escorting kids and having them feel safe walking to the play area and back. the stuff we do as ambassadors makes us feel proud to help keep the city clean, helping the residents. >> you can see the community ambassadors. i used to be on the streets. i didn't think i could become a community ambassador. it was too far out there for me to grab, you know. doing this job makes me feel good. because i came from where a lot of them are, homeless and on the street, i feel like i can give them hope because i was once there. i am not afraid to tell them i used to be here. i used to be like this, you know. i have compassion for people that are on the streets like the

homeless and people that are caught up with their addiction because now, i feel like i can give them hope. it reminds you every day of where i used to be and where i am at now. >> mayor breed: thank you for being here. i am london breed, mayor of san francisco. i am excited about this incredible opportunity to open up a 200 bed navigation center in san francisco. we all know what the statistics say. we have a real problem around homelessness, and the fact is last year we helped 2146 people exit homelessness. since we have opened navigation centers in san francisco, they have helped over 5,000 people.

despite what we know the challenges are, the fact is i am grateful and proud of so many of the incredible people behind me today. the people who workday in and day out to help make these navigation centers a reality, but more importantly to help the people that we know are struggling on the streets exit homelessness. we have seven navigation centers in san francisco with a few more on the way. i am really excited what we are going to be doing. at the end of the day, let's be chair clear. it -- clear. it is that we need permanent housing for people who are exiting homelessness. today we are well on our way to meeting the goal that i set of 1,000 shelter beds by 2020.

this brings us to 566, and we have an additional 224 beds in the pipeline and the bayview hunter's point community with ththe safe center. i want to take this opportunity because, you know, it is easy to say we want to do something, but sometimes it is harder to do it. in this case it was challenges, but it did take a village. that consists of partner the state to the local to the community levels. i want to start with senator scott weiner for passing the legislation to streamline the construction of navigation centers across the state so people experiencing homelessness throughout california have reasonable access to shelter. people ask how did you get this built so fast despite a number of obstacles? it had everything to do with the

legislation scott weiner helped to pass in sacramento. thank you to assembly man phil king because time and time again as someone who has been the chair of the budget committee in sacramento he prioritized not only san francisco for a lot of resources but especially focusing on homelessness and navigation center. because of his work, san francisco has seen additional revenue to help support and move these projects forward faster. in fact, with his leadership, the state has invested $500 million to address homelessness in 2018 and $650 million in 2019. to be clear that is said wide. san francisco got a decent chung of that support. thank you to supervisor haney for helping engage the community.

i especially want to thank the neighbors of south beach. i know thi this this hasn' hasn. we are committed to making sure that we fulfill the promises around safety and other challenges that people were so concerned about. we appreciate the work of the advisory group and the folks who have dedicated a lot of personal time to seeing this place succeed. thank you to the port of san francisco and the commissioners, president brandon is joining us today. thank you for your work in allowing the opportunity for the navigation center to be from this location. we are grateful, we are excited. we know that this won't solve all of the challenges we have with homelessness in san francisco, but it will help a

significant number of people who we know need support and services. i also want to thank five keys. they will manage the navigation center. they have a lot of great experiences with helping people who are involved with the criminal justice system reenter society and be successful, and we are grateful for their leadership, work in the programs and opportunities that they will provide to the people that we want to serve. ultimately this is about helping people not only off the streets but helping them into housing, helping them with opportunities to succeed in life. so we are grateful for their work. now, i want to take this opportunity to introduce our state senator scott weiner. [applause]

>> thank you, mayor. i want to thank and commend mayor breed and supervisor haney for standing their ground to make sure that this navigation center could open. as a former local elected official in san francisco, i understand first hand what it is like when you have neighbors who have significant concern and fear about changes that are happening in their neighborhood. that is very intense, her hard. -- it is very hard. i want to thank them for looking at the big picture and the reality this will make the neighborhood safer and more livable in addition to helping many homeless in san francisco transition to a better and healthier future. thank you.

