[applause]. >> it is hot in here. when we built these apartments, did we forget the air conditioner? [laughter]. >> good morning, everyone.

and welcome to willie b. kennedy -- kennedy apartments in the beautiful western edition community, right next to rosa parks, a.k.a. the pink palace, right across the street from plaza east where i grew up. born and raised in this community, and it is so good to be home. [cheers and applause] >> some of you remember when we took this parking lot which was an underutilized site in this community and decided that we were going to build 98 new senior units for this community, and many of you remember the challenges that existed for far too long where we would build affordable housing in the western edition and we would apply for information and hardly anyone would get access to those units. i am so proud of the work that we did to past neighborhood

preference legislation to make sure that 40% of the units that are built in the community go to the people in the community, and this was the first project to use neighborhood preference. [cheers and applause] >> yes, i had to fly to d.c., that was hard work, but we made it happen. i want to thank all the incredible people that are joining us today. now we know that this city has not done its part in building more affordable housing, and we know that we have to get creative. we need to find opportunities. yes, it's about money, but it's also about cutting back the bureaucratic red tape that make it difficult to build affordable housing in the first place, and yes, we need to fund it. today, we are here for a great announcement, and i'm so happy to be here with so many community members, including reverend townsend, supervisor

shamann walton, and president president of the board of supervisors, norman g. -- normandie, your supervisor vallie brown, catherine stefani, and supervisor safai. today, along with my cochair, my partner, president of the board of supervisors, we are here to announce the biggest housing bond of 500 million-dollar housing bond. [applause] >> for affordable housing in the city and county of san francisco and to the small property owners throughout san francisco, this will not raise property taxes. we're doing this in a very responsible way. to craft this bond and to build support for it, we convened a

working group that started back in march. we know that passing this bonding getting the two thirds vote that we need will take hard work, and our community cochairs have led to this effort to make this happen. i want to acknowledge our community cochairs at this time for their hard work and helping to craft this particular bond, starting with malcolm young, thank you so much. [applause] >> tamika moss, myrna mel garr, and annie chung. [applause] we couldn't have put together a better group of people who have dedicated their lives and their careers to addressing a lot of the inequities, especially around housing and creating more affordable housing for so many communities in san francisco. i am grateful for their service. let me just tell you a little

bit about what we have planned to do with this bond, which will be introduced at the board of supervisors today. we need about eight devotes, and we have two, four, five votes here so far. we have to get on the phone and get to some of those other supervisors. we know that one of our highest priorities is addressing low income housing, and making sure that people who fit within the low income category receive access to affordable housing. this bond will allocate about $210 million to the construction , the acquisition, and the rehabilitation of permanently affordable rental housing units. specifically with families at an 80% area median income and below this will help speed up construction on those projects that are 100% affordable projects, and we estimate that this will provide 1,000 new

affordable apartments within the next four years. [applause] >> $10 million of this bond will be allocated to new supportive housing sights were formerly homeless residents, while we know we need to continue to expand our navigation centers, to help our unsheltered residents off the streets, we also need homes for people so that they can exit homelessness, so that's why this is so important. one of the things that you all know i am so committed to is the residents who are in public housing, as someone who unfortunately had to live in some of the most, you know, terrible conditions for over 20 years of my life, i will always make sure that the residents of public housing are prioritized. in this bond -- [applause] >> in this bond, we have allocated $150 million to repair

and rebuild public housing in san francisco. we know that the rental demonstration, rental assistance demonstration has rehabilitated more than 2600 units of public housing throughout san francisco , but we need more. this will help address what we know our challenges in places like potrero hill, and sunnydale , which i know supervisor walton is so excited about. [applause] >> we also know that preserving our public housing, we need to really focus in order to preserve our affordable housing stock, we also have to remember that there are a lot of folks, especially a lot of seniors, who live in a rent controlled apartments. and so one of the great programs we have in the city is when one of those buildings, which

consists of low income residents goes on the market to be sold, and those folks face the possibility of losing the only home that they have, we have a small sites acquisition program to purchase those particular buildings so that we can protect the tenants in those facilities. [applause] >> so this bond will allocate $30 million to acquiring rental housing, and that way we protect current residence that would be at risk of rent increases and they maybe forced out of their homes. i'm really excited about that. we also know that there are populations of people who may not qualify for affordable housing, but they don't make enough to afford it, so we can't forget our middle income residents. in addition -- an additional $20 million will go towards helping middle income individuals and families purchase affordable housing, including our first-time homebuyers assistance program,

