Thank you. Good morning, everyone and welcome to the San Francisco budget and finance committee for a wednesday, september 16, 2015, my name is mark farrell and i will be chairing this committee and i am joined by tang and we will be joined by eric mar and i want thank sfgtv no covering this meeting as well as the clerk miss linda woning, do you have any announcements . Please, silence all cell phones and Electronic Device and completed speaker cards and the documents to be included as part of the files should be submitted to the clerk and the items acted upon today will be on the september, 22nd board of agenda unless otherwise stated. Could you call item one . It is a hearing on the new, information, compiled for the 2015, pointintime, Homeless Count. Thank you, and so colleagues, today i asked for this hearing, to take place, to discuss our recently completed and released 2015, point in Time Homeless count here in San Francisco. As many of you are aware, the Homeless Count occurs every two years, in order to receive, federal funds to address, homelessness here locally. Back . January, i joined the city staff and the nonprofit partners to participate in the count and the white house, chief of staff came out as well and the results were just released publicly in july. And the results of the count, which we will discuss, in detail, today, provide some optimism, but also, show the way of a much more work to do ahead of us to reduce the homelessness here. And the stats in july shows that we continue to make the progress in the homeless, and we are on the way of achieving and 2015. But the count revealed that the population is older and a higher rate of Substance Abuse and more Behavior Mental Health as well. And 71 percent. And today, we are going to hear from the director of the Human Services, and dufty or director of hope and our research firm, partnering with the city, has for years, and to produce this count, she looked forward for the discussion and the work ahead of us. Mr. Roar, if you are ready, we have trent here who is the head of our Human Services agency. And thank you. Findings for the Homeless Count. And you know, you touched on supervisor farrell m of the points that i was going to mention that back that, that we encountered on the street and getting older, and we are seeing the higher incidence of the Behavior Health issues. And we are also seeing Something Interesting about the point or the length of most of the recent homeless that i am going to touch on as well but let me take two steps back and give you a little bit of context. And so we do this Homeless Count, at the point in time, koupt count and it is done on a single night, once every two years and it is a requirement from the federal department of housing and urban development as a condition of receiving or continuing of care funds and the continuing of the care funds, support and a whole range of interventions and targeted at homelessness and notable for us is the funding for the Supportive Housing and we get over 20 million a year from the feds through the continuing of the care process and so the count is geb, again is a condition of that, but it also helps us to measure our progress, clearly and also gives us a much richer understanding every couple of years of the population on the street and we couple our point in time count, which is done by the volunteers. And i think that we had over 500 volunteers span the entire city and you walking or driving to attempt to encounter those who they see on the street that appear homeless. And in addition to that, we follow the count, with a survey. And we get a fairly large sample size, and so we can generally draw the conclusions from that representative sample and that gives us things like age and length of time that we have been on the street. And issues of Behavior Health and a lot of other really, Interesting Data that helps to inform our system, as we continue to see it evolve and continue to think of new interventions targeted to the folks who are on the street and in our shelters. So, over all, the total number counted, in january, of 2015, was 6686. And this represents about a four percent increase, from two years ago or the number was 6436 and again, it is important to note that this represents the entire number of folks who are defined as homeless, which includes, not only the individuals and families, who are on the street, but those who are in shelters, and transitional housing and treatment and hospital and jail. And vehicles, and many of the others sort of temporary living and the situation. And the number of unsheltered homeless, and now in 2015, was 3505, which represents about a three percent increase from 2 years, before. Where the number was 3401, and these are actually folks who are counted on our streets. And on that single night. We also for the second time did a separate youth count, which is which is counted at night and the numbers there went down from 914 two years ago to 853 in 2015, which is a 7 percent decline. So, we sort of first reaction as one of many, and the city officials overseeing the system of care, is why did the numbers not go down in the context of the really, the significant numbers of individuals, and families that we have either housed or reunited with their families and support structures in their home communities. And so i want to talk a little bit about that. So you understand kind of really what we have been able to achieve over the last two years in changing the lives of thousands of people. And yet, the over all net number is, you know, essentially is the same. And so, what it represents the progress, since, january of 13 to try to get a sort of similar time frame and so since january of 13, we added 348 units of Supportive Housing and 93 that are targeted to