Would also like to acknowledge and thank Karina Mendoza for sfgovtv for staffing this meeting. Mr. Clerk, do you have any announcements . Yes. Thank you, madam chair. Please ensure that youve silenced your cell phones and other Electronic Devices you have brought with you into the chamber today. If you have any documents to include as part of any of todays files, you should submit them to me. You can do so by bringing them forward to the rail. Public comment will be taken on each of the two items on todays agenda. When your item of interest comes up in Public Comment is called, please line up to speak along your right hand side of the room. Alternatively, you may submit Public Comment and writing in either of the following ways. You may email them to me. My email address is j o n period cac c a r r o l l at sfgovtv. Or you may send your written comments via Us Postal Service to our office in city hall. The address is one. Doctor Carlton B Goodlett place, room 242 44 San Francisco, california 94102. If you submit Public Comment in writing, i will forward it to the members of this panel and also include your comments as part of the official file upon which you are commenting. And finally, madam chair, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda of may seventh, 2024 unless otherwise stated. Okay. Thank you so much, mr. Clerk. We have, now item number one, agenda item number one is an ordinance amending the park code to close the great highway extension, beginning at slope boulevard and extending south for a distance of approximately 3300ft to vehicles to allow for a multiuse trail and to improve shoreline resilience as part of the ocean beach Climate Change adaptation project, making associated findings under the california vehicle code. Making environmental findings including adopting a statement of overriding considerations under sequa and making findings of consistency with the general plan in the eight priority policies. The planning code, section 101. 1. Thank you so much, mr. Clerk. We have, anna roche here from the sfpuc, who has been managing this project as well as monica scott from rec park, and we have jeremy spitz here to answer questions. Im sure, so before i let, miss roche do her presentation, i just wanted to, say a few things. Colleagues, because this is in in my district, this project, i want to note how critical this work is given the extreme impacts of coastal erosion that we have seen over the last few years. Im grateful that we have had the foresight to plan ahead with the ocean beach master plan to protect our Wastewater Infrastructure for the west side into ensure that we have safe, accessible public amenities for future generations. As you know, the district i represent is within the plan and we also have other civic amenities like the San Francisco zoo within the area, lake merced immediately to the west, and fort funston, to the south, i do have some remarks that i will wait after the presentation, but i just want to thank the staff at the puc, for all of your hard work, for us today and for generations to come. Thank you so much, good afternoon, supervisors. Melgar preston and peskin. Thank you so much for having us here today to hear about this very important project. Again, im honored. Roche, project manager with the sfpuc, whos the lead agency of this multi city agency project. Im here today with monica scott, a project manager with rec and park, who will be pro, presenting with me, our Partner Agencies include sf planning, sfmta and public works. Prior to being here today, this project has been approved by the sfpuc and rec and park, and the eir was unanimously certified by the San Francisco Planning Commission. We are here today to seek approval to close the great highway extension, which will allow for the implementation of this project, which has been in Development Since 2012, when the ocean beach master plan was completed. So first, just a quick overview of the project location in this graphic represents ocean beach from the cliff house at the north and fort funston at the south, fort funston being on the left side of your graphic, the dash is on the left of the slide. Illustrate the location of the project, which sits along the coast between sloat and skyline boulevards. This is the first major Climate Adaptation project within the city, and will protect the western side of San Francisco from Sea Level Rise, so why is this project so important . In the 1990s, there were Major Investments into City Infrastructure to protect Water Quality on this side of San Francisco. Whats in this graphic is the oceanside treatment plant, one of three wastewater plants for the whole city and which was built as part of the clean water program. At the end of the clean water program, the top picture is what the area looked like within 15 years. You can see from the bottom photo how that changed. It was within the same 15 years that the city declared three emergencies to protect the infrastructure which was built as part of the clean water program. This chronic erosion and how the city addressed it is whats being has is what has been the driving, driving the development of this project. At the blue door on this graphic is the Western Entrance to the oceanside treatment plant. The top image is before a large erosion event where we lost approximately 25ft of coastal bluff and the bottom image illustrates how placement of emergency rock was used to stabilize the area as i noted, the city declared three emergencies and those emergency ultimately violated the coastal act. To address these violations, the city developed the 2012 ocean beach master plan. The plan outlines a compromise that allows for Infrastructure Protection and restoration of safe beach access and recreation open. I wanted to note that in 2018, the San Francisco Planning Commission adopted these objectives into the general plan. This area is very complicated in terms of Property Ownership and ecological conditions. So how did we develop a common vision . The city had spur, a nonprofit planning organization, convene all of the affected agencies to develop the master plan. As you can see, the effort included multiple city agencies, federal and state agencies in the San Francisco zoo. Together, we developed a common vision via the ocean beach master plan process and continued to Work Together as we develop the project. While the work has been ongoing to complete environmental review, design, etc, weve utilized temporary measures to protect this area between the years of 2012 and 2024, we took actions seven times, moving approximately 250,000yd t of sand from north ocean beach to south ocean beach, which is illustrated in the top photo. And in 2021, after a decade of work on an agreement with the army corps of engineers, we moved nearly 300,000yd t of sand that they dredged from the San Francisco shipping channel, and instead of placing it offshore, they placed it in this area, which is represented in the bottom photo. While those actions were temporarily protecting the area, we were developing the project that is before you today, major elements include one. Permanently closing the great highway between sloat and skyline boulevards to public vehicles, including reconfiguring affected intersections in zoo parking access. This is the legislation that youre hearing today. Well also be constructing a buried wall to protect existing Wastewater Infrastructure from climate induced Sea Level Rise and shoreline erosion. We will be removing those emergency revetments, rock and rubble and debris from the beach and reshaping the bluff and planting native vegetation. Well be constructing over a mile of multiuse trail, a beach access stairway, coastal access parking, new restrooms, ada beach access and will be providing long term beach nourishment or sand replenishment replenishment. As this project goes into the future. Now im going to switch over to monica, who will be presenting on the open space elements of the project. Thank you anna. Good afternoon, supervisor monica scott with rec and park project manager, and im very happy to share with you more detailed information on the Public Access improvements that were envisioning to replace the roadway of the great highway extension. As anna mentioned, the project area is a southern portion of ocean beach, with a work principally occurring in the area of the great highway extension as it runs south of sloat to skyline boulevard. This slide shows the entire project area with a multiuse path and adjacent service road running from sloat to skyline in the place of the former lanes of the great highway. This section of trail will be a part of the larger coastal trail network, with trail connections between the upper great highway trail and fort funston lake merced. The other components of this project include a plaza at sloat with a restroom, a parking lot, at skyline beach, access stairs, planting areas, and seating along the plaza and trail. Due to the topographical conditions and other permitting related items, ada access to the beach is provided off site at taraval, the nearest access point without a steep bluff to navigate. However, please note that aside from the beach access stairs, the entire trail trail will be accessible for. This is a zoomed in view showing the northern end of the project site, with a new plaza at the intersection with sloat, which will also have a restroom. The sand ramp, vehicular maintenance access that is existing and thats on the left side of the screen that will remain you. You can see how the trail will be separated from the service road, with planting areas including bioretention planters, which will be capturing the stormwater runoff off the service road is also designed to serve as the Emergency Vehicle access point. In this slide, its a section perspective. You can see both the visible above grade elements of the project, and also a view to the below grade elements that anna mentioned with the low profile wall that will be protecting the Wastewater Infrastructure above ground. You can see the new plaza at sloat with a restroom building with solar panels. This building and the entire project site will be completely off the electrical grid, and all power will be provided by solar. In this slide, you can see that at the top, the existing view looking south from sloat boulevard towards the National Park service restroom and west side pump station. And below that you can see a rendering of the projects new restroom, coastal trail, and slope plaza. In the plaza, youll see the art enrichment component, which is a series of sculptures by a local artist. Heres the existing and proposed condition for the area looking to the north, and you can see the beautiful curve of the roof line of the restroom building and as you proceed to the south from the plaza, the trail narrows slightly, but maintains a minimum width of 15ft to accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists. The service road, which runs to the east of the trail, is designed for higher speed bicycle travel with a sharrow to allow for bicycles traveling north in the same direction as the service road, and a striped bike lane for those traveling south. Here is another section perspective at roughly the midway point along the trail, heading south at the existing entrance and exit to the zoo from the great highway. At this plaza, there is seating with an overlook. The access paths you see here cutting from the service road to the trail are for maintenance and Emergency Vehicles. And as we proceed to the south, across from the entrance to the oceanside Water Pollution control plant, you can see there are beach access stairs, connecting trail users to the beach. Theres also a seating area at the top of the stairs, as well as a landing on the stairs. And then proceeding to the south. In this slide you can see the beach access stairs as well. The new parking lot and the connection to skyline boulevard. This parking lot will provide an access point for the multiuse trail and will also be the entry point for the one way Service Access road. The trail in this area, as i mentioned, will will connect to the lake merced trail and theres a planned related project to connect with a fort funston trail network. Ill now pass the presentation back to anna, but im here along with my colleagues also from mta to answer any questions. Thank you. Monica so i just wanted to point out that this project is or was designed to meet the citys Sea Level Rise guidance standards and includes a design that considered Sea Level Rise through the end of century. So ive already mentioned a couple of our major milestones. This slide identifies our anticipated upcoming milestones leading up to construction and closure of the great highway extension. Again today, starting with legislation to close the great highway extension. It was initially introduced to the board of supervisors in october of 2023. We expect to go to our Coastal Development permit hearing in june. We expect 100 design early next year. Our bid advertisement would be approximately mid 2025, with construction starting in late 2025. Were still working through all of the sequencing of the work, but we expect that the great highway extension closure would happen in early 2026. And this is my last slide. I just wanted to touch on the, our outreach and engagement work that weve been doing since weve been working on this project. And you can see im not going to read through everything, but weve done a lot of extensive outreach and will continue to do so until we get into construction. That completes my presentation, and were here to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you, miss roche, for that great presentation. I have to say, the restroom is by far what im most excited about. People on the west side are excited about the restroom we have right now is managed and maintained by ggnra and its been closed since the beginning of the pandemic, but people use it anyway. They they use the outside and its just not a good situation. So i am looking forward to, not just protecting, you know, the Sewage Treatment plant, but also having this wonderful new park, for, as i said, generations of san franciscans to come and the upgraded facility of the parking lot that the surfers can use to access the beach, which will now be very accessible. So thats all very exciting, but i wanted to i think, talk to jeremy a little bit. If you could, because, i want to say thank you so much to, puc staff, but in particular to mta and, rec park staff and Tanya Peterson at the zoo, for working out our last bit of problem with this, you know, whole wonderful project, and particularly to cronenberg, who i see back there and, sarah maitland, thank you, so one of the things that this project is doing is closing off the exit from the parking lot from the zoo. And as everybody heard, were getting pandas, the zoos, you know, visitors, have are back up to where they were prepandemic, which is a really great thing. But we, of course, want to set them up for success also for generations to come. And so, in working with all the pros and cons of you know, addressing that problem, i think that we explored a bunch of Different Things and we finally came up with an agreement, which is that, you know, we will build a new, or the zoo will build a new entrance to be flush with 47th avenue and use the existing entrance as the exit, and that you, the puc, will incorporate, the project and your predevelopment. Youll do the pre and then the zoo will do the construction, is that your understanding of our agreement . Good afternoon. Supervisor. Yes. Thank you. Jeremy spitz with the puc. You summed it up all perfectly. I have nothing to add. Thats exactly what our agreement was and what the general manager can, committed to you. Thank you so much. I think that this is a really positive thing for everyone all around. So i really appreciate your willingness to engage and to, you know, solve this problem and that everyone will be better off with this project and people will be able to enjoy this for generations to come. Thank you. Thank you, with that, if theres no other questions or colleagues , comments. Okay, well then lets have, Public Comment on this item, please. Thank you, madam chair. Land use and transportation