Supervisor Hillary Ronen - 01272021 Newsletter

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January 27, 2021
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A Hopeful Start to 2021, COVID Vaccine Info, Schools, and More

Dear Neighbors,

January 20, 2021, was a good day in the United States of America. In addition to the inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris, it was a joy to see democracy in action in San Francisco earlier this month, with the swearing in of two brilliant and brave immigrant women as our newest members of the Board of Supervisors, Myrna Melgar and Connie Chan; and our the Board’s unanimous election of Supervisor Shamann Walton as our President, the first Black man to serve in that role.

I am hopeful and ready to hit the ground running. It’s only the first month of 2021, and we already have a lot to cover. In this newsletter, I will give you the latest updates on:

Second Term Priorities
COVID Vaccine Info
RISE-ing to Revitalize Public Schools
Keeping Unhoused Residents Safe
Mental Health SF Launches Street Crisis Response Team
Strengthening the Right to Recover Program
New Testing Site in the Mission
Combating Permit Fraud
Bernal Heights Public Safety Community Meeting
Supporting Portola Businesses
McLaren Park Safety Update
Muni Service Changes

California has lifted the Bay Area Regional Stay at Home Order, and San Francisco will reopen key sectors allowed by the State’s purple tier on January 28. As the rules around reopening shift, you can stay updated on what is open and allowed here. With the current surge in COVID, please remember to continue to stay at home as much as possible, and if you go outside, make sure to wear masks, practice physical distancing, and frequently wash your hands.

My office may not be in City Hall these days, but we are still here for you. We are available by email: ronenstaff@sfgov.org or by phone at 415-554-5144 (leave a message, and we will call you back-- we are checking voicemail frequently). Check for updates on my Twitter and Facebook.

Second Term Priorities

Serving as the District 9 Supervisor has been the greatest privilege of my life, and I am profoundly grateful to my constituents for electing me to serve a second term. Right now, much of what we do is centered on our urgent responses to COVID impacts and keeping our community safe and healthy. Looking forward, the top five priority issues I’ll be focusing on are:

Implementing Mental Health SF

I will work non-stop to fully implement Mental Health SF so it becomes the best behavioral healthcare system in the country – bringing an effective and humane response to help people on our streets with serious mental illness and addiction. COVID-19 has exacerbated an already dire mental health and substance use crisis facing our country, and here in San Francisco, we have seen an unprecedented number of overdose deaths which have outpaced COVID-19 deaths by a margin of three to one. We will reverse this trend by decreasing institutional barriers to lifesaving treatment and behavioral health services through Mental Health SF.

Revitalizing Our Public Schools

Board President Walton appointed me as Chair of the Joint City, School District, and City College Select Committee and as a member of the Budget and Appropriations Committee . I’m ready to work with my colleagues on the Joint Committee, with educators, the school district, parents, and caregivers to get our kids back in school as soon as safely possible and to make our public educational institutions among the best in the nation.

When we finally get students back in school, there will be a lot of work to do to address the needs of students who have fallen significantly behind as a result of COVID-19 learning disruptions, reduced enrollment from public schools, and the ever-widening achievement gap. Along with Supervisor Myrna Melgar and School Board member Kevine Boggess, I am creating an official city workgroup that will advise us on post-pandemic recovery strategies for our schools, and will create a citywide plan to expand enrichment and academic success services for students and families in SFUSD. It is time that public school students and families get all the benefits, resources, and opportunities that children in private schools take for granted.

Supporting Small Businesses

In San Francisco, there are thousands of small businesses, employing hundreds of thousands of workers. They are the lifeblood of our neighborhoods and our communities. Sadly, too many have now closed for good. It shouldn’t be hard or expensive to launch a small business in this City and I want to make it free to do so. We can and should remove any impediments for businesses to start fresh or re-open after the pandemic.

Creating Affordable Housing

When I ran for my first term, I set a goal of creating 5,000 units of affordable housing in District 9 in a decade. Four years in we have achieved 1,700 units, built, in the pipeline to be built, or purchased off the private market. I’m hell bent on reaching the 5,000 unit goal.

