Probably suffering the most. Because if they dont work they dont have any income. So this is a very challenging time for all of us. And as we deal with the protecting of Public Health, we need to always protect the Financial Health of our families and communities. After were able to reopen what is that going to look like . And how will we be able to continue to make sure that everyone has a decent paying job with benefits . Thats the foundation of our city and its necessary for us to figure out ways in which we can help to support one another and uplift one another. Just a few things that we have been doing here in San Francisco include providing additional sick leave for private sector employees and also making available funding that employers have paid into our fund that establishes the support for Health Care Benefits and were able to give that back to the employees to use for important things like rent or food, finding Creative Solutions to give to s. F. , where were using those resources to help to pay for food for lowincome families and undocumented families. We know that may not qualify for other benefits that are available. Making sure that people who are very concerned and will not be able to generate revenues that theyre able to get some resources and some relief to help to pay rent. For their ability to stay housed, our Small Business community is the foundation of our city and we know that, sadly, whats happening now is that people are impacted financially, but we know that theres going to be a real challenge in the future. And its important that we make smart decisions, that we make investment in the people who work so hard for our city so that they are able to get over the very challenging time and are able to emerge from this in a way that moves our city forward. So today what we wanted to do was to take this opportunity to have a webinar specifically for workers. Because even though we have made a lot of announcements here in San Francisco about various programs that are available, it can get quite confusing because there are local programs, there are state programs, there are challenges with unemployment and other things. And we wanted to provide this as an opportunity to reach directly out to workers. And to talk to the community about ways in which we want to be as helpful as we possibly can. And also to solicit feedback because we may not have all of the answers, we may not know exactly whats going on in every sector of every part of this city, and we want to be a resource to make sure that were investing the dollars in the right programs that are going to directly impact peoples lives. So today im joined by a number of folks here who are here to serve employees of San Francisco. The workforce director josh arce works for our office of workforce and Economic Development. And for more information about what were doing and if you have any other questions or concerns, not only can you call josh directly and hell answer your call. But go to oewd. Org or call 311, and he is available. He is very dedicated to helping workers and to helping people find Job Opportunities. So thats one of his roles here with the city. And were so grateful for his commitment and service to the city. We are also joined by rudy gonzalez, the executive director for the San FranciscoLabor Council. And as you know the San FranciscoLabor Council represents all organized labor here in San Francisco, but they dont just fight for the groups that are part of their collaborative. They fight for better wages, they fight for Better Benefits so that people have can live with dignity and can take tear of their family take care of their family. I have a uni union family that m blessed to be part of and we know that organized labor in San Francisco is critical to the safety net of many of our lowwage workers and people who make San Francisco strong. And i want to thank you, michelle, who michelle lenardbell who is agreeing to moderate this conversation. And they have been my goto for Employment Opportunities since i mean, its been theyve been around longer than this, but its been over 20 years. When i have someone who is struggling and needs an employment opportunity, and they provide the wrap around Supportive Services and the training necessary to get people on their feet and back to work. So were glad to have an incredible network of people who are here to help to guide this conversation, help us to answer some questions, and the goal is to make sure that we are connecting our resources to the people that we know that need it the most. That is why were here. And we want to thank you all for joining us. At this time i want to join it over to josh arce, with oewd. Thank you, mayor breed and thank you for convening us here and for everything that youre doing for workers. I want to say at our department under our director, we are a team of 54 men and women who are committed working with at this point 48 communitybased organizations to support workers out there at this time and to prepare for our recovery. So as you said, so we can emerge from this even stronger. Thank you. Mayor london breed so, thank you, josh. And rudy gonzalez, the executive director of the San FranciscoLabor Council here in the city. And also i want to mention our Economic Recovery Task force, because not only do we need to help workers now, and what happens in future when we start to reopen the city, hes a cochair leading that charge on