Another win for Affordable Housing in the Mission District and the city of San Francisco. It is the result of years of work in partnership with Tenderloin Neighborhood Development corporation [applause] supervisor hillary ronens office. [applause] mayor london breed and her team. [applause] our friends from wells fargo. [applause] the California Department of housing and Community Development. [applause] and many other amazing organizations. Casa d indiscernible 631 florida is main stay and permanent fixture for Affordable Housing in the Mission District. This project has 130 Family Friendly homes, including 39 homes for the formally unhoused. [applause] in addition to the housing, it will be the permanent home, the permanent home for carn val San Francisco,b a true San Francisco institution. This will be the 9th Community Based organization that is housed in one of buildings and continues to strategy of cultural placekeeping to insure that the Mission Never loses its history of latino culture l and arts. [applause] casa d 631 florida was a Community Space before becoming housing and Community Space it will remain permanently. [applause] so, we know that much of what we do is about living our values. Togetherness are two core values. This project will not be here today if collectively we did not have the audacity to dream of what could be and should be. Of the audacity to fight for what we think is right and just. Also, today is about togetherness. Look around. We are here celebrating together how this housing for communityhow this housing and this Community Space will serve families and Community Members who are often underserved and underrepresented. Again, the core of our work comes down to the people who now call casa d631 plor florida their permanent home. [applause] again, i want to share my gratitude to all of those who contributed to making the building happenp. Specifically, i want to thank mayor breed. Thank you mayor. [applause] who administration is key insuring Affordable Housing in the Mission Remains a priority now and for the future. This includes her leadership in making sure that buildings like this one become a realty each and every day. Also, she has been a true champion for the small sites program, which has aallowed to purchase 38 apartment buildings and saved over 300 families from eviction in this neighborhood. Thank you, mayor breed. [applause] i want to thank the board of directors for their trust, for providing great care, guidance and support as we dare to become an Affordable Housing developer, taking many many risks along the way. Thank you [applause] finally, i must thank our team. They now provide services to over 17 thousand people per year in this neighborhood. [applause] our staff shows a remarkable ability to beadacious by adapting and pivot to meet the needs of our community at any moment. This includes providing key services before, during and after the pandemic. Insuring our businesses have access to Technical Assistance and capital. Rehabilitating existing apartment buildings and building New Buildings like this one. Creating spaces for Community Organizations that are no longer threatened by eviction. You name it, meta staff always steps up to support this community. Thank you meta team. [applause] at the end of the day, we will do this work because of the People Living here. Our residents. Our community. And now it is my great pleasure, it is my great great pleasure i have to say to introduce you to dolores a woman who calls this building her permanent home. [applause] [speaking spanish] hello everyone. Thanks for being here. Mayor london breed, welcome. [speaking spanish. Waiting for translation] my name is dolores ramero originally from el salvador. Im 77 years old and i worked and lived in San Francisco for many years. [waiting for translation] i worked really hard to bring my two children to this country, and i worked at a Mexican Restaurant before and getting there at 6 p. M. And finishing up at 5 a. M. [waiting for translation] i used to live on 20 and valencia for 35 years. I used to go up three flights of stairs every day, and i count the steps 42 steps. [waiting for translation] when i got to 20 and valencia i was full of energy and that was good, but in 2008 i was diagnosed with cancer. [waiting for translation] it was very hard for me because it was very difficult after a huge operation procedure to go up the three flights of stairs. [waiting for translation] i needed to go up and down sitting down. [waiting for translation] [applause] but in 2020, covid came and i was in the hospital for a total of 6 months. [waiting for translation] after covid, after the 6 months, i didnt recover fully and i couldnt go up the three flights of stairs. I had to move with my daughter for total of 4 months because i couldnt do it and i needed the elevator at her apartment. [waiting for translation] but i continued to go up those three flights of stairs sitting down and i would come down sitting down as well. [waiting for translation] i fell three times going up and down the stairs, but i thank god, thank meta, tndc and all the other organizations involved in this project. [waiting for translation] but after covid, after applying since 2008 for housing, march 2022 they let me know that i won the lottery. [applause] [waiting for translation] [laughter] on march 2022, veronica from meta called letting me know i won the lottery. She was confused and shocked because she didnt buy a ticket. [laughter] [waiting for translation] but no, it was the lot tory for my future home. [waiting for translation] [applause] [applause] on