[PrepTalks Theme Playing]
My name is Daniel Homsey and I'm the
director of the Neighborhood Empowerment Network
in the city administrator's
office of the City and County of San
Francisco. And it's really an honor to be
able to today come out and share with
you the work we've been doing for the
last decade, to perhaps address one of
the most important challenges of our
time, which is making sure that
everybody everyday has the same
opportunity to succeed regardless of the
stress or shock that comes their way. It
seems like a reasonable standard to
achieve, right? Well the truth is that
unfortunately as we look around the
country, look around the world, at times
of stress, the truth is not everyone
has the same opportunity. And frankly
sometimes that's geographically driven.
Sometimes that socioeconomically driven.
But in many cases unfortunately it's
also due to the fact that there are
physical conditions. And often we're
talking about people that are aging in
place, people that have access and
functional needs. And for many people
I think the news unfortunately has been
rich with examples of how people just
couldn't get out of harm's way fast
enough, and therefore were not able to
survive and recover from the disaster.
And I think all of us in this business
really feel strongly like we need create
a world where it doesn't matter how old
you are, it doesn't matter how what kind
of conditions you have, you have the same
chance to succeed when stress comes your
way as everyone else. And so that's kind
of why I'm here today I want to talk to
you about what I think we could
contribute to this mission, and so if I
could just for a few minutes share with
you my story and the work we're doing.
So like everyone in this room my story
starts off with my grandmother, Rose
Homsey, born and raised in San
Francisco in 1901, survived the 1906
earthquake by hiding underneath her
father's butcher block kitchen table;
went on to live in the city and get
married and actually have a couple kids.
And so she had Dolores Homsey,
as well as my father
George Homsey. Two great kids born and
raised in the city and were living
their lives in the city and moving along,
and hopefully like everyone else,
hopefully stepping off this planet in a
reasonable time when they felt it was
their calling. Well the truth is
that my aunt Dolores actually ended up
living in the home that her mother had.
Now you'll see the little square in the
middle of that map, that's where my aunt
lived, and this is Mira Loma Park.
Mira Loma Park is a hill in the middle
of the city, and as you can see the
little blue blob is actually where the
coolest temperatures are. That's the top
of the mountain for Mount Davidson.
But as you see with that northern arrow,
the wind comes off the ocean and
the hot air actually eddies up right
behind it, so you see the darker red blob
right next to the big blue blob.
Well guess what that's exactly where my aunt lived.
Now in San Francisco, you understand that we actually have a different standard for heat waves.
In San Francisco, eighty-five degrees is technically a heat wave.
How many people think that is surprising? 
How many people live here,
that are like eighty-five
degrees is called Wednesday, right?
Well, in San Francisco the issue we have is
that in the fifties, when all these homes
were built they, didn't put air
conditioning in them. What did they do?
They said well if it's hot, open the window in
the front of the house, in the back of
the house. and let the fog cool off the
house, right? And for generations that
actually was the case. But as we know, the
world's changing and the truth is
that the houses that we built in the fifties,
now are no longer just homes, but in some
respects can be a deathtrap. Why is that,
because in San Francisco, we aren't
acclimated as residents to these
temperatures of like ninety, one hundred degrees.
The truth is, is that our bodies are
acclimated to seventy-five, seventy-six degrees, and we react
physiologically to that temperature.
Whenever there's a quick uptick in
temperature, we have a very difficult
time acclimating. On the third day of
this heat wave in 1999, in late October,
the truth is that my aunt laid down
because she was exasperated by the heat.
Her bedroom was actually in the coolest
room of the house normally, but that
actually wasn't the case because of the
heat wave. And the truth is that she
lied down and she never woke up.
Now back then my family we had no idea that
anyone could die of a heat wave in
San Francisco, right? So we just sort of went about our day.
I was probably off at soccer
practice and doing whatever and my aunt
was just living her life like she always
did. So after about three days, my father
hadn't heard from his sister and he went
over to see her. Now by then, the fog had
come in, and by then the windows that had
been open to let the cool air in,
the drapes had blown out and were blowing
down the street, you know that image that
you see sometimes. And she'd laid there
for three days. Her neighbors had driven
by her house
day after day with the windows open the
drapes blowing outside, and not one of
them went over to check on her.
