So part of what came out of the Cooperation Amongst all the agencies is that in november, sfmta and bart agreed to jointly fund a hot team for the four downtown stations. So thats in the early stages. I mean, theyre out there. Theyre making contact with the people that are residing in our stations. So, were using that, were participating in sf leads. I was just on the way over here, i saw something that i seldom see, i saw two San FranciscoPolice Officers in the bart station. So there is joint patrols that are going on. So there is just a whole lift of initiatives that were trying to get our arms around this very difficult problem. And again, i have to say you know, were not immune from the commissions conditions that exist outside of the system. At the end of the day, it presents a real challenge for what is a Transportation Agency to deal with what are very, very deep rooted social problems. Do you have interventions with other jurisdictions such as oakland . I know this may be anecdotal, but i have heard that in some outlying jurisdictions, one of their responses to their homeless situation is to actually encourage Homeless People in their jurisdictions to assist them getting on bart, which then becomes their solution to their homelessness issue. Bart is considerably chippier than a bus ticket that people have used to transport people to San Francisco. What is the success in working with other jurisdictions and addressing the movement of Homeless People from their streets onto your trains . Good morning, mr. Chairman and colleagues and friends here. And thank you for all the members of the audience. Bevan dusty. I want to step back one second and say that everyone remembers in 2010 some elected officials in San Francisco put a measure, sit and lie on the ballot. It was not something that i supported. And it is not proven to be a particularly effective tool. Its spotty, off and on, the station might try it for a while. I didnt think it was the right thing to do. But one of the elements of sit and lie, it didnt apply to the stations. So as people were being engaged at the street level, many opted to go down stairs where it was out of the rain, out of the cold, someplace safer than on the street. I think that had a big impact on us and certainly i came to the bart board with a tremendous passion with creating better Government Systems that reach people who are homeless or marginally housed and try to help them. I think initially for the general manager of bart, we were a tough fit for one another. I think the things that i talk about are scary when i say i want the bart board to support a safe syringe site for people. I have in fact gone out and met in every county that participates in bart. All the counties and it has been an eyeopening experience. You are correct that we have very distinct end of the line problems in places like pittsburgh bay point and warm springs in the freemont area where people are on the trains and stuck out there. There was a very noted story from the chronicle tt reporter otis taylor, about a gentleman whose life was based in San Francisco. He stuck at midnight in boy point, has no place to go and wound up shivering in the parking lot, came back at 4 in the morning when the system is starting, and was spoken to by a bart police officer, said i hope youre not planning to fare evade. When we got on the train, he was angry and belligerent and it was unsafe situation and thats what otis taylor wrote about. They have a core team which is the equivalent of the hot team and they spent 7 million last year on ambulance transports of individuals that are homeless. Its a huge drain on their Public Health system and their Emergency Response system. And there are instances in which every ambulance is tied up responding to an individual whose homeless, many of whom are at bart stations, three particular bart stations in contra costa county. One the things we hope to do is create a Similar Partnership and bring the core team into contra costa. Im so impressed with the work they do. Jeff, his colleagues, martin, theyre doing things and theyre really excited to work with us. And a lot of money is being wasted and there are people that are getting stuck at 12 30, 1 a. M. And they know the only place to get inside, is to say theyre having health emergency, theyre taken to an emergency room and they can be safe and warm. Weve had meetings with san matteo county. Sfo, there are bus tickets that are given to people to get on transand come back to San Francisco late at night. But theyre having situations there. Supervisor ronen and i are planning to meet with the airport director and there is a lot of interest. But this phenomena is everywhere within the bart system and the muni system. And we need to have a comprehensive multicounty approach. In alameda, the challenge is that they have relatively little Homeless Outreach and you can see some of the circumstances weve seen in oakland and those areas where you have a lot of encampment and not a lot of engagement except by Law Enforcement. This started at 16th street, but im so grateful that paul overseer, the chief maintenance and Engineering Officer have stepped it up, because our front line employees have dealt with terrible things. People yell and say why are you not tackling that person, why are you not doing something about the person sleeping in the station . For the station acts they come to work at 3 45 in the morning, theyre trying to enter the system, where you can have 1020 people sleeping on the stairs to be safe. So the plan that has been presented is very comprehensive. I mean, we have temporary, as you see, were constructing right now, canopies to enclose the stations. We have temporary barriers that are there. We are really for the first time