and providing financial assistance to teachers for closing costs and other homeowners with expenses. [applause] finally, we have to take care of our seniors some of you know how sensitive i am about taking care of our senior community, my grandmother raised me, and i was grateful that i was able to help take care of her. there are so many seniors who may not have family members to support to take care of them. we, as a city, we have to do better. this bond will provide $90 million to create and acquire affordable housing for our seniors so that we cannot only build more projects like kennedy apartments and we also need to protect seniors in their homes in the first place of they

can age indignity. we chose specific priorities based on the impetus of over 100 -- this was truly community led effort, and i'm so grateful to the president of the board of supervisors for his leadership and their community cochairs to a mentioned earlier today. we all know housing is too expensive in the city we need to be bold about the investments we need to make that impact the people in this city who are actually struggling to hold on to live here. i don't want san francisco to continue to be what i experienced going up, a place that when we grew up, as i said,

right across the street where i used to live, where it was the old plaza east, they tore down 300 units and built 200 units, so 100 families weren't coming back to plaza east. we are not doing businesses usual in the city. we are changing how we do affordable housing in san francisco. [applause] >> and what that means is making sure that people who grew up in the city have a shot of being able to afford to live here. it starts now, it starts today, it starts with getting more affordable housing built. i want to thank all of you for your support. this will not be an easy thing to do. this ballot measure will need to go to the board of supervisors, it will need to go to the voters , it will need two thirds vote. i will be counting on all of you to make sure you are registered, to make sure you are voting, to make sure you are turning out so

your vote counts in san francisco. we need to make sure that even though they be many of us have housing security, there are so many people out there who don't. and how we create a more equitable san francisco is making sure that at a bare minimum, people have a safe, affordable place to call home, and that is what this bond is about. i want to thank each and everyone of you for your support [applause] >> with that, i would like to introduce the president of the board of supervisors who has been a real champion for affordable housing, supervisor norman yee. [applause] >> good afternoon. as mayor breed said, we are going to need all your support

to get this bond measure passed, and if you are going to support it, raise your hands! thank you, i think we one. [laughter] >> i am president of the board of supervisors, and i really want to thank many, many people, but i think mayor breed did a great job in acknowledging our community cochairs. they did a splendid job, they brought many of these people that are standing hind me right now, and many other people, to come together and have a discussion about how do we utilize this bond measure to actually make a difference in people's lives, and what they came up with, the recommendations, and so forth, i believe they did the trick. thank you very much. [applause] >> you know, mayor breed talks about voter categories about

what we will do with the bond funding, and it basically -- it seems easy when it comes out of mayor breed's mouth that we can do these things, but it's not that easy, because these are bold initiatives that we are taking. we are saying, let's stop doing the things that we used to do, because somehow it is not reaching our folks that are actually living here, that built this city, and we want to make sure the people who built the city continues to be our residents in san francisco. we cannot say goodbye, you built the city, and i think that's been happening long enough. it's time to stop that bleeding of people that actually who are living here, that built the city , that made it what it is, and for us, as a city, to support these people. so when we talk about all the

different categories, is there enough money in this bond measure? absolutely not. 500 million is a lot of money, but it is not enough, and we need to think of how to leverage it, that is where the bonus comes. we can't just say spend it, that is it, no, let's go look at the state funding. i was really pleasantly surprised or pleased when i went to d.c. last week, and every representative i spoke with, whether it was senator feinstein , whether it was nancy pelosi's office, or congresswoman jackie spear, each one of them started the discussion with saying, the federal government needs to do something about some of these issues, about homelessness, about affordable housing, about transportation. i've never heard that discussion before in d.c. so they are even recognizing that this is a national crisis,

and guess what? san francisco will not wait for the federal government, we will do it by ourselves for now, and hopefully the state and federal government will understand that they, once again, need to follow san francisco, right? [applause] >> i want to say, having this press conference here is so super appropriate, affordable senior housing. it is one of the things that i have been pushing for us to focus on, we did some focus years back, but we lost some of that focus. we need to figure out how do we keep our seniors in their communities, instead of, oh, no, i got evicted, oh, no, i have to go live in modesto now, or something, and that is what is happening to a lot of people. what we need is to have the

seniors who have lived here, many of them, most of them all of their lives, we want to make sure that they can continue living here in san francisco. so that is why having the press conference here is so ideal, because now with mayor breed and the rest of the committee saying , you know, put 90 million in there and make sure that we do something for the seniors, and is it enough? once again, none of the money is enough, but it is a start. i want to say that the people that came to the meetings, the talk about senior housing, they were really spot on. they stood up and said look, what is happening as we are losing our seniors, we are not building enough for our seniors, so i am glad that myself and mayor breed are really hearing that, thank you again, mayor breed, for really listening to our community in terms of what the needs are, and one last thing, i think mayor breed said