october 2022 they told me to come pick up my key. She said she didnt feel she was picking up a key, she felt she was picking up a crown because she feels like a gwen queen at home. She wants to thank all the organizations that made this happen and hope everyone continues to support what we are doing to keep people housed and thank you everyone again. Thank you. [applause]she wants to thank all the organizations that made this happen and hope everyone continues to support what we are doing to keep people housed and thank you everyone again. Thank you. [applause] i like to introduce pedro, Deputy Director of legislation at California Department of housing and Community Development. [applause] [speaking spanish] good afternoon everybody. Im pedro, Deputy Director at department of housing and Community Development, and it is a great honor to be here today. I want to congratulate the community and our partners today at meta and tndc for this tremendous building and this Beautiful Community that they have built with 130 new Affordable Homes. This project includes homes that are affordable for people who experience homelessness, it includes two Community Spaces and Sustainable Agricultural on the roof and this is a model for how housing can be built to be affordable, environmentally sustainable and socially responsible. I also want to thank madam mayor on behalf of director vulas quez and the Newsom Administration and my self it is honor to celebrate and thank you for your continued support of Affordable Housing here and throughout your city. It is with partners like you that we make buildings like this happen so thank you. Thank you also to supervisor ronen for your leadership and continuing to push for more Affordable Housing here in the mission, and throughout the city. I also want to acknowledge the work of my partners at the state level with the california tax credit and Debt Limit Allocation Committee for providing the invest mentds to make it possible. It is great joy and say it department of housing and Community Development is proud to have invested 14 million in this project. As i said, this is exactly the type of project we want to fund. To share a little bit about why i feel personally connected here, my own family immigrated to the United States from brazil and when i was young we struggled to find stable housing. Eventually we did. It wasnt affordable but it was stable, and it gave usit gave me the stability i needed to study and to actually be here speaking to you all today. This is a amazing opportunity that this building is providing to all 130 families that live here, but also the families that are going to be here in the future. Places like these are key to maintaining a stable mission. Making sure that there continues to be art, neighbors to continue to be in their neighborhood. And i can know that having a place like this would have made a tremendous difference to my family had we had the opportunity and im so glad dolores has this opportunity and so many other families will get to enjoy this permanent Affordable Housing. That is why Affordable Housing continues to be such a critical investment for the administration of governor newsom. This administration invested 20billion in Affordable Housing since it started and we have built every 10 thousand units and there is another 45 thousand Affordable Housing units on their way. Collectively thesethank you. [clapping] collectively these units are going to provide homes for nearly a Million People through the useful life, and more then a Million People need Affordable Homes in california, but it is a significant start and we need the help of you all to continue building on that momentum. Thank you all for having us. Thank you for building this Beautiful Community and it is great pleasure i introduce nob nub hernandez, Community Member the executive direct of canasf and founder of mission food health. Thank you all so much. [applause] those do not know spanish, good afternoon. [speaking spanish] first of all,b i want to acknowledge a whole bunch of people and i want to start with jonathan. Where is jonathan at from south space . Come here jonathan. This brotheri have to tell you a story, man. He came to our neighborhood and he started cell space. Cell space was one of the most beautiful spaces that we had here in our community where carnival, indiscernible here earlier who did the blessing, the theater groups, all kinds of artist, it was a communal space and thriving 7 days a week and sometimes 24 hours a day, and nobody ever shut us down because we were making noise, right . But it was fun noise because it brought young people, brought children, it brought community together, so thank you my brother. I want to honor and tell you i love you. I love you. Thank you. [applause] and then unfortunately the story goes sideways. All a sudden indiscernible came to the city. Riches and wealthy people come in. For some reason they decided they wanted to live in this little ghetto, this village we have been existing, right. They wanted a urban culture experience, but they gentrifyed us in a violent way where we had over 10 thousand people who were evicted and a lot were left homeless, so we didnt sit back as a community, we organized and organized i organized. We created save the mission and i want peter to come up here, i want indiscernible to come up here. I want kelly to come here. Come here, man. [applause] come on come on. And rodrigo. Where is indiscernible come on. And this iswhere is she at . Okay. We created a army. Armando come here anybody else who was part of the mission no