the San Francisco economic recovery. So, ladies and gentlemen, rudy gonzalez. Thank you, mayor breed and director arce, and michelle, its great to be in your community. Were grateful for the opportunity to be part of this discussion and bringing together not only organized laborer but as you said, mayor, ways to lift up all people. So were happy to get to work on our recovery right now. Mayor london breed all right, michelle, we can turn it over to you so we can get started. We probably have a lot of folks on the line who have a number of questions and thats what were here to do, to answer the questions. And also to take feedback on just suggestions that people who are in the middle of these experiences might have. So ill turn it over to you. Thank you so much again. Thank you, mayor breed, thank you. Im michelle leonardbell and im the general manager of mission hiring call. We have been putting people in San Francisco to work with quality employment since 1971. So were going to get started here. Mayor, thank you so much for everything that youre doing. We believe that lives here in the city and the region around the city have been saved because of your Decisive Action and your administrations work. Thank you to all of the participants who sent in questions. We received many, many questions around workforce. What were going to try to do is to select the questions that were asked more than once. And also to request the diversity of the things that you would like to know. Our first question was one that was very common. And ill share this one with mayor breed and then with josh. So many people are frustrated with the challenges of applying for unemployment. What is the latest status on the state and federal unemployment resources . Mayor breed . Mayor london breed well, ill turn this over to josh because he has a lot more detail. But, you know, again, weve had 83,000 people in San Francisco alone and over 2. 5 million in state of california, of people who applied for unemployment. I know that the Governors Office is working to increase the capacity in order to try and be as responsive as possible to people because we know that people need their money now. We dont have direct local control over Unemployment Insurance in general but were definitely partnering and working with the states to be as aggressive as we can to get unemployment in the hands of people right away. It has definitely been a challenge. And ill turn it over to josh. Yes, thank you, mayor breed. And we work very closely with the state Employment Development department, or e. E. D. And they have an unpri unpreceds only 50,000 who had applied for employment and three million ever since. And so as the governor and the labor secretary julie siu increased staffing to the unemployment phone lines and emails, what weve been doing is running a hotline. We have been working closely with the Human Service agency, Community Partners including selfhelp for the elderly, and the Mission Economic development agency. And a whole lot of the staff to answer phones. Our team takes calls seven days a week in multiple languages. And its really around whatever supports that we need during covid19 and, of course, most of the calls around unemployment. Many of our Community Partners are doing the same. So in nearly 2,000 calls that have been received to date since march 16th shelterinplace order, and independent contractor questions, and what we do is that we gather information from those callers and the staff works directly with us. Were grateful for that to get the answers and to call folks back and email them with those updates. We do twiceaweek Rapid Response virtual online webinars to get a group of folks and workers laid off in a room to share those resources with the state, with the Labor Council, with cover california. And thats about an hourlong process that we do twice a week. As the mayor said, were just here for you and we want to stay connected. Our website is www. Oewd. Org. And the phone number is 41570 4157014817. And go to our website www. Oewd. Org and thats a great way to get the number and all of the resources that well talk about today. Thank you again, mayor breed. Thank you, mayor and josh. Of the nearly 350 calls they recently provided services to, unemployment questions were the main questions. So thank you again for this. Oewd. Org and you can get assistance around unemployment. And the next question here is for rudy. Rudy, before people go back to work, they are understandably concerned about the safety and ensuring safety for themselves and their families. Will the city be providing guidelines and giving back to the office back to the office to ensure that people are safe when they return to work . Thank you for that question, michelle. The short answer is yes. The department of Public Health, the county Health Officer have been working diligently to provide clarification and guidance where weve needed it. I think that a good example of this came to the City Administrators Office and the mayors administration with respect to industries and the construction sector. So, yes, the city is providing that guidance. Its something that is a top priority for the Economic Recovery Task force in our effort to support not only jobs and jobs and businesses and Small Businesses, but we also want to support workers by collaborating around what those safety protocols are. Theyre going to look and feel a little different in various