will now take Public Comment on agenda item number one related to closure of the great highway extension. If you have Public Comment for agenda item number one, please line up to speak now and come forward to the lectern when you have when you get there first speaker, please. Good afternoon, honorable supervisor, mayor preston and peskin. My name is donna uchida, and actually, this is my first day working for the San Francisco Zoological Society , so i am probably not speaking from great expertise, but chris connors, who has been working on this project, his flight got delayed. And so hes not able to be here. So i am i was elected, i did want to raise a couple of issues and, Tonya Peterson has submitted a letter to the chair, but if you would, honor my request, i would like to at least read a few, pieces of that letter. Okay. You have one minute and 16 seconds left. Okay. Basically, the zoo does have some issues about the great highway closure in essence, it would eliminate the entry and exit loop exits to the zoo parking lot from the great highway and they are the primary access points. The fear is that the 47th street and slope boulevard, theyre not going to be enough, especially with the pandas coming, apparently one day of the pandas and their previous visit, logged 14,000 visitors and now its about a 4000 to 5000 a day visitor rate. And that doesnt include zoo camp, which is upcoming. So, what i would like to leave you with is that, the changes to slope boulevard will be problematic for the zoo, and they would like to continue to be in discussions with some solutions. Thank you. Thank you, donna yoshida, for sharing your comments. Can we have the next speaker, please . Hi. Good afternoon. My name is laura walsh. Im with the Surfrider Foundation and i live on taraval. Really close to the project, im our california policy manager, and surfrider is working on dozens of coastal resilience projects throughout the state preparing for Sea Level Rise. And we consider this one, you know, potentially an enormous poster child for what we can do to actually prepare for Sea Level Rise. So we support the legislation and the retreat of the great highway extension and appreciate everyone whos been a part of it , this is an erosion pinch point at south ocean beach, and we cant just wait for the ocean to take over here, Sea Level Rise is only going to make things worse. I do want to say, however, that, weve been the community has been envisioning a Climate Adaptation project in this area for a very long time. And since the ocean beach master plan has been in place for a decade, the county and the city have maintained a goal of protecting the beach in this area. So surfrider does plan on remaining involved to advocate for a minimization of the gray infrastructure aspects of the project, and for a setback of the seawall and further analysis of how the seawall is constructed to make sure that its not just sitting there eroding the beach in a way we cant avoid. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Can we have the next speaker, please . Hi, supervisors. My name is lucas lux. Im a resident of the outer sunset, and here, on behalf of friends of great highway park, were an all volunteer nonprofit that wants the citys coastline to be enjoyed by everyone for generations to come. This legislation before you is before you, because ocean beach, south of sloat, has been eroding away for decades, and the roadway is literally falling into the ocean. The legislation simply acknowledges the facts on the ground. Nature is already closing the roadway. The Climate Change adaptation project has already suffered multiyear delays at the cost of continued erosion to our coastline. Approving this legislation enables the project to move forward to protect our coastline for future generations to enjoy. Approving the legislation is also compatible with the continued improvements to the details of the project, like the reduction in armoring that our friends at surfrider would like to see. This legislation is simply the needed next step to start the vital work to protect our coastline for future. Future generations. So for these reasons, we urge you to move the legislation to the full board with a positive recommendation. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Lets have the next speaker. Please hello. Good afternoon, supervisors. Zach lipton, im also a volunteer with friends of great highway park in support of this legislation. Unfortunately for all of us, this is not a debate on the long term future of the much debated stretch of the great highway. None of us have time for the Public Comment that would get this legislation helps implement the ocean beach master plan by addressing great highway extension, the small stretch of road thats actively crumbling into the sea. Climate change induced coastal erosion hasnt just destroyed the road, it threatens the lake merced tunnel Critical Infrastructure that we all rely on to carry the citys wastewater. Climate change is real, and we must adapt to Sea Level Rise to protect this infrastructure and preserve the beach for future generations. We welcome the suggestions from Surfrider Foundation to ensure a more natural beach with less shoreline armoring. Passing this legislation now will allow the roadway to be addressed immediately as sfpuc continues to work with all coastal stakeholders on plans to both fulfill our Infrastructure Protection and ecological goals. The plan to reroute vehicle traffic from great highway extension has been adopted. Part of the citys general plan, for over six years now, and its finally time to take this next step. To prepare the city for Sea Level Rise. We ask you bring this to the full board with a positive recommendation. Look forward to working with city agencies in our mission to create an accessible and joyous oceanfront for all. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Next speaker, please. Eileen bogan, coalition for San Francisco neighborhoods speaking on my own behalf, strongly urging the committee to continue this item, the closure of part of the, ocean beach was part of the ocean beach master plan, which was released in 2012. However, since 2012, the world has changed in fundamental ways. The ocean beach master plan was narrowly focused on environmental issues. The ocean beach master plan didnt focus on Public Safety, even though all segments of the upper great highway are part of dpwhs emergency priority routes map. The ocean beach master plan also didnt focus on Economic Vitality for Small Businesses, immigrants, and minority communities who need to access education and job opportunities, the ocean beach master plan didnt envision that over a decade later, the giant pandas would be coming to San Francisco zoo, the zoo has been contacted by ksfn as to how many are, yearly visitors they expect once the pandas arrive and how the visitors currently travel to the zoo at the sfpuc Commission Meeting on october 10th, 2023, when the commission was hearing the ocean beach Climate Change adaptation project, the ceo of the sf Zoological Society stated on the record that the zoo had once used the upper grade highway between skyline and slope as an evacuation route. She went on to say that permanently closing this section of the upper great highway would impact future evacuations. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Do we have any further comment on agenda item number one . Please come forward to the lectern. If youre here for Public Comment on agenda one. And, madam chair, it appears we have no further speakers, thank you so much, that Public Comment on this item is now closed, i just wanted to address the last speakers comments because it was it is my understanding that that road will still be open to Emergency Vehicles. Isnt that is that the case . I see you nodding, but can you . Yes, thats correct. It will still be emergency egress from the parking lot onto the great Highway Service road that will be in place, running to the north. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Okay, colleagues, with that, i would like to, make a motion that we send this item out of the committee with a positive recommendation to the full board and allow the puc to go to the Coastal Commission in june on the motion offered by the chair that the ordinance be sent to the board of supervisors with the recommendation of the land use committee, vice chair, preston i. Preston i member peskin, i, peskin i chair. Melgar i. Melgar i madam chair. There are three eyes. Okay. That motion passes. Thank you so much , lets please go to item number two. Agenda item number two is a hearing to discuss the status of the San Francisco tenant right to Counsel Program, which guarantees that any renter facing eviction has access to free legal representation on. Okay. Thank you so much, supervisor preston, thank you so much for calling this hearing. The floor is yours. Thank you. Chair melgar, and i do have some , opening comments on this before we hear from, Mayors Office of housing and Community Development and as they are preparing their their slides diligently, theyre, by way of background, in in 2018, i wrote a ballot measure backed by the democratic socialists of america, San Francisco chapter and the San Francisco Tenants Union, and despite opposition from the San Francisco apartment association, the San Francisco republican party, and the San Francisco chronicle, voters passed it by a 12 point margin, establishing San Francisco as a right to counsel city for tenants. The groundbreaking measure guarantees a universal right to counsel to any tenant in San Francisco facing eviction from their home. It is the most comprehensive right to counsel law in the nation. We were guided by a simple principle in advancing this ballot measure, and that is when renters have access to legal help, more will be able to stay in their homes. We now have data that proves this to be the case beyond a shadow of a doubt, the data that you will see today shows us that the tenant right to Counsel Program is now directly saving well over 1000 households, consisting of an estimated 1700 people from losing their homes annually. When we add in all those who arent able to stay in their homes but are able to find replacement housing and stability through settlements, the number is even higher. Its over 1600 households, consisting of an estimated 2500 people saved from homelessness annually by the tenant right to Counsel Program, saves people from homelessness, deters bad faith evictions, saves the city exponentially more than it costs, and has been a resounding success with evictions on the rise and with some gaps in the program. Now is not the time, however, to rest on our laurels. Now is the time to double down on this program, to bring it to full capacity and rise to the challenges our city faces with exorbitant rents, increasing consolidated corporate landlord ownership of rental property, expiring eviction protections, and dwindling rent relief funds. The day after i was sworn in as supervisor, in my first act as supervisor, i called for a hearing to review the initial data from the programs first six months, and that hearing was held in february 2020, just before the city shut down due to covid 19, and at that time, we learned that two thirds of tenants receiving full scope legal representation were able to stay in their homes, an astonishing success rate and for African American tenants, it was even more pronounced with 80 of those facing eviction who were provided an attorney able to stay in their homes. That data was compelling and provided initial evidence that providing tenants with a guaranteed attorney stops displacement and gives San Francisco residents a fighting chance. When facing eviction. In that first budget year, and in the years that have followed, my office has prioritized funding for this program, fending off threatened budget cuts during the pandemic and, in fact, securing a budget increase to the program. During my term in office, i called this hearing so that we could review the evidence from a more comprehensive data set. This time data from years instead of months. And im very excited at what ive seen so far in terms of the data and for the conversation and presentation. We are about to have. I also called for this hearing because we are predictably seeing a sharp rise in eviction filings after expiration of the pandemic. Eviction bands, which were highly successful in bringing San Franciscos eviction rates to the lowest level of any California City during the pandemic, it is essential that we preserve funding for the right to Counsel Program and the upstream eviction prevention programs as a crucial part of Neighborhood Stabilization and recovery, before i turn it over to the Mayors Office of Housing Community development, i want to thank mchd for their work implementing this Program Since the time that voters passed it, and for providing the Background Data and presentation today, in particular, i want to thank the ongoing leadership of brian chiu , helen hale and Nick Pagoulatos , as well as departed most pd staffer hugo ramirez, who we honored here in this these board chambers. I also want to thank the right to counsel providers some of whom are here today, especially the eviction defense collaborative, which has taken the lead on this program among our nonprofit partners, i also want to recognize, my legislative aide, lee lovett, for all her work on this, and particularly her collaborative work with Nick Pagoulatos, in preparation for this hearing, and also my former chief of staff, kyle smiley, who led our offices work for a number of years on the right to Counsel Program. And finally, i know there are tenants here, here who are prepared to share their stories when Public Comment time arrives. And i want to thank them in advance for fighting back against displaced and having the courage to share their stories. By fighting against displacement and sharing your story, you not only are protecting yourselves, but also inspiring other tenants across the city to do the same. So without further ado, and through the chair whom i thank for calendaring this and giving us the time to have this hearing, i want to welcome helen hale, director of residential and Community Services at the Mayors Office of housing and Community Development, to give a presentation on the right to Counsel Program. And then my understanding is we also have ora polkovnik, for the director of litigation and policy at the eviction defense collaborative, who is here for questions. Welcome. Thank you. Supervisor. You covered a number of things i had was going to make sure i recognize dugo and a bunch of other things. And to thank all of you also, i appreciate you taking care of that. And i do really want to thank the supervisors, not just here, but on the entire board for the support that youve given to tenant right to counsel. It is an incredible program, and i do want to be very clear, as the director of Housing Services, i have inherited this program. And so i certainly am not taking any credit for the wonderful work of our cbos and the work of folks for the last five years. But without further ado, ill get through our presentation. So in general today we want to cover sort of just the general extent of the tenant right to counsel that includes our much broader prevention, eviction prevention kind of strategies. In fact, the Housing Stabilization and eviction prevention work has shifted under my direction because in fact, were putting together all of the work that is trying to work against homelessness in the city. So not only do we have this, but we also have Housing Services within our former public housing. We also have our all different types of Work Together. But in general, the tenant right to Counsel Program, we have a structure. We want to measure success. We want our successes and challenges to be covered today as well as well talk about some Lessons Learned in general. You can see from this slide that that while we had a certain level of ud filings and or default judgments, but over the course of the years weve had its dipped and its now back on the rise again. I think its important for folks to understand and not believe that things have stayed relatively low. But