So unfortunately, something that's
completely one hundred percent preventable, which is
dying from a heatwave, we failed that
mission. And so for my family we have to
live with that truth. And the honest
truth is is that we can't do anything
about bringing Dolores back, but we can
do something to make sure it doesn't
happen to someone else. So my journey
then continued later on, I was blessed to
go to New Orleans and partner with
Harvard Kennedy School of Government to
see well what can we do to make sure
those types of things don't happen in
San Francisco again. And the reality is
they told us invest in capable local
leadership, get people to stand up and
lead their community, focus on
inclusiveness and embrace self-reliance.
The bottom line is it's your home it's
your family it's your block at your
neighborhood. Own it! No one else is going
to care more about your family than you.
Be able to evolve the adapt just
challenges arise by developing new
skills and capabilities right. The
world's changing, you have to evolve. The
way things happen in nineteen-fifty in San
Francisco on a hot day are not the way
things are happening in San Francisco in
2017. And lastly increase your level of
connection with the myriad of
organizations that contribute to your
community success every day. It's not
just the government, it's the private
sectors the local university, it's the CBO,
it's the nonprofit. Meet all the folks
that care about your community
resilience and work with them every day
so that when that moment comes, everyone
has the same equitable chance of survive.
That's why in San Francisco we created
the Neighborhood Empowerment Network and
as you can see it's a cross sector
cohort of government agencies, nonprofit
philanthropic organizations, academic
institutions, and residence group, working
side-by-side on this incredibly
important mission. But what is our
approach?
Well first of all we, plan with people,
not for them. We don't walk in your
neighborhood with like here's your plan,
and they're like great that's your plan.
No it's your plan, your plan, your plan,
your plan. We don't play that game. We
walk in with a blank piece of paper and
we ask them ten or fifteen questions and based
on those ten or fifteen questions, they have a
plan and then we commit to support
implementing it. What's also powerful about
what we're doing, I believe is that we
not only plan with people, we design with
people. Every single system that we're
developing right now and implementing in
San Francisco, and the one I'll share
with you later here today about Neighborfest, was created by residents, for
residents. The power of that is when I go
into a neighborhood with my typical sort
of Tony Robbins evangelical approach
towards this work, they're like okay what
consultant did you hire to put this
together? I'm like, consultant? I'm talking
about, I'm talking about Mira Loma Park
neighborhood over here. They're the ones
that came up with this idea, and they're like
oh you mean people just like us? Yes
people just like you. Everything we build
has to be scalable, and duplicatable, and
sustainable. You wanna know why? Cuz I'm
not sure how many other people who are
watching this talk in the room today,
but I'm not blessed with a massive
budget and a ton of staff. So if I build
something it has to stick, so I can move
on to the next community, and it needs to
stay in that community.
We also offer real value to all the
stakeholder organizations from all
sectors in all levels. The bottom line is
sure people will show up in a meeting
and say yeah we care about this
community, but if it doesn't actually solve
a problem that they have, they're not
gonna stick around. So for the government,
for the nonprofit community, for the
residents, it's got to be something that
is problem-solving, not just a nice thing
to do. Also we need to drive ownership at
the neighborhood level. We need to get
back to the ethos and values that made
this country great. And we do that by the
transfer of power right, and we do that
by letting people know we're gonna help
you lead this community and we're going
to empower you, but you need to take
responsibility for the safety of your
community. With our work, if we go to
meetings and neighborhoods stop showing
up, we don't go back because if they're
not willing to do the work, we can't do
it for them. Our core platform is
called the HUB. The bottom line is a
cross sector network that we set up in
the neighborhood. At the center of the
network we find that AI, our Anchor
Institution. It's the one organization
that everyone in the neighborhood
trusted. It could be a church, it could be
a non-profit, it could be a rec center, it
could be the corner store. We don't care,
as long as they're the trusted source of
that community that people will listen to.
We partner with them, we onboard them
in a partnership, and then we reach out
and on board the little red dots, which
is a HUB member organizations. It could
be the pharmacist at Walgreens, it could
be the librarian, it could be the rec
and park center, it could be the Boy Scout
Troop. We don't care, we want you to come
to the table and work as a team to learn
how to prepare your community for times
of stress, and work together during times
of stress.
