Is Larry Ferguson who has got many connections to this project and to all of us. And we have conversations and on the way to muni and sometimes we have a lot of time. I didnt say that. Larry has been a force for Affordable Housing for many years. I think this is a project that is very near and dear to his heart. He is here representing the department of housing and urban Development Without whom we wouldnt have this project because they played such an incredible role. As the mayor said its really its too bad we dont have any current appropriations for rental subsidies for new projects like this. But hopefully more people hear about amazing work like this and not the construction budget, but the end result. Thank you. Good afternoon. Its a hot day and its a beautiful project. Im delighted and honoured to be here representing hud. I want to congratulate mercy housing, arc San Francisco. Whew. Their board of directors, their hardworking staff who put so much time and energy in to this wonderful development. We have had this thoughtful renovation that has created Affordable Housing and this community will enable our developmentally disabled residents to live independently and to allow them to follow their dreams. We are proud to continue our partnership with mayor ed lee and the officers in housing. We would like to see more of these as well and we have supported housing dollars to help and providing a longterm rent subsidy to keep rents affordable to everyone who calls this home. Our section 811 program, ill talk about it for a quick sec has created high quality housing for over 25 years. And alshow the projects coming in in california. This project itself has green and energyefficient features. I could go on but lets face it. This isnt nearly housing, okay this isnt just about sticks and bricks here. This is what folks call home. This is what folks call community, okay . And this day is a really special day for the residents of mercy arc community. And on behalf of hud, i want to welcome each an every one of the residents to their new homes and their new community. I, myself, have lived in the upper haight for 23 years. And i enjoy this and its charms and amen tis. So i hope the residents enjoy it more than i do. So i personally want to welcome each of you to my neighborhood, our neighborhood, all right . To close there are a couple of the people on the hud side, jim meyers, regina bill and darryl mutton. Thank you for hearing what i have to say on behalf of the department. And welcome to the neighborhood. Welcome home. [ applause ] okay. Believe it or not, were almost through our program. There are a couple of people from the mayors office. I want to call out ruby harris, the project manager. There she is in the back. Joe mcnamara and theresa younga i dont know if it is the right word and helped this project come to be, midwifed it or something. We would not be here were it not for theresa. So thank so you much. And ms. Menendez and the Management Company who will hopefully take care of this building as well as they do everywhere else. We do a lot of these openings with bank of america. They are probably, i would say, the most active bank right now in San Francisco in terms of financing and investing in Affordable Housing. For the last month or so, ary has been a very busy man and as i follow the mayor and as we celebrate the reopening of a lot of the buildings that have been renovated around downtown. Hes done a great job of making the bank a partner with Affordable Housing and. All prospective jurors of other sponsors and with that, i i bring you ari valleha. Thank you, doug. It is an honour to be here roping bank of america at this grand opening. Oftentimes people say it takes a village. In Affordable Housing it takes the city government, the state government, multiple mayors. A great mayor, a great supervisor, thanks and a lot of other people to getting thises done. But we but every single part of that loves doing this work. So its amazing how i always place last right before the tenant and the food, so ill take the hint. Ill try to go quickly. First, let me thank many of those people. First of all, the Affordable Housing mayor, mayor lee. Im really happy to follow you around. Yeah. It is quite an honour. And the staff, the supervisor s, hud and, of course, the great organizations that are developing this project, mercy housing, as well as arc. You guys picked great partners to do this work. Yeah. Whew. Our relationship with mercy goes back really far. Weve done over 46 projects together and half a billion dollars. Wow. So thats absolutely amazing bank of america is really committed to San Francisco. I dont know if you know this but bank of america got it start in San Francisco as bank of italy. Weve been here all along through the great fires, through the good things and through the bad things. We are following the mayor around. And we invested 2. 2 million in financing or other projects. Little projects are also important. Every single unit matters. Every Single Person who lives in these matter and we are happy to call home to these services. Were happy to contribute to big and Small Projects where we contributed 8. 