eviction. Our mission no eviction we organized and organized and organized and we created save the mission and we organized and we demanded then all these developers coming here had a responsibility to give back to our community. In this space here, we fought and fought and fought against the developer and he won the Planning Commission by one vote but we appealed that to the board of supervisors. We had the power of the people and the votes at the board of supervisors. He had to give us his space and justice was served, so i want to thank all of you. I love you all. Thank you. Organized and that was over 3,000 that get up and march and do whatever it took. I just really believe that you know, we called this space indiscernible and now it is thewhat are we calling it . The beauty on bryant. I wanted to do today to thank the creator, because a lot of times we have fear. We have doubts, and it takes time and some people dont have the patience to continue to fight, but i always said, we got to believe in the creator, got to believe in the universe and come together and are Stay Together no matter what and stay strong. What was the indiscernible strength in numbers. Thank you mayor breed. Strength in numbers and that isit has gotten us through and be able to build and celebrate today. I want to honor all thejust take a moment of silence, because i fought with him like you wont believe, but i want to honor and thank and may his soul rest in peace, mayor ed lee. Not only did we get the space, but we went with mayor ed lee and said you have to come up with the money to build the housing. We just dont want a piece of land from this developer. We need the money and he did. He came up with money, he found it within 72 hours. I dont know indiscernible people put money under their matresses or closet or backyard and he found the money and that was the beginning of help make this happen. I are want to thank meta and tndc for coming together and it was a marriage. [speaking spanish] and they came together and they made it happen here in our community. Most beautiful thing is for community to take responsibility for itself and do things for itself. Of course with the help of many. I want to thank all the artists that you know were displaced, but continued and we were able to work with them and i want to thank the people that entrusted our organization. Cana a organization that produces the carnival and entrusted in creating the space next door which is indiscernible because of the lessens we learned in the pandemic, with meta help with a lot of the people who economically were broke and Mental Health was effected so we decided to take a right turn and not only make it indiscernible but also Indigenous PeoplesCultural Arts healing center. With that, i want to end by havingbecause i come from an organizing background, cesar chavez and dolores raised me and when we gather and have a victory we clap together so ill ask you to put your hands together and well slow. Those who have not done it and those who know how to do it well do it. Well go real slow and then speed it up. [clapping] we used to say indiscernible today well seei will say indiscernible [speaking spanish] with that, i want toit is great honor to introduce an amazing woman who like i grew up in the indiscernible grew up in the ghetto and made her way through school against all odds, put herself through college, became elected to the board of supervisors and now and has and will continue being our mayor of San Francisco, please help welcome mayor london breed i call it lb [applause] thank you roburty roburto and are thank you for joining us today. This is really exciting and i never thought we would get to this place this quickly, even though it has been a really long time, but roberto you remember when we would ride through the mission and i want to say it was before i became mayor, and roberto and i talked about some of the challenges and also some of the properties that we could identify that we needed to purchase because of the investment that the city needed to make in providing housing to make up for a lot of the evictions and a lot of the issues that were occurring in this community, and it had a lot to do with our bond came because what was happening in the mission actually happened in the community i grew up in in the fillmore Western Addition and it was important to him and this community that we dont repeat the same mistakes of the past, and so when we were riding through the mission we were talking about various properties and you know all the owners and are developers and what was going on, and i was so grateful to come together and collaborate and strategize and purchase some of the various properties and to work with our state partners to get the resources necessary to make sure that we were able to get these places built, because you are right, purchasing the land is one thing, but building the house is quite something different. It does take a village. It takes a village to make things like this happen in our city, and one of the things im really proud of with this project, it wasnt just about building a building and hitting the lottery, mrs. Romero would talk about hitting the lottery. What was really important was the neighborhood preference legislation and making sure that when we build buildings like this, that the people who live here get the right of first refusal for the New Buildings built in the community that they have blood sweat and tears in and that is what happened in this particular case. [applause] so, it takes a village, and meta has been a pillar of this community for