>> a way of life in san francisco. when the next major quake hits, the city hopes a new law requiring seismic upgrades to five story buildings will help keep more residents safe and sound. tell me a little about the soft story program. what is it? >> it's a program the mayor signed into law about a year and a half ago and the whole idea behind it was to help homeowners strengthen buildings

so that they would not collapse. >> did you the soft story program apply to all buildings or building that were built in a certain time frame? >> it only applies to buildings built in the time frame of 1978 and earlier. it's aimed at wood framed buildings that are three or more stories and five or more units. but the openings at the garage level and the street level aren't supported in many buildings. and without the support during a major earthquake, they are expected to pancake and flatten ~. many of the buildings in this program are under rent control so it's to everybody's advantage to do the work and make sure they protect their investment and their tenant. >> notices have gone out to more than 6,000 owners of potentially at-risk properties but fewer than one-third have responded and thousands might miss an important deadline in

september to tell the city what they plan to do. let's talk worst case scenario. what happens in a collapse? >> buildings have the tendency of rolling over. the first soft story walls lean over and the building collapse. in an earthquake the building is a total loss. >> can you describe what kind of strengthening is involved in the retrofit? >> one of the basic concepts, you want to think of this building kind of like rubber band and the upper three floor are very rigid box and the garage is a very flexible element. in an earthquake the garage will have a tendency to rollover. you have to rubber band analogy that the first floor is a very tough but flexible rubber band such that you never drive force he to the upper floors. where all your damage goes into controlled element like plywood or steel frame. >> so, here we are actually inside of a soft story building. can we talk a little about what

kinds of repairs property owners might expect? >> it's a very simple process. we deliberately tried to keep it that way. so, what's involved is plywood, which when you install it and make a wall as we have done here already, then you cover it with this gypsum material. this adds some flexibility so that during the earthquake you'll get movement but not collapse. and that gets strengthened even more when we go over to the steel frame to support the upper floor. >> so, potentially the wood and the steel -- it sounds like a fairly straightforward process takes your odds of collapse from one in 4 to one in 30? >> that's exactly right. that's why we're hoping that people will move quickly and make this happen. >> great. let's take a look.

so, let's talk steel frames. tell me what we have going on here. >> well, we have a steel frame here. there are two of these and they go up to the lower floor and there is a beam that go across, basically a box that is much stiffer and stronger. ~ goes so that during the earthquake the upper floor will not collapse down on this story. it can be done in about two weeks' time. voila, you're done. easy. >> for more information on how to get your building earthquake ready, (clapping) >> . >> (speaking foreign language.) >> good afternoon, everyone this is feeling so good to stand before you this announcement is tremendous we'll been working

hard in the last year and a half this is a big day you've had personal and long connections to the building on 66 raymond this story of this building has been a rofks story of tragedy and of loss but today, we come to celebrate victory over one hundred years this building behind me has been in the community a tremendous and the that served generation many of the folks that participate in the community at it have you ever seen venue i want to acknowledge the long-standing community members thank you for being here and many of you know, we lost this exit to foreclosure we've been through many, many community meetings and many hours discussing the future of

56 raymond to today it is with great pleasure and honor i announce the city of san francisco habitation acquired the ownership of this property 66 raymond (clapping) and what's most important this day is not about reclaiming a building but about reclaiming an important piece of the visitacion valley center community for the community this asset was lost a long time ago due to foreclosure but with the help of the mayor's office the help of my staff and, of course, the tremendous help of the community the members 3 stand behind me their advocacy we won this is symbolic because a neighborhood stood up and fought and we've delivered 2, 3, 4 tremendous interrelation mom it's occasion to the visitacion

valley center neighborhood we're here to be here i'm proud to deliver back to the community 66 raymond the city's ownership means the residents will have a health place for activities to gather as a community the cities ownership of this community center of this building we'll have a place tour our seniors and visitacion valley center thank you to all the community members that have remained steadfast and the next person you'll here from is mayor ed lee he'll share with you his vision after the mayor maria sue between many meetings she and i have met to late out a specific strategy and services that happening happens at 66 raymond