Reforming the Criminal Justice System

Finally, we are not immune to the systemic racism that permeates police departments and the criminal justice system nationwide. I will work to bring transparency to local police reform efforts and partner with our newly elected Police Commission leadership, President Malia Cohen and Vice-President Cindy Elias, to hasten reforms. We will close down County Jail 4 and Juvenile Hall responsibly and in a way that makes our communities even safer.

COVID Vaccine Info

While it is such a tremendous relief to see vaccinations finally arriving and some people excitedly reporting that they’re getting their shots, the rollout overall has been frustrating. We are still working to untangle info to make it easy to figure out when you’re eligible and how to schedule an appointment. I am cosponsoring an Emergency Ordinance with Supervisor Matt Haney to require the Department of Public Health to prepare a COVID-19 Vaccination Plan and to make publicly available on its website.

Here is what we DO know:

Vaccines are being administered in tiers according to the federal and state priority population ranking system based on health risk and vulnerability. Governor Newsom announced on Tuesday new changes to the vaccine delivery system. We are following closely and will update as more details are shared with us.
The vaccines are SAFE and highly effective. They have shown 94-95% effectiveness against a person becoming ill with COVID-19. Every phase and trial has been reviewed and approved by the FDA.
While the vaccine will prevent you from getting sick, it is unknown at this time if you can still carry and transmit the virus to others. Until more is understood, keep protecting yourself and others. Keep wearing your mask and staying 6 feet apart.
The City does NOT control supply of the vaccine, and it also does NOT determine eligibility for who is prioritized for the vaccine. Both of these are controlled by the State and Federal governments. There is a major supply shortage for the vaccine, and many health care providers, including the San Francisco Dept of Public Health, Kaiser, Sutter, and others do not know when or how much vaccine supply they get until the beginning of each week. This is a major challenge to vaccine rollout.
The City has launched a website where you can register to be notified when it’s your turn for the vaccine. You can find basic accurate info on vaccines here.

RISE-ing to Revitalize Public Schools

As we approach one year since our schools were forced to close due to COVID, we should take this moment of crisis and turn it into an opportunity to make our excellent public school system even better. The pandemic has caused many students to fall behind in their academic achievement and many students to leave SFUSD for private schools or because they could no longer afford to live in San Francisco. We cannot let either situation go unaddressed.

On January 12, Supervisor Myrna Melgar and I introduced legislation we wrote together with School Board Commissioner Kevine Boggess to establish the Students and Families RISE (Recovery with Inclusive and Successful Enrichment) Workgroup -- a body of education experts and stakeholders that will meet over the next six months to create post-pandemic recovery strategies for our schools and a citywide plan to expand the community schools model systemwide, add enrichment arts, music, sports education to all schools, and design specific learning loss recovery strategies to ensure all students thrive when we are physically present back in school.

The Mayor, the School Board, United Educators of San Francisco, the Superintendent, the Board of Supervisors, State Assemblymember Ting, and the city’s Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families will all be working together to develop and fund this plan as a way to address student learning loss during the pandemic and expand enrichment programs to retain, attract back, and ensure the success of all SFUSD students.

As the new Chair of the Board of Supervisors Joint Select Committee on Education, I also want to share the schedule of education related hearings we will be hosting in February. Our focus will be on SFUSD and working to get our elementary school students and educators back in the classroom safely as soon as possible. In March, we will focus on City College in addition to SFUSD.

On February 12th, we will hold two hearings:

SFUSD will report on assessment data from the first school semester of the 20-21 academic year that reflects serious and significant impacts on many students’ academic success. We will discuss the disproportionate impact on specific communities of students and what plans SFUSD and DCYF have to use the summer break to begin to address that learning loss. We will also get input on the Student and Families RISE initiative that Supervisor Myrna Melgar and I introduced to launch in the FY 2021-22 academic years to ensure student success when we are back in the classroom.