it already, but i have to say this again, in the past, we have always thought about affordable housing as just being for the lowest income, and we still need to continue to support that, we need to support that, but guess what? middle income people are being pushed out like low income people, so we need to start addressing that, and this bond begins to do this. so thank you very much, folks. [applause] >> one thing that we really realize, in the past, we have never really considered housing as an infrastructure issue, like maybe our parks, or public buildings, or our bridges, or our roads, those are considered traditional capital planning infrastructure needs. guess what? it is a new day. the leaders around you, the people out here believe that housing, affordable housing in particular is an infrastructure

issue. so we are committed to looking at how we cannot just do one bond measure, but to continue an effort to put affordable housing bond measures in the near future as a series of bond measures, so i hope you will support that, and in the meantime, if you are not registered, make sure you register, as mayor breed said, this is not going to be an easy win. we need everyone of you to support, we need everyone of you to tell your neighbors what good this is going to do. thank you very much. [applause] >> next up is your favorite supervisor, supervisor brown, and your own -- in your own district right here. supervisor brown! [applause] >> thank you everyone. welcome to district five.

everyone that lives here, thank you for letting us have this meeting and this press conference in your home. a lot of times it might take -- i think of willie b. kennedy, and i think it was almost mythical when we're talking about this years ago when i was a legislative aide, and then supervisor breed's office. this was coming, and we were really excited, but one of the things we were worried about is who is going to be able to live here in the neighborhood? how could they live here? i want to give, davis a shout out here. [applause] >> she came to us and we took on that battle. not only did we pass it at the city level, but we also had to, as mayor breed talked about, pass it at the national level. we were all behind her, pushing her through the halls of the federal government, but what was

amazing is we did it, and what i think is amazing is this was the first site, but just about a couple months ago, we had a hearing at city hall, and i sit on the government audit and oversight, and we actually talked about what -- if neighborhood preference was working, and they said yes, it's working. to me, being part of a legislative group before quite a long time, to hear something that you worked on actually is working is pretty amazing, because a lot of times you hear that it isn't working. i just really wanted to give that message out there. but this housing crisis that we are facing today, and it not only threatens our culture, it threatens our economy. today in district five, i will describe this gap that we have here. i have people here that are making $50,000 a year, and i have people who are making over

$150,000 a year right in these few blocks, about four blocks down, i have people who are making $12,000 a year. how do we live that way? how can we live in this wide equity gap? i know mayor breed touched on it , but we need to start talking about this more. we need to put this up in front and say, we cannot have this kind of equity gap in this city. this is not san francisco where we have the most vulnerable people not have the help, not have the resources going into housing. but this is something that we need to start talking about. i'm talking about it, and i really hope that you talk about it, also. because it is something we need to fix. the city depends not only on our janitors, at our -- on our bartenders after a hard day, but

also, our teachers, our munimobile drivers, and all the different other people that make this city run and make this the city that we want to live in. they all need housing. i cannot go to a meeting in district five without people talking about housing. whether they live in public housing, and making sure that they have the public housing that it is fixed and it is a great place to live, or -- we were talking about the small site programs. buying buildings, existing buildings that tenants live in, and keeping those preserved. preservation for tenants. we are just, right now, we just bought a unit for nine units on schrader. it was already ellis act, i think four or five people left and the four people that were left were low income seniors. those seniors are going to have a building where they can stay, and there will be five affordable units. this is so important.

this is how we can also save people in their neighborhoods that they love, that they have weaved themselves into the fabric of that neighborhood. they should be able to stay. so buying existing buildings with tenants and it is a priority. 100% affordable, we all want it. i have five sites right now in district five, four in hayes valley, when we bought a year ago, the old mcdonald site in haight-ashbury. they are all 100% affordable, but there was no money, no money to build them, so now with this bond, we have an opportunity, an opportunity to build 100% affordable, to also build -- have units in there that people who make low income, very low income, can get into this housing. it is so important, and you are right. this is a two thirds vote. that means almost everybody in this room has to vote for it, so i bet you need to be registered,

and most of your neighbors are going to have to vote for it. we will be on the campaign trail , making sure that everybody knows about this and votes. all these people behind me are housing advocates from all different areas, and they are here because they believe in this. i want to thank the president of the board of supervisors for stepping up and saying that we have to do this. i want to thank the mayor for knowing this is a housing crisis , and we can't just do the same old things, it is not working. i want to thank all of you because you will be our soldiers thank you. [applause] >> thank you supervisor brown. now i want to introduce one of the cochairs who helped facilitate our community process , to develop the bond, malcolm young. [applause] >> thank you, mayor breed. thank you, i just want to acknowledge our community