industries. But we trust that the department of Public Health is going to provide us, you know, timely guidance on those things. And i think that its also important to recognize that the situation is fluid. And so we have to be dynamic in how we respond to these concerns. This is an area that im particularly interested in developing feedback through the Recovery Task force, their Community Engagement team. Im very interested in what some of the specific needs will be from some of our small and mediumsized businesses along these lines. But, yes, well continue to work with the City Partners and the Industry Partners to develop clear guidance that allows people to get back to regular work, to continue the essential work, and to do so in a way that promotes Public Health. Thank you for that, rudy. Our next question is for mayor breed. Will more people be eligible for testing as more people return to work, mayor breed . Mayor london breed oh, definitely. The only way that were going to be able to get back to life as we knew it in some capacity is to ensure that testing is available to people. And the good news is that we announced that all essential workers for the city or even in the private sector, you are considered an essential worker, whether you exhibit symptoms or not, you can be tested. So, please, reach out to us. You can go on to sf. Org citytestssf. Or call 311 if you would like to be tested and youre an essential worker. But the other thing is that we will test anyone who exhibits symptoms, whether you have insurance or not. I think that is important. Because we never want testing to be a barrier. If you are not an essential worker or just a San Franciscoian or anyone, you know, from our immigrant community or anyone you dont have to have insurance to get tested. If you are exhibiting at least one symptom, we will test you. So you can go online or call 311 and we will get you tested. So i think that the good news is that we expanded our testing casity. Scapacity. So were able to provide the opportunities more than we ever had before. So theres no reason for anyone in San Francisco to not get tested right now if they need to, if they exhibit at least one symptom of covid19. And i also want to be clear that our essential workers can get tested in general. So what we want to be able to do is that we want to expand that even further. Because ultimately the goal is to make sure that as people get back to work that we have Testing Capacity to get people tested. In general. Because even if i get tested today, its negative. Well, im around people tomorrow, and the possibility of me getting the virus is possible still. So it doesnt just go away because of a test. So we have to make sure that testing is readily available at any given time for anyone. So im really excited about our Testing Capacity. So, again, no reason that anyone cant get tested who exhibits symptoms or our essential workers for any of these reasons. Thank you so much for that, mayor. One more followup question as well with schools remaining closed through the rest of this academic year, will more Child Care Services be available as more people return to work . Mayor london breed yeah, and i believe so for sure. The good news is that were offering child care for essential workers right now in our Health Care Industry and our Public Safety industry. And our goal is not only to expand that as we have space available, but it also is to expand it as we have more testing. And so right now were having conversations with our Public Health department about what does it mean for summer camp. What does this mean for things that we want to be available to kids but we also want to not only protect the children that we want to have these opportunities, we want to make sure that the workforce and their parents and others have access to this testing. Testing, Contact Tracing, those sorts of things are going to be key when we start to allow various industries to reopen in San Francisco, along with the guidelines, just like what were doing with construction, just like what were doing right now with Outdoor Services like a number of flower shops and nurseries and kiosks and outdoor businesses, setting guidelines in place and allowing those industries to open. We want to do that with more industries. But that happens as we have also more testing capacities which we are seeing occur. And im really excited about that for the future. Thank you, mayor breed. Director josh arce, would you like to add anything . You know, i thought that, mayor breed, this might be a good place to say to any students or parents that might be watching that you can apply for the mayors opportunity for all Summer Internship Program which is preparing to launch again in june and taking applications for online internship through the Human Rights Commission. Should we share that link with everybody . Mayor london breed i hope that you know the link. [laughter]. And from director davis its www. Opps4allsf. Org. And well have these links posted at the end of the video feed. Mayor london breed and then also i think that, you know, if you have questions and theres a lot of information overload, you can always call 311. Thank you, mayor breed. We have had several questions around skills and Training Programs which are going to be essential to getting folks back to work who have lost positions in this crisis. Lets start with this question with rudy and then josh. How are we prep