decades, and i got to say im so proud of the work meta is doing under your leadership. Not just with the new development, but also the buildings we were able to acquire through the small sites acquisition program. We have had [applause] had to increase the capacity of meta to make sure that the support was there, and working together and providing the resources to do that has been really transformative in this community, so we are grateful for the protections of the people who are in those existing buildings, but also incredibly proud of the work we are doing for new places like where we are today that serve for the next generation of people and those who need a safe affordable place to call home without stairs so they can get around. This is so amazing for so many people and families who live here. I also want to give a special shout out to our governor and to the California Department of housing and Community Development. Thank you pedro for being here. Gustauvo who answers to you is running this department, and he is usually always here at these events. The state with our partnership with the governor invested so much money and to San Francisco for project home key to purchase buildings to help people who are struggling with homelessness to help us build New Buildings like the one we are in today, and all the various resources we need because we have under invested in housing for so long that the crisis of homelessness in the state of california, which exists here in San Francisco as well is something that we have to reckon with with dollars, so we can get moving and building and acquiring properties as quickly as possible, so we are grateful to the governor for his work, advocacy and department for all the amazing investments that have come to San Francisco. [applause] i want to say to tndc, which youll hear from a minute, thank you for being a great partner in housing too. Working with meta on this project, but working on so many other projects that truly serve some of the most vulnerable residents in San Francisco. We could not do this work without partners like meta and tndc, because they are the ones on the ground working with the community to provide places like this and i got to say, it is justbuilds my heart with joy every time i come to an event like this. People say mayor, the city all kinds of stuff is going on and Ribbon Cutting is not doing anything. You know what . This Ribbon Cutting today is doing something interest the 130 families that moved into this building. [applause] this Ribbon Cutting is about the blood, sweat and tears that went into providing this as a opportunity for those families in the first place, this community that fought hard to insure that this building was available to low income individuals and families. This means something to the people who are working here every single day to make sure that there are services and support necessary to insure the success of the People Living in this building, and this building means everything because carnival is a institution in our city and the tradition of carnival has to continue for generations to come. This building is meaningful. It will be an incredible beacon of hope for the people who live here who i already met, but also the children who are growing up here and the community and what it all represents. Im grateful and excited about what this means and i want to thank everyone that had a role, even if it is placing the tiles correctly so the design looks good and that work, or the Lighting Fixtures and the people at the front desk working, the janitors, the mail clerks, the community as a whole, because it takes a village and casa el how do you say it . indiscernible represents our Community Values in San Francisco at their very best, so welcome home to all the families and the people who are here and thank you for this great celebration and louis, the best is yet to come. [applause] good afternoon everyone. My name is anna, a legislative aid to supervisor ronen, and i need to speak louder. I woke up this morning not expecting to do this but unfortunately supervisor ronen couldnt be here today. She is in budget and Appropriation Committee so apologizes for not able to be here but im here on her behalf and just here to really celebrate this amazing accomplishment and milestone in the mishz. There has been a lot of negative and punching down of the community in the news lately and it is important to come together to celebrate the milestone with mayor breed, tndc and meta and all the Community Partners who made this happen because we know the mission is about arts, community and having actual Affordable Housing for someone like those here today and the struggle to make that happen. I know we are hungry so i want to lift that up and thank you all for being here and thank you for everyone who made it happen. [applause] now i would like to introduce greg shirken the wells fargo Senior Vice President of philanthropy and community impact. Thank you very much. On behalf of wells fargo, colleagues here today, indiscernible and all our employees in San Francisco, i want to say what a tremendous honor to be a part of this incredible project. Congratulations to everyone involved. Wells fargo is so proud to be a lender and Community Partner and able to help bring much needed housing to this incredible community. Mayor breed i want to extend thank you to her as well as the supervisor as well as pedro to you and as well as louis and indiscernible for your tireless efforts not on this project but to do so much for this community and this city, which is honesty where we live and