SFUSD and the Department of Public Health will report on how they are addressing student mental health during the remainder of distance learning. With data showing that one in every three adolescents age 12-17 in California reports psychological distress, it is imperative we get students the services they need to remain healthy throughout the remainder of distance learning.

On February 26th, we will hold two hearings:

The Department of Public Health will discuss its plans to vaccinate educators in San Francisco. If prioritized, the City and its medical partners could vaccinate the 3,000 SFUSD educators and staff in elementary schools in one weekend - a step that will be a giant leap towards returning to the classroom.

SFUSD and DPH will report on how they are working to ensure surveillance testing every two weeks for all students and staff that return to the classroom – a new requirement by the Governor to reopen schools and qualify for additional state funding.

The February Joint Select Committee hearings will begin at 10 am.

Keeping Unhoused Residents Safe

At the start of the pandemic, my colleagues Supervisors Dean Preston, Matt Haney, Aaron Peskin, Shamann Walton, and I pushed the City to house people experiencing homelessness so they could shelter in place safely and prevent the spread of COVID-19. We wrote and unanimously passed legislation ordering the City to obtain thousands of hotel rooms so our most vulnerable residents could safely shelter in place.

Last November, Mayor Breed and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) indicated their intention to close the City’s emergency Shelter-In-Place (SIP) hotels, where more than 2,300 vulnerable unhoused individuals were safely sheltering. In response, my colleagues and I introduced and approved legislation prohibiting the City from closing SIP hotels unless hotel residents have been successfully placed into alternative stable housing opportunities.

Under the Trump administration, FEMA was covering 75% of the SIP hotel costs, but never gave clear directions on when that funding would end, leaving the City in an uncertain position regarding future funding. The new Biden administration is making good on its promise to support cities in responding to COVID. This week, we learned that the federal government will cover 100% of the SIP hotel costs until at least September 2021.

This is welcome news, and now we can advocate to open more spots where people experiencing homelessness can stay safe throughout the remainder of this pandemic. I am optimistically looking forward to working with our new federal administration and our state leaders on lasting solutions to homelessness.

Mental Health SF Launches Second Street Crisis Response Team

On February 1st, Mental Health SF will launch its second Street Crisis Response Team (SCRT), which will be dedicated to responding to 911 calls from the Mission and the Castro about people experiencing substance use and mental health crisis on our streets instead of a police response.

I wrote Mental Health SF with Supervisor Matt Haney and frontline providers to completely overhaul how our city provides services to people in crisis due to mental illness or addiction, and the Street Crisis Response Teams are the first big step in implementing this set of initiatives.

Each Street Crisis Response Team consists of a community paramedic, a peer behavioral health advocate, and a clinical social worker who are more appropriately trained to address the complex health needs of people experiencing mental health crises during non-violent calls than the police. By the end of March, we will have six mobile teams up and running that will have the capacity to respond to calls 24/7 from all over the city.

With this first step, we have set a new course for the Mission and the City, a groundbreaking model for addressing the twin crises of mental illness and addiction!

Strengthening the Right to Recover Program

This week, Mayor Breed and I announced a new infusion for the Right to Recover program, which provides replacement income to any worker who lives in San Francisco who tests positive for COVID-19 and anticipates experiencing financial hardship during their two-week quarantine or isolation.

The surge has had a particularly devastating effect on Latinx and immigrant communities in District 9 and across the City. Over the New Year’s weekend alone, we had over 460 referrals to Right to Recover for replacement wages and have averaged about a 100 every day since then. The need is clear and present. COVID-positive workers with no access to sick time or other government benefits must be able to safely isolate without fear of economic hardship. To date, the City has invested $4.5 million in the program, serving more than 3,200 San Franciscans.

We have made it possible for those with existing city-operated Medical Reimbursement Accounts to be able to draw Right to Recover funds from unspent deactivated balances in the MRA program. This will free up philanthropic dollars and allow us to help more people.

