City Department Feature : Public Utilities Commission
Q & A with SFPUC Language Access Liaison Jim Chien
Q . How did your Department select which additional languages to prioritize for language services ?
A . We know that many San Franciscans primarily speak and read languages other than English , Chinese , Spanish , and Filipino . We set out to better understand how to expand language access to critical supportive programs at SFPUC by consulting with the City ’ s language diversity data sets , communicators who worked in the City ’ s Joint Information Center during the COVID emergency , and SFPUC staff who are very active in different communities .
Q . What did you learn from this research ?
A . For example , our Clean Power SF team worked closely with the Samoan community in the Bayview and shared that many Samoan-speaking folks were greatly impacted by COVID and couldn ’ t afford to pay water and power bills . Previous survey and application results also indicated that our LEP customers strongly favor receiving information in their native languages , so expanding language access expands our ability to effectively communicate with our communities .
Q . How did this change the way you approached outreach to LEP community members ?
A . During earlier Emergency Customer Assistance Program campaigns , we were already utilizing tactics like :
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