Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240714

Show up and vote, bill, because i think your call to me involved a very large check as well. Donate as well. He left that part out, but feel free. Bill, i hate to break it to you. When john arrived, you were not only the oldest guy, but not quite the funniest guy either. John, were going to give credit where its due. Bill, thank you, very well said. Next up is another of our codevelopers and the lead provider of Supportive Services for our residents here at Hunters Point eastwest in westbrook. David sobel is the c. E. O. Of the Housing Development corporation. A 31yearold communitybased nonprofit located here in bay view, Hunters Point. Over the last six years david has assembled support and staff. Under his leadership, the organization has grown from four people to a staff of 30, which provides Housing Development, preservation, financial empowerment, counselling, Supportive Services, Economic Development opportunities to over 5,000 low and moderate income residents every year. Also wellknown, at least to me as an accomplished jazz, blues, and rock keyboardist, but youll have to go to their annual gala to hear that, please help me welcome david sobel. [ applause ]. By the way, the board of directors did my Performance Review last night. It would have been great if you were there. Good morning, everyone. We are indeed proud to have partnered with such an auspicious team that others are mentioning in name and i will save time and not repeat everything. It has been extremely gratifying to take part in and witness a transformation of extremely dilapidated housing, turning it into safe, comfortable homes for families that remain affordable in perpetuity. But it is also about more than just the housing here. The city has the great foresight to ensure that there was Workforce Development and Onsite Service connection to make sure residents have at their doorstep access to other resources. We are proud to have partnered with Hunters Point family. Dev mission on the stem program that we have initiated across the sites here, all of whom are doing fantastic work and enhancing what resources are available to residents every day. I want to call out our services team, an Amazing Group of people, some of whom are here today. Even if theyre not, they deserve some recognition. [ applause ]. This team is fantastic. You show up every day doing challenging work and being a big support to residents. We cannot talk about Services Without acknowledging hodc who every day, week, and month are pushing, supporting, and guiding our programs, as they should. Thank you for that. Finally, these past five years are not about all of us speaking today. Its about the residents who endured decades of deplorable conditions. Five years of hard work is great. But the people who live here suffered through much longer hardships. Thats what this project is really about. Developing community, bringing Onsite Services, engaging with residents, having a longterm vision with our City Partners and everybody up here and all the residents, that has been the most rewarding part. We have really appreciated the positive impact of walking hand in hand with residents every day. Learning from them. They hold us accountable, and weve appreciated that as well. At the very beginning of this project, five years ago or so, when we went to our initial meetings, the residents said this is a ploy to kick us out. They said, youre going to raise our rents. We didnt. They said, youre not really going to renovate these buildings. We did. Youre not really going to have services onsite. We did. This was founded to help people stay in San Francisco, remain in their homes, communities, schools, businesses, congregations, and thats what this project is about as well. Thank you for all of your support all around. The resident leadership especially, weve enjoyed working with you. I know were going to hear from one of the resident leaders. Thank you all. It is our pleasure to be with you here today. [ applause ]. Well said. It really does make one think that how while certain leaders in washington seem to be doing their best to pull our country apart, here in San Francisco we are doing our best to reknit these properties into the fabric of our communities and neighborhoods. We are doing our best to now bring the San Francisco Housing Authority itself more directly into the family of city agencies that work closely with mohcd and the other agencies at the city to provide affordable housing. And the kind of work we do here as david so eloquently articulated, to just bring people together, reintegrate things, and really fight back against the forces that are trying to pull us all apart. Thank you, david. Well said. While it probably goes without saying, thats when i say it anyway. None of this can happen without money, lots of it. For that, we in the city turn to bank of america, merril lynch. They have been key to our success. Were talking about over threequarters of a billion dollars in debt and equity for the program. Here at Hunters Point, they provided over 150 million in Construction Financing and over 120 million tax credit equity as well as funding for residents during construction. We went to bank of america for funding because thats where the money was. They were ready to put it to good use. To paraphrase elanie, where is the money at, thats where im going. Okay. I didnt get it quite right. You can school me later. Dont beat box it . Okay. I get a little carried away sometimes. Anyway, back to the script. It gives me great pride to introduce a proud resident of San Francisco herself, liz minik. These are always hard acts to follow. Thank you so much for having us today. Bank of america was founded in this amazing city in 1904. Two years after, we had one of our largest earthquakes. At the time bank of italy at the time spent most of their resources getting people back in their homes. Housing has always been integral to what we do. Thats when the call to action and rehabilitating the 3500 units around our city came, we were so delighted and honoured to provide 2. 