not come back and say our neighborhood was not viable when our homes were not off their structures. they were sound. they were structurally sound. this neighborhood was built in 1905-1920. as you see some of the homes, most are raised basement homes we call your living quarters really on your second level. they are not on your first. the first is basement storage space but the purpose the real purpose here today is for us to strengthen and empower our neighborhoods to take responsibility for not only our own sake but that of your neighbors and your neighborhood. we have to build our human and social capacity within our neighborhoods. that's a lesson broadmoore

learned. it's about building community you do that as you come together as neighbors as you build the trust because it matters. it will encourage neighborhood resiliency in the face of a natural disaster and resiliency of socioeconomy challenges that do arrive once you are in the post disaster mode like the bring back new orleans making recommendations against broadmoore. that was a challenge. we had to deal with the challenge. because we were organized it aided us in that. a statement i wanted to make about, i can't get the clicker to click with me. okay. wanted to share this with you and so you can remind you that we are a part of nature whether we live in a city or forest. as a part of nature we will encounter natural hazards.

these hazards only become sdafters when they interface with our vulnerable system. through neighborhood empowerment and preparedness we can lessen the vulnerabilities of the communities and mitigated effects of natural hazards. that's one of the reasons why the city of san francisco prepared this network for you today of nonprofit organizations and different and bringing all of your neighborhood organizations together so you can begin to build that level of capacity. looking here we call this in broadmoore our 6 point redevelopment strategy. now, this became clear to us after katrina and how were we going to galvanize ourselves and build partnerships to assist us in our recovery? you can create your will today.

and that is in the center of this will is the community. is your neighborhood. it starts with you. you have government support is one of your arms. government now is trying to help you plan and prepare and get you focused and empower you to really make a difference. you can build relationships with your nonprofit organizations that private sector as well, corporations and foundations. one session was helping you write grants to get you on the path to getting the resources in your community now. your faith based communities that's critical. notice and realize they are a part of your communities now. and lean on them today. this was one of the things we had to learn after the storm. but i tell you, creating this will has gotten broadmoore where

we are now, leading the city in recovery. i wanted to share with your universities as the mayor mentioned we have a former partnership with the kennedy school of government who provided 90 graduate interns coming to broadmoore for spring break, for the summer for 2 years who have provided us with expertise and conducted research and aided us in developing a comprehensive, credible redevelopment plan much the purpose today is to get you to understand that these relationships can really happen now. and they will aid us and aid you in your recovery. >> so, building that communities and building the trust and i go back to saying, it helps in post disaster

recovery. the trust is so important i can't stress to you. if broadmoore was not organized before the storm i'm sure different fractions could have broken out in the community that would have prevented us from coming together as one unit being actively engaged prekatrina helped. it discourages fragmentations and encourages community. it you see new leadership but you can try your best today to get more people involved, knock on doors, have social events. i was lynching to liz mc gill saying they are building social capacity and having parties and some laughed but that's how you

build community. it's coming together. if there is no other way because we are more than bricks and mortars we are people and social. you want to encourage this new leadership. this is one of the things that after the storm when i held the first general meeting in broadmoore in january of 2006. we had over 600 people show up in prekatrina i had 75. we embrace our new residents stepping up to the plate to get involved. we appointed new folks that had not been around before but it aided us in our ability to help ourselves. so i encourage you to always want to and try to expand that circle of inclusion to make sure that you are representative of the diversity that exists within your neighborhoods.

this will help us jump start recovery. i don't want us to think that oh , this happened to new orleans and this is not a part of our reality today. but as i mentioned earlier, we are vulnerable, we all are. and hurricane season for new orleans and louisiana come once a year. we know. june first-november one. we know that earthquake season is everyday. you never know. i don't want you to have blinders on to think this is not a part of reality right now. because it can happen. so, begin to organize today. this is just an example of a meeting flyer that we had in broadmoore post katrina, galvanizing our residents having festivals to get our people engaged and involved.

some of the other things that you can do today is start developing repopulation strategies. in a disaster how will you find your people and determine what their needs and bear yers are? these are things you can have in place right now. but for broadmoore we had to do this in the aftermath. i can't stress to you enough to make sure that you incorporate your vision and your strategies. block captains aided us in our recovery. block captains are people living on blocks who stepped up to say, i will be the eyes and ears of my area. i will walk and see who's back and who's not and their intensions. our block captain program is

still alive now. we restructured it we are moving from who's back and who's not to dealing with the quality of life issues that arrive on a daily basis. whether it's you know crime, whether it's blight, whether it's zoning issues. people rebuilding and not adhering to the new zoning laws it's constant. i would also take you through marketing your neighborhoods now. starting to, we were digtus media inc. who was a corporation in san francisco provide us with light post banners with no cost and we were able to put them through the neighborhoods. it afforded the opportunity to have banners and what do you call them -- i can't think of the name, billboards throughout