transitional aged youth. And you know that we have initiated very long, rental Subsidy Program for family and particularly through our cal Works Program where we housed 120 families. Where it is really the Supportive Housing that i want to touch on. But we did add, 348 units which compared to 6600 homeless may not seem like a lot. But it is important to know that we have an existing portfolio of housing of over 4,000 units between the Human Services agency and the department of Public Health and those units do turnover and so we place, individuals in those units as they became, vacant and so over the last two years, of the Human Services agency, we placed 1391, individuals or individuals and families. And then, the department of Public Health who is the direct access to the housing program, placed another 627 and that is the total number of individuals and 2018 who were placed over the last two years, about 450 of them were in families, and so when you take the single adult piece and you take the families out we placed almost, 1600 people in two years, 1569. And in addition as you know and supervisor you know well because you helped secure, funding for 8 additional home ward bound caseworkers and home ward bound is a program that we started in 2004, that helps the homeless individuals, reconnect with, their typically their families but it could be another support structure in their home communities. And over the last two years, through that program, we provided transportation, and resources, to reunite, 1614 individuals in all 48 states. And cities and in california as well as cities in other states and so when you take those numbers together, that is, 3632, folks that we have placed in housing, either in San Francisco or outside of San Francisco. Which is quite an accomplishment in two years. And i often comment when getting questions you know, why isnt the number going down . Why arent you making progress . The answer is we are making significant progress. And we do know how to house the people and how to end homelessness at the individual level. And feeling, and it is demonstrated and shown you that the successes over the last two years and it illustrates over the last, 12 years, since we have been tracking and since 2003, we have placed in the housing or reunited through home ward bound, over 21,000 people from San Francisco. And which is an astounding number and you look at it and you say that this cannot be possible and yet, that is the progress that we have made. So we are helping, you know it is important to keep this in mind that we are, you know, you look at the street and you see the individuals on the street and you look at the noise and you have got the lot and it is important to keep in mind that the human level is significant progress that we have made and the significant number of lives and family, and individuals and families, that we have improved. And looking forward, beyond january, 15 in terms of the pipeline of housing. 54 units of the housing and transitional housing that we anticipate coming online and another 324 units for homeless single adults, and that will be coming online very shortly, within the next few months. And so, we will continue our approach as Supportive Housing again, being the corner stone of our strategy to end the homeless in San Francisco. And we do have and i think that devon the director of hope will talk more about this. We are and have piloted a what we will define as a low threshold or intervention to the people on the street to whom the shelter may not be the place sxment this is in the Navigation Center which devon will talk about. And i was recently in new york two weeks ago looking at their front end and their not only, the street out reach, but, what they do, sort of in conjunction with the street out reach for the individuals who for the shelter does not necessarily work. And they have, similar to the Navigation Center, they are smaller and they have the safe havens which are the low threshold environments and the physical health barrier and not necessarily navigate a very large and complex shelter system and that is the resources that the out reach teams have and they have had significant success and there is slippage recently and they coupled it with the low threshold and the folks on the street in two years and this is about six years ago in terms of the time frame. Those interventions do work and we are pleased with the out comes that we have seen so far at the Navigation Center and devon will talk more about that. In terms of the interesting, subpopulations and i will turn it over to him. And there are two groups of homeless individuals, largely individuals that we have been focusing on. And we have been focusing on the chronically homeless for, since really, the mid 2000s. And recognizing that these are the sickest and down the street the longest and the folks most in need of interventions and so we have been targeting them. Intentionally, for housing and for interventions. And the second subpopulation is veterans and you know, we have been following the directive from the white house to end veteran homelessness and we have really, taken that as a community, taken it very seriously with the partnerships with the nonprofit agencies like the serve to plow shares with the leadership from my staff and on addressing the veteran and just to speak to the numbers there. And starting with veterans in 2011, 17 percent of our homeless population, were veterans and 20 is 3, that dropped to 11 percent and in 2015, count dropped to 9 percent and so we are, we have had, cut in half the number of veterans who are experiencing homelessness. And i think that it speaks to the success of the strategy and if we are targeting the populations with the support of the housing and the other strategies