our rooms to put up for the market and so i was like, i am in my senior year of school. i am colleges and everything, and what is going to happen to me? what is going to happen to my two sisters that go to robinson taylor elementary will they have to pick up and leave and go to a place that we don't know or will we have to move in with our family and live in closets and all that i want to ask for you guys to is dedicate this land swap to families like mine, who are like living in like, who can't meet, sorry, this is... who can't pay the rent each month. and you know, we want to stay in san francisco, if i wanted to live san francisco if my family wanted to leave, we would have left a while back, except there is not enough affordable housing and we want to stay here so please do this for us, thank you. >> i want to read a couple more

names, because the line is thinning out. could i read, sarah, short and seron and vasquez and tom kabrono. p >> thank you. proceed. >> we are waiting. >> i am here and i am a member of the boder and i have two sons and one that go to the john school and one is... oh, [ speaking in a foreign language ] . there are 4 and 9. p john, and holland.

i am here for the affordable housing. [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> i wrote down what i was going to say but the best testimony is when it comes from the heart and i lived in the shelter. [ speaking in a foreign language ] and it is a horrible experience not to be able to give your children a roof over their heads. [ speaking in a foreign

language ] >> and it is really hard when you are not high income earning and you don't have a stable job. [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> and i think that it is really important that all of our children have a roof over their head as well as a good education. and for the future of this country. [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> and just really that you are supporting affordable housing for folks like me that don't

have a really high income. p [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> thank you and good night. >> i am a parent advocate and i could tell you the stories about the families that i work with, but instead of that i want you to remember that working families are the back bone of this city. and many of you here don't know what it means to be in the situation of having snaoe stable housing and maybe if you knew, you can hurry up and vote. and so, i just want you to, and i just wanted to urge you to do the right thing.

and make the affordable housing possible for more people in this city. thank you. >> i am an organizer and i am here because we are living in a housing crisis, this is ridiculous, like i don't know anybody who can afford, 2,000 for a studio, and i don't know anybody, i don't know if i have met anybody. and so i think that it is really important to acknowledge what the city has made really bad decisions in which the highest bidder has been the one that has been able to develop. in a city that our families have built and my dad was a laborer for 30 years and i have been a community organizer for 20 years and all of these people have the same story and help to create this beautiful city that we live in and so i think that the most beautiful thing about being here is seeing the school district and the office of housing and we need to have all of the departments of the city come together and address this crisis, because it is not fair that kids don't have a place to do their homework and a place

to cook and a place to feel safe, you know? and so i think that it is really important that we step up to the plate, and even though this is not like a school district problem, we need to look at it as a city problem that we are all a part of and that we have to step up and do something about. and so i really am supportive of looking at all of the school district properties and figuring out how we can do this together to build housing to build healthy food spaces, to build resources and everything that supports the city that supports the families that have built this city and so thank you very much for your time. >> we have 15 minutes left and i just want to let everybody know. we have 15 minutes. >> good evening and i have been a community organizer and social service provider in san francisco for 20 years, and i want to thank the board of education, and all of the public officials for addressing

this really important issue today. i also grew up in public schoolss here in san francisco and i want to say that it has been my personal perspective and experience that i think that a lot of people here will share is that i have never seen such a huge percentage of sfusd students commuting from out of the city. and into the public schools. there are a large number of students that are using san francisco addresses but they are come froming richmond, i had a friend who had a commute from the station, from the board station to richmond and another almost an hour and from richmond to his house, almost another 45, and you know what i mean and so this does mean trouble for the district because it means that we could lose the student attendance revenue and we are losing student attendance revenue and

we have been losing it and so i think that it is absolutely an amazing proposal and turn the mission over to the city so that we can build the affordable housing and i get really frustrated with the word and it is vague and we have to explain it to the people if they don't know what it is and i think that we should be more clear about what the real out come of this crisis is, our city is resegregated and you know, in terms of you know the ra cal diversity is disappearing and you know, it is, it is bizarre to live in a place where there are no elderly people or children, and i think that we are in a position to do something about it and defend the legacy of the san francisco unified cool district and of san francisco and of our city being dedicated to social justice and to the