the neighborhoods to claim that broadmoored. it had an impact on people buying in the momentum and getting involved in the community and feeling that my neighborhood is coming back better than it was before. >> communication. these are things you can do now. websites. i'm pretty sure in listening to many of the leaders in the briefing sessions a lot of you have the communications going now. website and we were able to do on line forums with our residents who were not back in the city who were displaced to find out what the barriers are and what they continue to be. we were able to reach out and link them to a service that could aid them into coming home

and help them do so. you can look at housing issues. how are you going to address the infrastructure as soon as the disaster strikes? one thing why i'm telling you this regardless of how much government helps you prepare you will have to depend on one another when a disaster come. it's your neighbors who will be the first responders in your community. the police officers and fire fighters, it takes time for them to get to everyone. you have to look out for yourself and your neighbors. come up with the housing strategies now. a plan ready inc., one of san francisco's emergency preparedness companies, provided us with the opportunity to do a survey of our community.

we went down and took pictures of every property in the neighborhood. 2400 properties and they have up loaded those properties on their data base so we can see in real time and first responders can see where the special needs reside. where are the gas meters? where are our senior citizens living? where are our pets in the event of the disaster. this has helped us and there in your backyard so you can lean on them to help you as well. of course, you never can forget to listen to our people. this is one of our residents and he wants to be heard. we have to make sure that we listen to our people and aid them. education. was identified as a top barrier for people returning home to broadmoore.

as you know in just post disaster we have to figure out how we will restore public education in our communities. it's not just a broadmoore issue tell be an issue for all of us if another disaster strikes. education is important and the young people in our community, the children are important. of course, the public structures. this is a picture of our library after it had been gutted after katrina. folks in the corner we had a neighborhood clean up cleaning up the library ground. it sits in the center of our neighborhood. the community determined that the restoration of our public library was vital to our recovery process. because it's a place where you share information, you get information and build community in the process. it's definitely one of our top priorities today.

since then and through the will that will recovery that strategy i showed you earlier was forming partnerships. i'm happy to say today that the broadmoore community has been able to raise 2.3 million dollars privately, on our own to restore or library. it's now a top priority in the city. and we will hopefully see it renovated within the start the renovation in the next couple of months. again, the people raised that money. we wrote grants to bring our library back. [applause]. these are some of the things you can do should a disaster happen. we cannot depend on government we have to depend on ourselves. that's a part of the message here this afternoon. and security, just making sure that we are safe. and those quality of life issues

i talked about earlier, we can do a lot of this planning today. so just learn from broadmoore we really want to ensure that not only broadmoore and new orleans come back. there will be a time where new orleans has to step up and aid san francisco. you know who knows. but in that event, we want to be there for you. and so we are showing you just by me being here today that that level of commitment is there. because i'm here with you now. [applause] >> as we move forward and we talking about engaging our residents to help us prepare for how we can help ourselves and one of the briefing work shops was talking about getting

prepared for an earthquake. what are the materials we need? what are the supplies that we need? we learned broadmoore we learned that we can no longer not be prepared. we have established workshops and expos throughout the neighborhood to get people focused on hurricane season. provide them with go kits and for hurricanes you get a warning. they may be last minute with katrina that was the first mandatory evacuation every listed in the staef new orleans. now we want people to know you here the volunteer evacuation. make your move now. map out your route now. these are things we can do today. we have to prepare before the unexpected. the loss of communications and the power outages and even fires that happen after earthquakes

and the supply shortages and the food and the water that you have to store. and for broadmoore and new orleans we don't need to go to the grocery store store and stock up it's getting what you need to get on the road to get out of there. there is no last resort in the city of new orleans now. everyone will have to leave. and so we are trying to prepare ourselves and our residents for them to get out and we can't be afraid to talk to our residents and encourage them. this is an example, a neighborhood based evacuation planning guide that broadmoore has come up with. again, the partnerships i talked about, one of our interns ariana

tipper took the lead to establishing this neighborhood evacuation guide. you can take from what we have done and tailor it to your natural disaster but this is something that we have to do. so we held a workshop and had all of the agencies that would aid us in recovery there. we had even we provided residents with text messaging assistance for elderly who never texted before. one of the things we realized after the storm we could not use our cell phones even when we were evacuated. the cell phones were down. one thing you could do was text. it was interesting. you can send a text message. we are trying to get our residents give them the knowledge to do that should we need to evacuate again. and this is just an example of a