The outer ring though is the exciting
new layer that I  want to share
with you today. They're called the Block
Champions right, and the Block Champion
program is for a lot of folks who live
in communities where there's a lot of
suburban footprint or people that live
remotely who can't get around easily
during a disaster, someone needs to be
there for them. Every day, Block Champions
are working to establish a team at the
block level, Every day they're advancing
readiness, with an emphasis on care and
shelter. And every day they're advancing
connection with the vulnerable. Think
about my Aunt Dolores. The truth is is
that she was rather socially isolated in
her community. The neighborhood was
turning over, people were coming and going,
and no remembered little Dolores from she
was growing up. So the honest truth is we
need to artificially regenerate those
connections and put ourselves in a place
to make those relationships. During times
of stress, we want the Block Champions to
pivot. I opened something we called the
block support center. Assemble their team,
provide care and shelter to everyone on
the block, and most importantly
coordinate with the first responders
that are coming to their neighborhood. If
the first responders were to go
door-to-door and find out who needs help
and then try and figure out how to help
them; but rather of they can show up, find out who
already has been identified as needing help,
and then find out who really needs the
most help, that lets them meet the needs
of more people faster. And that's what
our first responder community needs from us.
So we said to them well what's the
easiest way to get a block champion up
and running, and build that team, and get
connected with the folks, and learn how
to do care and shelter? So we realized,
throw a block party. And my good friend
professor Daniel Aldrich, from Northeastern
University, is one of the biggest
champions for the Neighborfest program
because he has proven quantitatively and
qualitatively that in situations,
fast-moving disasters, such as the
tsunami in Japan that it wasn't the size
of the seawall that was the x-factor for
your survival, it was a level of social
cohesion you had with your immediate
neighbors and friends.
So the bottom line is job one for us is
to get down the block level, and make
sure that people are connected, and make
sure that people trust each other. So
with the Neighborfest program, it's very
simple. What are our target capabilities
right? First of all, connection. We want
people to be able to assemble a team, and
work together, to prepare and respond to
disasters. We want to increase social cohesion amongst the residents.
Do they even know each other?
You can't help someone, unless you know someone.
And you certainly can't help
someone, unless you care about someone.
And we want to increase the
connection with first responders. All too
often, that first and only time people
meet first responders is frankly when
things are going wrong. Now I'm just
gonna tell you right now that's not a
great time to start a relationship built
on trust and reciprocity, right. So let's
get our first responders into these
communities and meet these people today.
Secondly, capacity what we want to
focus on? Well first of all, everyone
may know about a program called the
incident command system. It's a really
smart way to either plan how to respond
to a disaster or put on the world's
greatest wedding. So we realized, what if
we took the toolkit and actually showed
them how to organize their block party,
but actually using the incident command
system. We want them to asset map their
neighborhood. Where all the
mission-critical resources? If we can't
get water, power, and sewer, everything up
and running quickly as possible, where
can you find food in your community or
medical supplies and meet your needs
without us? Mass feeding, let's face it
the first thing people want to do after
disaster is get together and eat, right.
It has a more of a symbolic social
feeling than anything else, but feeding
people is critical. We want to be able to
help them create strategies to communicate
in a culturally competent way. Our
neighborhoods are changing. Not everyone
in the community went to the same high
school and speaks the same language
anymore. We need be able to work across
those barriers and help each other
because we care about each other. But
learning how to engage folks that may
not speak the same language as you, or come
from a different culture, that takes a
little time. The block party is a great
place to start that work. And we need to
increase the level of readiness of our
neighbors. We talk about kits. I'm all
about kits, but about not only what's in
your kit, it's about who's in your kit,
again pointing back to Professor Daniel
Aldrich's work.
Lastly, resources. In San Francisco, we're
blessed. We give everyone a big red bin
of disaster supplies, donated by Recology,
that's our local garbage company. Gloves,
hats, helmets, visqueen, the kind of things
you need to help people shelter in place.
They've also identified all the local
resources on their block, for their block party,
and they've been identified all the local
resources in their neighborhoods, so they
can actually work together and tap into
those resources post-disaster.
What are the benefits we have for our
agency partners? Well let's face it, this
is a program that we want to bring and
share with other communities, so of
course the people in charge of
preparedness, what's the benefit to them?