democracy and ask you to do the right thing and build the affordable housing, thank you. >> i am dennis and i am president of the united educators of san francisco and it is a pleasure to hear the speaker speak up in favor of my group, the elderly, and trying to keep us here. and i am very pleased to be able to join with our friends angelica and oscar and their friends from coleman because we all know that affordable housing is a desirable goal and uesf does not oppose this land sort of swap. good job. olsen and recognizes the good that is inherent in providing affordable housing and especially in this important transit corridor. however, we would like to point out, that making this deal in the absence of a master plan, for the custodianship of the

property is not wise, to proceed with making deals involving real estate without having an real estate officer is a little bit like cutting putting the kid who cut your grass in large of harvesting your crops, it is not wise, i wrote that line without mr. golden's admission that the deputy superintendent was the chief negotiater, he was more humble when he told us about it and did not acknowledge that. to use the parcels as a surplus property for a good such as this one without involving the employees with whom you have had a ten-year standing agreement to develop workforce housing, is more than an oversight. and that is an insult. and that is felt very deeply, and very bitterly. and when the deputy superintendent told you that it would not be exclusively for the teacher or educator housing, affordable housing will not house a single teacher.

not a single one. because of where the dollar breaks are. and very few of the para professional and very few of the seiu workers. and i urge you to make the use of the final item on your proposal, where it says you can direct your staff to take the steps in negotiations to involve the city and in responding to the 3 points that i have made and i have heard others make tonight. we need a master plan. you need a real estate officer, and you need a workforce housing plan for the employees. thank you very much. >> i am bobby coleman of the san francisco tenant's ununand also with the we are all poets, and youth meets public officials poetry literacy project. and i wanted to be sensitive to mr. heely and the teachers and the points that were just made which i think are really

important. i mean, when you look at negotiation and reaching fruition and we see the merit of it and it comes in the context of the crisis in this city of the likes that touches everybody and there is an obvious desire on the part to cheer lead for the project but it is like a lot of things that happen in city government that are vaguely good and you are very supportive of something because you know that it is a step in the right direction or something elsewhere you feel like it is the step that must be made on the way to ironing out the legal kinks in the project. and so the points that i just heard are of course, crucial points, keeping the teachers housed in the city is a goal that should be given much more attention but on the merits of the negotiation i have to point out that it comes in the context of the kind of affordable questions that the tenant union focuses on to for the ren ter's affordable and it comes in the context of affordability that 100 percent of san franciscans support and

100 percent of them support, affordability like an earthquake just hit the city and the housing was needed like a tsunami, it has reached the national media and mores that to be done about it. and it is interesting that it comes to fruition right now because 6 months ago the affordability question was one of a lot of questions that have been put on the table for years, the tenant union, you know, and advocating for more affordable rental housing and preserve vasing, and falling on the deaf ears, until the last ballot involved 8 washington and band c, and we saw that much in the mayor's office and the official family had not read the temperature of the city. accurately, in order to make the appropriate use of public land on the water front and elsewhere, we could not be inthrauled to the idea that it

was going to build our way out of the affordability crisis and that is an illusion and we have been seeing it for years and so we are happy to see the baby steps and the important ingredients of the affordability being addressed and i want to say that more work needs to be done in terms of retaining teachers, living in san francisco, and under circumstances that are harming the educational mission. thank you. >> >> my mame is roberta and i want to honor you and, how many years have you been here? and no, no, seriously, how many years have you been here? >> i ain't going to let it go. because i want to make a point and i want you to help me out here. 32 years. 32 years, and i honor you today because she will testify today she should testify because

1950, we have been fighting for 1950 for 30 something years, and am i correct? i have been here for the 32 years, and that she has been here, fighting for 1950. and you know what? we have got 1950 for wrap and i don't know, i don't know how many of you know about wrap, but wrap ran an alternative high school where first you let the latino high school at that site and we were asked to leave because we were told that there was going to be housing that was going to be built. but somebody lied to us. lieers. they lied to us, and look at how many years it has been and look at how many times that this issue has come up to this board, about that site and housing. how many consultants have been paid to do studies on housing, for that site? it is a crime. google gets the exclusive right

to go pick up employees while the muni bus is late and children get to school late. and did you read the article? google. the neighbor next door died, that house is being rented for $5,500 next door to me. i live on florida street. between 25th and 26th. guess who is renting the house? it ain't... and it ain't (inaudible) and it is google employees. two of them. they can afford to split $5,000 rent. and it is a school problem. it is this board of education's problem. what is happening out there. don't get confused. don't twist it. the fact is that the school district is losing its population of children.