work as well and really what you do is a testament to what makes San Francisco such a special place, and able to support incredible people like dolores who spoke so incredibly today. You are such a inspiration dolores. Please know we are plepaired to continue to support this project, this community and this city. We realize we are facing a lot of challenges right now and as the mayor said, it really does take a village and we at wells fargo want to be part of this community, part of the village and committed to do whatever it takes to help the people here reach their potential so thank you all very much for your time. [applause] and now i have the tremendous honor to introduce indiscernible from tndc, a incredible partner. We worked with them for years and look forward to continue to do so. I turn it over to you. [applause] thank you greg. I am going to give some of my time to someone that has been really passionate about this project. Makes us all look dynamic and great and a big part why we are here today. Colleen, can you come up . [applause] thank you. I will keep this fairly short. I had the privilege of working or getting to be one of the many people who worked on the 681 florida project. We had a Strong Development partner with shout out to jose garcia my project manager who stepped in on the job and to complete the project ester kim down there. Our final project manager indiscernible this all just worked. The city of San Francisco and our lenders indiscernible thank you for getting to the point with 130 units gorging affordable quality housing in the mission. Our Contractor Team somewhere in the crowd k hill contractor and indiscernible what a gem of a team. Countless Union Tradesman and trades women. Our design team. Adapting and problem solving everything step of the way and of course the incredible Property Management compliance accounting and social work staff that leased up the building and make it all work every day. If you havent met indiscernible [calling names] the rest of the Property Management and Service Staff we owe them infinite coffees for the work they put into serving the tenants. Plaef [applause] there are countless people i cant fit in the speech that contributed so much from start to finish and we are not joking when we say the word, it takes a village. As you may have noticed Walking Around the building art is at the core of what makes it special. indiscernible the three artist that spent countless hours with art work from community feedback. High schoolers with youth art exb change worked with partners to create the custom ornamental gates next door. And cana along with the Community Fought years ago to insure spaces like this would and could be dedicated affordable and accessible space for housing the community and the arts. It is never lost on me that this is a place of new beginnings for many individuals and families who live here. At a San Francisco native, San Francisco is what will always represent home for me and the way hugging a warm blairngt on a cold day feels. To all the residents current and future at 681 florida, welcome home. [applause] thank you colleen. I promise you are all most home, folks. My name is indiscernible a ceo of tndc. The Housing CommunityDevelopment Organization building and serving communities throughout San Francisco. This past weekday, gus newport, the former mayor of berkeley passed. I wanted to take just a few minutes to bring him in spirit here today. Because gus was a mentor to many. Gus was a inspiration to many more. But gus was my friend. One thing he always taught me and one thing he actually made me realize is the importance of listening. And many times to listen not for what is said, but also for what is not said. 681 is a example of both those things. Of what has been said, and what hasnt been said. In the spirit of community, in the spirit of the mission, i could be no prouder then this moment because this is the manifestation, this is the spirit, this is the [spanish] that we all work so hard to create day in and day out. I like to acknowledge for tndc, all the staff. All our partners. Our board of directors. That allow us to do the work that we so passionately do and do well. We built this community, well build more. [speaking spanish] lets get to the Ribbon Cutting [applause] [cheers and applause] growing up in San Francisco has been way safer than growing up other places we we have that bubble, and its still that bubble that its okay to be whatever you want to. You can let your free flag fry fly here. As an adult with autism, im here to challenge peoples idea of what autism is. My journey is not everyones journey because every autistic child is different, but theres hope. My background has heavy roots in the bay area. I was born in san diego and adopted out to San Francisco when i was about 17 years old. I bounced around a little bit here in high school, but ive always been here in the bay. We are an inclusive preschool, which means that we cater to emp. We dont turn anyone away. We take every child regardless of race, creed, religious or ability. The most common thing i hear in my adult life is oh, you dont seem like you have autism. You seem so normal. Yeah. Thats 26 years of really, really, really hard work and i think thises that i still do. I was one of the first open adoptions for an lgbt couple. They split up when i was about four. One of them is partnered, and one of them is not, and then my biological mother, who is also a lesbian. Very queer family. Growing up in the 90s with a queer family was odd, i had the bubble to protect me, and here, i felt safe. I