Meeting to the budget and finances committee. Our clerk is mr. John carroll, and id like to thank sfgovtv for broadcasting this event. Mr. Clerk, do you have any announcements . Clerk yes. Please be sure you silence any cell phones or electronic devices. Any documents you need to present should be given to me, your clerk. Chair fewer thank you. Mr. Clerk, will you please read items 1 and 2 together. [agenda item read] [agenda item read]. Chair fewer thank you very much, mr. Clerk. I would just like to start this meeting by saying thank you all for coming today to come and give us public testimony about where you think your public dollars should be spent, and your priorities to where the public dollars has been spent. For the last two weeks, weve been hearing from city departments on their plans to spend public dollars, and now it is your turn to tell us where you think we should appropriate these moneys. I want to thank you for your time. I know that many of you will have to wait a while to speak, and we are not doing speaker cards today. Everyone can just lineup. We are prioritizing people who have disabilities, people who are seniors, and those with Young Children to speak first, and i hope you will accommodate that. Otherwise, we look forward to what you have to say. Remember, there is no sounds allowed from the audience. If you agree with the speaker we ask you to use your supportive fingers. Once again, public, thank you for coming out to educate us, your legislative branch of the San Francisco government. Without further adieu, lets start public comment. Everyone will have two minutes to speak. Our clerks will assist in bringing people up to speak with just lining up today. We are not requiring any speaker cards whatsoever. Welcome to the chambers. Okay. Lets start. Thank you, supervisors, for having me here. Im andrea. Im with coleman advocates for children and youth. Im here in support of the immigrant parent voting collaborative. We are educating our immigrant families to go into the schools and have a say on their childs education. Sorry. Sorry. My sons there, and he has a phone. Sorry about that. Yes, but i am in support of immigrant parent voting collaborative. There was a budget that was approved, but were asking for the full amount of 250. We have a lot of a lot of our communities that need the support, that need this information, that need to be able to have the proper information so they can be safe in their communities and also have a say in their childs education and who and what the decisions that are made about them. So im here and just advocating for that and just making sure that the urgency is there, right, the importance is there, that their families need the support, and they need us to be there with them and supporting them. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. Johnson. Thank you for letting me be here to say what i need to say. I my coffee cup, i put budget justice. Let me turn it around. And people say, why did you put it on your coffee cup . Because were always so hot to talk about Affordable Housing, were always so hot to talk about senior displacement and all these other things, and then, we get cold. My thing is lets stay hot. Transitional age Youth Development and job skill training should be on the budget. I think Affordable Housing and people with disabilities should be in the budget. I think health Sf Mental Health sf is what were calling it, i think thats good because if you have Mental Health, you can work on getting a job and work on staying together. So lets say hot, and other than that, just thank you for the chance to Say Something and for giving me the chance to say it. Clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. Good morning. Im judy garas, and its great to see you. Im speaking for the inner sunset senior program. We started last year in october. The inner sunset, as many of you may know, has no Community Center, no senior center, nothing. We have coffee shops and restaurants and bars. Thats what we have, and we have some really great organizations like sharp, aspn, and Valley Community associates, so weve got all three of them. At the time, supervisor london breed set aside funds, and supervisor vallie brown continued the tradition. First of all, we have to rent space. There are two churches with Large Community halls. One of them came forward at a little over twice what we had budgeted for the rent. The other came in at twice what we had budgeted for rent. We had to promise we had 15 people. The first day, 35 people came in. We rarely have fewer than 45 or 50. Thats a lot of seniors with disabilities. Its a large crowd. We want to expand the program in the coming here to three days a week, we want to be able to offer more activities for seniors. Its a Similar Program thats in district 7, that there have been programs funded there. The cayuga program has been funded in district 10. We are beyond our expectations, and we do need more money to keep going. Its a free program for seniors [inaudible] so good to see you. Chair fewer thank you. Clerk next speaker, please. Chair fewer mr. Wright. All right. Im ready to start now. The best way to provide housing and take care of the homeless problem in San Francisco, you got 8,011 Homeless People. I come across this transaction deal for 57 million to build 144unit Apartment Building complex thats three stories tall. You build nine of these for less than 500 million. Nine times three is 27. You built an apartment complex on the property thats on my right. On property like the one thats on my right. The weone on the left is being built for 57 million. We need to build these to take care of the Homeless Program and the people that need Mental Services as far as the Health Department is concerned. Heres prove that the Mental HealthServices Department sf viewer. Heres prove that the Mental Health services got a shortage of beds, and another reason why my response is true and correct. And statistics why you have a shortage of beds of the people you want to help has got a combination of physical and mental disabilities. Heres how you have 8,011 Homeless People out on the street and the rate is increasing. Theres an article that says you need 12. 