we are on an incline again, which is an important component that you would share with us. Supervisor as we move through, as you can see, its a tenant right to counsel. We also have tenant counseling, education, outreach. We also have our Bar Association work for conflict mediation, direct emergency rental assistance, and the small sites program. These are all programs that Work Together uniformly to be able to support the work that were doing. So our next slide so prop f as you provided an enormous background which is very helpful. Thank you, but its important to understand that full Scope Representation is important. There are a number of populations, particularly those that are vulnerable, who might be worried about trying to get an attorney. They might not know how to go about doing those things. And so by providing this proposition, we are ensuring and any kind of notice that goes out to any of our households, they receive this information and are instructed to where they can go to get help. This is a very important component. And it does intersect and stop notices going out. And a person not knowing what to do that that piece in San Francisco is a very crucial and really it its geared toward how do we support folks in a compassionate way when theyre going to lose their housing . And thats its a great fear factor. We want to make sure that we do understand that proper prop f does not necessarily, there are specific areas that we do not cover, and those are eviction cases where the landlord or Master Tenant reside in the same unit, default judgments or motion to vacate, which we can explain it later time or foreclosed owners. But in general, were trying to cover all of the different types of eviction processes that will happen. List of our partners. Were very grateful to have all of them. They all reach different types of populations and Work Together in a collaborative, which can be a very difficult thing to do. So its important that were able to reach all the different populations in San Francisco and across San Francisco. Folks live in lots of different places, and so you want them to go to their most trusted provider. Basically, our current defense system, we have, proper, and that is available. To everybody. There is no vulnerability scoring at all. Then theres full Scope Representation, which is subject to vulnerability scoring and then limited scope, which is available to all. I think its important for folks to understand, sorry, i need better glasses clearly if its down here, but i think its really important that at the very beginning of the tenant right to Counsel Program, when we were meeting and we were having really good, good results with the two thirds, but there were groups of folks that we felt like perhaps we werent meeting and we wanted to ensure that Going Forward, from an equity perspective, that we were going to be able to meet the most vulnerable populations and so with the inclination at that time that perhaps as we increased what we were doing, that we want to make sure that those folks had the most connection to what needed to happen, that thats not to say that we dont want to offer, full Scope Representation to every single person, but we wanted to ensure that those that are most vulnerable, for instance, a senior, a person that has someone thats disabled, someone with. A single mom with young children, people that are extremely poor, bipoc populations, that those folks actually were able to access and get the type of representation and that they were, in fact, at the front of the line and making sure theyre being represented. Those are also the folks that would be most at risk for having an eviction. Go a very poor manner. As you can see from this slide, basically 84 of folks are receiving full scope of this is from fiscal year 2223. Thats the most current year that we have a full year of data for, and 16 receive, the limited scope. We do. I did bring just a couple of numbers for you, so basically in fiscal year 1920, we had 18, 18, 49 cases, 2021, it was down to 1050, 21, 22. It was about 1200 cases. And now 20, 2223 back to 1800. So were were on the incline and were going were quickly reaching where we were in 1920. 92 of the residents i think this is, you know, they avoided homelessness. I mean, that that number is pretty astonishing. If you think about what is happening across San Francisco, the number of folks that actually potentially are at risk. If you look at our next slide, which is also more data, so you have youre looking at a very small percentage of folks that didnt have a favorable settlement. It depending on full scope, youve got 7. If youre of limited scope it goes to 9. But that that number is very, very, very small. And in fact, the number of folks that actually receive some type of limited support or full scope support are actually having a favorable outcome. And youll see that the favorable outcome, they either stayed in their home or they moved out with a favorable settlement, meaning that that was something that they they were acceptable to. We provide you with a list of the different types of alleged causes that were happening. You can see a large amount of them are for nonpayment of rent, and we have some other types of, of Different Things, but theyre in smaller percentages. All of these are for cause, which i think is its important for folks to know that, that were not really intersecting with things that are just happening for somebody decides that they have to move out, but theres actual cause involved. I think this slide is really important for folks to understand that, that both subsidize households, but also private landlords within the private landlords. I do want to just note for you that a tenant based rental subsidy, that someone thats got a voucher, that is, theyre actually going out into the private market thats included in the private numbers. So there are folks in that private number that actually are folks that would meet some kind of a subsidy requirement, like a federal subsidy. So you do have extremely low income folks potentially living in private housing landlords, so that thats thats a vulnerable population. And most likely were going to look at whether or not we will actually track that information slightly separately. Going forward. When i saw that, make sure that were able to call out the folks that are in tenant based rental subsidies. Again, heres heres a slide where were talking about the fact that were meeting our extremely low income population. Its very significant. Were really were targeting and wanting to work with low income folks, which are the folks that potentially wouldnt be able to afford an attorney, but they also may be from a population where folks might be uncomfortable seeking legal representation. And so therefore, we are reaching our targeted population. Its a very small above moderate income. Youve got a very, very tiny number of there in percentage. Our next slide has to do with race and ethnicity. I think its really important if youre looking at this. Were obviously reaching the population that were interested in reaching which is bipoc population. But if you also then put an overlay, if you were to put an overlay, for instance, with the black population, the black population in San Francisco is very small, its about 5. And yet were actually reaching the number of folks that were actually serving as is about 18. So obviously we are reaching the population of folks that are most targeted or have are struggling with their housing, perhaps. We also provided you a slide. This is done by, our geocoded addresses for the trc folks. And so thought folks would be interested in understanding from which neighborhoods folks are coming from. And as you can see, its neighborhoods that one would expect Tenderloin Mission south of market, nob hill does get in there, but bayview hunters point. So youre seeing that were again serving those areas where most likely you have larger rental population like developments and all and, or you have households or other rental properties that are there, i do want to note that in this slide that, edc also does get another grant, for some of their work. Theyre from a caliber grant. And so weve included that information in here just because its useful. Weve also given you a supervisor district in case youre interested, which is helpful, i think, for folks to see where things are going across in terms of how it impacts your own neighborhoods. Then happily, when we get to successes again, 92 of tenants who receive representation avoided homelessness. And i think, you know, this is this is the kind of, program that you want to sort of celebrate from San Francisco. Yes, its being represented nationally. And people are taking it. But in fact, were doing what what the legislation, that the supervisor put put on place. Thats what were doing. 70 of black and indigenous, client households receive full Scope Representation, and they stay in their home, its the highest success rate of any ethnic group, we also work very closely with emergency rental assistance. Also part of our type of services, to help cover any settlement agreements or pay back rent, these are important to have them Work Together so that folks are able to meet whatever their requirements are, and we can get people back in Good Standing, many of our Legal Services organizations have social workers on on staff, and they help to support the clients might need case manager or make referrals, Mental Health services, types of. So were making the connections that are necessary for folks to remain in Good Standing Going Forward. 22 jurisdictions across the country have some kind of right to Counsel Program, and most cd and trc staff regularly are in communication with these jurisdictions. So again, a national model. In terms of Lessons Learned, the vulnerable city scoring system for the full scope cases was needed because we really when it was first come first serve, it wasnt as effective in meeting that target population. We really wanted to ensure that Going Forward that we were able to meet the bipoc population in the very low income folks in San Francisco, first and foremost, i think its really important for us to understand also that being able to work with that population in a way where they are connected and they have a positive experience, with services in general, but Legal Services in particular, really works to reduce the trauma of folks who are sitting and going to be evicted. Its a the fear level, the trauma level of receiving a notice and losing your home is something that can be underrepresented. In addition, our legal aid attorney recruitment and retention. One of the things that we struggled with a little bit in the beginning was the salaries needed to be competitive for hiring and retaining attorneys. The support staff that are needed also, we have also built a pipeline for getting legal aid, housing attorneys who are able to come into the system and receive support. So weve created partnerships with law schools, developed fellowship positions for post grad and post bar employment. Providing this option for folks to begin their legal career and begin to learn and educate themselves around the system ensures that this program is fully sustainable in terms of staffing, ramping up time, though, to train new attorneys, you have to get them up to 50 cases. So there is a lag time and the importance of maintaining the funding at the level that were at so that we do not incur any losses to this pipeline is extremely important. So as you mentioned, the current funding for this program is 17. 7 million. In addition, we provide you with information around what what is a fully loaded, trc legal defense, which is about 315,000, and we provide you with a breakdown of what that might pay for, again, i when i say the pipeline for the attorneys for getting the program up and running, we created a ramp as we were going in, the pandemic hit and it did it did create sort of a dip in sort of the legal side, which allowed us to get this pipeline in place to be allow us to get the Program Fully functional. We are fully functional at this time and so in making sure and we appreciate you, supervisor, to keep our funding at a certain level so that we do not incur having to recreate, pipeline or recreate opportunities that weve put in place. The continued on ramping of this has really been important before you lead that slide, i just wanted a clarification on that so that, 315,000 for the team, thats an annual figure that would handle my understanding is about 50 cases. Im just trying to figure out the per. I dont want someone to look at this and think, were spending 315,000 to defend one eviction. No, no, no. But am i right . Is it. Thats correct. Is it about 50 per team . Yes. Thats what a fully loaded attorney is. There are a number of caseloads. Yes. Thank. You. Yes, we probably should have included that in the slide. No problem, so just so people know that moving forward, this is our current staffing, we do we are letting you know that we currently have eight vacancies, working very hard to be able to fill those vacancies. But this is the current staffing currently in, in our system right now. Thats it for me. I dont know if you want to take questions now or later or president peskin. I have some, but i see my colleague on the roster. No, i appreciate, supervisor preston following up on this and i was proud to support prop f back in the day, and delighted that it has fulfilled its promise. And one of the things i always worry about is the supervisor. And we have plenty of instances of this, is when we fund an effort like this and it does not fulfill its promise. And this is not that case. And we struggle in so many ways as matters of Public Policy and funding about homelessness. And we dont put enough thought or effort into stemming the tide of homelessness at the front end. So this is i mean, this is a critical thing. 