Here working for years on that problem. It is a problem for the whole community but it is also one we need to thitsy to step forward to help us do so we welcome the mayor in his remarks today. Without further ado, i would like to recognize a couple people here that have come and been long involved ing these issue. Angela alota is here today. From the San Francisco interfaith counsel we have mikem pops and rita chimal. Supervisor marc farrell is here. Supervisor jewel jewel yechristensen and all the Department Heads here of the city and all the Community Based organizations that are represent. Thank you for coming and welcome to st. Anthonys good morning everyone. Thank you all for being here. Let me begin with just comment about some things that have occurred in the last 48 hours that i know are on peoples minds and want to address that right off before i get fl to had body of the speech. But i want to start out with some words about the officer involved shooting that occurred yesterday in the bay view and rutted in the death of a man. Let me first say that any time, any time, there is a officer involved shooting i take that extremely seriously and so does our chief. I have seen the video too you know, you look at the video and you justbefore my words came out, we were yelling drop the dam knife. I already spoken to the chief and there will be a thorough and transparent investigation of this incident without delay and know the public deserves this and expect it and i expect it as well and will make sure the Community Knows all the details about this. I also want to take a moment of silence with all of you to remember the victims of the tragic and sensely shootings in san Dern Bernardino yesterday. Our thoughts are with the victims and families and the people of San Francisco grieve with them. But you know, you know what they really deserve . Those families deserve action. Deserve the congress that will stop this madness, stop and by enacting sensible limit ozen deadly fire arms and they need to do that now. [applause] we cannot just accept this. We cannot just accept this. Thank you. Thank you. And again, good morning everybody and thank you for being here. First again i want to say thank you to the [inaudible] and barry for hosting us this morningism barry you and the staff for helping the needy and velinable throughout the city is a inspiration to me and it is never tiring to cut turkey with you bury. I also want to say thank you to our elected and appointed officials and Community Leaders and pleny of the nonprofits providers are here this morning, thank you for joinsing us today. Im very proud for being reelected your mayor. This is a wonderful city and want to say thank you to the voters of San Francisco who believe in our Solutions Oriented and collaborative approach to solving problems and have asked us to return to do more. Thaupg for placing your trust in me for the next 4 years. This is the greatest city in the world and im honored and humbleed as the mayor to serve another term. You know, i often said and will continue saying i love the city, i love it as much of any of you and also with you. I love that we never run from the challenges. We confront them with our progressive optimism and something that has come to define our city in all of us. We tackleed a whole lot this last 5 years and some the most complicated and intractable challenges remain and i ran for a second term so we can work on them together. Foremost among the challenges wrun we struggled with for decades is homelessness. Let there be more doubt, the collective best effort like Service Providers like all you in the room today have certainly made a difference. I know that because i have been paying a attention to this for many years. While i may be a little silent sometimes, i watch, i talk to people, i engage and once in a while i might be lucky enough to hand out a key. You are the ones, everyone in the room, you are the ones giving the hor heroic rfts at front line staff on a midnight shift at the shet ers and do the outreach and are case managers with a challenging loud. Or you may be the one cleaning up the streets so people might have a cleaner street to be on because that is the only place they have. The best evidence of all of the work collaboratively is the over 20,000 formally Homeless People living indoors. Living independently and with the social and emotional support that they need and that the needs that are met with our City Services or they might be back in their home towns. But, despite this we havent eliminated homelessness. As we house and serve thousands, they are replaced by new thousands. People, people who fall in homelessness here, people sent from other states or people who arrive every day seeking a better life in our city. As a result we continue to have People Living on the street, under the freeway, in tents on the sidewalk and some even without tents. All together, more than 3500 people are street homeless in San Francisco. Human beings. Human beings with hopes, with fears, susceptible to cold and rainy weather. Human being who deserve or compassion. We know there are nearly the same number of people without homes that are living in our shelter, treatment programs or temporary situations. Friends , this isnt a healthy way to live, you know that and i know that, especially if children are a part of that family. It is not just a growing problem here in San Francisco by the way and we all know that as