2 billion. So 2. 2 billion in financing for the San Francisco r. A. D. Program. As has been said, this is all about the residences. This is ensuring that people can be in the homes that everyone deserves. Again, thank you so much for having us today. I will continue with a thanks for our great partners related, john stewart, and San Francisco Housing Development. Our Wonderful Team who has worked tireless over the last six and seven years to get this done. Mayor breed, we couldnt have done this without our leadership. Thank you. [ applause ]. 2 billion doesnt go as far as it used to, but it adds pick up. The engagement and support of our residents was absolutely crucial to our success. Id therefore like to acknowledge quickly and thank all the officers for our three tenant associations at the three different sites, many of whom are with us today. Susan mcallister, renitia raina, elise minor, ivan sepulona. Those are all from the east association. From the west we have joe nyamalaga, ronald anderson. And from the other associations we have many people as well. Thank you all. It takes a lot of work. Youre volunteers. Youre out there helping the residents organize and bring issues to us. Youre keeping us honest, committed, and engaged. We appreciate the partnership that that represents. Speaking on behalf of the residents today is renee, as i mentioned earlier, president of the westbrook tenant association. Shes a Passionate Community leader who encourages and assists residents in advocating for their own best interests. Born in the bay area, she takes great pride in engaging and helping her community, understands the challenges of the residents, has a strong commitment to educational values, and her skill and compassion make her both a voice and a beacon of hope for the residents. It is my pleasure to have renee mangdangle to the stage. Hi, everybody. Thank you, mayor breed. I would like to thank related, John Stewart Company, of course my tenant association. Yesterday was my birthday, 9 11. Anyways, im kind of nervous. Im not much of a speaker. Anyway. This building came a long way. I come from the peninsula, and when i came in here it was like pulling teeth. I did not want to move here, but i did. Made the best out of it. I became a community leader. And Hunters Point west with marlene harris, she hired me to be event planner and personal chef for all three sites. Then i met Hunters Point east and of course westbrook residents at that time. I just want to thank everybody. Thank you. [ applause ]. Youre following the sage advice of roosevelt, be sincere, brief, and be seated. Youre going to go far in politics. Anyway, this is short and sweet. We want to spend time listening to some more music, touring apartments, having some food, breaking bread together. I want to thank again all the distinguished speakers. I want to do a special shoutout to our Technology Program partners for the wifi, the training, et cetera, here at this site. It includes the Citys Department of technology, monkey brains, dev mission whos been mentioned, the Community Tech network, microsoft, youve heard of them, adobe. They all pitched in on the technology side. We appreciate it. There are so Many Companies and public agencies that have contributed their time, energy, and hard work to making these properties a success. I wish i had time to recognize them all. I cant. Time is short. Im going to name a few, sort of speed recognition. Our architects, our general contractors did an amazing job renovating and breathing new life into these communities. Thank you. Im going to repeat a few thanks that came up earlier. From the city and county of San Francisco thanks [ indiscernible ]. From the John Stewart Company itself, i want to shout out to our founder and chairman john stewart himself, margaret miller, dan lavine, jenny collins. And our former project manager adam levine who came from east bay to see the fruits of his labors. I want to say hi to many of those who couldnt be here [ indiscernible ] thanks to michael mincus and thanks to all the other people who contributed their time and energy to this impressive effort. So thats it. Thanks for coming. Please stay for food in the community room, tours of apartments, more music. So if i could just get the speakers all to follow. [ ]. I love that i was in four plus years a a rent control tenant, and it might be normal because the tenant will for the longest, i was applying for b. M. R. Rental, but i would be in the lottery and never be like 307 or 310. I pretty much had kind of given up on that, and had to leave San Francisco. I found out about the San