Introductions & Sign In

Facilitator:  Karen Cohn                                Recorder:  Anjali Nath

1.      Review Minutes & Follow up items

Anjali, Ray and Krista provided an overview of their experiences at the Asthma Disparities Summit

2.      Report Back from Jan 17^th SFHA Community Training Day

·        Raymond reported that he was pleased to learn more about how the cameras work.

·        Matt reported that it seemed like Property Managers were interested in a better relationship with DPH and DBI

·        Louise reported that 11 Property Managers (PMs) in the 1^st session; 2^nd afternoon session was a small group, no advocates or reps from City Atty’s office; Total of 22-24 people

·        1^st presentation started off very icy, felt like participants did not want to be there.  Reluctant to trust us initially. Felt that City Atty could have informed SFHA first of problems identified.

·        ATF learned the magnitude of their obstacles.

·        By the end of the training SFHA property managers warmed over and were interested in more collaboration with DBI, DPH, ATF.  Want more collaboration and help with tenant education (not advocacy or tenant rights)

·        Received a formal thank you from N. Boyd and A. Hayes – Louise read email correspondence; seem to be ready and willing to go to next step

·        Want to establish more informal meetings/Round Tables with depts. and ATF, really looking for more training and education for PMs and tenants, can look into community groups that might be interested

·        For PMs – how to interact with tenants, how to handle belligerent situations, provide or direct to resources

·        Looks like we are heading toward ATF exit goal – to have Modernization, Maintenance, Property Managers in same room

·        ATF was invited to speak to City Atty Task Force;  Karen made the presentation yesterday

·        Louise mentioned that the problems Blinds down, concrete walls in Sunnydale, mold in bedrooms due to beds/dressers against wall

ATF can look into additional trainings for Property Mangers

Anjali will look into the Contra Costa Conty Asthma Coalition’s model for doing tenant education and providing home toolkits.

3.      Updates – including spending

none

4.      ATF Sustainability Strategy

Louise talked about the process she has used

ARC, Building Sciences, Natl Ctr for Healthy Housing, Thomas Ogren’s website, Intl Property Maintenance Code

Karen brought the Lead Hazard Prevention – A quick guide for rental prop owners

What do we want?

NG – we have different targets for which different material is needed

Target for guidance: Property Owners (Tenants can also have access to it)

Not really contractors because SF Building codes are already sufficiently restrictive

Guidance with a companion tool

1. What is asthma safe healthy Housing
2. Tenant rights
3. Laws – summary of building, housing and health issues, link them to codes and resources
4. Resources section – ARC,

Lead Hazard Document process- Going to press (press release); Public Ed pice; working with youth program to recruit people into Energy Watch program; could lead to evidence and testimony that can help us pass policies

Goal:  Show lead hazards are reduced

Could do something similar with the guidance we are developing.  Need to decide on one category of housing to focus on.

Matt provided an update on what he learned about LEED standards.

Categories – New construction, commercial, tenant improvement, remodel

Permit review is expedited for those who indicate they are following LEED standards

• Committee has agreed to work on 2 products:

a.       User-friendly guidance

b.      Policies to be passed

a.       Prioritize 1-3 policies we want to pass – drop smoking in housing because other groups are focused on this

b.      Work on existing tools – Whole House Performance Testing

c.       What are issues we get asked about the most?

• Members began to review Policy Recommendations and we need to look at these and identify top priorities to start moving forward on:

a.       Agreed to start developing a policy proposal for LEED standards and whole house performance testing

5.      Working to maximize interaction with SF Dept of Environment/EJ strategic plan/Energy Strategic Plan

• Ray reported that strategic plan is completed
• EJ is very interested in focus on clean air and clean indoor air
• We can ID how to plug in SFE in our goals
• Neil requested more clarification on what projects SFE covers so we can ID areas of overlap

Ray will bring the EJ Strategic Plan to distribute next week

6.      Announcements and Review meeting outcomes

• Karen provided an update on EPP project

• City has a purchasing spec about what agencies can use and schools have same thing.  Specification does not cover respiratory hazards, even on a national level.  NY state mandated that Greenseal, NYState, Canada, Medical expertise – fostering conversation to bring spec up to speed

7.      Next Meeting & Agenda

·        IAQ Public Education strategies

Next Meetings of Committee: 

a.      Wednesday, March 7, 2007, 1:30-3:30pm  *Note new time! Rescheduled to March 21st

b.      Wednesday, April 4, 2007