streets or pick up the dog poop that accumulates in it. one group to bear in mind in all of this conversation is most [inaudible] you have to have a physical sponsor that will help you with your grant amount. that is actually an incredible boom there are terrific fiscal sponsors in the city. there's the san francisco clean city coalition that runs the san francisco tool lending center. there is liveable city. there is the friends of the urban forest. the neighborhood parks council. the reason i bring these up now

is part of the conversations with stake holders you have are with the fiscal sponsor. many of the fiscal sponsors have technical skills and lots of experience with the city that they will absolutely share with you and become stake holders in your project. >> yep. >> right. you might want to bounce your if you have an idea and we haven't addressed it. you might go down and talk to those people and bounce your ideas. >> one of my sponsors 8 years ago was the bernel heights neighborhood center and it dealt with the vandalized wall. they became my fiscal sponsor and talk about a community alli

and way to reach, like the tree with branches that reached out to the other people in the neighborhood. what better resource to work with? >> great. >> >> right. the question is if you require certain permits if your project requires permits dou have to have the permit necessary place before you aply the answer is, no. however, you would caution you th that there are some things that will not fly and some things are complicated and you should vet them with city agents and stake holders to get a sense if it's

feasible or not. it's common sense stuff; right ? >> no. it eliminated 3 parking spaces and narrowed the roadway. so you can go through but it's apparent as a driver you are in a space that you should drive slow and cautiously because tell will look and feel like more of a closet than a road. so it's about choices and over lays of multiple uses rather than the monocars here and people here culture. >> that type of street type is common in europe oon here it's

wooners. and they are shared space. what do the british call them. shared streets? [laughter]. wooners means living streets. in dutch. you know. done in denmark, england, holland and germany for 25 years or more. they don't have the regulatory liability conscious levels we have. >> but we are not going to get anymore parks few more park. remember that. there's a lot of space but we have to get creative with it.

>> uh-huh. dpw has alot of underutilized parcels that are too small to be

parks. you have to initiate a street parks program and talk to liz and she will help you about what's possible. what springs to mind is shotwell avenue in the mission. jane started a nonprofit called plant sf. they it quality of life issues on their street. they have a 24 foot sidewalk great for parking your cars. that's what people did on shotwell in the evenings for the purposes of prostitution. people would park perpendicular. the neighborhood became a parking lot for prostitution and there was dumping and drug use and it was driving people crazy. she figured out we will make

lemonade. the kicker was in the floods of 2002 in the mission and she woke up in backed up sewage. twin peeks down the hill backed to the mission. see realized that we are relying too much on the city's storm water system. if you open up -- there is no reason to have the concrete and shoving the water in the storm water system if you open up the concrete the water drains naturally and you have gardens and get people not parking on the sidewalks. it's beautiful. all you have to leave is 48 inches for clearance for pedestrians and wheel chairs much the rest of the space was crying out for a touch of the neighborhood to make it theirs.

>> is that it? >> thank you. liz lerma. sfgov. org there is a phone book where you type the last name and you can find their phone number it's called the street parks program much the sfpt. org has a link on their web page about street parks and what kinds of possible and what some of the resources are. it's quite a rebust set of possibilities. >> thanks very much. one last question? which school? monroe. uh-huh.

>> no. yeah. it has to be a physical improvement we expect you to figure out to get somebody to volunteer that. we will not hire people. what happens when the grant runs out? you don't have continuous funding. we will fund the improvements. we have done that at james middle school to help them with their garden. [applause] thank you.

>> thank you very much. so i hope the first morning of the sifrt neighborhood empowerment summit was enjoyable. we will vote by applause, how about that.

yeah! >> and hope you enjoyed the lunch as well. we would like to begin the mid day portion of today's summit and that is the keynote address that will be presented by latoya cantrell of the association of new orleans. i'd like to get that started in a moment. there were a few things i would like to give to our attention the evaluation form in our folder on the left side second page is critical. a lot of people provided insight in ways woo can improve things here. we would like to get that do you meaned to codifiy it and make sure in the future we advance and not be stale. we are honored to have nejgan afshan to read a letter from the

speaker on her behalf. m afshan. >> thank you. for all of your hard work and unfortunately speaker pelosi cannot be here she back at washington, d.c. after arriving from berlin she wanted to give her greetings in this letter. dear friends i'm delighted to extend my support for the 07 neighborhood empowerment summit in san francisco. this will foster communication and solutions to the over hundred neighborhoods in san francisco. through the collaborative efforts of city agencies, local nonprofits and community leaders all of the san francisco's unique communities are empowered to share their experiences and collected ideas.