8 million, and there are 8,000 people homeless in the bay area. Theres a person thats out on the street thats been moved and aint got nowhere to go because they dont have shelter beds. The mayor had an 88. 2 million deficit. Clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is steve, and im deaf, disabled. I want to thank you for inviting me hear for our comment. I want to say we need a better solution for public housing. We have needs of people that do not have housing, and we should also have new apartments around in San Francisco. Theres not enough housing for us senior citizens, as well, and we need to expand upon that to improve that. Many people who move out and buildings who are left have a cant should be left livable. There are a lot of vacant that can be used as spaces, for well. We need places where we have rooms where we can also have facilities to meet, and they can also be some small neighborhoods of housing that ive seen. Maybe as an idea, we can provide those. That would be nice, but we need more modern housing. Maybe to make it affordable, to keep it smaller, but we need more housing, even if that means smaller housing that provides all of the living comforts, and we need to improve San Francisco for everyone and not have so many Homeless People. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for having us here. My name is marcus, and im here to talk to you about a line item that was recent cut that would be funding a myriad of native American Events and concerns here in this city. And i find it to be remarkable in this city that can do so much for so many people that we have to come and do oppression ceremonies. Indian people are one of the poorest demographics in your city, and rumor has it that that line item was cut when one board member intimated that there werent enough of us around to make it worthwhile. I certainly hope that thats not true, because we are here, we are alive, we are vital. We hold powwows, we hold get togethers, we hold artistic events in yerba buena gardens and we need your hoelp to do this. 100,000 may be a drop in your bucket, but to us, its huge. If you can remove a statue, listening to the voices of the indian people, if you can change columbus day to Indigenous Peoples day, surely, you can put your money where your mouths are, certainly you can fund our events in this city, and thats all im asking. Thank you for your help. Chair fewer thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you. My name is betty trainer, and im with senior disability action and also the Community Living campaign, and i want to express our support for the Budget Justice Coalition asks. In particular, ones for seniors and people with disabilities. Ill mention just a couple. The dementia daycare programs are really important, and also, the Community Connector program that our first speaker, judy goddess spoke about. This basically keeps seniors in their home. It helps them, those that dont have a support system, and it helps them have a support system, so we need to keep that in the budget, budget justice. The other thing id like to talk about is expanding rental subsidies for seniors and people with disabilities. This is a goodsize ask, but an important, valuable ask. We have so many seniors that just cant pay their rent or theres an emergency situation. They get behind for whatever reason, and we need these rental subsidies. And the other subsidy, which is a program introduced by supervisor yee, would provide 500 million in rental subsidy for senior buildings. And it would be so necessary for our seniors that just cant afford the socalled affordable rent. So please consider that. My last one is a real quick one. Its not necessarily for seniors, but its the red stone labor temple ask to save the red stone. Thats a Community Center at 16th and capp. Supervisor ronen [inaudible] hello. Im here on behalf of my roommate, edward. He had a stroke last year. Im on Social Security disability, and he had two jobs. We had to cope with a rent increase of 900, which almost 3,000 a month for our cabin or cottage. He had a stroke in september, and we were desperate. He ended up in the hospital in a coma. He was paralyzed. All his income had stopped. What do you do . You dont have enough money on Social Security disability to pay. Thank god i had an angel watching for me. Q foundation with radco was able to pay the back rent as well as helping us keep the house, the cottage, which when he does come home from the hospital, because without the rental subsidy, we would have been homeless. This is very important that you do maintain subsidy rentals for people, whether theyre in an emergency or theyre homeless. We all need support, respect, and the miracles that come with that. Thank you. Good morning, supervisors. Lauren tedi. Im have district 5, and im a member of senior and disability action. Everybody knows theres a crisis of housing in San Francisco, but what isnt widely recognized is theres a crisis within the crisis. Thousands are shut out of Affordable Housing, including 75,000 seniors, more than of half of whom have disabilities. 