well. Major cities across our country, la, new york, honolulu, seattle and more and the state and federal governments offer us too little assistance. Thats why next week ill join at least 5 other mayors on the west coast and our federal government representatives to explore federal funding opportunities and policy changes in the area of homelessness. I know we look at the streets sometimes and the encampments and the depth and complexity the problem jz to some it all might feel hopeless, but as your may frr the next 4 years im optimistic because today in San Francisco all of the ingreedgents of success are here to end homeless for thousands of our fellow citizens. Thanks to a historically Strong Economy we do have resources. We certainly have creativity and know we got the passion. For our serviceers providers and city staff, we have the energy that is required. We have public support to try new more effective approaches. But you know what is missing . What is missing is the ingredient lacking for generations, it is what we call, real cooperation. We cant solve street homelessness, but it will if we want to , it will require cooperation. We have seen this cooperation at the place called, the Navigation Center at 1950 mission street. When Community Providers work with city departments, when the private sector in the surrounding community all come together with us, we actually are creating a National Model for ending homelessness. So, next year we are going to do something bold that skills up the cooperation and coordination this requires and we see at the Navigation Center all of that happening across the board on homelessness. I will call apauss all the departments to Work Together with our Community Based organizations, advocate and National Expert to ert change and reform or government and other, and will create a department with a mission to end homelessness here in San Francisco. [applause] i begin by not just makingi know people have worked on this for years and want to acknowledge first the great work of our past mayors, feinstein and agnos, mayor jordan and willie brown, of course gaveen newsome. I want to build on each of their legacies for addressing homelessness. Of course our former supervisor alota talks about passion. She dedicated a life time to the work and want to say thank you for being here and thank you for being a trusted advisor and advocate and one that reminds everybody we got to get to better solutions. I want to also acknowledge the good work of our former supervisor bevan dufty and director of hope for the last years for tireless work with Service Providers and client to move people into better lives. I learned a lot with bevan, but i felt his passion avenue day he has been on the job. And today, building on the work that came before we begin a new agency, a agency with a budget and mandate to solve homelessness. Well bring together under one roof the multitude of homeless outreach, housing, shelter and Supportive Services that exist across many Different Departments. Over the last 20 years, we increased our spending on homelessness because the crisis got worse. But because we didnt have a Central Department for homelessness we layered program upon program across a dozen Different Department said and then we expected the better outcome. No one agencyies mission was homelessness and today we fix that. With greater coordination we expect better results, more efficiencys and deep er accountability. To make this new department a realty next year ill be calling upon the leadership of barbarager seea director of public ehealth, trent roar director of human sunchss and [inaudible] director of hope. Together we have aurltd r already implemented some the most forward thinking progressive homeless policies in the country. We created the nations first Navigation Center, which is just 9 months that we have successfully moved more than 250 people off the streets into healthier settings. Great progress towards ending chronic veterans homelessness is done these last few years tackling family homelessness we made great progess. A new investment in Supportive Housing of 29,000,000 this year. I want to saw they think to tren, barbara and sam and all your team said for pourer your hearts in this work and thank you for joins forces with us to take it to the next level vlt i want to say a special thank you to public works. I know that department. You kept our streets and have done your best and for always having a positive interaction with the Homeless People and compassion and thank you for taking on the smelliest dirtgist jobs in town. I also want to say thank you to all of the people who are own Single Room Occupancy Hotels in the city thmpt hotels that are cooperating and working with us to make these Units Available for people transitioning out of homelessness. That is stock of housing. We never thought through our past loousts and insistence to get code enforcement, we didnt realize how valuable they are to us and a valuable assess they can be. I know some people will say, a department to solve homlessness mayor. 