cochairs, any chunk annie chung from self-help for the elderly, mayor not mere not mel garr and tamika moss. i'm not up here to remind you that this is the biggest bond that we are ever going to put up on the ballot. i'm not here to remind you that it's the biggest portion ever for public housing to repair and rebuild it, i'm not here to remind you it is the first time and the only time the city has set aside money to create more senior housing, i'm not here to remind you that this bond is going to keep people in place through a small sites acquisition fund, i'm not even here to remind you that this bond is going to help middle income folks like teachers own homes in the city. i want to point out something else. i want everyone in this room just to take a look at each other. take a look at each other. the diversity of people in this room is going to be what makes

this bond unique. the diversity of support that we are going to have for this bond is what is going to make this bond unique. i am an affordable house or, i work at chinatown community development center. i have a bunch of colleagues in the room like doug shoemaker from mercy, and caroling from meta, and randy shaw from t.h.c. , and sam moss right there , and don fox, and pauline from mccormick in the back, and jack gardner from john stewart. we build housing, so this is what we do for a living. what i think is incredible is all the nonhouser his in this room, all the leaders who are not from housing organizations because they recognize that they serve people in this city, but in order for them to continue serving those people, we need to make the city more affordable, and that is what this bond is going to do. i'm going to make a very, very bold prediction, because i'm not a politician, i'm not running for anything, so i can say this,

this group, we will get 11 votes at the board of supervisors, right norman? president yee, i'm sorry. [laughter] [laughter] >> we will get there. not only will we pass this bond, but we will pass it with 100% of the votes in the city. [cheers and applause] so this is going to be the biggest bond ever and it will be the best bond ever and we are going to have fun with each other as we get this thing past and moved through the board of supervisors. thank you, mayor breed, thank you president yee. [applause] >> thank you. i also want to recognize maddie scott, a leader in our community , and don't worry, we haven't forgotten about freedom west. [cheering] >> i want to take this opportunity to introduce someone who grew up in sunnydale and has an amazing story to tell, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome rhianna firestone.

[applause] -- breanna firestone. [applause] >> good afternoon, my name is breanna and i am i hope s.f. sunnydale resident. i want to paint a picture for you. i need you all to be really into it. imagine you are going home after a long day at work and you are expecting to relax, but instead, when you get there, you are bombarded by issues that have risen throughout arisen throughout the day. today, your water heater is busted, and you will not get to take a hot shower for four days. tomorrow, because of faulty pipes, feces come up through your kitchen sink. leaving your kitchen unusable for least a week, and every day, you and your family are living with mould and mildew. this is the story of my community, this is the story of my family, this is what we live through every day, and every day

my mom has guaranteed us that we will be different, we will live in a different place, everything will change for us. resources for this neighborhood and our communities not something that we want, it is something that we need, and we all know the difference between a want and they need. i wanted means that you can live without it, but we actually need it. typically when people look at low income neighborhoods they think of people who are lazy or caught up in extreme illegal activity, however, this is not always true. i look and i see a family, my family, i see a mother who works , a mother who has a college graduate, a mother who has another daughter in school and in college, and i see a mother who has a junior in high school, who has managed to maintain a four-point oh, g.p.a.

while working for her community. i look at my neighborhood and i see plenty of entrepreneurs who are growing their businesses out of their homes, and yet, they are expecting to grow their families and get them out of their. today, i do want to thank mayor breed for consistently -- i want to thank her for consistently supporting neighborhoods such as mine, and not letting as always fall through the cracks, because our communities do need this housing bond now more than ever. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> all right. you know why we need it, you know what must be done. the board of supervisors, we are counting on you to get this bond through. the voters of san francisco are counting -- we are counting on you to turn out and to vote for

this bond. it is so important. and as president yee said, this is one of the largest bonds, but it also needs to be a consistent track of bonds that come behind it so that we can do that or around building more affordable housing for people in our city. i'm committed to it, all the folks behind me are committed to it, and i really appreciate you all being here today. thank you so much for your time, and i just can't wait to see the smiles on the people's faces as we break ground, as we cut the ribbons, as we move people in, as we load up their furniture, just like what happened here at willie b. kennedy apartments. we can make magic happen for so many people around san francisco we are going to make magic happen because of each and every one of you. thank you so much for being here today. [applause]

>> good morning, everyone. welcome to the may 20th, 2019 meeting of the rules committee. i am chair of the committee. seated to my right is our vice chair, supervisor walton. seated to my left is rules committee members supervisor gordon moore, and we are joined by supervisor rafael nadal him and today -- supervisor mandelman today. i would like to thank san francisco government t.v. for staffing this meeting. mr. clark, do you have any announcements? >> sans all cell phones and electronic devices. copies of any documents to be included as part