with the goal of building stronger, safer, cleaner communities through cooperation and civic engagement today's summit will exceed our expectations. today's summit will serve as a model for other cities across america. thank you for this opportunity, mr. newsom and latoya cantrell to congratulate daniel homsey of the neighborhood services for leading today's great event and for launching of the neighborhood empowerment net work website empower sf. org. the best of luck, speaker of the house, nancy pelosi. [applause]. >> just amazing that young lady

started as an intern in our office 3 years ago and came in and said, i want to make a difference. we should applaud her success it's just amazing. [applause] i would like to introduce your mayor gavin c. newsom. >> thank you very much for coming out. big round of applause for daniel homsey and his hard work bringing this together getting all the staff and volunteers the mayor's office of neighborhood services and other departmenting that are here we are very thankful. daniel has been talking about this for what seems a millennium. you imagine being the mayor's office of neighborhood services how demanding that job is. the calls you get for service. we got the liaisons to the

districts and how overwhelmed some of them are. we added budget cuts. the office had 2 or 3 people representing each district now you have one person representing 2 or 3 districts because of budget cuts. the expectations are rising in terms of what you xch out of that department. and so in an effort to meet those expectations daniel's looking at best practices and different ways of doing things. trying to find an entrepreneurial approach to face the challenges that exist in our diverse neighborhoods. he came with with this idea of a summit and picked up on the best practices that we engaged in by creating a model for 109 cities

through project homeless connect we got all the city agencies and nonprofits and community leaders and others under one roof. we do that every 6 weeks here at the bill graham auditorium. thousands come together. i cannot encourage you more as a human being to come down and experience it. i don't say that as a representative of an organization to come down. i don't say that as a community leader to come down. i say that as a human being that wants to experience something ennobling and enlightning and remarkable that is thousands of homeless people; nameless faceless people. folks you drive by and folks you step over, folks you simply turn your back oftentimes to for no negative reason but because you

are moving on with your life and to come here and find a sense of hope and dignity. thousands of volunteers try to connect with them in a real way. people who have their feet washed which is a remarkable thing and have a pe diatryst there to help solve problems with their feet. we have folks volunteering and giving away eye exams and eye glasses. folks with wheel chairs that can't afford to have their chairings fixed. this is like a mechanic's station for wheel chairs. having seen those folks get those wheel chairs f. fixed. we had a dental exam on site. we connected all the needs of the individuals.

daniel took a look at that and said can we extend that to neighborhood services and neighborhood empowerment? can we provide best practices that may be done at a nonprofit helping homeless but few know about because they are not in that community and take the model of organizations that do great work that need to share great work and empower other neighborhoods similarly by doing what we are doing today. that was the genesis of this idea. empowerment is what it's all about. it's giving the tools people need to succeed and make a difference for themselves and the neighborhoods. it's not a top down approach. no proclamation or hearing or resolution will solve the problems in our neighborhoods. the only way the problems in our neighborhoods get solved is when people come together and say, we

had enough and want to make a difference and want to tribute our time and talent and tenacity by gaging be one another and becoming part of that change. now, what you are seeing up here with the slides is also the spirit of why we are here. these are images that daniel took in new orleans. in the broadmoore community. we have a special guest today that will talk to you about the real meaning of empowerment. you can imagine for all our challenges doesn't matter the neighborhood we are in cam pair or challenges to the challenges you see up challenges on thoseim mags. we don't have trials like what happened with katrina. so many of you that have been sparks of hope and imagination,

people that are engaged we have someone that will talk about how she has sparked the imagination and engagement of a city that was ready to abandon, not just her but the entire broadmoore community. in fact, the mayor who is a friend, this is not a critique, put together after the challenges in katrina, put together a diverse group of what we say the best and the brightest. came up with a bad idea. we don't always get it right. they said broadmoore had been wiped out. they said, it ain't worth bringing back. we are going to make it open space. and the speaker i will introduce in a moment she like many of you said, wait that's my community. that's my neighborhood. you made that decision without

