sources of financing or substitute sources become available so we can keep doing these projects. thank you very much. [applause] >> my name is calvin welch. unaccustomed as i am to speaking with brevity in public, i have taken the opportunity to beat the bet that i cannot do this in two minutes. i have written my remarks. rene was part of a movement of community-based people committed to providing housing opportunities in san francisco. through his and others' efforts, 25,000 units a permanently affordable housing have been produced, a record unequaled in the united states.

in the most expensive housing market in the country, providing such an opportunity is extremely difficult. it takes patience, determination, and wit -- two qualities he had. he was not too good on the patience side. confronted by the philosophy that says we cannot afford health care, public education, and affordable housing for the broad majority of our fellows, both national and state governments have withdrawn their support for affordable housing. currently mayor lee has undertaken a process involving private and public sectors because it will take both to seek to provide the minimum of $50 million a year for that purpose in the city of st. francis. that effort will require a ballot measure or two, patience,

determination, and wit. if this opening is merely an homage to his past, my old friend would simply remind us that he never came to these kind of events anyway. but if this ceremony is a demonstration of a commitment to the future of providing many more thousands of units permanently affordable to san francisco's poor and working people, we can all rest assured that rene would be pleased. it all depends on us now. [applause] >> the first thing i want to say is the key to everyone who worked so hard to make -- is to

say thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this possible. my mom was not sure she could make it today. she had something she wanted me to read. we would like to thank everyone who has made this event possible, including those who chose to dedicate the building to rene. for 40 years, he advocated, raised funds, and by organizations in providing affordable housing throughout the city. a native of san francisco, he wanted to help families stay in san francisco. he worked tirelessly toward that goal. this building is a testament to his dedication of achievement, and love for san francisco and its people. it is a way to remember him for years to come. he would never have admitted it, but i think secretly he would have been very proud of the honor, and so are we. thank you all very much. [applause]

>> good morning. i am one of the project managers from the community housing project. someone will ask me what we as project managers do. this is what i explained. we do a lot. what we do is very complex. in terms of our day-to-day responsibilities, most of it involves taking credit for the hard work and successes of other people. i would like to take this opportunity to publicly acknowledge the many people who have contributed to this project happening. the list of people we owe our thanks to are many.

if we have forgotten anybody, except our sincere apologies. we would also appreciate it if you hold applause in the interest of time. i would like to thank our developer-partner. it is through their expertise and hard work that this grand opening is possible. i would like to thank olson lee and tiffany from the agencies. true leadership requires a clear vision and a commitment to making that vision a reality. this project and the funding it received is owed to you guys. i would like to thank the staff

, elizabeth, sally, heidi, migke, joyce. you are the ones that worked side-by-side to sweat the details and worked as long and hard as we did. if there is any recognition we receive as project managers, you receive that equally. i like to thank the department of public health and city-wide and the funding people. you were a big part of the success and will continue to be so for many years to come. finally, i would like to thank the members of the many community and neighborhood residents that have supported the project. i would like to thank cac members and neighbors and residents. chris jackson is on the

selection committee that chose our team. thank you. john owns a condo right next to the site. thanks to you as well. on behalf of committee housing partnership and our future residents, they give to the immediate neighbors for their support and continued -- thank you to the immediate neighbors for their support as we complete construction. [applause] >> thank you. we are waiting for the mayor to arrive. he will be here any moment. i will make this quick. i am robert stephenson, the project manager with bridge housing. i had the great fortune of getting to work on the apartments with michael, chp, and other bridge staff.

i have gotten to see the project into construction. on behalf of bridge housing and chp, i also want to thank a number of people who have made this day possible and worked extremely hard to get us to this milestone. i began working on the project barely six months ago. i inherited a team that has been truly a pleasure to work with. i cannot see you out there. you are somewhere out there. i appreciate you guys. this has been an amazing team to work with. i want to start by thanking michael, who cannot hear me because it is very loud. he has worked on the project for over three years. this has been going on since 2008. he has been instrumental in its success. many others have been working on this for a long time. i want to thank our core team members. richard and vana have been

working on this since day one. they have been fantastic to work with. mimi sullivan is here from sullivan design partners, our other designer on the project we have the highly capable team from cahill contractors and our construction manager. thank you all for your hard work over a number of years now. we just have a couple of years to go. no congratulations yet. a special note of thanks to bill moffitt provides invaluable guidance to our design and construction team. i want to thank a few specific consultants.