when you look at the situation at homelessness in california, it is pretty stark. we have well over 100,000 homeless people in the state. i think it is 130,000. a large majority of homeless residents in the bay area and los angeles are not sheltered, and this is not normal. what is happening in california and in san francisco and the bay area around homelessness is not normal. this is not how it plays out in the rest of the country where far, far fewer people are homeless to begin with because they have enough housing for people, unlike in california where we have systematically made it impossible through re-zoning and other means made it impossible to build enough housing for the people that need it. our housing has collapsed by 75% as the population has tripled.

we made a decision as a state that housing was not important, and what has that led to? many problems with people pushed out of the state and evictions happening. it has pushed over 100,000 people to homelessness in the state of california. that is because of choices that we made here in california. it is not normal for it to be so difficult to build a navigation center. it should not take years to provide shelter and housing and services for people in dire straits living on the streets. that should be something we can do immediately because we are in a crisis. we have been working at the state level to support san francisco and other local communities to make it faster and more streamlined, to create navigation centers in support of housing.

i know we have all been working on that to pass legislation to streamline the process. wwe are working to reform the california approach to housing because navigation centers are an incredible way to help people transition off the streets. if you don't have housing for people to end up in, they will cycle back to the streets. we are working at the state level to solve these problems, and it is hard and controversial. it violates how we are supposed to do things in california. that way hasn't worked and driven the car into the ditch. we have to fix things. thank you, mayor, and everyone e else who made this happen today. [applause] >> mayor breed: thank you senator wiener. now we have remarks from senator

phil clean wh king who helped gs navigation center built. >> thank you, madam mayor. as the mayor and senator weiner have said. we know the solution to homelessness. we need more affordable housing, more supportive services, but, ultimately, it takes courage at all levels of government to make it happen. we are trying to do our part at the state level. we have colleagues that don't feel completely on the same page with myself and senator wiener with making sure we are building more housing. we have challenges at the state level. mayor breed and supervisor haney have challenges. iit is not easy to stand in frot

of 300 people and talk about homelessness and bringing navigation centers to a neighborhood that has not had them. it takes courage and guts and the city has to support them. if we don't get these centers built, there is no on ramp to housing. this is the third navigation center i have had the honor of standing with mayor breed as we opened them. they are the first step. the next step has to be, as she said, permanent supportive housing. everybody is for housing, but in someone else's neighborhood, in someone else's city. i can't tell you how often i hear let's build a homeless center in stockton. let's make it someone else's problem. let's not solve the san francisco problem here.

ship them somewhere else. that is not what the city and state is about, and that is not what leadership is about. leadership is about taking a problem on and solving it here. we are the fifth richest economy in the world, california is. you wouldn't know it by many of the issues we have. this is not a financial issue. this is not an issue of money or resources. the state is doing their part to help cities and counties. this is about our residents saying we are each going to sacrifice. we are each going to take a piece of this problem and solve it here. we are not going to wait for someone to save us or hope that someone else will take this burden. this is about having the courage to say this is a san francisco problem and san francisco needs to solve it. i am so proud to be here with all of the other city officials who had the guts to get this

built, to work with the community and to say this community is safer, not by having people on the streets sleeping, not by having people in tents sleeping here, wandering around here. this community is safer when they have services, when we can get them the resources they need to go improve their life. as the mayor said we are proud at the state level $4 million from the state helped this get built. $70 million from the state to san francisco's general fund to help with homelessness over the last two years, and this is something we can only dubai workin--only do while we work t. i applaud you for having the guts to get this done. thank you. >> thank you, phil king.

now, ladies and gentlemen, the supervisor matt haney for district 6. >> thank you, mayor breed. congratulations for your leadership, for your staff who we got to work with so closely in making this happen. i especially want be to recognize jeff and emily from the department of homelessness. you all did such a wonderful job listening to the community, working with us. we went to dozens of meetings together. i am looking at emily and hearing the feedback and using that to adapt the proposal and make commitments to the neighborhood. thank you all for that and for listening. i want to thank our elected officials in sacramento, senator wiener and assembly member king. we are lucky to have advocating for us, bringing home resource goes to help us address what is definitely the biggest crisis