75,000 seniors who are prized out of affordable hows priced out of Affordable Housing because their income is too low. So im here to particularly support president yees request to establish and fund a 5 Million Pilot Program to provide longterm assistance to seniors shut out of Senior Housing. The Senior Housing thats being built and Senior Housing that will be built under the ballot measure for the housing bonds the Affordable Housing bonds, the alternative to president yees Senior Housing program is more and more housing seniors. I refer you to the justreleased Community HousingEngagement Survey of the Mayors Office of housing with the office of economic and Workforce Development and the planning department. That survey that just came out confirmed the number one request of Community Members all throughout San Francisco is Affordable Housing and city assistance to reduce the cost of housing. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. That luckily are available in the city but not enforced. I recognize as the root of this issue the government, both city, state, and federals failure to side with the workers, and this generational degradation of Worker Rights and our ability to organize in favor of corporations. The largest corporations in San Francisco enjoyed hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits from the federal government, so the money is here. I challenge you guys [inaudible] chair fewer thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good morning. My name is lourdes alarcon. Generally speaking, i had the help of getting subsidized child care, but i also have to be part of the waiting list. And yeah, i dont want to first of all, i want to thank the people representing us today, and i want to acknowledge that because you know how child care how important it is for a mother to have, so you dont want to choose between not especially a job and not being cannot pay child not accepting a job and not being able to afford child care services. I want to thank supervisor ronen for opening the horace mann shelter. But also, im advocating for the waiting list. This is a struggle, we have a lot of many issues. Were not against each other, but i think children cannot wait. They are, like, growing every minute, and they need the investment because thats investment in our future. So were advocating for child care because thats part of our future but thats also supporting women that need the services in order to make develop a Better Family and have their opportunities for their children. Thank you very much. Chair fewer thank you. Next speaker, please. Good morning. My name is mia velez. Im a child care provider, and with the consent of the parents of the kids i care for, i asked them to have them here with me, some of them, most of them. As you can see, the kids are over there, climbing furniture, crawling under the seats and things like that. If you can imagine for those of you that are parents, if you had to bring your child here, what kind of work can you do . Are you able to provide for your family . Are you able to pay your rent if you had to bring your children here to work . So i just wanted to remind you the kind of work thats needed for the people, for the citizens of frisk and United States in San Francisco and United States in general. Right now, i have a waiting list of full paying parents of 50, and im not including the parents who subsidized. We reserve in our program two subsidized seats. We can only offer seats for two families who need care. I cant imagine what those parents who need care are doing right now, how to provide for their kids, and what theyre hoping for the future, so i just want you to think about us. Thank you. Good morning. My name is maria jandres, and im here representing many mothers, many women, that we struggle every day, and were not struggling because we want to, were trying to thrive, do all the things that we have to do, but especially advocating for immigrants mothers that since we are a part of the School District, but we dont know the rights that we have to be part of that School District. And im asking here for to support the collaboration for the noncitizens voting because its important for parents that are involved in their schools with their children to be part of that. But not only be part of that, just coming and drop off your kids. I want my child to be successful. In order to do that, i have to be able to empower myself and know that i can make decisions in the school board, as well. Im also speaking on behalf of the child care because ive been on a wait list since i was in my second trimester. And until i was homeless, i could not access that, and its a shame to deny parents to what is a human right. Kids should not be in spaces where they are not learning and their development is not getting what they need to do. So im very grateful that you guys are working and doing these power these changes, but please, lets support the immigrant families. Immigrant families, we are very afraid. People are afraid of speaking up, and thats why im not here because im not afraid, and im going to tell all the other parents to speak up, to fight for their rights. But thank you very much. Good morning, supervisors. My name is