93 eve. We cant solve homelessness in San Francisco. I know that will will be peoples comments. I say we will end homelessness every every single day for least one person. For at least one family. For at least a veteran every single day. I know because i have felt the power of giving keys to people exactly in those situations. We will end it for every 1 for every day for someone who suffers on our street. That is what the purpose of creating this department is about. I want a staff at this new department, each person on the staff will come to work every morning with a single minded focus on ending homelessness for people on the streets. I want the measure of the work of this department and my office to be answering this question, what did i do to end homelessness on our city streets today and what did i do to give people a stable shelter, a home and a path to a healthier life. That is what i want them to ask themselves every single day. I want that to be the question that they ask of themselves. You know, ending homelessness in a very simple way is a matter of priorities. To get there we have to double down on programs that truly work. We have to coordinate with partners, federal, state and other cities. We have to share and do the best practices and we have to also share our challenges with each other. And you know, i always am focused and concerned about congress and as you know, congress is largely abandoned homelessness in the country and we in San Francisco cant wait frathe politics of waug wash dc to arrive, we have tolead and we lead with values. Our San Francisco values. That is what being a san franciscan is all about, isnt it . It is our values. To be fully able to achieve this vision im inviting a group of National Experts to advise how to create and set the mandate for this new department. I have spoken to president obamas point person on homelessness, matthew dorty and he agreed to come out and advise and has the expertise of looking at programs across the country to see what works. We want to be egressive on this but want to be practical at the same time. How will we define sausking street homelessness . What are the investments we are making and how can we double down on this . Is there something that we can be doing that we are not already doing . I aults want to invite the local homeless coordinating board to serve as a formal advisory body during the process. We convened San Franciscos best and brightest on that commission and definitely need your input. I invite all of you here, every one of you, the people working hard every day day in and out to join in defining the new effort as well because ill present this plan with the budget this coming year. Foremost among the efforts of the department are expanding the successful Navigation Center program. We learned that by removing barrier tooz entry into the Shelter Program and pairing ever Navigation Center with a housing exist we are making a difference. We already committed the funding in the budget this year to double our capacity at the Navigation Center and the department will significantly increase to this model. Well coordinate outreach and build more centers and secure more housing exists. Certainly this requires serious funding. Since i took office we have spent all most 100 mil yen more every year on Homeless Services and housing and my commitment today is this, to never let our city slip backwards on our funding priorities. That means movering forward well spend at threes 250 million a year on outreach and housing for 10s of thousands of people. We know success isnt mesered by how much money we spend, you know that. Accountability matters. We are measured by the number of human beings we lep off our streets and into a better life and by conditions on our streets also improving at the same time. So, im setting a ambishish but i believe an achievable goal for the second term. By the time i leave office we will move at least 8 thousand people out of homelessness and well remove them out of homelessness forever. [applause] and well build a system that ends a persons homelessness before it becomes chronic. That is another thing we learned from the Navigation Center and well do this and achieve this all together. Well do this by housing families, veterans long term homeless to Homeward Bound Program and Long Term Care for the seriously mentally ill. I also need cooperation for the private sector and philanthropic partner tooz participate as well. I already started conversation with San Franciscos Business Leaders on this particular goal. Business leaders, big and small, about a Multiyear Partnership to add additional Navigation Centers to the cities portfolio. To them across the board i say thank you and begin by saying a personal thank you to our first anonymous private donor to the the first Navigation Center. Im excited for our partnerships to develop more in the coming months just like the way we started our first Navigation Center. It was a partnership with faith and Funding Sources and community in the mission and then everybody else. We need more Partnership Models like our effort to end family homelessness in the Elementary Schools which is the focus of [inaudible] 2 great civic leaders. No less different than our Technology Leaders like nob nub who also became a partner to end veterans homelessness by funding a viable new housing for them in mission bay. Letting people live on our streets exposed to violence and whether that isnt compassion. It isnt healthy, it isnt safe and it does want represent who we are as San Francisco and it is not our San Francisco values. You know, im also proud of our city coming together over something that used to be controversial and im talking about lauras law. Thank you for visor marc farrell, thank you for your leadership in this effort on a issue that used to divide a lot of