First and foremost identifying
hyperlocal leaders. Everybody will tell
you, in the emergency management business
or in the public safety business, knowing
the person on the block, that is the
mayor of the block, that people will
listen to, and have the Intel and advice
on what to do, and how to move forward
during times of stress. Job one, find
that person, buy them coffee, give them
your cell phone number.
They will give you more of a better
heads-up than anyone else will.
It's a culturally competent outreach.
Going to a block party in one community,
like the mission, and going to block
party in the Richmond District, they're
gonna be totally separate, but I
guarantee you it'll be culturally
competent. Why? Because they organized it.
Also by working with them now and
letting them know you care about them,
and you want to make their neighborhood
safer for them to live and age in place,
and visit and shop, builds trust with
your agencies, so when you show up and
everything that's gone wrong, they're
building on a positive experience, not
creating a new relationship in a
negative environment. There's a huge
reduction in staffing and event cost. I'm
gonna tell you right now, I organize and put
together more resource fairs and more
like meetups and communities around
disaster preparedness, and I'll be honest
with you, if I look at the amount of time
I spent, and the amount of money I spent
on that event, and the number of people
that actually I felt showed up and got the
kind of contact and behavior-changing
messaging I wanted, I will tell you it
didn't pencil out. It didn't pencil out. The
best thing about the block party is they
organized it. They buy the food, they
closed the street, they program it, and
then we just show up for two hours and
just talk to people, right. So an
incredibly powerful benefit, it's a
better event than I ever could have put
on, and yet at the same time though I got
to spend my time advancing my mission,
not hosting putting together a block
party. And it's about quality time with
hard-to-reach residents. I'll tell you
right now, I've been these block parties
before and I can't tell you how
gratifying it is to see the doors open,
and in-home supportive care person come
out with someone in a wheelchair, and
wheel them out to meet their neighbors,
and connect for the first time. And as
you asked me anytime, you can ask my wife
when I come home, she goes how was your
day? I'm like, I'm gonna tell you my day
was phenomenal.
Why is that? Because we did a block party today
and I know people came out for the first
time and met their neighbors that they
had never melt before. so for a lot of
our agency partners, these are the the
five things that really get them to look
at this thing more seriously. So what is
a block party?
Well, again it's all about the food, right?
The one on the top, that's the block
party I host on my street, Bella Vista
Street in San Francisco. In other words I
eat my own dog food. So everything I'm
telling you that I suggest you do, I live
and breathe everyday in my own life. And
I think it's really important for all of
us to recognize, is we got to stop
advising people to do something that
we're not doing ourselves because they
can tell. So one thing I want all
of you to do today is think about going home
and throwing a block party when you
move forward. Remember I talked about the
cultural flair. Look at these block
parties. There's my buddy Jeff Coffee and
his band, rocking it out in the corner.
But the upper right, on Ford Street in
San Francisco, they pull out vintage
pinball machines and have a tournament.
How cool is that? On Elizabeth Street,
here's the Elizabeth Street block party,
in the middle of the block party, a belly
dancing flash mob. How great is that? Well
let me tell you right now, let me
ask you at your next resource for
planning, you're like okay I need some
people to volunteer to belly dance, right.
No not gonna happen. This community, I'll
tell you about 20 minutes later these
two women were surrounded by 35 people,
all dancing in the street, right. The best
block party ever, or at least one of the
best. I don't like any trouble so my
friends. But one of my favorite block
parties I ever attended. But then here
are the first responders, right. Here's
the police department, working
with residents, connecting with them, talking
about their priorities and goals and
objectives. There's the fire department
as well. And then even more perhaps
importantly below them, is our CERT and NERT
team out there, engaging their neighbors,
talking about how they need to work
together during the times of stress,
explaining the benefit of the cert
program, and why it's just a powerful way
to basically transform your commitment to
your community in a way that actually
addresses important needs they may have
one day. The last thing we do is we
actually come in and run a tabletop
exercise. I'm gonna take a second here
and focus on this, right. So we run this
thing called Map Your Resilientville.
On the left, you see that column, and the
large vertical photo, that is the street.