was bullied relatively infrequently. But i never really felt isolated or alone. I have known for virtually my entire life i was not suspended, but kindly asked to not ever bring it up again in first grade, my desire to have a sex change. The school that i went to really had no idea how to handle one. One of my parents is a little bit gender nonconforming, so they know what its about, but my parents wanted my life to be safe. When i have all the neurological issues to manage, that was just one more to add to it. I was a weird kid. I had my core group of, like, very tight, like, three friends. When we look at autism, we characterize it by, like, lack of eye contact, what i do now is when im looking away from the camera, its for my own comfort. Faces are confusing. Its a lack of mirror neurons in your brain working properly to allow you to experience empathy, to realize where somebody is coming from, or to realize that body language means that. At its core, autism is a social disorder, its a neurological disorder that people are born with, and its a big, big spectrum. It wasnt until i was a teenager that i heard autism in relation to myself, and i rejected it. I was very loud, i took up a lot of space, and it was because mostly taking up space let everybody else know where i existed in the world. I didnt like to talk to people really, and then, when i did, i overshared. I was very difficult to be around. But the friends that i have are very close. I click with our atypical kiddos than other people do. In experience, i remember when i was five years old and not wanting people to touch me because it hurt. I remember throwing chairs because i could not regulate my own emotions, and it did not mean that i was a bad kid, it meant that i couldnt cope. I grew up in a family of behavioral psychologists, and i got development cal developmental psychology from all sides. I recognize that my experience is just a very small picture of that, and not everybodys in a position to have a family thats as supportive, but theres also a community thats incredible helpful and wonderful and open and there for you in your moments of need. It was like two or three years of conversations before i was like you know what . Im just going to do this, and i went out and got my prescription for hormones and started transitioning medically, even though i had already been living as a male. I have a twoyearold. The person who im now married to is my husband for about two years, and then started gaining weight and wasnt sure, so i went and talked with the doctor at my clinic, and he said well, testosterone is basically birth control, so theres no way you can be pregnant. I found out i was pregnant at 6. 5 months. My whole mission is to kind of normalize adults like me. I think ive finally found my calling in early intervention, which is here, kind of what we do. I think the access to care for parents is intentionally confusing. When i did the prospective search for autism for my own child, it was confusing. We have a place where children can be children, but its very confusing. I always out myself as an adult with autism. I think its helpful when you know where can your child go. How im choosing to help is to give children that would normally not be allowed to have children in the same respect, kids that have three times as much work to do as their peers or kids who do odd things, like, beach therapy. How do speech therapy. How do you explain that to the rest of their class . I want that to be a normal experience. I was working on a certificate and kind of getting think Early Childhood credits before i started working here, and we did a section on transgender inclusion, inclusion, which is a big issue here in San Francisco because we attract lots of queer families, and the teacher approached me and said i dont really feel comfortable or qualified to talk about this from, like, a cisgendered straight persons perspective, would you mind talking a little bit with your own experience, and im like absolutely. So im now one of the guest speakers in that particular class at city college. I love growing up here. I love what San Francisco represents. The idea of leaving has never occurred to me. But its a place that i need to fight for to bring it back to what it used to be, to allow all of those little kids that come from really unsafe environments to move somewhere safe. What ive done with my life is work to make all of those situations better, to bring a little bit of light to all those kind of issues that were still having, hoping to expand into a little bit more of a Resource Center, and this Resource Center would be more those new parents who have gotten that diagnosis, and we want to be this one centralized place that allows parents to breathe for a second. I would love to empower from the bottom up, from the kid level, and from the top down, from the teacher level. So many things that i would love to do that are all about changing peoples minds about certain chunts, like the Transgender Community or the autistic community. I would like my daughter to know theres no wrong way to go through life. Everybody experiences pain and grief and sadness, and that all of those things are temporary. Please stand by for the San Francisco board of appeals meeting of august 2, 2023. Good evening and welcome to august 2, 2023 meeting of the San Francisco board of appeals. President swig will be the presiding officer and joined by commissioner lopez, commissioner lemberg, truvina and eppler. indiscernible julie roseenburg the board executive director. We will be joined by representatives from the city