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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ in >> wow. as we say farewell to the horses we welcome the ram and then mayor ed lee also former mayor willie brown and jeffrey asian pacific islander elementary initiated at welcome

of the ram to 2005 it's my great honor to invite the honorable mayor ed lee to say happy new year also will say it in chinese. >> thank you doris. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> and everyone in mandarin. >> all right. right. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> >> first of all, everybody welcome to the kickoff of our wonderful chinese new year the year of the ram i'm so happy to joined by former mayor willie brown give willie a hand (clapping.) supervisor christensen is here thank you julie for being here and sxhaifshg thank you for being here did i miss any other

supervisors or rams here gosh what a wonderful kickoff this just gets more eloquent every year i want to say thank you to the san francisco chinese chamber of commerce for their leadership we're going to have a wonderful two weeks of celebration actual very much to the asian presiding officer's you saw their display along with the chinatown youth center the youth fair with their we have displays you'll be seeing repeated and more eloquent during the parade how about those the rams for the chinatown community children's center weren't they wonderful i look forward to seeing them march throughout the parade with them that's a glimgsz of what we're going to see in a couple of weeks with the celebration of the parade but also for the most

part you're here at the empire jeff asian pacific islander elementary school home the empire is standing next to us imper pa elementary thank you for inviting us to our palaces in chinatown we call it the pal lists because the emperor is here he has lots of fun this is one of the opportunities to step out of his suit and the real suits he always want to be in and his cowboy boats at the same time the dallas rams thank you to you and the ownership here the investors here your been wonderful partners not only on this event but this year with the kinks e connections to our

chinese community you're wonderful large community of operations with or that we have going for this new year please come out and enjoy the community fairs the 10 k run autopsying all of the flowers being sold longing stockton street with the goodies give a red envelope to the person that are still single and younger than you i seven hundred younger (laughter) and anita and i wanted to say to all of you who a great spirit of our new year>> (speaking foreign language.) >> (clapping.) yum, yum. >> yeah. right all right. >> and really a joyous new year to everyone thank you to the police officers for being here and keeping people safe and give

them a red envelope i can if you have one and say thank you to the community for stepping out and being a part of our cultural celebration in this disagreeing great city of our we're wore lucky i'm lucky to be the mayor that enjoys our pride and diversity thank you very much. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> >> thank you thank you very much i 7, 8, 9 to recognize carmen chu and others and like to acknowledge the t o of hilton hotel john let's give them a round of applause and invite willie brown up to say. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> >> he is the real emperor. >> the year of a hours the

white hours was escorted out and in comes the ramming the year of the rams lunar new year as the mayor has said commences as of now and in reality every year in san francisco we start the year out with every aspect of the chinese cultural celebration it is always started reason an administrative and goodwill and good health and hopefully great wealth this year is no different the year of the ram i'm told that there is the year of the anyone questioning can he i'm doing i'm going to have to avoid coming that one for fear that is an error i want to say each and every one

of us need to enjoy the entire 14 or 15 days period of the chinese new year unlike almost any other places in the entire nation and mr. mayor for whatever reason the lord is shining that on us no rain over the next 6 days god thank you. >> thank you mayor brown and invite the finding 69 chinese chamber of commerce mr. eddy powell to say a few words. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> thank you mr. eddy thank

you invite ms. rose pack to say a few words audience i know that the mayor ed lee is nervous every time i get a microphone but the brunt of my joke is on willie brown he shows up on time to so the housekeeper at the corner to take the picture first with the horse than the 3 rams and the dog hasten whoever took picture with him afterward i said that's an ass except i remember in the chinese zodiac there's no such thing as ass on the zodiac whoever takes the picture next will be an ass so. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> thank you rose and thank you so much let's take a group picture and welcome the year of the ram we're going to have fire

crackers right so let's take a group picture and grace and everyone from chinese consolidated yeah. ♪ ♪ ♪

(clapping). >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. >> that's not a good afternoon. >> come on. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. >> now that's better this is a really a momentous coalition we've worked so hard on the things we do in our day jobs and commissioners this is an opportunity we should celebrate good afternoon. my name is is online the director of the mayor's office of housing and we're here to celebrate a historic agreement between the

housing authority the housing and urban development and the city that permits the housing u housing authority to utilities the program a relatively new program in combination with other hud programs to rehab over 35 hundred units of public utilities in san francisco and sustain another thousand more unit (clapping) yes, it pretty much covers all of the public utilities showcase stock in san francisco this is why this work has taken a while the demonstration program was to provide a way for housing authority across the industry country to fund the repairs that

in fact, the federal government couldn't afford to fund or was not able to fund we are at the starting line of something special in san francisco as well as for the nation we'll further demonstrate for congress and for the rest of the nation how the rental system demonstration program can benefit public utilities residents we know that hud got the caps lifted in terms of rad but the goal to prove the program and make sure increase not a scape again so the resources as they become available we'll help 9 residents throughout the country without regards to that capital this agreement facilities over $500 million in erect in the next few years hud is not giving us a check for $500 million we

wish by their giving us us resources to voucher assistance to track that $500 million to make the needed repairs in the hud fund there is much, much work that needs to be done this agreement shapes the way that the housing authority the federal government and the city will work together to make this all possible. >> at this time it is my pleasure to introduce a very special man yes he's my boss he's very special (laughter). >> as part of his 2013 state of public safety address speak the mayor said we must do something to help our public libraries residents and called for the revitalization of the