We actually go into the satellite image
and pull the image of their street, and
then on the left we build on the Map
Your Block methodology and actually have
each person mark on the street where
they live, and their name, address, and phone number.
So first of all they inventory where they are,
then we pivot over and say let's play
the world's greatest game. What's it
called? It's called Map Your Resilientville.
And we say if there's a major
earthquake, and for 72 hours there's no
power water sewer or electricity or
communication coming in your community,
where could you find these
mission-critical services and resources
in your own neighborhood. So as you can
see on the left column over there, you
can see they're looking for water, power and community convening space, right. It
could be in their home, it could be on
their block, it could be in the neighborhood.
On the far right again, food, shelter,
medical. Where would you find these
resources in your community? I got to tell
you, I've worked in the city for years,
and I look at our asset maps, and I look
at the asset map you see people come up
with, they are so much better. People are
like, oh I have a spring in my backyard
that every year generates fresh water.
I'm like that's not on my map. Or my
neighbor next door is a chiropractor, he has
a ton of medical supplies. That's not on
my map. So they actually find the
resources in their community that are
real and tangible. Things that we would
never know in a million years down at
City Hall. And at the end here we go, Goettingen block party again, this is the the
final session. You can see all the
materials they've got in their bin. You can
see their map and you see the families
all they're together, celebrating the
experience they had that day. What's
really cool is, not only do all those
disaster supplies go back in the bin, but
so does the map. How powerful is that?
Can you imagine there's a disaster, like
a major earthquake, you pull out your bin,
not only are all the supplies you need
to help clear each other's homes out and
protect each other, but there's a whole
map of your neighborhood with all those
resources and supplies you need, plus the
addresses of all your neighbors. How many
people would like that map right now in
their garage, with the disaster supplies,
show of hands, right? It's a no-brainer, and
it's easy to do, and it's completely
achievable with the Neighborfest
program. Two thousand and seventeen, thirty-five Neighborfests across the city.
Two thousand and eighteen, forty-five Neighborfests across the city. It is spreading virally. We say no,
unfortunately, to more people than we can
say yes to. Closing out my story here's
my pops, George. Again, I love my dad, lost his sibling in a heatwave.
Fast forward to two thousand and fifteen, guess what, the heat returns to San Francisco. My sister and I,
who's also an emergency manager, were
like we're not gonna let this happen
again. We're calling dad, we're talking to
dad, we're going over there, we're making
him drink. But guess what? We turned our backs for a minute,
he took a Claritin because he
thought the allergies were kicking in,
all of a sudden he got sleepy, he went
upstairs to the hottest room in the
house, his bedroom. He fell face forward and
laid there for twelve hours. Twelve hours,
eighty-six years old, twelve hours. The powerful thing is,
the next morning my neighbor woke up and
his mom's a nurse, she said why don't you go
check on George? It was pretty hot last
night. My neighbor got up, walked
across the way, knocked on my dad's door,
went in found him upstairs. Fortunately he
had the key because my dad has known him
his whole life, so he trusted him with
the key, went up there found my dad,
picked him up, took him to the hospital, and
saved his life. There's the house. Boom,
there's my dad with my two kids. And
the bottom line is this, my dad's alive
and knows his grandchildren, because his
neighbor came and checked on him, because
he cared about him. My dad's alive
because something that was completely
avoidable, which was him dying in a
heatwave, was solved just because he took
the time to meet the people around him,
and get them to trust and build
relationships that are built on trust
and reciprocity and love. So ladies and
gentlemen, I present to you Neighborfest.
And our opportunity is this, let's go
from making preparedness about homework,
and let's make it about fun work, and
let's build a stronger more resilient
world from the block up. Thank you very much.
Well the first thing you want to do is go to Neighborfest.org. That's where you can
find all kinds of toolkits, and tips, and
resources, and videos, and a lot of other
powerful tools that will help you, we
believe, put on the world's greatest
block party. But I want to be very clear,
we tried to not make this a reinvention
of the block party, but just adding a
layer to the block party. So the truth is
many people are better prepared than
they think they are. And let's face it, I
did an assessment of San Francisco last
year there were two hundred and eighty block parties
already in San Francisco. So people
already wanted to a block party,
we're just saying hey add a little
resilience, add a little of the Neighborfest
flavor and will not only help it be
a more successful event, but will also
help you realize you're doing a lot more
than just whipping up your favorite
recipe for burgers and salads, you
actually might be saving lives. And
that's what people deep down inside
really want to know, is that every day
they're doing the things they need to do
to make sure they can be each other
during times of stress.
