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Meeting Information



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Immigrant Rights Commission

 

Immigrant Rights Commission

Minutes of Meeting on June 10, 2002


The Immigrant Rights Commission (IRC) meeting was held on Monday, June 10, 2002 at Visitacion Valley Community Center at 66 Raymond Ave. in San Francisco at 6:00 P.M.

I. Roll Call:
Members Present          Diana Lau, chairperson arrived at 6:25pm, Medea Benjamin, Vera Haile, Phu Nguyen, Joseph Nwadibia arrived at 6:30pm, Richard Ow, Marlene Tran, Houston Zheng, Commissioner Zheng left at 6:55pm, Commissioner Ow left at 8:00pm

Members Absent          Juan Berumen, Isabel Huie, Vice chair, Joaquin Gonzalez, Emi Gusukuma

Others Present          Dang Pham, Executive Director
Winny Loi, Commission Secretary

II. Approval of minutes for May 13 & 29, 2002:
          Commissioner Haile moved to approve the minutes, which was seconded by Commissioner Ow. The minutes were adopted unanimously.

III. Resolution strongly urging the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, Department of Children, Youth, and their Families, to continue its budgetary support for immigrant youth and children services and to establish a youth center in the South of Market.
Commissioners move to adopt the resolution. The Commission unanimously adopted the resolution.

IV. Resolution authorizing the Executive Director of the Commission to negotiate and execute a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Aging and Adult Services on the transfer of responsibility to administer state grants for Naturalization and Citizenship Education.
          Commissioner Ow moves to approve the resolution, which was seconded by Commissioner Tran and was approved unanimously

V. Public Comment: 1. Mr. Lee addresses his concerns to the commission about housing assistance. Many Asians move to Visitacion Valley area, because of lower pricing of homes in that area. For this reason 2 problems are created. First, there are a great number of families who are low-income that preside in this area. Secondly, there are a number of people who do not speak or understand English. He received a letter from the SF Housing Authority Section 8 program, but the letter is written in English. When he was notified, he had to bring an interpreter. This makes it difficult for the new immigrants. After the interview he brought the form & needed the owner’s signature. The owner did not understand English either and would not take any legal responsibility. He refuses to sign his name & he was unable to get subsidies. In the future, if someone wants to apply for low-income housing or senior citizen housing, what are they supposed to do? He also suggested that the language should not put too much pressure towards the owners of the property, so that they will cooperate with the government agency to make the process easier. Also, to have forms & some information in Chinese.

          2. Ms. Wong addresses her concerns to the commission of an incident that happened on the bus. During her bus ride from the airport to the city, an African American woman hit her with a newspaper & called her names and everyone on the bus laughed at her. She wanted to report the incident but could not, since there was no police officer to assist her with Mandarin only Cantonese. There was also another incident that happened in the school with her son. He was beaten up, because he cut in line. After that incident he was afraid to go to school. They did not pursue the situation, because they cannot communicate with the schools. She addressed that there should be more bilingual services to assist parents.

          3. Captain Dillion described this incident as a hate crime. They have a special unit that specializes in Hate Crime. Their department works with AT&T to do translation. He addressed that they are trying to recruit more bilingual officers.

          4. Jill Tregor with Intergroup Clearing House is specialized in hate crime. They can get help from her organizations. She brought some brochures that are translated to Chinese, she also mentioned that there are bilingual workers who can assist them. She also stated that she will talk with SamTramn so next time these incidents will not happen again.

          5. Susan Kehero with the Unified School District said that she would follow up & investigate this issue, and also talk with the high school.

          6. Robert Lopez with MUNI specified that this incident happened on SamTramn & not the MUNI, but he can call & talk to them about how they can assist if this type of situation happens.

          7. Leo Chi with Chinese for Affirmative Action gave the public some information. He stated that Asian Law Caucus & Employment Law Center could assist you with any legal matter. He also informed the audience that there is free legal help every Wednesday at their center.

8. Ms. Wong addressed to the commission about increasing bilingual classes for vocational training, job placement & assistance that related to job placement, computer classes and citizenship classes.

          9. Mr. Au addressed to the commission that he has been here for over 30 years. He has been beaten and robbed. He asked if the street lights can be brighter in the Visitacion Valley area. When you have brighter lights it prevents people from getting robbed. He thanked the 2 Captains that the safety has improved through the years.

          10. Mr. Mak addressed to the Supervisor Maxwell to attend more community meetings so she can have a better understanding of the needs of the community.

          11. Ms. Chu addressed to the commission that she applied for section 8, but all the materials are in English. She relied on someone to help her fill out the application forms. We don’t speak English, but we do pay taxes, so why are there no services to help us. 1st she suggested that there should be services to protect the rights of new immigrants. 2nd Section 8 department should explain to the landlord and cooperate so those applicants will get these benefits.

          12. Ms. Jing addressed to the commission to set up bilingual computer classes. She suggested having bilingual classes on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. She also suggested building bigger schools in the Visitation Valley area and having more vocational training.

          13. Ms. Tam addressed to the commission to set up 2 additional bus stops on the 9ax. When you have young children & carrying lots of groceries, it’s long & difficult walk to get back home. She would like Muni to add 2 more bus stops in that area.

          14. Ms. Fong addressed to the commission that she has been here for 2 years and does not feel safe in this neighborhood. She has been beaten & robbed. A few days later she heard that this incident has been going on for a while. Someone also broke into her house and the police just briefly took down the information, she feels that they did not do a thorough search or get their fingerprints. She feels scared and asked if more police officers can patrol this area more often to prevent this from happening again.

          15. Mr. Au came here 3 years ago. His son was taking the 15-bus home from a classmate’s house. He was robbed & beaten by 3 African American kids. His son is 16 years old and is frightened. As parents, they have limited English skills, which they were not able to file a police report. He would like the police to increase police patrol and also hire more bilingual officers for this area.

          16. Ms. Lui has been here for 3 years & has been robbed 5 times. Last year her husband walked behind her to take her to the bus stop everyday, unfortunately she was robbed and also beaten. She goes to work in fear everyday. She would like to increase more police patrol for this area.

          17. Ms. Lee addressed to the commissioners that while she goes jogging every morning, she would see these dogs out without leashes or muzzle. The dogs would run up to her to bite her. She feels unsafe being attacked by a dog. She stated that the owner should either have a leash or a muzzle so she would feel safe.

Adjournment:                    The Commission meeting was adjourned at 6:55 p.m. due to lack of quorum.