5 million. So we invest the deposits that you give us. Our people invest their time. So we have over 4,000 associates in San Francisco, including ann marie back there who who is the person that gets stuff done in the San Francisco office. I apologize for embarrassing you. Awww. But i wanted to acknowledge you. An she and many other people contribute over 40,000 hours of Community Service every year in our communities. So thank you. Thank you for allowing bank of america to be part of this. I hope there is going to be many more grand openings. We need every single unit. We need every single building. And thank to you the community who embraced this project and made sure that i went for it. [ applause ] okay. We saved the best for last year. One thing i wanted to say there were over 4,000 applications for the six units here. It was a strict set where not everybody could apply. You really needed this type of housing. There are only 44 units of 811 housing in San Francisco prior to the work that has been done by the arc and in the market. Weve almost doubled the amount. But its an incredibly small resource relative to the need. If you do run into an elected official, particularly, your Congress People or your senators, just let them know how important and wonderful this resource is and that we wish we had more of it. Its not one of those things with he can afford to discontinue the way were doing. All right. Thats my little soap box. One of the folks that was lucky enough to move in will say a few words to us. I understand shes a little shy. So i know all of us will be incredibly supportive and welcome here. Well love to hear what you have to say. With that, one of the newest residents of this neighborhood, rosetta burras. Good afternoon. Im rosetta burras. Im going to read you a piece of paper. Welcome to my new home and allowing the presentations. So what are some things that you like about your new apartment . Do you like the elevator . Yes. Thats the main thing, the elevator. The elevator. All right. And then i like my apartment its nice and cozy and roomy. I can get around in my apartment real good. Thank you everybody for giving me this studio apartment. And to all people, i want to thank them, too. And you all are welcome to my studio apartment. It is on the third floor. And thank you very much for having me here. All right. [ applause ] thank you. All right. So that i think concludes our program. I do want to thank i want to join everyone in saying i want to thank all of the residents for welcoming us here today. Thank you. Im extremely excited. Im not as excited as you are. I am so lucky h. All right. You are making this real for all of us. And i was there. Were going to give it up again. There are tours. Im looking around to tim. Where will they start, tim . Moe. Moe, who is in the back, is going to start. Moe. If you would like to take a tour, moe is your guy. Otherwise, enjoy the refreshments. Okay. And if you spoke, we want you to come out front and join us for a quick ribbon cutting. Thank you very much. A picture before we cut . Okay. One, two, three. Nice. Let me get one more. Okay. And one, two, three. Okay. Are you ready to cut . Yeah. Okay. Cut. Here we go. Three, two, one. Whew. Its going. Its going. Yea adjourned. Shop dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their shop dine in the 49 with within the 49 square miles of San Francisco by supporting local Services Within the neighborhood we help San Francisco remain unique successful and vibrant so where will you shop dine in the 49 my name is jim woods im the founder of Woods Beer Company and the proprietor of woods copy k open 2 henry adams what makes us unique is that were reintegrated brooeg the beer and serving that cross the table people are sitting next to the xurpz drinking alongside were having a lot of ingredient that get theres a lot to do the district of retail shop having that really close connection with the consumer allows us to do exciting things we decided to come to Treasure Island because we saw it as an amazing opportunity cant be beat the views and real estate that great county starting to develop on Treasure Island like minded Business Owners with last week products and want to get on the ground floor a nobrainer for us when you you, you buying local goods made locally our supporting Small Business those are not created an, an sprinkle scale with all the machines and one person procreating them people are making them by hand as a result more interesting and cant get that of minor or anywhere else and San Francisco a hot bed for local manufacturing in support that is what keeps your city vibrant well make a compelling place to live and visit i think that local business is the lifeblood of San Francisco and a vibrant community we think over 50 thousand permanent residents in San Francisco eligible for citizenship by lack information and resources so really the project is not about citizenship but really academy our immigrant community. Making sure theyre a part of what we do in San Francisco the San Francisco pathway to Citizenship Initiative a unique part of just between the city and then our 5 local foundations and Community Safe organizations and it really is an effort to get as many of the legal permanent residents in the San Francisco since 2013 we started reaching the San Francisco bay area residents and 10 thousand people into through 22 working groups and actually completed 5 thousand applications for citizenship our cause the real low income to moderate income resident in San Francisco and the bayview sometimes the workshops are said attend by poem if san mateo and from sacking. We think over restraining order thousand legal permanent residents in San Francisco that are eligible for citizenship but totally lack information and they dont have trained professionals culturally appropriate with an audience youre working with one time of providing services with pro bono lawyers and trained professionals to find out whether your eligible the first station and go through a purview list of