and it is not increasing, it is decreasing and look over the last 30 years. everett middle school used to have two,000 children in that school, when i was growing up. and today, that school has 500 children in that school. what is wrong with that picture? >> what is that telling you? >> somebody is not waking up, in the morning, and really looking at what is happening. am i right? or am i wrong? it is about waking up, and you know what? the gentleman from the union who got up here and i am a union man and i work for him in the united farm workers and i am a union man and i support the teachers and the union and i say that today, you should after this motion, consider making a motion to take all of the land that you are not using and convert it immediately into

housing, for teachers, in this city. why wait? you don't need another consultant, you don't need another study. you don't need a real estate, it is simple math. you need housing for teachers. and just like we need housing for families. and we started our mission with no eviction, back in october, we thought that maybe a 50 people will come out, and hundreds of people came out. and we had our second action for (inaudible) and thousands of people came out. and we thought that this was only happening in the mission, it is happening all over the city. and we are getting calls from the gay community from the castle and we have gone to the meetings there and the gay community is telling me that they are affected and the african american community and look at hunter's point, 6 percent. you could put 40,000 people who are african americans left in

the city, inside of at&t ball mark park and you would have empty seats they have been wiped out. wiped out. we are talking about cleansing, of the ethic culture, of this city. so, please, today, look at giving all of that land that you got that is vacant, sitting there doing nothing, rotting away, give it up and turn it over for housing for teachers and all people in san francisco. >> can i go after somebody else? >> i have four minutes? >> cool. >> very short director housing rights committee and i i wanted to first off really thank commissioners fewer and mendoza for bringing this forward and the time has come so thank you very much and i, am really

tired and it has been a long, hard day andvy been working on fighting evictions that have been result of speculation and i have been talking to the tenants about the evictions and the rent experiences and counseling them about the rights and talking to them and dealing with the tremendously horrible repair situations that are not getting resolved and it has been a hard week and a hard month and year. and i wanted to go home, you know hours ago, but it is important enough for me to be out here tonight, to tell you that you have an amazing opportunity staring you in the face. and it is not everyone and it is not every day that has the ability to do something to put a dent in this affordable housing crisis that we are experiencing right now. so you are in an incredible

position right now of both privilege and responsibility. and i frankly find it a little bit after my long hard day, frustrating that i even need to be here. this should be a slam dunk. there should be not one remote possibility of controversy about this. and the decision is just so clear that everybody, i think that has spoken before me has made that abundantly clear, the choice is yours, but, we are in an absolute crisis, the time is now, please, do the right thing while, again you have this incredible opportunity staring you in the eye to help prevent displacement and help to provide the safe and sound and decent housing for the students

that you serve. thank you. >> hi, my name is tommy and i am with the housing rights committee and also a long term activist here in san francisco and i live in the castro and i live in the mission. and i will try not to repeat what everybody else is saying and i think that what this comes down to is this a moral crisis and the city has a crisis and you folks are hurting that crisis and you have to make a moral judgment here and have you to do the right thing and the only right thing is to support affordable housing period, end of discussion is the only right thing to do, the mission is devastated and the last thing that it needs is market rate housing and people are displaced because everything that goes up are displacing more families and forces them into conditions if not homelessness and you have to do the right thing and the right thing is to support this, and yes, it is a drop in the bucket and it will not solve all of our problems but to put the market rate housing in the mission is an insult and it is