For more information on the Right to Recover program, please call the Office of Economic and Workforce Development Hotline at (415) 701-4817 where representatives are available Monday through Friday to answer calls in multiple languages, or email workforce.connection@sfgov.org.

The City’s relief programs are made possible from the Give2SF COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund. To donate to Give2SF, go to www.Give2SF.org.

New Testing Site in the Mission

My office worked closely with H.O.M.E.Y, Faith in Action, DPH, SFMTA, SFFD, and the Latino Task Force on COVID-19 to bring a much-needed additional testing site to the northern Mission. For months, the City allocated only a fraction of its resources to this hardest-hit community, and this free, low-barrier, drop-in testing in the Mission is long overdue.

There are three confirmed dates for the 18th and Mission site - January 30, February 13 and February 27, but the goal is to have semi-regular testing at this site every two weeks on Saturdays. Adding this testing site is a small victory in the long battle to take care of our community and the most vulnerable populations.

Combating Permit Fraud

At our first Board meeting this year, I introduced legislation to address fraudulent abuse of the city’s building permit system.

Several recent cases perpetrated by people already known to the Department of Building Inspection for serious and repeated violations triggered me to hold a hearing in November and then to draft this legislation.

My legislation will create an Expanded Compliance Control List of parties or projects associated with three or more serious violations within 18 months. DBI will be required to report any licensed professional placed on the list to the state licensing board, and any new permit application associated with a party or project will be subject to specified Expanded Compliance Control measures that will ensure elevated scrutiny. The legislation further protects the public by requiring DBI to post its Expanded Compliance Control list on their website and provide regular reports to the Building Inspection Commission. And lastly, the legislation establishes standards for internal staff accountability through training and guidance.

I can't think of a more fitting way to greet the new year at City Hall than by signaling our clear intent to launch a new day of open and transparent and ethical government.

Bernal Public Safety Community Meeting

Please join me on February 10 for a Bernal Heights Community Safety Meeting with District Attorney Chesa Boudin and SFPD Ingleside Captain Chris Woon. You can register for the meeting at tinyurl.com/bernalmeeting.

Supporting Portola Businesses

It was great to be able to greet mom and pop shop owners while handing out masks and sanitizer to Portola small businesses last week along San Bruno Ave.

Thank you Portola Neighborhood Association’s, Valerie Luu, Lia Smith and Maggie Weis for coordinating. Please support our small businesses by shopping locally.

Shop Portola Part 3, hosted by the Portola Neighborhood Association, begins in February and will highlight businesses along San Bruno from Bacon to Mansell.

Shop Portola 3 and Lunar New Year Celebration: Bacon to Mansell Streets

February 1 - February 28

Spend $5 at 5 Portola businesses for a chance to win $50
Shop at 5 different Portola businesses located from the south side of Bacon to the Mansell Streets between 2/1 - 2/28.
Spend at least five dollars at each business
Submit all 5 receipts for a chance to win prizes

Find out more here https://www.portolasf.org/shop-portola-raffle Raffle winners will be selected at the Shop Portola Lunar New Year Celebration

McLaren Park Public Safety Update

In response to safety concerns about gun violence in McLaren Park, my office held a community meeting in November with Captain Dangerfield and SF Rec and Park. Based on feedback from that meeting, my office worked with the Rec and Park, SFMTA, Police, and Fire to coordinate the temporary night closure of John Shelley Drive along Mansell and Cambridge.

The Cambridge/ Shelley Drive intersection and the eastern Mansell/ Shelley Drive intersection are now closed from 6pm to sunrise, January 15 through March 31. We will revisit this trial closure as we approach March 31. Thanks to Rec and Park for their fast work on this and to my constituents for bringing this to my attention. We hope that the closure of these roads after dark will deter gun violence, and will help make our community safer. If you have questions or comments, please feel free to contact rpdinfo@sfgov.org

Muni Service Changes

On Saturday, January 23, SFMTA restarted T Third Muni Metro rail service and increased bus service, including adding routes based on community feedback. Several of the routes serving District 9:

8AX Bayshore “A” Express (weekdays only): Additional service on the 8AX Bayshore between Kearny Street and Pacific Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard and Visitacion Avenue, all day in both directions.
14 Mission: Additional service and frequency to address crowding.
14R Mission Rapid: Some 14R Mission Rapid buses will end at Mission and Lowell streets to relieve terminal congestion at Daly City BART Station.
14 Mission Owl: 60-foot coaches and increased frequency to address crowding.