questions to see if they have met the 56 year residents arrangement or theyre a u. S. Citizenship they once they get through the screening they go to legal communication to see lawyers to check am i eligible to be a citizen we send them to station 3 thats when they sit down with experienced advertising to fill out the 4 hundred naturalization form and then to final review and at the end he helps them with the check out station and send them a packet to fill and wait a month to 6 weeks to be invited in for an oral examine and if they pass two or three a months maximum get sworn in and become a citizen every single working groups we have a learning how to vote i mean there are tons of Community Resources we go for citizenship prep classes and have agencies it stays on site and this is filing out forms for people that are eligible so not just about your 22 page form but other Community Services and benefits theres an economic and safety Public Benefit if we nationalize all people to be a citizen with the network no objection over 3 million in income for those but more importantly the city saves money 86 million by reducing the benefit costs. Thank you. Ive been here a loventh i already feel like an american citizen not felt it motorbike that needs to happen for good. One day i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, for liberty and justice for all. Youre welcome. singing . clapping. introduce the San Francisco field officer director ribbon that will mirror the oath raise your hand and repeat the oath i hereby declare on oath repeating. Citizens cry when they become citizenship to study this difficult examine and after two trials they come back im an american now were proud of that purpose of evasion so help me god please help me welcome seven hundred and 50 americans. speaking foreign language. she wants to be part of the country and vote so much puppy. You know excited and as i said it is a long process i think that needs to be finally recognized to be integrated that is basically, the type of that i see myself being part of. Out of everybody on tv and the news he felt that is necessary to be part of community in that way i can do so many things but my voice wouldnt count as it counts now. Its everybody i hoped for a bunch of opportunities demographics and as you can see yourself theres a good life for everyone. Thats why. You have people from all the walks that life and theyre standing in water 8 hours to be an american citizen and contribute to the city and thats really what makes this worthwhile. Okay. Thank you very much, everyone, for being here. Im Assembly Member phil ping and 57 was for all of us who spend time driving underneath 101 or 280. You see many spots that we wonder what could we be doing with these parcels, other than seeing them. I think the city was able to envision this many, many years ago with the skate park and dog park, which the city leased for 20 years at 4. 8 million. And our bill allows the city to work with caltrains at a 30 of market rate. And these are not used or not really whew exactly. There is excitement everywhere. We could have the wedding move over here next. So we are very excited to work with our cities so we can make these underutilized parcels of land into parcels of land and open space. Especially these neighborhoods, the land is very underutilized. A lot of this area is highly industrialized. You dont see parks. You dont have spaces where you can go play. I know the dogpatch this district has already taken a lead with the Mission Creek area with their volleyball courts and they have shown how we can do this and how its going to be much more prevalent. Im very excited to have worked with our city and bring this to our residents. It is the district bill for San Francisco. I would like to thank ca ltrains and the mayor has talked about this but there are a couple of parcels that theyve already identified at some point soon theyve negotiated and we can start the process of turning these vacant lots into open space and parks. So, with that, let me introduce our mayor, ed lee, who really worked with me hand in hand and championed this effort. Thank you. Let me say Assembly Bill 857 is a winner. I want to take this opportunity to thank. Phil ting who spent years here and were not only benefiting from his life but senator weiner and david and all those who contributed to making sure this bill didnt have a cingular purpose but multiple purpose. Thats what i like about our organization. When they are creating benefits, its not just about one thing. It is multiple things. Thats why people working in parks like former supervisor Julie Christiansen, people are working with our bicycle coalition, people are working with our Parks Alliance are all assembled together to say what can we get out of space . That, for many of us, has been dead space. You know, when you look at freeway land under the freeway, youre generally talking about assemblymen assemblages of people who are homeless, negative activity, maybe some industrial uses. And in a city as concentrated as San Francisco, how do we creatively and innovatively use space that is kind of dead and inviting of a lot of negative activity in to really opened, creative, vibe rant spaces vibrant spaces . And i encourage everybody to participate. Walk your dog down there. Get a basketball court. Get a volleyball court. Maybe you even want to do a little boating, kayaking along the Mission Creek. If you walk down there, youll see the best example we have today on how we turned space that was going to that has been very negative for all of the residents around there. An