Now I love that question and it's kind of the
reason why we created Neighborfest, is
because we know people are gonna
activate, we know they're gonna respond,
we know they're gonna do their very best,
but the truth is I kind of feel like
writing a book one time, which is called
like how to save your neighborhood
without killing everybody, right. The old
like well two drops of bleach is
good in water, a cup must be better,
right? In nineteen eighty-nine for example, the people
that were like gung-ho like oh natural
gas, let's turn off all the gas lines in
the neighborhood, to all the homes. Well
guess what, unless you need to turn off
the natural gas in your neighborhood
after disaster, you shouldn't because
there are literally dozens of seniors
and other people with access and
functional needs, that rely on natural
gas for heating and preparing food, so
they can take their medication so you
think you may be helping but you're
asking to make things worse, right.
Also by working with our block champion
program, and the pivot for them is to
open up a Block Support Center, is by
identifying the people that we know want
to help, then we can streamline their
access to the trainings that will
empower them. So we're working with the
Red Cross Nile and we're doing first-day
trainings in neighborhoods and
streamlining access to those folks, but
we're also actually working on
psychological first aid trainings too. So
we want to help people also understand
the meant the mental component of
disaster response, not just the physical
component. So by identifying these people
today and have them present that they
want to help, the bottom line is that
let's grab them and train them properly,
so they can help. And the Neighborfest
program is a great way pre-event, to find
these folks, and then post event make
sure that they're contributing, not
perhaps undermining. So I appreciate your
point and I just wanna let you know I
think this program addresses it.
Did you know in the Ninth Ward, that someone who
was on the President's Council for
Preparedness, with a disability drowned
on the phone with the White House,
calling for help in the Ninth Ward, right.
And the point being there is, we need to
also encourage the people that are
living with these conditions, to make an
effort to engage those around them. It
doesn't matter if you know someone in
the White House. Does the person next
door know that you have mobility issues and
will need help to get down the
staircase, right? And so this is a very
difficult nut to crack and the Block
Champion program and the Neighborfest
program, what we want to actually do is
help them understand the latest
techniques and strategies for not only
engaging folks, but not going to
them and saying oh,
you're in a wheelchair so you're gonna
be a victim, and I'm gonna save you after a
disaster. And like whoa whoa whoa, I'm not
a victim, I'm a survivor, right.
So also how to look at people not as
being a liability, but look at them as being
a resource and a partner, because you
might get that person out of the
building and find out they're a retired
police officer, and they may run your
incident command post and save a bunch
of other people's lives. So I just want
to put out there that it's not always
looking at people and saying like I'm the
hero you're the victim, but saying like
we're partners let's work together and
let's get you in a place where you can
contribute to your success as well pre
and post disaster.
Look, I'm in government and we all know government is a very layered entity in our world.
Some people have very strong opinions about
government's role in their life.
I'll tell you right now I know anything about
government, government's a reactive
beast. So if one person calls from the
neighborhood and says you don't understand, there's
a massive problem, these trees are
blocking our way.
et cetera, et cetera, they'll be okay.
That's what you're concerned about. Then
the next person calls, you don't understand the
roads are broken, we need to fix this, you don't
understand, there's so and so. The
difference is this when you come
together in an organized way and you
have the police or the fire chief there,
and maybe some other folks, I
would try and get as many elected
officials as possible there, and then
have them go through the process with
you, and have them collectively to identify
these are the three things we need to do
to make sure that if there is a fire
everyone have an equitable chance to
survive, and then leave that meeting with
the agreement that on the mitigation
side we would like this County to focus
on getting these three trees out of our
way. And that's a partnership between the
government and the residents, but it's
also about a consensus, meaning the
government wants to make everyone happy
but can't do it individually, but when
everyone agrees on what they want to do
the government really does make
that a lot easier. So really look at that
collective impact model and look at the
same organizing they do around every
other issue, land use, transportation, and
public safety, and realize the more you
speak with one voice, the more likely
that one thing will happen.
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