• Public Safety/Crisis Intervention - In early October, I brought Chief Bill Scott and his Command Staff to North Beach to hear directly from families who have experienced an uptick in aggressive and physically threatening behavior on the street. Parents demanded increased foot patrols, especially around parks, which Chief Scott and Cpt Yep agreed to.  In addition, the Mayor has committed to a crisis-intervention team for North Beach, which are public health workers trained in intervening in instances of mental crisis. The community’s direct feedback and advocacy to the Mayor and Police Chief have been incredibly important, thank you.
• SB 1045 - Senate Bill 1045 was signed into law this year and creates a new five-year conservatorship pilot program for a few key counties, including San Francisco. The goal of the program, which is estimated to help roughly 100 of our most vulnerable residents who are chronically homeless, seriously mentally ill, and suffer from substance abuse, is providing supportive housing with intensive wraparound services. These are residents who routinely end up in emergency room, psychiatric facilities, jail, or other police custody and for whom voluntary support services have repeatedly failed to have a positive long-term impact. Obviously, the program will fail if we do not have actual housing facilities to conserve these residents to, so securing funding for affordable and supportive housing will continue to be a top focus for my office.
• Prop C – So far, Prop C “Our City, Our Home” has secured 61.25% of the vote in San Francisco. If you were one of those votes: thank you. That means you recognize that out of the $250 million our three-year old Department of Homelessness spent last year, two-thirds of the budget went to rental subsidies, eviction prevention and permanent supportive housing to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place – or to house the formerly homeless.  Only 17.6% (or $57 million) was spent on HOT street team outreach, temporary shelters and health services for the very visible homeless population on San Francisco streets, which is what I hear the most about from constituents.  It is a point of fact that to tackle this homeless crisis head-on we need deep investments in a continuum of care, including housing. I have always been supportive of progressive taxation, but it took briefings with frontline experts to learn how Prop C’s plan could make change.  The tax will generate $300 million annually, 50% of which will go to building & rehabbing supportive housing, with another 25% going to intensive mental health and substance abuse facilities. The Tax Collector will start collecting these taxes in the new year – and I have already met with Departments on several projects in District 3 that could desperately use this influx of dedicated funding.

• Temporary D3 Navigation Center – A year ago, a packed house of hundreds of residents overwhelmingly agreed that we need a D3-specific Navigation Center. Since that time, I have been relentlessly surveying potential public sites, as well as entreating private property owners to consider one. It’s been a tough road to hoe, but I haven’t given up and have even received the support of the Mayor to fund a site in District 3. The waterfront has presented itself as a reasonable locale based on many factors, including the number of public sites currently designated for light-industrial or parking uses.  But I understand that education in the community is critical, and my office has undertaken a series of listening tours to various neighborhood associations, as well as conducting small tours of existing Navigation Centers. While we hone in on a location, I remain committed to continuing the work to solicit neighborhood stakeholders on what they would like to see – let’s tailor this to be the best temporary tool possible!
• SB 1152 – Senate Bill 1152 was signed into law this year and requires each hospital to create a written homeless patient discharge planning policy and process and document clear transfer and post-treatment info before discharging a homeless patient. I began tracking this bill after a neighborhood meeting in lower Nob Hill, where neighborhood residents were frustrated with the current process for discharging homeless residents from St. Francis Medical Center. My office is working with the Department of Public Health and St. Francis to implement SB 1152.

TNC Tax Moves One Step Closer to 2019 Ballot:  Uber/Lyft Tax Would Generate $30m Annually to Support Public Transportation Infrastructure & Operations 

In response to the earthquake devastation of 1989, voters later approved a $350 million earthquake safety bond to provide loans for the seismic strengthening of The City’s some 2,000 unreinforced brick buildings at risk of being destroyed in a major tremor. When I heard that less than half of the money had been issued for repairs to affordable and market-rate buildings years a quarter of a century later, my office began to brainstorm creative solutions to release the unspent quarter of a billion dollars of cheap money for affordable housing. The 2016 Prop C Affordable Housing Bond was the result, and of particular import for residents at risk of being displaced by fires or costly seismic upgrades.

The Mayor's Office of Housing is ready to release these funds, and we are already lining up eligible projects in District 3. Special thanks again to the community of stakeholders who pushed to make this happen - now let's get some affordable housing built! 

Residents Return to 801 Pacific After Fire

• Go to adoptadrain.sfwater.org  if you want to see the most in need drains in the city, or become a drain adopter.
• Call 3-1-1 or go to sf311.org, if you want to report clogged drains, street flooding, sewer backups or wastewater odors.