not just in san francisco but facing our state. one of the things that i think that we can agree on is that it is a really cold day right now. being out here on a cold day, i think, it is a reminder, a sharp reminder of the fact there are thousands of people on the streets who don't have a home to go to, don't have a warm bed or a place when it is pouring rain or below 40° that they can go inside to be warm and safe. one of the things you will notice when you go inside here is the difference between how it feels out here and how it feels in there. even just having a place where you can be warm, where you can be safe, where you can be away from the madness and the dangers that people face who live on our streets is such a huge and critical and essential thing. when people get to be inside and not have to worry where they are

going to sleep tonight or tomorrow night and be able to access services and have case management and have one work with them to figure out how to get off the street permanently is a huge and wonderful thing for us to celebrate today. one of th the things about navigation centers. they make a commitment to the neighborhood. navigation centers make the neighborhood safer, they improve conditions on the streets here. as we make this commitment to people to live inside this navigation center we make a commitment to the people living in the surrounding community on the water front and south beach this will reduce the number of people living on the streets. we have a lot of work to do for the people who come in here, the people in the neighborhood and more work to solve homelessness in the city. housing is the answer.

we know we need a lot more navigation center and shelter beds in the city. this is the third navigation center in district six. we are excited and happy to do our part. as a city we need every neighborhood to take responsibility for addressing and solving homelessness. i thank five keys, the port and everyone who is a part of getting us this far. we have a long way to go in the city. i am committed to working with you, mayor breed, to make that happen and to everyone in the neighborhood to make sure this navigation center is a success. thank you. [applause] >> mayor breed: i appreciate your remarks. i would like to make it clear that as mayor i am responsible for the entire city. the fact is getting opportunities like this, finding land in san francisco to do say navigation center, to do housing

is a huge challenge. wherever we have an opportunity to get a property like this whether it is here or anyplace else in san francisco, we will take full advantage of -- excuse me. we will take advantage of the opportunity to do so. with that, i would like to ask for community member matt -- amy. excuse me. we will listen to you when we are finished with the press conference, if you don't mind. thank you. matt carson, who is a member of this community will provide a few remarks. thank you. >> thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak. i don't think i have done anything special to deserve to be here.

i just own my home a couple blocks away and work in the neighborhood as well. i walk by this spot with my 2 year-old every day. i am incredibly fortunate to have those things. when i walk unand down the embarcadero i see those less fortunate. it is appalling in the city, region and country with so much that we refuse to guarantee the most basic standard of living. those sleeping here are living here and they are our neighbors. when the mayor proposed the navigation center to help them, i raised my hand to says i support her. i want to raise my kid in a city that helps its people. my neighbors have legitimate concerns. i have seen shattered glass and half stolen bikes. i don't want it to get worse.

the mayor and the supervisor and the city promised they will make it better in the neighborhood, not worse. i trust them. if crime does go up they won't build any more navigation centers. she does need to build more. this is what a housing crisis looks like. this is 200 beds, but there are thousands of people on the streets in san francisco. we need more shelters and related services. we need more protection for renters. we need a million homes throughout the region. our region also needs a single seamless competitive transit system to have a chance of addressing the housing crisis and climate change. i thank the mayor and everyone involved forgetting this navigation center built so quickly. i want to say to all

representatives it is time to be way more ambitious. thank you. [applause] >> mayor breed: i want to take this opportunity to thank muhammad for his leadership in getting this built so quickly. thank you to deputy chief from the san francisco police department. we know public safety is important to the community. we know that the department has added additional resources to help ensure safety in this particular neighborhood. you know, it really did take a village to get this done. so many folks standing behind me and folks from the community. i want to express my sincere appreciation to everyone that has had a hand in helping to get this done. the love and care that you put into even as i just saw the

landscaping and the flowers and just making it look like a home and welcoming people in with dignity. that is what our goal is, and to get clearly people to help in the support that they need. this along with other navigation centers in the future and eventually more housing faster is going to get us to a better place not just in san francisco but in this entire state. thank you all for being here. now jeff and steve will lead a tour of the navigation center for those interested. thank you. [applause]