looking at station plans where youre going to have station agents meeting with custodians and bart police and management to talk about the dynamics and ecosystem of every station. But i want to say from standpoint and the president of bart, weve all participated in meetings to sit down and really talk about the services they have, what are the problems that they face, and the fact that bart is not unlike anyone else. Law enforcement is not an Effective Response to homelessness. Housing is how you respond, and thats where we have to partner with the city. Weve gotten the message and im excited about what is happening. As you described, ive received letter after letter about terrible situations, young people wanting to go ice skate, just wanting to see a movie and what theyre seeing and its unacceptable. You have on our part an agency that is ready to really make change. Supervisor ronen director dusty, i just as someone that spent the last 45 months with you at the station every wednesday, i just want to give you my sincere thanks. The fact that you in your long career in civil service, that you have directed the Homeless Services in San Francisco, directed the Mayors Office of social services, your depth of knowledge of the city, every single week were out there, every homeless person who is living out in the bart station personally. Theyre on a first name basis. And he knows everything about them. He calls agencies and gets people on the spot. He knows half of your staff, larry. And brings them out to deal with special circumstances that are beyond our control. And i just, its been a humbling experience to be out there with you. And i just feel so grateful youre representing us on the bart board because your long career and experience are bringing all of these relationships and knowledges together. And i believe that youre going to make great change system wide. I have to give you my personal thanks. Were sort of addicted to sweeping now. We dont want to stop. Willie brown would love this room because there are so many people behind me that know so much and are critical, but its rare we all get together and i think that is where bart is trying to change. You as supervisors, ombudsperson, thats the magic. There are people in public works, bart people, and this is something where we need to Work Together. I think that the value of having a city official and a bart official together is what is really made the difference here. But there is enormous amount of talent in the room and just a commitment to really Work Together to make this both a city and Transportation System that we can be proud of. And to the chairman i say, were the highest fair box recovery Transit System in the country, which means 75 of operations are funded by fares and 4 reduction on nights and weekends, its going to decimate the budget and make us do things we dont want to do. We want to get the message out that bart is committed, we want to forge a partnership, not just in San Francisco, but throughout the system to address this. Supervisor ronen thank you. Next up i wanted to call larry stringer, the Deputy Director of dpw. And to thank you, beavan and i called tom smith and daryl on a regular basis. They come out immediately to help us, so please give our regards and thanks to them as well. Well do that. Good morning, supervisors. I want to thank you, supervisor ronen and director dusty, really, seriously for tackling this problem, really bringing it to the forefront. It has been on we have a quarterly meeting with bart. It has been on our agenda. Trying to come up solutions and changes for the last couple of years. Its one of the most challenging intersections that we have in the city and also one of the hardest to keep clean. Not just the plaza, but the surrounding area as well. In this presentation ill talk about what we do. And also some things that we partnered with breitbart to try and experiment how we could change the plaza. You have to bear with me. So as i said, it is one of the most challenging. Im going to walk through the services we do. Power washing. We do powerwash around the plaza. We also power wash the Navigation Center around that whole block, about four times or four nights a week, along with cleaning and brushing. It remains a challenge. We can do that. You almost need somebody there almost dedicated in order to seven days a week to really keep it in a clean fashion. We also have corridor workers that work through the corridor around the 16th street station and mission and they work four days a week. Friday through monday. Which is even though its a commute hub, its also very busy on the weekend. And thats where our Staffing Levels are at. There there is stats about street cleaning. You can see the volume of street cleaning in the intersection. And you can see those are 311 requests for just one year. The larger the dot means more requests. So you get a sense of what is going on around the bart station as well as at the bart station. And this is just a trend of the types of requests that we get during that time, whether its packer truck, steamer, or litter patrol which runs and picks up the loose debris. But thats all in a oneyear period and you can look at the trending up and down. But the volume is pretty steady. One other thing through the area that we struggle with a lot is graffiti. If youre around the bart, its a detractor, from 14th to 18th, that whole mission corridor, just really attracts a lot. And were constantly out there, either doing removal or holding the Property Owner somewhat responsible. And this is hardship for graffiti removal. That gives you a sense here of the challenges we face in that area. We do partner with bart on a number of different areas. And we try to come up with solutions. It was a