mr. mayor thank you for being here (clapping.) i think we want to make sure many have translations let me say something in chinese okay. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> cowen - raymond all right. i just said to them that supervisor cohen just announced that the 66 raymond street has been gifted to san francisco government so that we can in turn use it according to what supervisor cohen has explained for all the community uses and the seniors here that are gathered are here know this is an important thing you saw them

clap they've been for years wanting to make sure they've expanded the services limited at 50 raymond to now the other side of the courtyard filled with the capacity services of the city i know that supervisor cohen has think been here for quite some sometime and through her leadership that did owners of the building said we have to do this and make a difference we went through some times when we doesn't were not certain whether or not the owners of the building would cooperate now they have i serve as a back up to supervisor cohen and i said this wherever she said we have to do something and certainly the same thing with the board president president chiu we

wanted to make sure the funds we at the time set aside with supervisor cohen's leadership those funds would be spent to make sure that the buildings would be rehabbed and make sure that they would get a good level of rehab so that it could be converted to senior use a lot of champs but welcome everyone to visitacion valley this is a wonderful part of our as you can see xhooufd said the sun is shining on us we have good news and right here visitacion valley we were down here a few months ago opening up the supermarket and across the street you'll see 17 hundred brand new units of affordable housing because of the location here and because of the income that people make around here i know the developers right here is excited about this we support

him and make sure this project gets down this community is on the move a lot of things happening in the south crossroad of our city therefore this of 6 raymond is a good announcement and investment thank you to supervisor cohen for her leadership and quite franklin e frankly wouldn't be done without her tests her persistence as a team i mean team kind of like the team that is going to play tomorrow night and i want to say thank you to supervisor cohen we're happy to share this news with everybody who uses the center and wants more activities and more improvements we're going to be hearing a lot there's a lot of things to get done and thanks to her leadership with supervisor cohen we'll continue to get a done

your next up maria sue for families it oversees many of the families at raymond. >> it's a such a beautiful, beautiful day and appropriate we're celebrating if this with the sun and residents and community members i'm maria from the youth department i'm proud of the leadership with mayor ed lee and supervisor cohen and president chiu for truly bringing back this sister building of this true community interit has been is an anchor within our city and the visitacion valley center for well over 95 years and supervisor you said one hundred years this has been a place for residents this place is a place for parents to come to seek support services for their children to learn how to support

their babies a as they develop e develop a place for youth for mentor and place for seniors for nutritious meals for opportunity to congregate and socialize to bring meaning to their lives i'm proud to be standing here with the city community and our community balances partners to revitalize this center and bring that back to its full glory of what was was before i'm proud and committed as folks to bring the services back here to insure that our young people whether they're coming from school back into they're community there's a safe place to come to if they want that first opportunity for career development come here for the skills tests apartment that need support for after-school

program and services they can come here and receive the support i'm really proud the leaderships once again and mayor ed lee and supervisor cohen and president chiu and i look forward to working with them as well as our community based organizations and our community residents to make that as beautiful and vibrant as it should be thank you. (clapping.) the woman i'd like to introduce is my amy chung providing services to the executive director for the sales help for the elderly thank you

>> (speaking foreign language.) >> so just briefing i want to thank supervisor cohen and mayor ed lee and maria for helping us get this piece of our community center back when two years ago the seniors were running our center for over 20 years was asked to move to our invitation center a lot of the seniors wanted to program but that was under foreclosure thank you supervisor cohen for listening to our seniors and expressing their needs to have their programs here we're very happy to be partnering are mayor ed

lee and supervisor cohen to provide the programs the seniors need and thank you very much it up for listening anticipate protecting our seniors making sure they get a place they call their second home so thank you very much (clapping). >> in closing, i want to say this is the physical manifestation when everyone has a team effort again, thank you to the community partners and other community partners behind me thank you as the giants pulled together they can pull out a victory when everyone plays his position that's mayor lee's suggestion i didn't deliver it as well, so i'll end with this go visitacion valley

center and go giants >> we do. good afternoon. and welcome to our regularly schedule meeting of the