Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240713

As a member of the board for over 10 years she has helped guide us through the unprecedented growth. As chair of finance committee she helped strengthen the position to creativity and passion for ending Domestic Violence in San Francisco. I will hand it over to michelle. [applause] thank you for that lovely introduction. We are just thrilled today. This is such an exciting and special moment. I started volunteering about 15 years ago and joined the board 10 years ago. In year i was honored to be made the board president when our previous president retired. During my time with lacasa i have seen the Organization Grow and some impressive milestones. One thing that made me proud is the unparalleled ability for our organization to partner with Service Providers in San Francisco. Today we stand together it is important to remember the work to end Domestic Violence is not done yet and not done alone. La casa spent many years to build relationships to ensure no survivor feels like that is nowhere to turn. Many Community Partners are here today. We are proud to stand next to other Amazing Community Service Providers like the San Francisco General Hospital and u. C. S. F. , the San Francisco Police Department special victims unit, housing authority, Human Services authority, hamilton families th the count less other programs. Your work is live saving. Looking to the future on behalf of the board, we look forward to continuing to innovate and evolve the Expert Network of systems to ensure no woman or child is forced to choose between safety and their health or home. Now for the moment you are waiting for. I am introducing our mayor, mayor london breed. She is the first africanamerican woman mayor in the citys history. Her priorities include the homelessness crisis, new shelter beds, expanding mental health, more housing and keeping the city streets clean and safe. Please join me in welcoming the 45th mayor of the city and county of San Francisco, mayor london breed. [applause] mayor breed thank you. Thank you for your work and all members of the board and the staff and the people dedicated to this work. We appreciate everything that you do every day to provide a safety net for those who often times feeling hopeless in the midst of the trauma and everything that they are dealing with. We know that this organization supports and welcomes people with open arms. We are so grateful for the work that you do every single day. What an incredible day it is today. I want to take this opportunity to recognize our interim attorney who has been at the forefront of supporting women and children for decades, dealing with challenges around Domestic Violence. We know the city handles over 3,000 cases every single year. 3,000 families or people that are impacted by Domestic Violence. We know that we want to make sure that not only are people held accountable who are victimizing people but the survivors get support and resources they need. It is not just one department versus another. It is a partnership. Working with the victims unit and the San Francisco Police Department, the District Attorneys Office and so many amazing Nonprofit Organizations, including la casa is important. The work they do to help raise the money to support the organizations. I am proud of the work they have done to work with San Francisco to allocate more resources because we know that this is hard work. We also know that often times many of the survivors end up working in this arena themselves from their experiences. We know that it can be so helpful to helping to change peoples lives. You know, it is just i am looking at this building and just this is your permanents home, cathy. I know this organization has moved around quite a bit, but has never lost the essence of who they are, a hot line to provide support to people, a drop in center, place of comfort and care for so many years, and now a permanent home. It means so much because when people are dealing with a situation and in the middle of the night or any other case, working with San Francisco general and others, they will have this organization to depend on for years to come. We have this Incredible Program in San Francisco. Some of you know that i used to be the executive director of a Nonprofit Organization africanamerican art and culture complex, for someone who has run a nonprofit, they know how difficult it is to raise money and to make sure that you have a permanent home, to care of the home to buy the toilet paper and keep the lights on. There is a lot of work and resources that go to places like this, and the nonprofit sustainabilitynishsive is a resource that the city now provides to Nonprofit Organizations to help with support to purchase buildings like this so that some of our important nonprofits have a permanent home. They dont necessarily have to worry about the space that they are in and whether or not the lease is going to expire or the costs are going up for the space because there are so many other things that they are going to continue to need to raise money for. This nonprofit sustainabilities fund provided 1 million towards the purchase of the building. I couldnt think of a better way to use this kind of fund than to support lacasa. I am grateful to be here today. I know so many of you here are people who have been working in this arena for so long, and this although it is challenging and it can be sad and emotional to see what we have done here today and to see how this is going to help turn lives around and to change lives for the