housing authority which were struggling loan to try to serve san francisco neediest residents as the mayor likes he like the big issue led by the naomi kelly of the city metrics administrator's office and that work group helped to identify the challenges that were faced by the housing authority and it also identified some of the opportunities that we in san francisco, california pull together to assist the housing authority and it's residents to have a safe descent sanitary housing to implement this work the mayor district automobile cities departments not only the housing and urban development to work with the housing authority to towards the goals of the

revision he has committed city resources in excess of $50 million for just the rental system rehabilitation alone and committed the resources of the city to serve the needs of the residents on an ongoing basis and funded hope sf which has revitalized alice griffith and developed the financing plan to revitalize potrero and sunnyvale also (clapping) he is very committed to serving the housing needs of all san franciscans especially those lowest income residents in the city that needs the housing let me introduce to you a very

special mayor mayor edwin lee (clapping.) thank you olsen for the introduction a hearty chinese new year the first day of chinese new year we have a lot to celebrate we have malia cohen in the crowd thank you four district 10 and london breed who's story continues to be so inspiring everyday she's not in my area but in my ear and reremind each other of the sprernz to making promises to helping others get out of poverty not just in public utilities but housing i know the secretary is going to say some things i'll truly inspired by

the support as determined as o citizen says i'm about this topic i'm lucky to have people surrounding me with the same interests and passion to help people get out the poverty part of that it is to have an answer is people call the deplanning housing someone's fault i told you we've isolated the residents not to be the residents but never again that reference is going to happy that we are providing proud to see the residents of our public utilities are resident of san francisco what do you mean that means (clapping.) a heck of a lot and those conversations have now proud action that produce a lot of people that stepped up you

can our regional office levied by ophelia she's a supporter of our vision for this to happy our housing authority staff out of the role of isolations into conversations with our city administrator and olsen lisa office i'll lead the housing development for low income seniors bringing their expertise in and as olsen mind earlier rad the rental assistance demonstration really is a tool a tool of different government programs brothel together but what we had to do was put that tool in a revilg process that

was challenging and piece together a plan that involved the residents because most importantly the residents don't believe what you're doing you can say they don't believe it you a can not improve their lives it had to be a partnership utilizing those tools other part of this getting here was to have a housing authority commission made up of people that also shared that with the staff and with the conversation with the residents we had to have a strong, strong relationship and continue to do with ore labor representatives that are dramatically important to this effort we need everybody to be at the table that's not just the implicit the to the resident we had to overcome our own bureaucracies we have thick

walls in our bureaucracies part of my job was to breakdown that to allow for a significant level of flexibility flexibility that i talked to john donovan was secretary and the deputy concert was over phone call after phone call and phone call and pleading with hud they were pleading with us you've got to demonstrate there will be outcomes to snare share we can't just share you've got to that will lead to something by the way guess what the federal government can't tolerant failure we have to take a lot of risks i know the pressures on secretary castro he knows the pressures as well to turn 411 hundred units for 54

hundred families people are disabilities and seniors into a collaboration with labor and nonprofits city administrators and housing authority staff you all had to be demonstrates time and time again demonstrated we began with the hunters view and you see brick by brick family by family moving into those unite with a level of support of services they trust to help them get more successful you'll see that demonstrate in alice griffith we had an infusion of dollars mother person i want to thank over and over again our fellow certainty nancy pelosi she's allowed us to demonstrate what we're felt is behind the entire vision authenticity not so much investment in barker but

we began with investing in people first and letting the residents we care about they're to be treated as full fledged residents of san francisco this is the conversation that leandro and i have time and time again she's led the effort to make sure that our budget is appropriately supported of our public housing residents not just so we can survive or die on our own is where he to lend that because guess what the people that will there are san franciscans ease kept we fail they fail we needed everything we needed tenant applicant and people that believe in us and demonstrate that quickly and have all the agencies including our police officers our firefighters and bishgz building inspectors our expertise that has been involved tremors in the

way we staff up and everybody to believe this is the right direction that's the inner ingredients of success i'm so happy to announce rad is a just a tool and if you don't use it with live human beings that believe what you're using it for you'll not get the goal of this tool housing and the human people behind hud are to be congratulated because we do work in thick bureaucracies and it was and had to be a big selling point to convince hud we're willing in san francisco to thank ta take the risk ourselves if they don't see the city mayor wanting to take the risk why would they join in it's about

transforming the bureaucracies to a collaborative and strong spirit i've named those people i want to give them total credit for the collaborative strong effort we're dooements today, we so the opportunity now to use this rad program with all the neglects that we've asked for that also were taking on more risk as a city because it's worth it to invest in our members you know some of them all they seven hundred was better elevators and now they're getting that and all they wanted was heat and hot running water in the winter and no cook roaches and fire alarms that work in fires those are simple things how come we're not doing that many residents ask and i ask there will be reason after

reason after reason that transformation will be sustained by a very knowledgeable resident basis and inspired staff and our pocket sectors as tremors commentator they're no my office saying hey, it's not about the brick and mortar we have to have services that the city has never done before because if we're going to ask people to challenge themselves out the poverty we've done that time and gnp time again in non-residents we've been successful so this re-visioning is going to happen i'm so happy it's happening in our watch and glad it's happening under the leadership the supervisor london breed and supervisor cowen two strong women that will not leave

me alone and constituents that won't let them all and all to say that my envisioning for the entire housing challenge housing crisis in the is city is one i'm up to the challenging challenge we're up to the challenge and the housing authority is just beginning i've got thirty mouse u thousand housing to build we're going to get to that with the housing bond this november with a complimentary you infusion of dollars we've seen time and time again help us with the city challenges but ultimately all of us who work in government can say that you work with hud and the housing authority and the in housing office and with nonprofit and proud to be san franciscans we're demonstrating how to help each other be successful