absolutely, inherently innately, immoral and i trust that you will do the right and just and moral thing and say yes to affordable housing and no to market rate housing, thank you. >> >> good evening, my name is arm ando and i am here as a mission district resident and also as a board member of the lower street community services and as many of you know that we serve the very vulnerable population in san francisco and particularly in the mission, we have immigrant and legal service and we also have the housing programs and they are currently at capacity. and we have an hiv hospice on the lower street and it is at capacity and we have permit housing and it is a capacity and not a single vacant unit. and we have a shelter, on south van ness and it is incredibly difficult to turn people away

and we have another shelter on 24th street and also at capacity. and what i want to keep it short just to make the point that we can't continue the way that we have for the past decade. we need affordable housing and, we need it now. and we are here on behalf of the mission and on behalf of the lower street community services, to move forward with the transfer and we think that it is a great idea and we thank the board and the mayor's office of housing for putting this incredible deal together and so please, do the right thing. >> thank you and i will be brief, my name is tom and i am the mission district resident and the president of the lgbt democratic club and i have not spoken before a board of education since i was in the third grade. and that was to read something that i had written because all

of the community members that spoke articulated the need for the transfer so perfectly, i will spare you everything and just read you a hiku. >> family housing is a public school's issue, no children no schools, thank you. p >> i just want to thank you, for ending this discussion with a hiku, i could not have scripted that any better, so thank you. >> all right. thank you to coming out and we don't have this many speakers and this attests to how important this issue is to the city and i know that everybody had to put aside your lives to be here for this discussion and

appreciate it truly. board members? questions and comments on this item? >> should i call for a vote, then? >> commissioner wynns and then commissioner murase? >> thank you, and thanks to everybody for coming out tonight, and i am sorry, that i am having a hard time. but i do have a couple of things that i want to say. i think we have been at this for years i think that the board of education because we want something good to come out of the use of this property, and we want to do what we can to address the housing issue, is face that has no choice here and so i will be supporting this, and i am not, and i appreciate that you are saying that we look for something that benefits both sides and i think that this does and although i am not sure that the benefits of the school district are what they would have liked them to be. there certainly is some benefit

to us and i will support this, but i want to do it with the as strongly as i can say that i do not believe that our district has done adequate, let alone, good job of trying to work on the issue of workforce housing for our employees. and i am, you know, that not a single one of these units will be available for the teachers and if any are available to our classified employees, as mr. kelley said or to that matter to our students, it will be by chance, and an extremely small number, that does not mean that i don't believe that the housing is a necessity in the school district but i think that the future of our school district is depending on addressing the issue that the employees can't afford to live here and i just, whatever our good intentions, including

mine, for decades, made, no advances, in that area. and we must do that. so, i want to thank everyone for all of the hard work that you have done on this, and as i said, i think that we have no other choice, but, and i am glad that you know, our drop in the bucket will be a drop in the bucket of the necessity for more affordable housing in san francisco. but i am looking for better results for us and our goals in the future. thank you. >> dr. murase? >> i want to acknowledge the work of my colleagues, fewer and mendoza who have been really spear heading this effort. i also want to acknowledge lee and golden and his tireless work on this and i am very pleased at least in an early estimate was that this proposal could result in as many as 91 ra fordable units and i think

that is a big win for everyone. and secondly, do i want to acknowledge, that the civil grand jury looked at our surplus properties and have the criticism about letting valuable land, sort of language, and so that i think this is a step in the right direction in terms of taking some of the surplus properties and making good use of it. and finally, i just want to reiterate my commitment to teacher housing. and so since we are all of the building and grounds committee meetings, and i have communicated to staff, how important it was that somehow out of all of these transactions, we make a commitment to teacher housing. and we did look at almost, endless variety of proposals, but, the only one proposal in which we are able to build the teacher housing and the

workforce housing involved kind of a risky never done before joint venture with a pension fund which we are not in the business of building, things and building house and managing it and so i just wanted to communicate that the building and grounds committee looks seriously at how can we make the workforce housing and how could we build it and of the options that were presented it did not seem to be a practical way to do that. there has been a commitment by the district and the mayor's office to help our workforce access existing programs. and so, there are you know, affordable units that are available from time-to-time in the city. but, as president kelley noted, many of our teachers make too mucher money to qualify for the low income housing. we have the teacher next door program, and that for the mayor's office, which is down payment assistance, but not