Francisco Mayors Office of housing about two or three years ago, and i originally did Home Counseling with someone, but then, my certificate expired, and one of my friends jamie, she was actually interested in purchasing a unit. I told her about the housing program, the Mayors Office, and i told her hey, youve got to do the six hour counseling and the 12 hour training. She said no, i want you to go with me. And then, the very next day that i went to the session, i notice this unit at 616 harrison became available, b. M. I. I was like wow, this could potentially work. Housing purchases through the b. M. R. Program with the sf Mayors Office of housing, they are all lotteries, and for this one, i did win the lottery. There were three people that applied, and they pulled my number first. I won, despite the luck id had with the program in the last couple years. Things are finally breaking my way. When i first saw the unit, even though i knew it was less than ideal conditions, and it was very junky, i could see what this place could be. Its slowly beginning to feel like home. I can definitely you know, once i got it painted and slowly getting my Custom Furniture to fit this unit because its a specialized unit, and all the units are microinterms of being very small. This unit in terms of adaptive, in terms of having a murphy bed, using the walls and ceiling, getting as much space as i can. Its slowly becoming home for me. It is great that San Francisco has this program to address, lets say, the housing crisis that exists here in the bay area. It will slowly become home, and i am appreciative that it is a bright spot in an otherwise okay. We are here to get the job done. Good morning. Is it morning still . Ive been up since 5 00 i think. Im trying to keep ive been to so many places throughout the day. This is probably the fifth or sixth, but whos counting . Thank you all so much for joining us here today. With me i have dr. Grant colfax, who is the director of the department of Public Health, as well as dr. Anton nagusablan who is the director of Mental Health reform. Daniel leary, the c. E. O. And founder of Tipping Point community, and matthew state, the chair of u. C. F. Department of psychiatry here in San Francisco. Im excited because these are incredible leaders in our community who are going to help us with some really challenging problems that we know we face as a city. Last week we launched the Mental Health Reform Initiative to help those at the intersection of homeless, Mental Illness, and Substance Abuse disorder in San Francisco. And through our detailed analyst, dr. Nagusablan and the department of Public Health have identified the people in our city who are most vulnerable and in need of help. Now, to be clear, we see it. But now we have clear and accurate data. Of those 4,000 individuals, 41 frequently use urgent and emergency psychiatric services. 95 of those folks suffer from alcohol use disorder. 35 are africanamericans, despite the fact that we have a less than 6 population of africanamericans in San Francisco overall. So we have a lot of work to do ahead of us to provide the Behavioural Healthcare that people need. We need partners to do it. We need to work with our state officials, with our philanthropic organizations and our nonprofit communities. Thats why today im excited to announce that the city has partnered with Tipping Point community and ucsf who share our goals of addressing the Mental Health crisis in our city and providing people with the care that they need. We know that addressing the needs of the most vulnerable requires experts in the field, it requires collaboration and the development of publicprivate partners. Tipping point and ucsf department of psychiatry came together to really understand how to improve the outcomes for San Francisco residents experiencing longterm homeless, but who also have challenges with Behavioural Health. They worked with the city departments and various communitybased organizations who helped to put together information to inform this comprehensive report, including the department of Public Health, the department of homeless and Supportive Services, the hospital council, p. R. C. Thank you, Brent Andrews for being here and your amazing work. Health right 360. Thank you for your rigorous work on what we deal with in terms of treatment for folks who also sadly deal with Substance Use disorder as well. Thanks to the Rigorous Research conducted by Tipping Point and ucsf. We have a report that we can use to implement datadriven policy decisions that will effectively work and change our city for the better. This report highlights how philanthropic and public funding can work hand in hand to help san franciscans suffering. They have provided several recommendations to improve our system coordination, because we know that it definitely has a few holes in it and it needs to be better coordinated. Enhancing peoples access to treatment. Meeting people where we are. We cant think theyre going to show up at the door of a location for help or for support. We are going to need to go out there in the streets and meet people where they are. Engaging more people in care and services. We are excited to partner with them to implement these recommendations. But also in order to address the Mental Health crisis in our city. We need to build on what is already working. Were going