better, it is absolutely amazing. You should feel good about the work you do and the role you played to making this possible. I am here to just see the place, of course, and to thank all of you for the work you continue to do and to especially commend cathy black and your team for just cathy is standing over here to the side. Come up here. Today i want to do Something Special because of the work that you all do and you do it, you know, in such an amazing way every day without a desire to be recognized but you want the results, and i want the results. It makes for a better city for each and every one of us. It is casa d cass de la madres n San Francisco. I want to thank the folks at the office of economic and work force development. Thank you so much for your work in organizing and helping with the loan documents. We know how challenging it is to get the city to move quickly and the people that we have in this offers really care about this work and they worked hand and hand to make this happen as quickly as we could. I am grateful to be here. Ladies and gentlemen, the executive director of la casa, cathy black. Next up we have our District Attorney here to speak with us. She is a leading authority on crime prevention, experienced executive and led the Police Commission and served add general counsel of the California Department of justice, also served as prosecutor and advocate for survivors of Domestic Violence. We are honored to have her here today. She is a Community Advocate coo of center of youth wellness and in 2014 honored for her work to found and center, the nonprofit to heal children suffering from impact of violence. She served as president of Police Department from 2012 to 2017. The Police Commission provides the use of force policy and instituted body cameras to increase transparent and incommunity relations. She has improved Police Response to violence against women and children to make the streets safe. Our work isnt possible without the work of people like susie loftus. Thank you. That was very kind. Thank you, mayor breed for being here. What i want to offer to you is a story from my time as a courtroom prosecutor when i was prosecuting Domestic Violence because i think when we talk about what la casa means. I want to ground it in what this looks like. To Law Enforcement i can speak to today, it occurred to me when i got my first Domestic Violence cases they were not like other crimes i had prosecuted. What i was asking someone to do was picking up the phone and i was asking them to come in and testify against someone who they either loved at that moment or at one point loved or thought they loved, and my job was to encourage them to come and testify against that person, to encourage them to come in and be crossexamined. We know what that looks like, right . What i needed most was to have someone who could addvo indicate for that survivor through advocate for the survivor. That is cathy black. That is all of you. It is not always the answer to Domestic Violence there is a prosecution. Sometimes it is the answer. Sometimes it leads to the stay away order to save a life, sometimes it leads to a program that an offender does that can change his life or future, let him reclaim his life and future. The partnership Law Enforcement has with lacasa is i often say safety is a team sport. We have learned lessons in San Francisco about how we actually build safety. It is in partnership and in service of shush fivesors and their strengths and resilience and we serve them. Everything i know about Domestic Violence i learned from someone probably in this rumor cathy black. Let us continue to learn from each other in service of this idea. There is an irish proverb that says it is in the shelter of each other that the people live. This is a shelter, this building, it is also a reminder that we are the shelter for survivors and people escaping violence and that when we lean into each other and solve problems in the way lacasa has modeled we build safety for the people that need it the most. I couldnt be more delighted to be here today and to congratulate the city and City Partners for coming together. This is a reminder of the best of who we are and the work that we have to do. Congratulations to lacasa. [applause] we often say that we are only as strong as the community that supports us. We talk about bringing community into our work. Often times our work is in confidential spaces. Comemestic violence is challenge domestic challenge is scary and bat. We only solve this when we bring it out to the light. The next speaker is cassandra pogie. Show brings this to the light every day. She is an employee at black rock and one of the strongest allies in the community. She addvo indicates for survivors advocates for survivors. We are lucky to have her with us today. [applause] thank you. I am cassandra pogie. I am a survivor of Domestic Violence. I was in a relationship for two years. She was charming and created the illusion and he was good to me and i started to fall for him. As things became more serious he was jealous. He introduced intimidation and isolation. I was trapped with someone who used manipulation and violence to control my life every day. I became a shell of myself. I was his captive. The abuse was constant happening all hours. I lost count of the slaps and the punches. There are nights that he would abuse me sexually. Those were the darkest and loneliest days of my life. I was able to leave after one extremely bad beating. I dont remember how many times he punched me because i started to blackout. When he finally