic disease, it can contribute to improved wellness and positive health outcomes. The chronic diseases included in project open hands new Nutrition Program are type ii diabetes, heart disease, and congestive heart failure. If a consumer has one or more of these chronic diseases confirmed by their medical care provider and is food insecure, theyre eligible to be enrolled in the new program. A project open hand case worker and Outreach Coordinator will work with clinics and Health Care Providers that work with older adult to engage eligible consumers. Consumers will be enrolled in the new program for a oneyear term. They will be required to recertify with their medical care provider at a 6month mark. We will evaluate the consumer participation to ensure theyre accessing services, monitor individuals progress and address issues and concerns at the 6month mark as well. The meals and groceries will consist of onethird of a consumers daily nutrition needs tailored to their specific chronic disease. Meals can be in the form of hot or frozen meals and grocery provided will be enough for the enrolled consumer to prepare daily meals. The type of Food Assistance will be appropriate for the consumers ability and safety level. Nutrition counseling and education will be provided in a variety of ways, including one to one nutrition counseling, Nutrition Education classes, cooking demonstrations and education material. All enrolled consumers will meet with the registered dietician to assess their needs related to Food Insecurity, medication, Mental Health symptoms and diet. Theyll be able to schedule followup sessions as many times as they like and dieticians will hold dropin hours. Nutrition classes will be held once a month, rotating between diabetes and heart healthy education and cooking demonstrations will be held multiple times during the month. Nutrition education material, of course, will be available ongoing. Project open hand will serve at least 250 consumers and provide over 103,000 meals tailored to an individuals chronic disease. In addition to the goal of increasing Food Security for the enrolled consumer, project open hand will be evaluating the impact of the program on chronic disease specific outcomes. Because consumers will be assessed at the time of the enrollment and reassessed six months, project open hand will be able to measure the success of the program. For the enrolled diabetic, theyll look at the impact of the program on glycemic control, weight. And with those with congestive heart failure, they will track the number of hospitalizations. The department is excited about the new program and is anticipating very positive results. Thank you, and im happy to answer any questions the commission may have. President serina thank you, tiffany. I have a couple of questions. Is this program in addition to any nutritional meals that the individual may be getting at a Senior Center for example . Is it complementary . Does it complement those meals . I think they can be enrolled in both programs if need be. President serina and will there be something so that the individual knows at the Community Meal what they should be eating or should not be meeting, will there be instructions and will that information be made available at the center, so the individual doesnt fall off the wagon as it were . I think that would be part of the project open hand counseling. That they would receive from a dietician. President serina thank you. Any other commissioner loo this program is for the whole city, is that right . Yes. Do you get the referral . Project open hand will be doing their case workers and Outreach Coordinators will be doing outreach to medical care providers throughout the city. Commissioner loo since its citywide, so you know the ethnicity of the city, so will they speak different languages, like japanese or chinese . And the material also bilingual . Yes, yes, project open hand, i think in their we can double check but they have cantonese speaking, Spanish Speaking staff to serve a diverse population. I dont know about japanese, though. Im the c. E. O. Of project open hand, good morning. We certainly have cantonese, english and spanish materials printed and people who can speak it live available all the time. For other languages its difficult for us. So we use the city Translation Services or other Translation Services to supplement that. Commissioner loo maybe you can subcontract with those individual agencies, because i think its important that you have the counseling, but also the material that they can understand what youre talking about. We do that across the city. Commissioner loo thank you. President serina any other comments or questions from the commission. Commissioner lang will these be new clients to project open hand . Yes, they can be, yeah. Commissioner lang well will they all be new . What they will be for sure is clients that are food insecure. Thats their primary they could they very well could be a client that has used their services for a congregate meal, but not necessarily. The criteria is a chronic disease confirmed by a medical care provider and to be screened as food insecure. Those are the two things. So people that access project open hand at a congregate meal site may or may not be food insecure, or they may or may not have a chronic disease, or one of these diseases. Commissioner lang im following you. I guess my only concern is that i would like to begin to see us reach more people that arent using the services currently. And i know for example, there are a number of folks in the bayview, et cetera, that are not part of the mix. So i want to make sure that were not just substituting one Funding Source for something else. Yeah, i hear you and i understand that point. I think most likely someone, a project open hand client that is accessing a or people accessing services, a lot of them wont be food insecure. So again, going back to what the criteria is, is to be food insecure. So i think there will be some crossover. I dont anticipate there being a lot, because its reaching out to a very different population. Commissioner lang ill live with that for now. If i could interject, commissioner lang, thats a good question and one of the things we could ask is that they track new clients and look at this later and see if theyre serving completely new individuals or whether its ending up being theyre providing more services to people who need the services and it would be interesting to look and bring it back for discussion. Commissioner lang id appreciate that, because i know i was at a recent meeting where they were surveying churches churches in the bayview and many of them, half of the congregation said they were food insecure. One of my aims is to make sure that population is receiving services. Because theyre taking the federal survey on Food Insecurity and they dont have many options in that neighborhood. Right, and one of the great things with this program and all the other Nutrition Programs, and all programs for that matter, the clients that Access Services we do know who they are, so were able to run reports to see who is accessing what and how many times, if theyre in multiple programs. Commissioner lang thank you, tiffany, i appreciate it. President serina to follow up, i think it is very important we track this, because some of the existing clients may meet the criteria just because theyre existing clients should not mean theyre not eligible. But there is a substantial amount of people that have not been served, so we would be broadening, especially because its funded through the dignity fund. Its a Supplementary Program and a new program, so i think its a good point that commissioner lang raised. Commissioner loo to follow up on that, since this is a few years program, im wondering when six months is starting, ok, maybe after a years service, we can get a report . Ok. Sure. President serina thank you. Any other comments or questions from the commission or the public . Please step forward. Good morning, chairman and the commissioners, i appreciate you taking the time, thank you for describing it. And i just want to remind the commission that we begun in the era of a medical crisis, thats how we started our work in the aids crisis 34 years ago and been part of the medical model. We have never been about hunger specifically, but a medical condition. What this Visionary Program seeks to do is give not only expensive to the system, but terribly sick. What we know, because of our intervention, we were able to reduce hospitalizations by 63 , increase medication by 50 . Those are tangible effects of the system. Theyre improvement of t