us in mind. the community was forced to leave. they were not part of this discussion. and she said, like so many of you said to me and others, no that's not the way it's going to be. she stepped up and stepped in and she was heard. and a consequence of that is she is not only made a difference by empowering the broodmoore community of the head of the improvement association but she woke not just city hall up to the fact that there are real people who's lives are being affected by the decisions that are being made some place else. she's made an impact nationally. i found out her throughout clinton global initiative where i had the prejudice of going a year ago to speak about our

environmental issues in new york city. harvard also learned of her. and a very well no one fill per heard about here. they connected the dots we decide we would create twinning relationships almost neighborhood sister neighborhood as opposed to sister city relationship with broodmoore and see if we could help. we do all the relationships with citied around the world but we don't help our neighbors down the road. it's really been a remarkable experience for guys like ed lee our cao, for daniel and others who have gone to broodmoore and felt the remarkable connection.

and have felt a great sense of responsibility to help out. in the spirit of that, we ask latoya cantrell to come here and talk about her struggle, her challenges and her resolve. because i think what she represents is the best of what so many of you represent. and for the grace of god every one of us could be put in the same position as latoya but how many would have the courage to become latoya? and actually step up and not give up. and so that's why we thought we couldn't get a better speaker today for a neighborhood empowerment necessary work initiative than someone who is empowered her neighborhood and networked her community across now this country. and notably and significantly in

san francisco to talk about what she's done. she's an inspiration. featured in time magazine, new york times. "wall street journal." even tried to get her to run for political office she said, why would i do that? when i could do so much more as the head of the brood moore improvement association. or keynote speaker, big round of applause to latoya cantrell. [applause] >> thank you all. thank you very much it really is an honor and a privilege to be with you today among neighbors. i feel right at home because it's nothing better than grass-roots. i think that's what we all represent here today our

neighborhoods our communities and that's really what makes all the difference. i do want to thank mayor newsom, as he mentioned we have a strong partnership with the city of san francisco. i'm telling you the city officials have been down for about 3 times now. have helped us form a partnership also with other entities within the city like dig tus media inc. and plan ready, they have come in and purchases lawn equipment to help us maintain lawns and help people come home and bring them home. looking out and seeing ed lee the cao and daniel homsey who is an inspiration in and of itself i want to say thank you.

i'm going to just jump right in as you know my name is latoya cantrell. i'm a native of california. southern california. i grew up planning for earthquakes, going through the earthquake drills and getting under your desk at school and things like that. i attended zavier university in new orleans. that's my home. i will not go and that's why i chose to return and help my community come back better and stronger than it was before. i was engaged in the broodmoore association prekatrina. i served as president right before the storms starting the year of 2005. the neighborhood organization was actually formed as the

broodmoore civic improvement association in 1930. in 1970 it was incorporated as the broodmoore improvement association. one message i want to bring to you all is very important for us to organize ourselves new. build our community in our capacity today. and this will allow us and aid us in our recovery should a natural disaster strike. i will start with just moving forward kind of taking us through some of the challenges of broodmoore but it's the lessons that broadmoore neighbors we learnd and possibly share them with you to help you prepare and to build your own capacity should disaster strike much the broadmoore community we

are 151 square blocks. centrally located. the circle is circled around broadmoore. we are in the heart of new orleans. it's a diverse community a microcosim of new orleans. home to 7,000 residents prekatrina and 66 percent of our homeowners have returned. we have 2400 properties in the neighborhood and we are leading the city in recovery. because of our organization being together predisaster it really had aided us in our recovery post. being one of the first neighborhoods to release a redevelopment plan for community in july of 2006. and we started planning in january of 2006. really about 7 months of real

planning. but the message here is that we can start or you can really start your planning today. you don't have to wait. and that was one of the things that when daniel and ed visited broadmoore they said, we can really get our people involved now. because it's not a matter of, if, it's a matter of, when. we are all vulnerable. these are pictures of broadmoore. the homeses. we are a national historic district. we have 5 housing styles in broadmoore. it's a great place and we were not going to allow a group of, so called, constituents of broadmoo