Good morning and welcome to the July 7th, 2025 Rules Committee meeting.

I'm your Chair, Supervisor Shimon Walton, joined by Vice Chair of Supervisor Sherrill and President Rafael Mandelman.

Today's clerk is Victor Young, and we will be joined by Jamie Eschaverry from SFGov TV.

I want to thank them for being available to make sure that this hearing and this meeting is available to the public on SFGov TV.

Mr.

Clerk, do we have any announcements this morning?

Yes, public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda when your item of interest comes up and public comment is called.

Please line up to speak on your right.

Alternatively, you may submit public comment in writing either the following ways.

Email them to myself, the rules committee clerk at VICTOR dot YOUNG at SFgov.org.

If you submit public comment via email, it will be included as part of the file.

You may also send your written comments via US mail to our office in City Hall.

One, Dr.

Carlton be good at place, room 244, San Francisco, California, 94102.

Please make sure to sign this all cell phones and electronic devices.

Documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk.

Items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors' agenda of July 15, 2025, unless otherwise stated.

That completes my initial announcements.

Thank you so much.

Would you please call item number one?

Item number one is a hearing to consider appointing one member term ending May 1st, 2029 to the Homelessness Oversight Commission.

Thank you.

And just for public and for colleagues up, I'm going to make a motion to continue this to the call of the chair so all candidates that want an opportunity to come before this body have a have a chance.

But I do know we have one of the candidates here, so if you want to come up and say anything, please do.

Thank you so much.

My name is Kristen Evans.

I'm currently in seat six on the Homeless Oversight Commission.

On Wednesday afternoon, I received a call from Bridget Badisau, the Commission Secretary of the Homeless Oversight Commission informing me that there was a hearing here at the Rules Committee to make a recommendation on seat six of the Homeless Oversight Commission.

Um within an hour, I submitted my application to be considered for reappointment to seat six.

Ultimately, what our city needs to grapple with is a decades-long trend in growing homelessness is to invest in prevention and to avoid San Francisco's falling into homelessness.

Um to provide meaningful outcomes from our homeless response system, provide adequate affordable housing, and effectively deploy our limited homeless resources to support people in obtaining stable quality housing.

Both by working in collaboration with the city department and service providers, along with uh walking side by side with homeless people to understand firsthand the barriers they face in navigating the system.

I have some I have come prepared to every meeting, submitting questions ahead of time after reviewing the agenda, and I'm able to contribute to meetings in a detailed understanding of the system's in efficiencies and inefficiencies, gaps and failures that assist the commission in meeting its goals and over to of our site.

Um the seat for uh the criteria for seat six is as follows.

A person with significant experience providing services to or engaging in advocacy on behalf of persons experiencing homelessness.

I have personally dedicated years to exactly that through organizations, direct advocacy, and even legislation.

As one of three legal proponents for the proposition C, our city our home ballot measure passed in 2018.

I have advocated for the deployment of dollars for real solutions, housing, homeless prevention, behavioral health, and shelter to address homelessness in our community.

As a result of voters passing Prop C with 61% of the vote, the city's annual resources to provide homes nearly doubled.

Every year, the city's controller's office releases a report on the solutions that have been deployed using the OCO fund.

To date, thousands of San Franciscans have been assisted out of homelessness through housing vouchers and new permanent supportive housing units.

Could you imagine what the impact on San Francisco streets would be if we had not had that funding?

Ninety-six percent of households placed in permanent supportive housing have stayed housed.

Make no mistake, misuse of propsy funds will exacerbate homelessness in San Francisco, which I will explain.

After reviewing the latest report, it would appear that propsy funds are the last thread holding our city back from what would otherwise have been even more cataclysmic homelessness brought on by our housing crisis.

Notably, proposition C required that 45% of these housing fund dollars assist homeless families and youth aged 18 to 29.

Historically, our city's homeless response system has been primarily directed to adult shelter and supportive housing needs.

However, what has been notable in the last point in time count was a surge and doubling of family homelessness, a trend which has unfortunately continued as we've seen the addition of approximately a hundred new families added to the shelter wait list every month this year.

Under this new administration, the mayor has pushed a focus on adult shelter only policy.

Mayor Lurie's budget proposal released in May was to sweep all unencumbered and interest funds in the OCO fund for adult shelter.

Only through considerable advocacy did we achieve a more balanced approach, allocating a portion of housing and homeless prevention dollars for adults, family, and youth.

Unchecked, we can anticipate a continuation of a shelter only focus from this administration.

A strategy, while positive in its approach to addressing much needed resources for substance and mental health treatment at shelter sites, lacks a vision for addressing the root cause of homelessness, inadequate affordable housing.

Shelter only perpetuates our homelessness crisis.

Other cities like Houston have tried housing first policies that have been have seen drastic reductions in homelessness with the same low recidivism rate.

When people cry, but how can we afford that?

I want to remind you that it is the very reason we pass propsy.

It funds this very effective solution with permanent housing.

In fact, today over 5,000 people, including 1,700 children, have a safe and decent place to call home thanks to proposition C.

Detractors say that housing first is all about compassion, but it's actually about a lasting solution.