and we know that those are working and among the chronically homeless in 2009 and almost twothirds of folks who are counted, were defined as chronically homeless and again, these are folks and there is a formal definition of chronic homelessness, and you know, the laypersons terms is someone who has been homeless for over a year and with the multiple spells of homeless, making progress in those two areas is important, and particularly among the chronically homeless which tend to be again not only those most in need but tend to be the largest strain on the city in terms of the use of emergency room, and inpatient, hospital stays. And other nonhomeless Service Intervention costs. Another piece of data that we bring to the survey is the length of time that an individual has been homeless, and i think that this is important. Because, it speaks to the need to have the different types of interventions. Whereas someone who is more longer term and chronically homeless and typically the intervention will be Supportive Housing to address his or her Behavior Health and other needs. In addition to their homelessness. But, a shorter term stay or the folks who are homeless, it really speaks to a different time of intervention and maybe the home ward bountd and maybe the short term rental and the placement of a job and getting that person back in the housing through the rapid rehousing effort. It is the length of time for the most recent spell of homelessness, and over half, 51 percent of the most recent spell has been over a year. But interestingly, 35 percent of folks, that the most recent spell was less than 6 months. And ten percent of whom less than 30 days. And so when you, you sort of pull that out, of 6600 folks, on the 6700 folks, 670 of them have just been on the street less than a month and that is really defined as low hanging fruit and those are the folks that we will get quickly rehoused or reunited with their families so that we dont fall into a pattern where homelessness, becomes more chronic for them and i think that you have got to even extend that out from the ten percent who have less than a month to those who are less than 60 months, and the third of the 6600 people and then lastly, i will speak to the age and the supervisor farrell you did noelt that the aging population and this is not a surprise or a new, phenomenon and there is research out of ucsf that follows the homelessness and sort of the age, and increase, but, i am going to give you the real numbers. And in 2013, 17 percent of folks were over the age of 50. Or over the age of 51. And in 2015, 30 percent, or over the age of 51. And then, even the older, 3 percent, over the age of 61, verses 8 percent in 2015. And then, of course, if the proportion of the folks are older then you are going to see a decrease on the younger side which is what we are seeing and in fact. 29 percent of the folks in 2013 were aged 31 to 40 and that number dropped to 16 percent and cut in half of the most recent year and again these numbers, you dont take them in isolation and you look at them and say is our Service System equipped to handle the more aging population . And you know, i think that when you look at our Supportive Housing certainly that can is equipped to handle a more an older population that tends to have more physical health needs. But when you look at the intervention, and the shelter system it may not quite be, the right, place. To have the folks who are older, and maybe, more frail, and again, maybe, that speaks to looking at a front end response, that is more, either low threshold or more medically centered for a larger segment of our homeless population. I will pause for questions. And then we will turn it over to devon when you want. Thank you. One thing that i think that we will get into it with some and the applied research, but you know, as you think about, and in your experience here that you think about the number stayed static for the last two years, generally speaking and that is pretty remarkable and the amount of people that we have helped is 21,000 is unbelievable. And also look at it relative to other jurisdiction and what they are seeing and this is not a San Francisco phenomena, obviously. But then, also we need to talk and we need to talk about what is next and because, obviously no one thinks that even maintaining these numbers are okay and we all want to strive to do better. But how do you think about that . I mean that, is it hey, we are doing, or we are doing compared to other jurisdictions but we need to do better . Yeah. How do the folks think about that and especially the folks that are on the daily working on this issue . Sure. I appreciate the question, supervisor, portland was about the same and la increased and new york although it dropped by 5 percent, the street numbers have increased recently, and so, it just gives you a sense and sort of, this problem is not ours alone. And it does not make us feel any better and we know that we have work to do. But, our path is correct. And there is numbers growing, and in large across the country, and it really is, and it gets the question a lot, and the way that, and the way unlike most of the public assistant systems that the Human Services agencies that are federally funded that the system for the care of homeless is locally funded and we get 20 million plus, from the feds, and we have the Section Eight Program that can help some but when i am talking about Supportive Housing and shelters that is largely born on the general fund and so we have a National Problem with millions of homeless individuals, and even a directive from the white house, that we should end the veterans homelessness and what is coupled with that and even a more recent directive and that should seize in communities across the country