flyer for our expo and you have to tailor it to the diversity of your community. making sure what other dialects or languages that are present in your neighborhood that you address that. and you make sure that you are inclusive to everyone. just an example of our agenda for our expo. and the communications, this is a piece that we have come up with post katrina and that is a 1-800 evacuation check in number that our residents can call into in the event that we must evacuate. residents can call and let the improvement association know where they are. let us know their barriers. when i evacuate i'm responsible for taking the vontage router

with me and plug it into a real phone or also receive these messages by internet. i don't have to have access to a phone. the voice mails come over the internet. this is something that we have done today after katrina. it is something you can do now as well in the event a disaster does strike. again, i told you about other things, the ride share program we have created now. it's aiding residents to get out. as i mentioned there is no place of last resort. again, it's the neighbors who are responsible for one another. we have residents can sign up to take an elderly out. we can take kids out or whom ever needs a ride, pets, things like that. a lot of people in broadmoore

and in the city of new orleans because of their pets. pets are our family. i had a beshon that went with me and i wouldn't leave him or plan to in the future. tailor the information to the residents that live within your community and give them the information that they need to make sure they survive. and that we continue to help one another. it's all about what we can do not only for ourselves but for our communities. in closing, i want to leave you with some additional points that i have made throughout the presentation. just it's really -- we are our first responders. we have to take care of ourselves and take care of one another. that really is what the city of

san francisco wanted you to take away from this empowerment network seminar today. look out for yourself. and one other thing that's very important, you know the disaster doesn't have to necessarily affect your community. but it will affect someone else's. if you are okay that doesn't mean you are off the hook. it means you have a greater responsibility to neighbors that are living adjacent to you. whether it's 5 miles away or a hundred miles away, regardless of -- they are your neighbors. as you know, 80 percent of the city of new orleans was inundated with water there was 20 percent that was not affected but the 20 percent aided new orleans in it's recovery. people were able to come back

sooner. they could live on land that was not inundated with water. regardless if the disaster hits you you still have the responsibility. much is given and much is required. that's a part of the resiliency you will not only see in yourself or the neighbors that live adjacent from you or in a neighboring community not far from you. get involved and do your part in your recovery and do your part today to make it all worth it. and strengthen your neighborhood associations now. know your neighbors now. and understand that we are not just homes we are people. so thank you for your time and thank you for having me. and i really appreciate being here with you today. thank you. [applause]

>> the mayor is engrossed in the remarks that latoya shared with us. on behalf of the city and county of san francisco and the mayor wanted to present you with this. we want to thank you and we are honored to have you here today. >> thank you. this is -- they are telling me or you hear latoya this and that but it's the residents of broadmoore. we all have to depend on ourselves and one another. it's because of the residents of broadmoore that i'm here but because of the residents of broadmoore that broadmoore lives. put yourself and your community to live and susstain itself should a disaster strike. so, thank you so much.

>> [applause] >> i would like to say that new orleans like san francisco is a tourist town. and the reality is while we had an incredible experience there and witnessed a level of devastation that's incomp henceable. imagine driving down geary and everything looked the same before the disaster. you take a right or left turn and all the homes between geary and the presidio and geary and golden gate park are burned down, empty or filled with water. i wanted you to give you an impression the level of devastation that's there today, sadly, with leadership like with people like latoya it will change.

the tourist part. the mardi gras is still open. take out your pact books and spend some time in new orleans they need your investment and support. i'm going back if you want to go i will go with you. i want to do last minute thank yous there was one person not mentioned in the discussion today about our work in new orleans that's toni irons. toni irons is a member of the puc who single handedly restores the school in the middle of the broadmoore. he's an amazing person. [applause]. i do want to point out that i'm a little embarrassed about the attention i'm getting today. there are 25 people that everyday for the last 6 weeks have worked on this project. i want to ask all of the

volunteers to stand up. >> we have shirtos like this. come on guys! you deserve it. tom, patty, everyone, thank you. >> amen. i also want to ask today's panelists to stand up. they works many hours before this to make this a success. come on! [applause] haight street beat patrol come on you guys were amazing. i want to thank the venders who came much the civic auditorium i loaned the stage to barack yesterday he owea me money. reason woo have this set up is because we are using and recycling. thank you to the bill gram team. they were helpful. lastly i want to thank sf safe

they are our partner they have been in town for 30 years doing the work we are working on. they are our partner moving forward. lastly, again, sort of embarrassing some of the things that have been said regarding me. i feel like i'm following the footsteps of a lot of amazing people that have held my seat and my office like mrs. dufty and turk. all of us who understands what it takes to run a great city. a big round of applause for ed lee. ed this would not have happened today if not for ed lee. ed lee, thank you very much. [applause]. the only change today that i want to --