big challenge, the plaza on the northeast corner, constantly had a smell of urine. We got a permit from them to try Something Different which was the pee wall. It had some effectiveness, we did see a decrease a little bit in the amount of urine. It did not totally solve the problem. Supervisor ronen what is a pee wall . [laughter] it is a wall where we placed where we found that people are frequently urinating and we placed chemicals on the wall and it has the ability of instead of just dribbling down the wall, it gets them back. It bounces back on them and they get wet. The idea is, we sign it and it was an experiment. We tried it in several different places. Its just one of the challenges we have because of the amount of urine that was happening there. We tried it with barts permission in that plaza. It was somewhat effective. It didnt totally solve the problem. And then one of the other things that we really notice, because of that, was pit stops. We began a partnership with bart at 16th that started a cap and we moved it closer to the station where we split the cost 5050 to install a pit stop there. And then just based on the sheer volume and the problems were having, we also set up the pit stop with the j. C. Decaux on the opposite corner. This is where you will find two pit stops, but the amount of urine and everything that was going on there, we decided this was a definite location we needed to try this. Its been successful around bart has agreed to continue funding for the next couple of years. With that being said, ill just say, 16th and mission is one of the most challenging areas and im happy that youve taken this up, your commitment to making a definite change there. I will say one of the things i would like to see as we Work Together, is that the jurisdictional lines arent so defined, so that we can all take ownership of that area, both the plaza and the street. And i look forward to the future and what you guys are doing. Particularly with the bart, we can turn that from the place that is a place that people will actually like being there. Thats pretty much it. Supervisor ronen just one quick question for you. What weve known is that the new style trash cans, while theyre more attractive, the way theyre designed, the trash gets in between the can itself and the green metal surrounding and they happen to be really problematic at the 16th bart station. Is there any way to replace the cans so theyre designed to actually capture the trash completely as opposed to falling over the side. We are working actually on a new trash can design. We recognized that and have seen that. What is supposed to happen, our workers are supposed to go around and pull the can out and clean it. But theyre not there often enough to make that happen. That was a limitation of the design. Were working on a new one where you wont be able to put your hand inside, so you wont see it. Supervisor ronen fantastic. The other thing, we have seen downtown streets out in the area recently. And its been wonderful. So were looking forward to talking to them about continuing that work. You know, as you said in the blocks surrounding, because they need its an area that really, if youre going to keep it clean and presentable, thats an area where youre going to have to staff it seven days a week, we just dont have the resources currently to do that. But thats probably the best way youre going to keep that presentable seven days a week. Supervisor ronen sounds great and well keep talking about that. Next, we have jeff kaczynski. And sorry, i know we want to get this to public comment. We have two more speakers. Tonight our department will be housing or sheltering over 12,000 people in our permanent Supportive Housing and our shelter systems. Today just my own department will be helping at least 50 people get off the streets into shelter or housing or some type of treatment. I imagine Public Health, the Fire Department and the police probably assist at least that number as well. I want to give thanks to my staff doing that work every day, working with very challenging individuals who are facing a lot of difficulties in their lives and providing them with compassionate and loving and professional services. I also want to talk about this as a regional issue because b. A. R. T. Is a regional system. And just wanted to point out that San Francisco has 23 of the homelessness and i think its also important to point out every year approximately 5,000 individuals enter San Francisco who are experiencing homelessness from other bay area counties. I agree with supervisor sheehy to look at this and coordinate be our surrounding counties and b. A. R. T. Is very important if we are going to bend the curve on the problem in San Francisco or the bay area. We dont have really great data on exactly what were doing at 16th street b. A. R. T. , but i can provide you with some information as youll here. District nine as 271 of the sheltered Homeless Population and 281 of the unsheltered Homeless Population. In january 2017 when we did the point and time count. You also will see that relative to the Homeless Population in the city, district nine has 6. 6 of the unsheltered but 17 of the calls. Part of this is due to the residential nature and the high population density in the Mission District. Theres a lot of people there. And a lot of new residences and businesses. But we are receiving a fair number of complaints and concerns from citizens around this issue relative to the size of the Homeless Population. This next slide will show you the Homeless Outreach team. That star is the 16th street b. A. R. T. Station and you will see that it is in red meaning that it is one of the areas where the hot team has about 6,000 serves 6,000 people a year and this is a heat map