1700 people a year that are not ending up on our streets is exactly the kind of Public Policy priorities that we should be undertaking. And strengthening, so hats off to you. Thank you. Thank you, president peskin. And thank you for miss hale for your presentation. All your work. So i do have some questions and feel free. Let me know if these are better answered by you. Oh shes sitting right there. Okay. Jump up if you. Yes, im going to invite her up, i promise you. Okay. Well, ill try not to. No. Its fine. Ill try not to nerd out too much on the numbers, but i do have some questions and things i. I want to clarify and let me just start, as i said before, i this is a hugely Successful Program that has, as president , peskin says, has absolute lutely decreased the number of people becoming homeless in our city and addressed as i really appreciate you pointing out in your presentation, not just the housing issues, but the stress and the anxiety and the toll on on peoples Mental Health of being under threat of eviction. And i have seen, i will say as as a supervisor, im sure my colleagues have as well. When people come to us right with that stress, to be able to tell them this program exists and they are going to have an attorney immediately, immediate gives a level of stress relief and comfort. In addition to all the benefits weve talked about financially and in terms of housing preservation, i, i want to i want to ask a handful of, of questions, around the, the kind of where we are in relation to the promises of prop f, right. I think that this program has made truly remarkable strides. And i was looking back, ive been working on this stuff for too long. I was looking back at the 2014 stanford study when they when. They, you know, surveyed how successful it was to have people have an attorney and they were literally talking about out of thousands of cases, like 117 of them. Right . Actually getting these full scope attorneys. And weve seen and im sure edc has all these numbers, seeing that number of full Scope Representation rise to the point its at now is truly a im very proud of the city and everyone involved for getting to that point and the fact that we have 84 of people who are getting attorneys, getting that full Scope Representation is really impressive and far better than any other city im aware of, all that said, there are some gaps, right . And the reason we you talked about prioritization under the vision of prop. F, we wouldnt be needing to prioritize because the minute anyone walks in with their notice of eviction in a court of public defender type model, they would have full representation, right, and i get that were not there, and i dont ask these questions in a spirit of criticism. I ask them in a spirit of trying to get to where absolute full promise is realized. So i wanted to ask you to address, what . Maybe we can start with the, the fact that some cases go to limited Scope Representation, not full Scope Representation. Why why that is it a shortage of the funds . Is it a shortage of people . Is it like what what would it what are we missing to fill that gap and for the public. And i just want to be aware that, you know, we have a lot of people who watch these hearings who dont know what the heck im talking about when i say full scope or limited scope. So full Scope Representation often means you get an attorney and that attorney is with you throughout your through the judgment of your case at every settlement conference, at any deposition, and every hearing. Limited scope is the sort of the older model of when you have a real scarcity. Of attorneys, you decide, well, well just send an attorney with you for this settlement conference, or well have an attorney help you prepare this document. Thats limited scope. And every study im aware of. And one of the foundational things of prop f was that we want to have everyone, getting full Scope Representation. So whats it going to take to close that gap . So everyone does. Good afternoon supervisors i want to add my appreciation that you call this hearing gave us an opportunity to look back at what we have accomplished with our ten right to Counsel Program and what remains Going Forward as needed. And im im the director of litigation and policy with the eviction defense collaborative. And as was shared earlier, the edc is the lead agency in our tenant right to counsel, working closely in collaboration with the other seven participating Legal Service organizations. As what youve stated is exactly correct, we are not yet fulfilling the vision of prop f, which contemplates providing a full scope attorney to every single tenant in San Francisco who has eviction papers, the reason that we are falling short of that goal is a combination of the factors that you mentioned, its financial, but really its a lack of capacity within the staffing amongst our eight participating Legal Service organizations, there is a, a ramping up required between hiring a new attorney and that attorney, having the skills and resources to meet the deliverables that were mentioned. Of 50 cases per fully loaded attorney, so we have multiple missions that were trying to fulfill, one of which is were creating the housing justice warriors of the next generation, we learn very early on that the eight lsos could not all compete with each other for the limited pool of attorneys out there who had the skills to do this. So weve learned that our best source for new attorneys are the post graduate fellowship programs. So we are working closely with law schools to learn that we are a great place for employment. Upon graduation. When we start trying to have them while they are law clerks, the sort of our answer to the Summer Associate world of the big firm and then after graduation, we have fellowships and were working on both recruitment and retention issues, weve recently with some of the trc funding thats available, been able to hire a pipeline specialist that were very excited with. Whos working not only on retention issues but also recruitment and particularly building up the diversity of our attorney staff so that we can more mirror the clients that we serve, which has been a lack in the program. So to answer your question, really, we need to continue the ramping up that we started in 2019 when we kicked off, we immediately were all struggling to suddenly fund and hire and create a staff that could do those 50 cases a year, and we werent able to do that. And then covid so we began to ramp up and that died. And now weve ramped up again, and we could see the payoff in doing that and why its so important that the city, not disinvest in the program that its already created, because not only would that harm the clients in the coming year, but it would cause us to go backwards in time to where we were before. We need to be able to maintain the budget that we have now to continue our recruitment efforts. So that the new law fellows and you saw in an earlier slide that we are currently, in our system, have nine law fellows. Those law fellows, by the end of this fiscal year will be new staff attorneys. And were bringing in a new crop of law fellows in the fall, should the budget continue to allow us to do that and so thats the cycle that were trying to create. And those new law fellows now will be the supervising attorneys in five years from now. And so thats the cycle that we need to be able to not have to utilize this vulnerability score that weve talked about, one other thing that ill add is that we learned very early on that that a waitlist does not work in eviction cases because of the great speed with which these cases move through the system. Theres no benefit to putting somebody on a waitlist. And thats why it became very important. Working closely with mchd and in collaboration with each other, that we created the criteria for our vulnerability score. We saw it as an issue of equity. We didnt want to take one of our available attorneys and have them represent a client who perhaps had a summer home down the street that they could relocate to, should they be evicted and have to turn down a single mother with three kids and no place to fall back on. So were using the type of criteria that i think anybody would consider reasonable. We were assigning a vulnerability score, considering language barriers, whether theyre elderly, whether theres minor children in the house, physical and mental disabilities, long term housing or. Subsidized housing because thats a greater need to prevent displacement from those types of units. And considering those factors, we are providing the full Scope Representation to those who would otherwise be the most vulnerable. And i think our stats bear out that were making wise decisions. I dont believe that our positive success rate for the limited scope cases would be as high if we werent using this. Basically, triage system to prioritize those most in need of representation. Thank you, are. One of the other aspects of prop f that was really fundamentally different than, than any other city was the definition of when not just having full Scope Representation, but of when that, right to an attorney kicks in. Right. And there are models where it happens much later in the process. The vision of prop f was that at that first possible moment when someone gets that notice to quit, that they get an attorney, i, i understand that that is not always the case currently, that there are certainly situations where people who get a notice are told to come back when they get an unlawful detainer. Again, i understand the capacity limits , and it may depend on what type of eviction and so forth, but im curious if youre tracking that. Like in other words, out of the full scope cases that youve presented, do we know or is that data that we can track as to whos getting an attorney at the notice stage versus whos getting it . Once an unlawful detainer action is filed, thats not something that we are currently tracking well, but certainly could start Going Forward to pay more attention to that data, i will say, as our understanding of the language of prop f is that the, the right to counsel kicks in either when they receive the court papers or 30 days after receiving the notice, terminating tenancy. So there are different types of eviction. Some are triggered by 30 or 60 day notices. And in those cases, its quite easy to bring in counsel during the pending notice, what some people refer to as forced evictions usually nonpayment or breach of lease or nuisance, those are triggered by a three day notice. And so by the time the 30 days have lapsed, theyre already in the Court Proceedings with unlawful detainer. So weve learned that it makes much more sense for those fault cases to become engaged at the court stage, rather than looking for that 30 day time period. So we are making a distinction on the folks who come to us with the no fault 36 day notices. Those are getting referred to attorneys right away during that notice period. Got it. Thank you for that clarification. And can you can you just for the publics benefit, walk us through. I always see these kind of hearings as an opportunity to educate the public, especially since we know we see a lot of defaults where people get these papers and do not file anything. So what is someone to do when they receive a eviction paperwork . And how do they best access the services of edc and the other providers as well . Thank you for asking that question, because one of the numbers in the slide presentation, you saw that makes me the most unhappy is the rate of defaults. There should not be any defaults in a jurisdiction such as ours, which has a tenant right to Counsel Program. But we continue to see those numbers and we would like to use what resources we have to actually go and target the neighborhoods with the highest rates of default and, and do some intensive educating to try to bring those numbers down, a default occurs when somebody is served with legal papers and they dont respond on time. Basically, they lose without having any opportunity to present their defenses and tell their side of their story and the whole point of our tenant right to Counsel Program is to prevent that from happening and let everybody have their Due Process Rights to tell their story. When somebody has any papers, whether its a notice terminating tenancy or the later stage, which is the court papers , they should immediately come to us at the eviction defense collaborative, we do a centralized intake for the entire system, and they could come to us whatever way is easiest for them to access our office. So we have drop in hours every day of the week except thursdays. So monday, tuesday, wednesday and friday were open for drop in between 10 00 and 1130 or again in the afternoon between 1 and 230. They could also email our office, or they could phone us and we could do more remote work with them. And those numbers are available on our website, we also in our tenant right to counsel system, have basically a no wrong door approach. So there are eight participating Legal Service organizations. And if somebody has a preexisting relationship with one of those agencies other than the eviction defense collaborative, or perhaps theyre in a member of a Demographic Group which has a better match with one of those other agencies, rather than coming through us. They could go straight to any of the participating right to counsel agencies and do an intake at that agency. If that agency is not able to help them, theyll still route them back to us through edc. Thank you, the following up around the defaults, because i do think that is a concern, right. Seeing that that number as high as it is, and those are folks, some of whom may have defenses to eviction, but because of the procedures, end up having a judgment entered against them because they dont understand the process, and its very difficult, obviously, to get those kind of judgments vacated, even sometimes, if theres if there wasnt grounds for the eviction in the first place. Right. And so, i are there strategies for addressing the defaults . That. And i want to i dont want to get outside the scope of, right to counsel specifically. Like i do think our, complementary services, the upstream outreach, tenant counseling, all the folks doing that work are actually a big part of making sure people know their rights in case they get evicted, but within the context, more specifically of right to counsel, any efforts to bring down default numbers to reach people, either. I dont know if the courts, the superior court, is helpful at all, like how to notify folks as early as possible of the right to Counsel Program. So we dont see so many people defaulting, this is a subject near and dear to my heart. When the cases are initially filed, the court does send out whats called a notice to defendant. Its basically a letter that says, dear tenant, you might not know this, but youre being evicted. And here are some resources for you. So they are receiving those letters and theoretically are being told that they could be coming to the edc for the assistance they need. So i dont think further education through the courts is going to change whats happening , we do get notices from the court each month of how many defaults have been entered, divided up by zip code. So again , i would like to engage in a Research Project using those zip codes to really determine whats behind those numbers, some of the people. Are defaulting, probably because they were long gone before the papers were served and they self evicted or walked away. And those arent the people were concerned about. Were concerned about the people who have too much on their plate and dont know how to respond to these papers. The its a form of denial to put your head in the sand and not respond. And we need to educate those people that actually you can win and you can keep your house, but you need to go to these people who can help you. And this is where i think some of the ten counseling organizations that are a part of most portfolio could be of great assistance, literally. Door knocking in some of those areas and know the law sessions that we could help them conduct and programs of that nature. We also have started a motion to vacate Default Program within edc, helen mentioned a, separate grant that we have. So were using some Caliber Funding to do motion to vacate work, which is not directly funded, one of the exemptions from prop f is postjudgment work. So once somebody has a default, we cant do that work under right to counsel. But if we succeed in setting the default aside, then all the work on the case does come back under prop f and right to counsel funding. So weve been trying to do more of that work with actually doing those motions to vacate both within our agencies and some of the other participating lsos are doing that work. I will also say that, a shockingly High Percentage of our cases are within the citys portfolio of subsidized housing. Thats true in the area of our of the fault evictions in general. And in the default numbers in particular. So i think theres some low hanging fruit there in terms of ways that we could try to intervene and avoid some of those default cases. One would be if one of the permanent Supportive Housing programs were to be evicting a tenant, a part of serving the papers of that tenant is they have to send a heads up notice to edc so that we could, with our social workers, be doing our own independent outreach to those tenants so that they dont default. And should that not be successful, it would also be great if the city gave guidance to its Housing Providers that once theyve entered a default, if they do receive communication from an attorney representing that client, they should stipulate to set aside that default. Its really unforgivable that the city is paying their providers to pay their attorneys to evict somebody. And then paying us to try to get that person back in their house. And then worse yet, paying to rehouse somebody thats on the streets when instead there could just be an agreement up front to set aside those defaults and let that tenant have their Due Process Rights to move through the court system. Thank you for elevating that. And we held separate hearings on evictions in Supportive Housing. And i think that is a great suggestion youve made so happy to follow up on that, i do want to clarify that while prop f does not require representation for tenants after judgment, nor does it preclude it. Right . So, i mean, i do think a decision and its not a decision for today, but there would certainly be nothing inconsistent with the vision of prop f were Mayors Office, housing, Community Development to decide to allocate funds for these postjudgment motions. I do think prop f, you know, in the in the spirit of drawing the line somewhere did not cover, for example, appeals and other postjudgment motions. And was focused on guaranteeing representation from, eviction notice through through judgment. But but the point taken and its good theres separate funding for that, i, i think my final questions are just, to get back to the money, maybe for, for a minute for, for either of you. Can you compare the cost, if you have these numbers at your fingertips and maybe i can help. If not, but, the cost to the city not in terms of the human toll, but just dollars and cents of someone being homeless in San Francisco versus the cost, as youve laid it out per per case invested in right to counsel with the success rates that youve outlined. So the average cost per case comes to about 6,300, thats if you take those numbers you saw earlier and divide them out over a 50 caseload expectation for our attorney staff. So you combine that 6,300 per case with our 92 success rate, and it really is a no brainer. On the citys return on investment. If somebody was rendered homeless because they didnt have counsel that was keeping them housed. Were talking about 70,000 for a shelter bed and rehousing that individual. So the ignoring what i dont think its proper to ignore, which is the intangibles of the trauma thats caused to an individual who goes through that process just from a sound investment perspective, 6,300 to save 70,000 is absolutely a wise budgetary approach. Thank you. Which leads me to my last question. What, so 17. 