they make the numbers work. our attorneys. heather gould, who made extraordinary efforts to make sure we got to the ground breaking on time. there is a long list of consultants who worked on the project. i am not able to go through all of those. if the mayor does not arrive, we will go through a longer list. i want to thank the city of san francisco for the local funding support. i want to call on elizabeth to went above and beyond on the project. thank you. do not hold your applause. [applause] i want to thank margaret and the rest of the team at wells fargo. rich and his team, which is many

enterprise, that helped us get to this day. donna kelley and her team at silicon valley bank, and many other important financing partners such as the california allocation committee, the department of housing and community development, the federal home loan bank, california housing finance agency. thank you for the support from the trans a joint -- transbay joint powers authority. one more page. i want to acknowledge several other people at chp. david is out here. gabriel haywood, gail, and the rest of the staff at chp. i will draw this part out.

i want to thank several people with bridge continue to play a crucial role in the project. bank you to kill me -- thank you to kim nash, along with catherine edsel. kristy wong is here with her new project, a little baby. she took over the project and patiently got me up to speed. i want to thank the senior management team, particularly, for his guidance. he is my boss. [laughter] finally, i want to express great appreciation to my project to administrator who works extremely hard and is

extraordinarily dedicated. thank you, jamie, somewhere out there. there are many people we could not include on the list. i apologize. thank you all for your support on the project. the mayor is here. great. i will hand it over. he is here. [applause] >> thank you, everybody, for being here today. supervisor, thank you for your leadership here as well. dejon, it is good to see you. [laughter] 1st of all, this is a ground- breaking for yet another project that i put in the category of transforming to. we made a commitment along time ago with the assistance of redevelopment.

we said any time we have an opportunity to build housing targeted to people that really needed our help, we would do so. that was reflected in the 10- year plan for homeless housing objectives. at least 3000 units in the next 10 years. this project of 120 units gets us to about 1977 about commitment. we still have to move forward. i would like to resonate about my disappointment about the elimination of redevelopment. i cannot do that today because we have a valuable time to get this project up for other people. as disappointed as i am about the project, we have got to move forward. that is why we have tiffany and many others who were on the re- development staff before. we finally got an agreement last friday to move forward on many

fronts we have to get done to build more housing. they keep to the wonderful work from our staff and -- thank you to the wonderful work from our staff and agencies. they could probably complain about us wallowing in our despair about this. we move forward with an idea of a housing trust fund, getting more partners like those who have worked so hard to be part of the production of affordable housing. knowing this is going up, it is more than taking the dust. we are actually digging in the ground with a commitment to see this project through to its finish. i want to thank people from the transkei transbay joint powers board, all the other groups we have assembled today. thank you for your cooperation

in getting this project done. thank you to rene. [applause] i know he has a family member here that i have yet to meet. i want to suggest the legacy he left behind will be honored with this project with his name on it. he was able to say not only do we work and housing, we work on hold -- whole communities to represented in government. that is what i have embraced. even as challenging as it was when i became director of public works, to transform the agency into one that served 11 different districts in honor of being more representative of our san francisco community. then to turn around and see it one of the largest projects in our whole city, the trans-based

terminal and have this product be one of the first out of the ground for many more to come. it is a community project that will revitalize many parts of our neighborhood. dejon knows that because he has been involved in many transform to projects that use the theme of transportation and transit- oriented centers and become the mainstay of many other good aspects of our lives. i want to thank the many people involved in this. i look forward to these units going up. they are invaluable, 120 units. they are all affordable housing for formerly homeless folks. we have dedicated nine of them to another important commitment, that is to people with aids, people we need to see sheltered and getting the services they need. this is going to be a fantastic

project. it represents the values we have in our city. they are the values reflected in everything we do. we utilize this. any major projects in our communities, we have to reap as much of the benefits as we can out of it. it is not to tax the developers but to see if we can get other partners on viable land we have near the freeways and transportation centers so that people can live the lives they deserve to live in this expensive, challenging city. i am here to celebrate the kickoff of this, but also to signal to you that we aint done yet. we have thousands more to go. calvin and others on the trust fund be, we will not indicate ho -- we will not end it with

the conversation. we have to make sure that for generations to come, we have revenue streams as much as redevelopment represented to us, that continues to struggle for to make sure housing is affordable and a lot more people can be in this great city. congratulations to bridge, chp, and all the wonderful participants. congratulations to the city and county of san francisco. thank you. [applause]