stopped, i was able to stagger to my bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror and i knew if i did not leave he would kill me. So i ran out the door. As i was running down the street i didnt be know where i could be safe, but the la casa image popped in my head. A few weeks earlier a colleague was doing a presentation. I looked for a second. I was running down the street. I stopped and hid in a dark corner of a garage and googled them. I found the emergency hot line number and gave them a call. Not knowing what to say, all i was able to tell the woman on the other line was that i was just beat up, feared for my life and i needed somewhere safe to stay. She gave me instructions to an indisclosed shel shelter where e would not be able to find me for the night. The comfort and security that night is invaluable i will nerve be able to put it in word. I will never forget the feeling i had laying in a bed that night. A feeling that i havent had in over the past year. The feeling of safety. But what they did for me did not end that night. They provided Legal Council to file for a civil restraining order, made sure to keep in contact with me as i got on my feet. One of the advo cats attended every court date to make sure i was not alone. I faced my abusers. In each trial the following year. I cannot change my past. I can only learn and share my experiences and hope to just save one other person from a similar story. Abuse thrives in silence. I could not be more proud that we are here today to bring a voice to the social injustice that holds so many in darkness. Fortunately for us in San Francisco bay area, lacasa is a bright light in the darkness. This beautiful new home is a bright light. Thank you la casa for saving lives and thank you for saving my life. [applause] next up we have a woman who needs no introduction. Here we go. Cathy is the executive director and she joined la casa in i is. She has met the needs as they have evolved and globe. Grown. Three increased number of services by 300 . She is on oversight panels and worked to bring the gaps and service and champion Domestic Violence with policymaking bodies throughout the city. She brings a wealth of program and strategic experience to la casa. Each day hundreds are made safer because of her leadership. As someone who has been here through the process of the moving into this building, we really cathy did it almost entirely herself. It was amazing to watch and wish i could be more helpful. We are lucky to have your leadership at this organization. I think you touched the lives not only the survivors in the city but the people in the room individually. Without further ado, kathy black. [applause] thanthank you, mayor breed, d welcome everybody here with us today. I was telling somebody earlier that i was nervous and fearful. Then i listened to cas cassandrd realized the real fear. It puts it in perspective. It is easy to stand in front of you now. I get the best part of this event today. Everybody said such wonderful things about la casa and how it has touched so many people. I get to say thank you. Almost without well maybe not media but some of the media people have played a role in bringing la casa to where we are today. When i joined la casa in i in 1e are omission street. On the mission street. We werent offered the opportunity to stay. We moved to a loading dock that was in the back of the old electrical workers apprenticeship building. We were hidden in the back on the loading dock. We fixed it up and were there for a period of time until they moved in next door. They werent the ideal neighbor. They thought they were. We definitely sudden lie a light was shown in a way that made it scary for the employees and the victims and survivors to get help. We moved to the old ben davis factory at 1663 mission street. Our lease was coming up and they didnt want to renew the lease. We knew we needed more space because we were providing more and more services, and there seemed to be an unending demand for what we had to offer. You know, there was a crazy journey to end up with this building. We ended up getting the second time i applied to the nonprofit sustainability fund. First time i couldnt get the owner to sign the purchase agreement, but i submitted the application in hopes i could convince him before the decision was made. Luckily, after a little bit of time he came around and he was offering it for lease. A payment we would not be able to afford. 14,000 more than our Mortgage Loan for this. Keeping good financial, being frugal, i said, no, buys is better. We were able to convince the owner to sell it to us, and we applied to the nonprofit sustainability fund. It is an awesome opportunity, and i tell other nonprofits when they say we dont have any office space, i tell them, you have to check out this program because it is a great deal. You know, it keeps nonprofits like la casa from moving further out of the hub of where we are needed most, right . We are in a neighborhood where we are accessible, people can come here, get services in a safe way, and we are able to we call it hub and spoke model in the center of the partnership with the Police Department, with the General Hospital and the rise program, rally family visitation program, one of our founders, we are close to hsa for the program, the Mary Elizabeth inn which provides 157 housing units. We do Case Management there. It is unending amount of work that we are able to provide. This is the most amazing spot to do it. I didnt write any of these words down. This is me talking. There are some, you know