7 million, i think, is what your slide indicated is the is the current funding in the departments budget ask was that the amount requested this year . So what im allowed to say, you remember that where were where we are right now. So we are not intending to have any reductions in next year. 2425 we my entire portfolio, which represents a concerted effort to work against any kind of homelessness for folks, its Housing Services. Were trying to keep people in their homes, in general, were not having any weve moved things around and were going to incur a continued amount of money Going Forward. The question then becomes, in the year following, depending on where the budget is and all. So i think what what i would say to you all here as well as the larger board, is that its very important that we invest in all of the programs that are preventing people from going to homeless and that they currently funded at that level, and or if there is revenue or available funds on a program thats like this, that is doing really strong work, to invest more money in those programs so that we can continue to reach raise above 92, that that would we would certainly support that as the department for obvious, for obvious reasons. Right. Thank you. Its the best i can. Im not allowed to dig into all of it yet. All right. Thank you very much, the other thing i wanted to just share. I didnt want to interrupt. Ora. Is that so . Within my portfolio of the former public housing. None of the owners go to any eviction process without informing me, and that actually does work, and im working now that im doing all this work working closely with hsh to instill the same types of processes in place so that theyre what we one of the things weve planned to do in the next coming year is to have the tenant right to counsel folks, come to all the Service Providers that are on site and make sure that all the Service Providers, Property Management and Services Work closely together to ensure that in subsidized housing, that in fact, if someone is receiving a notice, they understand hand what is on the notice and that who that they would connect with to get legal representation. And thats in their best interest. Not to ignore whats going on because they do have a very good chance of winning. And so its really important to be able to move forward on that. So that process of creating a connection to inform us actually does work. Ive been doing it now for a long time. Thank you. Thank you so much, supervisor prestigious. I wanted to express my appreciation, for folks here, for the presentation and for all the wonderful work that youve been doing, or ive known you for a long time, and you are awesome. Thank you so much for paving the way for future generations, too. Thank you. Further yeah. Okay. Lets go to Public Comment on this item, please, mr. Clerk, thank you, madam chair. Land use and transportation will now take Public Comment on agenda item number two. If you have Public Comment on this hearing regarding the tenant right to Counsel Program, please come forward to the lectern at this time. And if youre waiting for your opportunity to speak, you may do so along that western wall that im pointing out with my left hand. Could we get the first speaker, please . Thank you. My name is. Youre probably going to hear my voice anyway. My name is brandon williams. Im fortunate enough to be the actual pipeline specialist at covenant. Spoke about at the eviction defense collaborative, i began in the social Work Department of eviction defense collaborative in 2021, and now i have this great opportunity to bring more bipoc candidates to the Litigation Team and do a lot of dei trainings for the organization. But what i really wanted to say is, you know, i came to San Francisco bay area in 2011, with a lot of great dreams and believing this was a pretty progressive, space, within three and a half years here i was homeless. I was working on a phd at California Institute of integral studies and became homeless. And i thought that was something that never could happen to me as a, as a, you know, i believe im a wise person, integrity down the line or whatever. And here i was homeless, so i didnt even know about eviction defense collaborative. And to have the opportunity to work for them, to have the opportunity to be a part of this tenant rights, to counsel and to impress, i can now say thank you personally to you because in a strange way, you kind of help me become an alchemist. You help me to take that experience that i had, becoming homeless in San Francisco and turn it into something positive. And i just wanted to say, beyond all the data and everything, what tenant right to counsel is doing for black people, especially in San Francisco . I am working in the social Work Department to have people come in with tears of frustration, of anger, of hopelessness. And when we keep them housed to see the tears change and transform into hope and to appreciation and to knowing that theyre not going to have to be retraumatized by hitting the streets. So it is beyond important for this to continue. Thank you for sharing your comments. Appreciate it. Thank you. Can we have the next speaker, please . Good afternoon, supervisors and public, my husband ben and i are here as beneficiary of the right to Counsel Program, we are both fourth generation san franciscans and, retired on a fixed income. And have lived in our current neighborhood for over 40 years. Our story is simply summed up, stephen, excuse me, Stephen Collier of the tenderloin housing clinic saved our lives. If not for his representation of us, we would have just been more victims of greedy Property Owners and the abuse of laws that are meant to protect tenant rights, the dispute with our landlord arose when we discovered in 2019 that we had been living under rent control for over 25 years and had overpaid our rent by more than 90,000, we met with our landlord to, try to work something out that did not turn out very well. And ultimately we were faced with an ellis act eviction that was clearly retaliatory, retaliatory . But with the help of steve hoops to close, we staved off our landlords attempts to relocate us. Not that we werent looking for another home, but on a fixed income and with security concerns, it was near impossible to find a decent, affordable place for 70 year olds to land even outside San Francisco. Thank you for sharing your comments. Could we have the next speaker, please . And for those who are waiting for your opportunity to speak just so you understand the rings that youre going to hear, youll hear a soft chime. And that means theres 30s remaining, and then there will be a louder chime. And that means we need to move on to the next speaker. Next speaker, please. Hi. This is rosheen eisner from the San Francisco Tenants Union. Ive been following ben and kathy wongs story since i started at the Tenants Union over a year ago. Im so happy to hear that they have been able to remain in their homes thanks to this program, you know, this is something the Tenants Union has has been supporting since proposition f was first suggested, first put on the ballot. This is one of the most enormously Successful Programs that weve seen, in combating the increase of homelessness and displacement within San Francisco. So, you know, were seeing when tenants either get limited scope or full Scope Representations, one of the two, they remain housed in more than 90 of cases. These are amazing numbers. And thats considering that some of them are currently only getting limited scope, and while you know, we think about a cost of, you know, prevention versus cure. So this really is a great example of an ounce of prevention, versus a pound of cure. So this is on average an Attorney Team costs 6,300 to save a tenant household from being evicted. This is so much less expensive than the situation we would see if this tenant was unfairly evicted. And we know that these evictions are, by and large, unfair because when people have representation, they tend to win. Thank you so much and have a great rest of your afternoon bye bye. Thank you for sharing your comments. Next speaker, please. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Miranda Martin and i work for tenderloin housing clinic, hopefully soon to be staff attorney, i am also a woman of color, and im a single mom of four kids and my one of my supervising attorneys, raquel fox, helped me battle my landlord a very big landlord, a Golden Gateway center, and this was during a time that i had a flood in my unit. And and she basically stood up to them and their their approach was, well, the flood wasnt caused by us. So you can just leave and her approach was, no, this is not right. Miranda has lived here for 15 years, and you are going to accommodate her. And so they did. And she was able to reduce my rent by 1,000 a month, which is, very, very fortunate. And i feel very fortunate to work for this organization. And i look up to Steve Collier as the best mentor that anyone could have, Supreme Court case level, teacher, professor. And im honored to be here. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Can we have the next speaker, please . Im also going to translate for one of our clients. Very good, buenos tardes. Good afternoon. A yo quiero agradecer mucho este programa. I want to thank this program a lot. And especially la dona raquel fox, miss raquel fox. Yaki udon. Mucho she helped me in la casa. Keep me in my home with the veinticinco anos de vivir. I wanted to evict me after 25 years of living in my unit. Pardon me just one moment. Im going to pause your time. If you could each take separate microphones, well hear you more clearly. Theres a second microphone thats on. Very good. Ill start the time again. Okay tambien nos. Nos. Ayuda para qee nos haran la renta. And she also helped us reduce our rent. Incremento abusivo acerca de because it was an unlawful and abusive rent increase. Para que nos den una recompensa monetaria. And she also helped us get a money compensation recovery. Acerca de todos los problemas. Because of all the problems that weve had, and especially the psychological part of it. And i really appreciate the program and all the attorneys who work so hard to keep the program working. Gracias. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comments. Thank you for the interpretive assistance. So the next speaker, please, good afternoon, members Steve Collier, managing attorney of the tenderloin housing clinic, you all know the story and the facts and the, statistics that show this is such an invaluable program towards, preventing homelessness. I just want to say that really, the issue for us, and i think for all the other organizations, is the ability to build capacity. We its just very difficult in this market to hire skilled attorneys. We, as horace said, and, miss hale said about, you know, building, a pipeline for attorneys to come through and get trained is very important. I mean, i have a caseload of 50 more than 50 clients. Plus, im managing the office, plus im supervising other attorneys. So we are stretched thin, and we really need this funding not only to be not cut, but to be increased. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Lets have the next speaker, please. Hi. Good afternoon, supervisors. Thank you for having this hearing. My name is laura chiara. Im the executive director and managing attorney at Legal Assistance to the elderly, one of the trc partnership organizations, i have spent personally my entire legal career doing eviction defense. 20 years in San Francisco. And i remember when there were ten attorneys in San Francisco doing eviction defense. And just every day im so impressed and, and impacted by the change that tenant right to counsel has made and the ability of my amazing our amazing team here, not just in la, but the whole trc wide to save these housings, and it wasnt mentioned, too much, but i do believe that there is potential cuts to rental assistance, which is key to getting these successful outcomes. And i do want to make sure that remains at the top of everybodys, budgetary items for the for this budget cycle, Legal Assistance to the elderly. We provide free Legal Services to seniors and adults with disabilities. About 60 of all the calls we get asking for help are threats to housing, we represented last year 492 clients in active use in full Scope Representation. We have a similar success rate. 93 of the people stay housed, with about 70 staying in their current housing and 20 moving, but never experiencing a period of homelessness. Our clients are the citys most vulnerable. They are 55, have an income of 1,200 or less, i will just leave it off with that. But they do mimic the same numbers and its just such an important critical program. And behind me are some staff and some stories. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Lets have the next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is Winnie Porter and im here speaking on behalf of my daughter zenobia. Thank you for having this hearing. I gave my personal time a few years ago to advocate for this legislation, never imagining that its passage would affect my personal life. My daughter received an eviction letter last week. Needless to say that that letter put both my daughter and i in a in a position of stress and utter frustration. Thankfully, after many phone calls, i was directed to this wonderful organization in l. A. Who just last friday agreed to help with my daughters case. My daughter has Developmental Disabilities and has always struggled with communication skills that make it difficult for her to advocate for herself. And thats why im here with her today. She has been struggling with employment for years. Our Society Encourages folks like me to adopt children, but giving us help after adoption, in my opinion, is dismal. Thats another issue for another time. Just a couple of weeks ago, she was finally accepted into a program by jvs that will train her to be a medical assistant, which will be followed by a six month internship at ucsf. We have been running around completing all the many requirements to begin the program. You can imagine how absolutely frustrating it was to receive that letter. I am a retired teacher that worked in San Francisco, unified for 40 years. I will turn 74 at the end of may. At first i was devastated, thinking i would have to spend my savings on finding her representation as you all know, teachers are not paid well and our retirement checks certainly demonstrate that. I will be eternally grateful to dean preston for writing this legislation and to everyone who helped to pass it. My daughter lives in the tenderloin. I just recently discovered that the tenderloin has the highest number of evictions of any neighborhood in San Francisco. How ironic that my daughters neighborhood was redistricted to have dean represent them. I strongly urge you to keep this Program Going and to help strengthen it. And also increase the funding for it. This program is literally keeping folks from being on the streets. We talk so much about solving the homeless problem. Well, here is your opportunity to do something concrete to reduce the number of unhoused folks. Thank you once again from the bottom of my heart and i am counting on all of you to do the right thing. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. So the next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is katie obrien. Im an educator with San Francisco unified school district. I am the fourth member in my family who has received eviction notices. First, my parents, right after my dad had a stroke, we had to get him to retire. They could not afford to live in San Francisco once they lost their home of 26 years. They now live in the east bay. A few years after that, my sister received an eviction notice when her building was sold. Now here i am as an educator and as the other woman just stated, the teachers here dont really get paid a lot and the rents have gone up astronomically, luckily, my dad was the first person to get connected to the tenderloin housing clinic. Fortunately, it was rachel fox who championed for him, and she also championed for me, coincidentally, over the last two years, i have just won the right to stay in my home of ten years. All four of my Family Members have been respectful tenants, ranging from 26 to 15, and for me, 12 years in our units, this city has gone up in price. It is outrageously expensive for the working people. It has become a town of the wealthy and unfortunately we all cant afford to live here. But we work here. These are our homes. Wed like to stay without these services, i would have moved out of my home as soon as i received my eviction notice. It has been a stressful two years. I have not been able to maintain my classroom, my personal life. I keep thinking that id be living in my car and going to school to teach my children every day. This is a program that you must keep going. The citizens of San Francisco need it. There are so many more that are facing eviction in since the pandemic. Please dont leave your citizens out in the cold. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Could we have the next speaker please . Hi. Good afternoon supervisors. Im picking up where Laura Carreras left off. My name is yasmin kuchesfahan. Im 27 years old and im a law fellow at Legal Assistance to the elderly. I am in pursuit of a career as a housing attorney, tenants rights attorney, and as aura mentioned, it is so necessary that we have this funding so that we that this organization, these organizations can actually support careers and building strong attorneys to do this work sustainably. The high retention rates are really what is impacting our abilities to have high caseloads. And we make really important relationships with our clients. And its in my fellowship at Legal Assistance to the elderly that i had the pleasure of meeting mr. Andrew brown, who you will be hearing from after me, mr. Brown came into our offices with an eviction notice, at his current unit. Hes been living at for 20 years. He was unable to pay rent for a couple of months due to inadequate payment on behalf of his employer. He had contacted his landlord and even provided a union letter provided a lot of documentation, and he was still served an eviction notice. And this important this work is so important because it prevents homelessness for people like mr. Brown, particularly our black and brown elder and disabled community here in San Francisco. I would love to give the remainder of my time. In addition to the time mr. Brown, deserves, so that you can speak directly from him as he is a tenant here in San Francisco. And he is exactly who this program is here to defend and protect. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Get the next speaker, please. Hello. My name is andrew brown, and the first thing i would like to do is thank legal aid for the elderly. Without them, i would be homeless. Ive been working in the city for the union for my working at moscone for 25 years. Ive lived at my residence for 20 years due to the pandemic and the restrictions that San Francisco brought about, we were slow to get back into gear for the convention business, so subsequently i had my union write a letter, and i also write a letter to my Property Management. Subsequently, i paid my back rent, gave it to them on the sixth. They returned it to me on the seventh, saying that they received it and then filed eviction papers on me on the 10th without the help of legal aid for the elderly. Im sure i would have been homeless, and i just wanted to say thank you for all the things that youre doing and the supervisors for bringing voices to the voiceless. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your comments. So the next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is kelly barnett. I am a staff attorney at Legal Assistance to the elderly. Ive been with Legal Assistance to the elderly for the last couple of years. And i can say by far, this is the most rewarding job ive ever had. And ive worked in tech and finance, investment that i know for a fact that we make a very positive change in our community, and it is a profound honor to work with such amazing colleagues. And ill stop talking and let our lovely client tell you a little more before. Before the next speaker begins, im going to start a fresh timer for the next speaker. Oh, hello. Good afternoon. Supervisors. Yeah. Hello. My name is teresa, and i still have my housing due to Legal Assistance for the elderly in collaboration with edc. They are all. Some incredible organizations and, they have helped me to apply and gain rental assistance, for my housing, which ive been there for at least 13 years. Im a Third Generation san franciscan, and i see all that has been happening. But id like to really thank them because im on a fixed income and, i feel that these organizations should be funded, continue to be funded, if not more, they have really helped me and many other people, the homeless situation is pretty bad now. And if it were not for lee and their Legal Assistance to help me stay and edc in collaboration to fund me, i. I would be homeless and i. Im asking you, please dont cut the trc funding and organizations like Legal Assistance for the elderly, will continue to help so they can continue to help, tenants like myself, both edc and la. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Lets have the next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is mitzi, and i serve our community as a social Service Advocate at Legal Assistance to the elderly eviction defense team. As my two Year Anniversary at lee approaches, we have had amazing success in supporting and addressing our clients needs during a time of housing crisis. By providing connection to rental assistance, subsidy referrals, pay programs, inhome support services, and Mental Health services that ultimately save and retain their housing. It is evident that our clients need social services and Legal Support while they navigate their housing issues. Because the majority majority of the tenants who come to our office with housing issues are seeking legal legal representation for the first time with tenant right to counsel funding, we are able to advocate and protect tenants. Some who have lived here for over 15 years from eviction and allow our services to remain accessible to communities in San Francisco, and i yield my time to the rest of. Im going to provide a statement on his behalf. I want to say thank you. Im going to start a fresh timer for the next speaker, but we cant have people yielding time to another speaker. Sorry to say so. If the next speaker is ready to begin, please come forward to the microphone and well start a timer for you. Say im speaking on malcolms behalf because he had a little bit of surgical surgery in his mouth, he was born and raised in San Francisco. He came to l. A. After experiencing hardship during the covid 19 pandemic, fell behind on rent and triggered an eviction notice. He had a long term tenancy at an sro and in the same time suffered an incident in his unit needing a life safety transfer to other housing. The goal was to settle his case and find another place where he can start fresh and have access to a place where he can cook. He was able to get full Scope Representation and social services to ensure he would meet his goal and his housing would not be compromised again, his attorney, jessica and mitzi at Legal Assistance for the elderly helped him settle his eviction case with rental assistance, set him up with Payee Services to ensure rent would be paid on time moving forward, and housing referrals, where he eventually moved into parkview terrace, where he has been able to fulfill his long term goal. So trc funding helped make these Services Accessible and provides protections for tenants like malcolm in San Francisco. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Lets have the next speaker, please. Thank you very much for holding this hearing, i learned about it this weekend and, i knew i had to i dont have prepared remarks, but i knew i had to get down here today. This afternoon. Although mobility is not my strongest suit, i counsel tenants of the Housing Rights Committee. I also work with an unhoused population on two different programs and i just need to tell you, i dont know how we did this before this program to be on the phone with the vulnerable tenants who i say always thank you for calling and asking about your rights to let people know theres even a phone number to call. Okay and to be able to know that in the back of ones mind, there is such a thing as a right to counsel. We should be proud of ourselves that we have this in the city and we cannot let it be. Let it be under funded. Who moves here to be a lawyer . If they cant afford, you know, rent . No but honestly, we have to do this, and we have to continue to do this. I have met unhoused folks who didnt know to call the tenants, you know, Housing Rights Committee or the rent board or anything. So oh my gosh, please, please, please, lets keep this going strong. Okay. Thank you so much, folks. Thank you for sharing your comments. Lets have the next speaker, please. Thank you. Supervisors for hosting this hearing this afternoon. My name is chelsea blackman. Im a staff attorney at Legal Assistance to the elderly, where ive been coming up on four years in october, prior to going to law school, i was a tenant, right . A tenant rights organizer in brooklyn. And in that role, i got to be on the right to Counsel Coalition in new york city. So when i made the decision to go to law school down the street here in San Francisco, i was extremely pleased to find out that San Francisco also, you know, is passing the a right to Counsel Program. And my intentions going into law school was to be a tenant rights attorney. So finding out that then there was going to be funding for me to pursue that dream, was, you know, amazing. I interned at Legal Assistance to the elderly during, law school. Then i was a fellow there, and then i became a staff attorney. So i think this program is definitely, amazing to sort of cultivate new attorneys. And then its great work. So, folks, do, you know, stay on to become amazing attorneys, i just want to stress, i think, how important this program is. It is extremely difficult to navigate the legal system on your own, especially when you know whats on the line for you. Is the roof over your head and theres extreme power and balance between you and the person who is suing you. I think an added challenge for folks defending themselves against eviction eviction is the fact it is a summary proceeding. So you have to figure out this legal system in a very little amount of time, providing tenants a free attorney to assist in their defense is of utmost importance to giving them the best shot to remaining in San Francisco again. So it cannot be a city of just extreme wealth. So i urge urge the city to maintain the support that currently exists for the program. If not, make it more, so thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Lets have the next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is braxton hockey. Im a staff attorney on the housing team at Legal Assistance to the elderly and i have the honor of defending elderly and disabled tenants who face eviction lawsuits in the city. I stand today strongly in support of continued or expanded trc funding. And im also here with my client, arthur, arthur is a 69 year old vet. He was born and raised in the city and he has lived in his soma studio apartment since 1998. He lives on a fixed income. Arthur fell behind on rent and was unable to catch up during the pandemic. Arthur lost friends to covid and could not pursue inperson work because hes at risk for covid related Health Complications while representing arthur full scope in his eviction lawsuit, lee was able to help him craft and execute an agreement with his landlord that saved his tenancy and also provided for forgiveness of over 20,000 in alleged rental debt. Lee was also able to help him secure rental assistance award to cover remaining alleged back rent. Arthur still lives in his studio, today, the tenant right to counsel is instrumental to protecting tenants, particularly elderly and long term tenants like arthur, from eviction and homelessness. Thanks thank you for sharing your comments. Thank you. Lets hear from the next speaker. Please good afternoon, supervisors. Im reagan jern, the managing attorney at bay area legal aid, San Francisco office. Thanks so much for this opportunity. Bay legal provides free civil Legal Services to bay area residents in san franciscans who are living in poverty. The majority of our clients are extremely low income and are also renters, meaning they experience severe housing insecurity and are one life change away potentially from displacement and homelessness. In San Francisco, we have a team of 12 plus staff that work under the tenant right to Counsel Program and our clients, in addition to financial stress, also experience a lot of bias from the system and other challenges related to their life circumstances or identities. Last year, out of our tenant right to counsel cases, a quarter of our clients were dv survivors of over 65 of our clients identified as bipoc, and 59 were People Living with disabilities. We also represent a lot of tenants in subsidized housing, both federal and locally subsidized housing, and last year we were successful in helping a client preserve his federally subsidized housing, where hed lived for 40 years. We also, rep spent a lot of people in San Francisco who are unhoused. We do regular intakes at the shelters, and we see the resources and the time and coordination thats needed from the city. And other partners in order to house someone. Tenant right to counsel is an incredibly effective upstream program to prevent homelessness. And as we heard, its also fiscally responsible and reasonable, just really want to say that we have an amazing staff. A lot of people have worked really hard to get here, and we need sustained funding in order to continue to fulfill our mandate under prop f, to provide representation to tenants in eviction proceedings. Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing your comments. Can we have the next speaker, please . Good afternoon, board of supervisors members, my name is ursula hill. Im a resident of the mission in district nine and a supervising social worker at bay area legal aid, where i work on our housing eviction prevention team, bay legal hired me five years ago as the tenant right to Counsel Program was starting because they recognized and you all recognized it as well, that, someone facing the loss of their home is a dire symptom and really anxiety producing, symptom of a series of things that have gone wrong. Its just a symptom. Its not kind of the root cause, the lawyers who i work with help each of their clients navigate the Legal Process of an eviction. And in tandem, i help these tenants address the causes of instability, people have talked about these already, including health or Mental Health crisis, the loss of income, intimate partner violence, and hope that with these holistic services, they arent risking being in the same situation again, together we help address those immediate legal problems of the eviction and connect people with the additional ongoing support, a lot of people have also highlighted the success of keeping someone in their home, but i also wanted to kind of share, the success of being able to help provide, you know, improved stability or long term stability for folks who arent able to stay in their homes, but who are able to maintain, housing other, you know, maintain, not become homeless, so one of my clients came to us unable to pay rent because of loss of income and Family Financial support, and we were able to help him apply for public benefits, get inhome supportive services, and help, help him move in with his caregiver. Also Family Member where hes going to be able to be more stable for the long term. So thank you. So much, its awful to be kind of in the crisis of an eviction. I feel so honored and proud to be part of this program, and proud to be able to work with the tenants and work with the other attorneys, thanks so much for supporting the program. Thank you for sharing your comments. Lets have the next speaker, please. Good afternoon, supervisors. My name is lisa kim. Im one of the supervising attorneys at bay area legal aid. I will be reading a statement from one of our clients who was unfortunately unable to attend the hearing today. My name is doreen broom. I have lived in the same apartment in San Francisco for 26 for over 26 years. I was working at whole foods as a cashier before the pandemic. During the pandemic, there werent a lot of shoppers, but there were extra and even overtime hours in stocking groceries or doing amazon shopping, and both required constant walking, kneeling, bending, carrying over 50 pounds. This Work Environment accelerated the deterioration of my bilateral osteoarthritis of the knees, and by the middle of 2020, i could not stand up for more than for more than an hour without requiring four days of recovery. Even with pain management, i was very stressed. I couldnt find a job. I had used all of my savings. I learned about bay area legal aid through edc. I didnt tell my bay legal attorney, justin, this, but i was at the end of my rope and can no longer see a tunnel, much less a light at the end of it. It was just blackness. I had put aside 100 for me to surrender my cats to spca. This was the last step for me to letting go of anyone i love. Justin was very patient and let me tell him my story. Justin provided full scope legal help. He made sure i had weekly updates to reassure im not going to be evicted. Justin sought out agencies that could help me not only pay what i owed, but how to be able to pay my future rent. I received emotional support from one of bay legal social workers, ursula and her team. That made me want to start taking meds, going to therapy, start exercising and keep looking and applying for jobs. Now i live in the same apartment i have for the last 26 years with my two cats that i love very much, and i started the process with door to be trained for a job, and im planning to be financially selfsufficient by early to mid next year. If i did not have free attorneys to help me with my eviction, i would have lost my home and bay area legal aid was a lifeline that i needed to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing your comments. Next speaker please. Hi my name is tuesday Rose Thornton and im one of the law fellows at edc on the ramp. I went to law school to do eviction defense work after working as a case manager in permanent Supportive Housing and kind of helping people get on their feet after they had been evicted and spent ten years outside and finally got so sick that the city prioritized them for housing, this work is really important to give people those years of their lives so that they dont have to be spit up or chewed up and spit out through the system, the california code of civil procedure gives most defendants 30 days to respond to lawsuits, but theres a special carve out that makes it so that tenants only have five days to respond to their lawsuits, tenant right to counsel gives tenants a fighting chance, and its really important. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Next speaker, please. Good as were going to do. Can you hear me . We can hear you. Please begin. Good afternoon. My name is tom croner james lick middle school, class of 2007 and 2009. Triple a jv baseball champion. Since those glory days, ive become a staff attorney with bay area legal aid here at the San Francisco office. I think a client i had last week exemplifies the need for this program. Ive been an attorney doing housing work for three, three and a half years, and in my time i had not seen eviction papers that were so sloppily done as the ones that my client faced last week. Unfortunately for him, due to capacity issues at the various orgs, he was not able to get an attorney at the front end of his eviction case. Luckily for him, i was able to sub in last week ahead of what would have been his trial this morning at the settlement conference. We were able to get his case dismissed at, and this is especially beneficial for this client as he is facing many Serious Health concerns and was postponing his necessary surgeries because he wasnt sure if hed have a home to recuperate in. So having this case dismissed gives him an opportunity to go schedule those surgeries. And on a personal note, ive been doing this for like three, three and a half years. Id say ive reached a level of adequacy. I dont know if id say good, but i dont really have a ton of other discernible skills. So any cuts to this program would be quite dire for my future employment, and i dont think my girlfriend would be very happy with me. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Can we have the next speaker, please . Good afternoon supervisors. My name is jeff doelger. Im the director of housing and litigation at the aids legal referral panel. We are a tenant right to counsel funded organization, aarp provides services to folks living with an hiv diagnosis in all of the major bay area counties. And we provide full Scope Representation to folks in San Francisco who are facing eviction proceedings. About 80 of our clients are relying on government benefits as their sole source of income. And for the majority of our clients, housing is a critical resource to make sure that they are able to stay on their medications and control their hiv without having stable housing, a stable place to store their medications as theyre not able to keep their hiv under control, ive been with aarp for approximately nine years, and ive watched our team grow from two housing attorneys to five, five housing attorneys now to social workers and two paralegals, and it truly does take a small army to do the work that we do, we rely on our staff to ensure the success of our clients and make sure theyre able to comply with their settlement agreements and get in touch with the complex web of services in San Francisco, and while most Eviction Moratorium in San Francisco have expired, we are seeing a huge influx in evictions, as you heard today, even though the pandemic is quote unquote over, were still seeing a lot of folks coming to us with huge back rent that accrued because they were unemployed or underemployed, and so for those reasons, continuing trc funding, including erap and other rental assistance is critical because we cant do this work. And key people housed with all of those services in place, thank you for your support. Thank you for sharing your comments. Lets have the next speaker, please. Good afternoon, board of supervisors. My name is michelle matera, and im here to share my story with eviction and the invaluable full scope help the tenderloin housing clinic. And Steve Collier has provided me since 2017. After living in the Presidio Heights for 18 years, i was threatened with an omi eviction by my landlord in december of 2017, just days before the new laws restricting me went into effect. Through the tenant right to Counsel Program, i was referred to steve at the thc. This support made an incredible difference in my life, as steve and his staff were able to provide me with the agency fee and legal knowledge to fight this clear attempt to remove me from my rent controlled apartment. With their help, my landlord rescinded his omi and sold my building a few months later. My current landlords then served in ellis act eviction. In 2019, steve and his staff worked diligently and tirelessly with me. Each step of the way to protect my housing, my case went to the California Court of appeal and set a precedent that helps others facing ellis evictions. Thanks to steve. Steve also was able to recover fees for the appeal, which was incredibly helpful for me to offset over three years of back rent. I am so grateful to steve and his staff at the tenderloin housing clinic that i have been able to stay in my home and retain stability. Steve and the tenderloin housing clinic are invaluable resources to facing eviction and literally save me from homelessness. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. So the next speaker, please. Hi. My name is theresa imperial. Im the director of bilsborrow housing program, bishop, were known as an organization that do services for application assistance or access to housing, but we also provide tenants rights counseling and education. And most of the time when people are looking for Affordable Housing, usually there is an issue in their current housing. And its not until when you do the intake , when you do the, the Counseling Service by the case managers that you realize that they actually need a lawyer. So this tends right to Counsel Program is actually very invaluable program. I dont want to go back to the time and thank you, supervisor preston, for doing this hearing because i was a housing case manager back then when there was no prop f, and when there was no proof, we were like, as a counselor, i was scurrying as to who the lawyer can we contact to because it was, this was the time that there was no full representation , happening yet, so this time, we attends right to counsel. What we also want to advocate is to continue funding for the right to counsel, if anything, to expand it, because you want to outreach to different communities as well, other communities that have language barriers and also, at the same time, expand the funding for sf rental assistance, subsidies, because during the pandemic, the 10th right to counsel the funding for the rental assistance were actually a great, were a great ingredient for people staying in their homes. So thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon everyone. My name is sumiya alotaibi. Im. A bilingual arabic speaking housing case manager with bilsborrow housing program. I would like to share that, because of the tenant Rights Council program, 100 of my arabic speaking clients was able to keep their housing. Not only that, but they feel more confident to, report, eviction notices because i saw, like an increased number of arabic speaking clients who, was able to Access Services and also was able to report the eviction notices, like, not before, because it was a huge stigma around like legal like processes, since all the arabic speaking are new immigrants and they are struggle like a access like Legal Services in their country due to so many circumstances. So i would like you to support the program and continue our community house. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. So the next speaker, please. Good afternoon, supervisors. Molly goldberg, im the director of the San Francisco antidisplacement coalition, and so many people here have spoken so well to how incredibly effective the tenant right to Counsel Program is and how essential it is. One thing id like to underline that weve heard from a few folks here, is how the existence of such an effective tenant rights to Counsel Program allows the whole fabric of antidisplacement services in the city to function better, right . When a tenant comes in to bishop or any tenant rights clinic and is facing pressure from their landlord to move, and they know that if it gets to the point of an actual eviction, there is a whole system there to have their back. Those tenants are so much more likely to stay in their homes through that struggle. And on a personal note, i lost my rent control apartment more than ten years ago before we had a tenant right to counsel because of a frivolous lawsuit that our landlord brought against us to get us out of our well below market rate apartment, and we fought until we ran out of the money to fight, and then we had to move. And if tenant right to counsel had been in place at that time, i would still be in that apartment. So i that that is my story. But i think that there every single day in our counseling clinics around the city, we see examples of people who say, because i know that the city has my back, because i know that these organizations have my back. Im going to stay and fight, and they get to stay in their homes. And thats a huge difference for all of us here. Thank you for sharing your comments. So the next speaker, please. Muy buenas tardes. Supervisors very good afternoon. Supervisors. My name is ivonne espinosa. Despues de vivir durante in Visitacion Valley durante siete anos after living 17 years in Visitacion Valley. May i, may i may amenazo con my landlord threatened my me to threaten to evict me in 2023 meant. No. And i found out about the trc program. Un abogado de la organizacion, and i was able to retain an attorney at tenderloin housing clinic in una gran marco, una grande differentwe in todo el proceso, and who helped me with the make a very big difference in the whole process, a la trabajo conmigo in cada paso del camino. The attorney worked with me every step of the way. Tanto yo me familia hayamos quedarnos en nuestra casa so that my family and i could continue to live in our home. Recibir apoyo para republicanos hubiera sido un trabajo muy dificil agradecemos a grande de Santa Organization be able to move and to receive assistance in moving would have been very difficult. I am very appreciative of miss, attorney raquel fox, who helped us un caso de eviction y poder, who helped us not get evicted and helped us stay in Donde Estamos in our home where we continue to live. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing your comments. Can we have the next speaker, please . Good afternoon supervisors. Im mitch loewenberg with the Affordable Housing alliance and also work with the San Francisco antidisplacement coalition, a slightly different perspective, but very similar conclusion. We have spent a lot of time and resources over the years on new Affordable Housing construction, three kind of fun little vignettes the Farmers Market, housing and alimony was subject to a referendum, and we had to assemble a Campaign Staff and a message and on a very small budget win that so that housing could happen. Park view commons when that was subject to a referendum, we had to come here to the board of supervisors and point out that the item, the action that was being attempted to being referred was actually a ministerial action and not subject to referendum, because the actual legislation had occurred months before, another last one of those thats kind of fun was, steamboat point, project down there by delancey street. We had to come to the board of supervisors and help them with a last minute street vacation that had been, somehow neglected to happen, so we spent a lot of time on that. And now its very fashionable these days to think that build, build, build is somehow going to solve all of our problems. But the thing that is just so abundantly clear is its just so much more Cost Effective to keep people in their homes than to try to build new homes for them after theyve been evicted. And thats what right to counsel does. So thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Lets have the next speaker, please. Hi, my name is nami. Im a right to counsel coordinator at eviction defense collaborative. I have also have done i also do housing organizing with west side tennis association. Ive worked as a case manager for unsheltered folks, and ive also experienced housing displacement myself. And i just want to say that rtc is an extremely Important Program because i am. Im the first like me and my coworkers are the first people, that tenants see when they come to seek support from us. We talk to one hundreds and hundreds of people, some of whom, like we support, since they cant get full Scope Representation as pro pers, and edc helps, we are we are supported by staff attorneys who give us like support and advice and help us be able to support these tenants and i hear firsthand about how much stress that relief is for these tenants, a lot of whom are going this is not the only stressor theyre going through, a lot of whom are Supportive Housing tenants who i used to like, fight tooth and nail to even get them in the housing in the first place. And now theyre about to lose it. And for people who are long term tenants, for people who are older, pretty much the most vulnerable being evicted are coming through our doors and are really, really thankful for the help that were able to provide them. And i also wanted to like second, all the people who said to, support competitive salaries, to retain turning support staff as well as this program would be is so crucial to be alongside rental assistance like erap. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Lets have the next speaker, please. And is that speakers coming up . If we have anyone else who has Public Comment on agenda item number two, you may line up along the western wall of the room. Next speaker please. Good afternoon, councilors. Thank you for doing this. And to be on, you know, listen to all of us, as we speak about our concerns for the rtcs , i work for edc eviction defense. I am from the Subsidies Department for edc, and i see every other day that i go to the office, a lot of my coworkers working every day, helping all these needs of the people who needs eviction defense collaborative to defense for their home to stay in and stability. I do seek people that, from my other, you know, our colleagues from different organizations like and lrp and bishops and other organizations that we share the same common help in the need of to maintain the rtc in the communities and to hear the right to counsel for everyone, especially for people that are immigrants, illegal immigrants, and have difficulties in communication. Spanish speakers, chinese, cantonese, vietnamese, and so others that we help a majority in most of the time we are not able to complete to serve all of them, but to trying to help the most of them. So please advocate for them and advocate for my clients. Please keep up this and we can do accomplish much more than it is for our city to keep house. Everyone, thank you. Thank you for sharing your comments. Do we have anyone else who has Public Comment on agenda item number two . Madam chair. Okay. Supervisor preston. Thank you, madam chair. Do you want to close public . Yeah Public Comment is closed. Thank you. And i want to thank everyone who came out to provide Public Comment, especially tenants who were directly impacted and could give us first hand accounts of the program and also to the many providers, the attorneys, intake folks, outreach folks. But folks who are involved in, in this program, its really, weve talked about the result, but i want to underscore is a tremendous amount of work that goes into it that is reflected by many of the folks who who spoke and, point one Public Commenter made that i wanted to elevate something ive thought a lot about in my in many years, about 20 years of doing this work before taking office. Is, i think, for folks who havent either been evicted or, or worked with folks being evicted, we can sometimes lose sight of the fact that of how completely the system of evictions is set up to evict people. Right. And it may sound obvious, but its, you know, in most places in the country, if you go to eviction court, there is, i think, the average according to the National Coalition for, right to civil counsel, found that on average, 5 of tenants in unlawful detainer cases across the country are represented by an attorney. And thats in comparison to on the other side of the courtroom is an average of. Their study was about 85 of landlords represented. And in San Francisco, its more than 85 of landlords who have access to attorneys. So that that is the dynamic and what i think some of the eviction Defense Attorneys probably cant say because they have to appear in front of these judges. But i will say, as someone who used to appear in front of these judges, is that while there are exceptions, many of the judges are very much from the perspective of really starting with an assumption that eviction cases are filed for a reason, and that that people, should end up evicted in these cases. And it takes a tremendous amount of work to reverse that. The california laws, as one of the Public Commenters tuesday, rose pointed out, are very, very much set up to make sure that eviction happens quickly and the time lines are really unheard of for any other civil disputes that are resolved, whether thats foreclosure of a homeowner or resolving a commercial debt or, or any or contract disputes. These things can take months to years in a court, but eviction cases are set up so that the trial happens in a matter of weeks, not in a matter of months or years. So its within that context that what we have done collectively here in San Francisco really stands out where were actually talking about numbers that are providing more in the order of 70 of tenants with representation from attorneys. And we can all put our Heads Together about how to do even better than that, but but i dont want to miss the opportunity to, to just, note that and celebrate that, and, and realize that it took the voters of San Francisco voting for that, it took, Mayors Office of housing and Community Development as willing partners in implementing that. But at the end of the day, it takes a ton of folks dedicating their careers and their lives to the kind of work that will never make them rich. But will hopefully be rewarding in the number of families and homes and individuals saved through their efforts, so thank you all for your work. The i think the data really speaks for itself here, i think just in closing, i want to elevate a couple of things that really stood out to me. One is the pie chart that showed who is served here 95, 90, 95 of the people served by this program are either extremely low income, very low income, or low income. 95 and over 80 are extreme low income, meaning earning from 0 to 29 of the area median income. There were a lot of questions when we proposed a universal program about concerns raised by people opposed to that idea, saying, well, we should means test this. We should we should actually theyre going to be very well off tenants who take advantage of this. And we said, wait a minute, thats a solution. Looking for a problem. Every study of evictions shows that the people who get evicted are almost exclusively, almost exclusively low income people. They are also disproportionately bipoc communities, knowing that and seeing this data affirms that a universal program is what makes sense. And its just amazing to see this now, multiyear data showing that 95 of those served, by the right to Counsel Program are, are are low income, the other thing that really stands out is that 63 of tenants who receive full Scope Representation under the right to Counsel Program were able to stay in their homes. And again, given the structural biases as well as personal biases that many in the legal system to see a figure of that type and show really shows the potential of what we can do despite the structural barriers, by providing full Scope Representation to tenants in San Francisco that resulted in the most recent fiscal year, we have data for, and we saw that data in over a thousand households, over a thousand households, estimated at 1600 people able to stay in their homes, because of this program. Its a truly remarkable, figure. And i appreciate the comments from, both edc, many of the providers and, Mayors Office of housing and Community Development on on how we can improve and get to an even higher figure, but were certainly were certainly on the right path. Weve got work to do, certainly on the right path. But i want to make sure that we dont lose sight of the fact that we are in budget season. A number of people commented on it, the tenant right to Counsel Program in the middle of through a pandemic played an indispensable role in reducing and preventing preventing evictions and homelessness in our city, and given the success to date that the voter mandate of prop f and these gaps that weve talked about is really critical, that we dont take steps backward and at minimum, that were maintaining the full funding for this program and continuing to staff it up. Its not only cost efficient, as weve talked about, but but really fulfilling the universal right to counsel for all tenants. Facing eviction is the right thing to do, what the voters demanded of us and i greatly appreciate all the work thats gone into getting us this far, and we will get the rest of the way. Thank you very much, madam chair, for the time and for calendaring this, thank you, supervisor preston, what would you like to do . Should we file this or. I think we can file the hearing. Okay, great, lets do that, mr. Clerk. Lets is that a motion from the vice chair . In that case, a motion from the vice chair that this hearing matter be heard and filed on that motion. Vice chair preston i. Preston, i member peskin, a peskin i chair melgar i. Melgar i madam chair there are three eyes. Thank you so much, do we have anything else on the agenda, mr. Clerk . There is no further business. Okay. Were adjourned. Thank you im connie chan district one supervisor and welcome to the richmond. Im an immigrant and came to San Francisco china town when i was 13 years old with my mom and brother. My first job is at the Community Organizer for Public Safety with San Francisco state. And land in the city hall and became a legislative aid to sophie maxwell. Went through city departments when Kamala Harris was our District Attorney im proud to represent the richmondad district supervisor. [music] we have great neighborhood commercial corridors that need to be protected. The reason why we launched the neighborhood business for supporting the [inaudible] for 15 years special more. We have the Legacy Business Program the business around for 30 years or more and thought, you know, we gotta make sure the next generation contains for generations to come. Am im ruth the owner of hamburger haven we came back on july 11. We were opened in 1968 at that time i believe one of the owners of mestart today went through a guy named andy in the early 70s and my father took it mid 70s. Originally was just a burger joint. Open late nights. Then it changed over the years and became the breakfast staple. We specialize in breakfast, brunch come lunch now. I love this neighborhood. I grew up here. And it feels like home. I walk down the block and recognize people of people say hello. You say hello you talk and joke. Has that familiar environment that is enjoyable and i have not experienced anywhere else. There are many things i would like to see improve ams the things we might see are making sure that our tenants stay housed our Small Business in tact and those are the solutions that will contain to push to make sure that you know our communities can take root, stay and thrive. Im proud of you know, welcoming folks to the richmond. Everyone loch its we got Farmers Market every sunday there. The you see really business at the noaa. Ice cream at toy folks and going to chop for book like green apple. And thats when you like the deal is pizza place haall families love. You will see a lot of great chinese shops that is readily available for everyone. And that is just thein are richmond there is more to do in the richmond. What is love is the theatre. I mean adam and with my wife jamie, own Little Company called cinema sf we operate the balboa theatre. The vocabularying theatre on sacramento and soon the 4 star on clement. Balboa theatre opened in 1926 and servicing this Outer Richmond neighborhood since then. And close on the heels the 4 star opens since 1913. When you come in to a movie theatre, the rest of the world has to be left behind. But you get e mersed in the world that is film makers made for you. That is a special experience to very much we can all think of the movies that we saw in the big screen of with everybody screaming or laughing or crying. It is a shared Human Experience that you get when you go in to places that are gatherings and artist presented to you. A shared experience is the most precious. And the popcorn. [laughter]. At the balboa especially, we stroif to have movies for people of every generation from the pop corn palace movies on the weekend mornings, for families and kids. This is for everybody of all ages. What is great about the richmond is it is a neighborhood of the immigrants. Belongs to immigrants not ap i immigrants you will see that there are also a Huge Population of rush wrans and ukrainian immigrants they stay united you am see that the support they lend to each other as a community. And cinderella bakery is another legacy business. If you go on the website it is known as a russian bakery. The first thing you see their pledge to support the ukrainian community. You will see the unity in the richmond im so proud of our immigrant community in the rich monthed. My dad immigrate friday iran the reason he stayed was because of the restaurant. Has more centamential value it is the reasonable we are in this country. When he had an opportunity to take over the instruct he stayed that is why we are here part of our legacy and San Francisco history and like to keep it going for years to come. Another moment im proud to be supporting the richmond and the only Asian American woman elect in the office and as an immigrant that is not happen nothing 3 decades. You see it is my ability to represent especially the asianamerican community. In my case the chinese speaking elders in our community that really can allow me to communicate with them directly. Im Program Director of adult day centers. I have been here for 7 years i love to help the communities and help and the people with disability. I foal a connection with them. I am anim grant i love helping our community and new immigrants and improvements. If you want nature, richmond is the neighborhood to go we are between ocean beach heights and golden gate park. I love the Outer Richmond. For me this is the single best neighborhood in San Francisco. Everybody knows each other. People have been living here forever. It is young and old. The ocean is really near by. And so there is that out doors ocean vibe to it. There are places to seat Golden Gate Bridge it is amazing. Businesses are all small mom and pop businesses. Houses get passed down generation to generation. It has a small town feel but you know you are in a big city at the same time. Its got a unique flavor i dont see in other neighborhoods j. It is about being inclusive we are inclusive and welcome the communities, anybody should feel welcome and belong here and shop local, eat local. We believe that with that support and that network it come in full circle. It is passing on kinds knows. Thats when richmond is about that we are together at once. Welcome to the richmond. [music] readiering in progress. Welcome to the tuesday april 16, 2024. My name is it ben and im the commission president. Well start with announcements. We would like to start the meeting with a land acknowledge. We the San Francisco Entertainment Commission acknowledge that were in the homeland of ramaytush ohlone. As guest we recognize that we
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