For the most up to date information with free language assistance and accessibility please call 311 or (415) 701-4311 or visit SFMTA.com/CoreService.

Resources and Announcements

Relief for Small Businesses
The City is making resources available to help sustain as many SF businesses and workers as possible. As of December 22, 2020 new federal legislation was passed by Congress that reopened the PPP, modified EIDL, and added additional funding and changes for programs. We are also working hard to develop additional local resources. Check oewd.org for updates.

Traffic Court Citation Discounts
MyCitations—a new online tool for people with low incomes or who receive public benefits to request a significant discount (up to 80% or more!) on their traffic court citations. This discount can be worth hundreds of dollars. Using the MyCitations tool, people can look up their traffic citations online, answer a series of simple questions about their eligibility, and submit a request for a discount of 80% or more on their traffic court fines and fees. The MyCitations tool can also be used to request a payment plan, more time to pay, or community service. Using MyCitations can also save people an in-person trip to San Francisco Traffic Court.

New LGBTQ+ Older Adult Online Survey
During the COVID-19 pandemic, LGBTQ+ older adults may have increased vulnerability and reduced access to the services they need. Fill out this survey to help identify the unmet needs of LGBTQ+ older adults, age 50+ who live and or work in San Francisco. The survey link is: http://lgbtqseniorsurvey.com. This survey link will be activated on February 1. If someone would prefer to complete the survey by phone, they can call and leave a message at 415-935-3978.

SF Environment Launches Climate Action Plan
SF Environment, along with partners and stakeholders, is working towards updating San Francisco’s Climate Action Plan. The Plan will focus on people by addressing environmental inequities in our community, improving public health, creating jobs, and building a more resilient City for all. The newly launched Climate Action Plan webpage and interactive online open house where you can peruse the Plan and its elements.

SFPUC’s Floodwater Grant Webinars
If your property experiences flooding or sewage backing up when it rains, apply for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC)’s Floodwater Grant Program for up to $100,000 reimbursement for your project and assistance throughout the process. Resources to get rain ready at sfwater.org/RainReadySF.

SFMTA Fare Help
When times are tough, even paying for the bus can be a challenge. During times like these, the SFMTA has programs to help get you where you need to go, like Free Muni for Youth, Seniors, and People with Disabilities , the Lifeline and Clipper START reduced fare program.

SFPUC Bill Relief
The SFPUC has extended their Emergency Residential Assistance Bill Relief Program until the end of the year. Their emergency bill relief efforts include:

Emergency Discounts of 15%-35% for Residential Customers on their SFPUC water, sewer and Hetchy Power bills.
Emergency Discounts of 20% for Small Business and Non-Profit customers on their water and sewer bills.
Ongoing long term discounts for low-income water, sewer and Hetchy Power customers.

To read more about eligibility rules and other details, please visit their bill relief webpage: sfwater.org/billrelief.

Essential Worker Ride Home: SF Environment the SFCTA (SF Environment and SF County Transportation Agency) launched a program to help essential workers commuting home late at night and don't have a reliable transit option. Click here for more.

COVID-19 Eviction and Rent Increase Moratoriums – Emergency tenant protections, including more time to pay your rent, suspension of evictions during the pandemic, and a rent freeze in City-subsidized housing.

General Resources

SF Pit Stop and and Handwashing Stations
SF Food Resources
Help for SF small business owners, workers, and non-profits
Visit the SF Coronavirus Main Page here.
Information for the eviction and rent increase moratorium here.
SF Domestic and family violence resources
SF COVID-19 Data Tracker