and i just want to welcome them to their new home. we're so excited. it really makes me get choked up because there's nothing to fight for something, deliver something, and then see the families moving in and this is what we're celebrating today. this is for you. so now it is my great pleasure to welcome someone that is an advocate for affordable housing and i know that she's been very, very vocal about it for many years and she continued to be a partner and a supporter of our organization and everyone here that is sitting here today -- our mayor -- our mayor of san francisco that has been extremely busy for the past year or so, and we're very thankful for her to have time to join us today. that being said, mayor london breed, would you please come up and share your thoughts. [applause] >> thank you, marcia. i've got to say today is definitely very special because it's been a long time coming, and i think that some of the folks that are joining us here

today don't really realize the history and the struggle and the challenges that have existed for so many years, specifically in the mission community. and supervisor ronen can recall at a time when we saw a huge amounts of displacement of the people in this community, she was working as an aide for the supervisor in the office that she now occupies and i remember when i was on the board of supervisors and this community rallied together -- rallied together to ask for more support in san francisco, more support from city hall to build more affordable housing. and at the time i remember thinking to myself, what difference is it going to make when the people in this community may not even have an opportunity to get access to these units? and so together, myself and members in this community supported my efforts when the federal government, hud, said, no, we could not use

neighborhood preference. i flew on the red eye to d.c., they changed their mind because all i did was tell them my story about my experience of growing up in the philmore and what happened there, the redevelopment that came in, tore down a lot of beautiful homes owned by black people, rebuilt a number of affordable housing developments, but made it difficult for the people who lived in this community to have access to those units. i was watching as what was happening in the mission already happened in the philmore western edition community. so it was important that when we started, and we identified the number of the developments in this community, the community did a whole walk-thru, and i went through that walk-thru and that drive-thru to identify a number of properties and at the time our late mayor ed lee helped to put $50 million in the budget to begin the process of acquiring these sites, and i

picked up the mantle and we were able to acquire some additional sites as a result of the work of this community, the advocacy of this community, not only do we have seven sites identified for affordable housing in this community, we also are using neighborhood presence to make sure that people from this neighborhood have right of first refusal to access these units and to live in their community. [applause] that was -- i mean, this is -- i get emotional too, marcia, because i think about what's going to happen differently in this community for the people in this community. and so i was there for the opening of the childcare center, for the ribbon cutting and the ceremony. i was here when we did the groundbreaking, the amazing groundbreaking here with the space, to cleanse off all of the negative spirits and bring in the positive energy that these families deserve. we were on shopwell when we opened up a new senior

developpent in and we have other properties where we're going to be doing a lot of ribbon cuttings in these community. in total almost 800 units and counting. so that is absolutely amazing. [applause] but we know that there's more that needs to be done. this pandemic, although it set us back, we were still able to get this project done. we were still able to continue to build. and that is so critical because families, like the ones that we see here today, they're counting on us. they're counting on us to move as quickly as possible to get this housing built so that they can move in and raise their families in these incredible communities. i can't help but get excited, especially because i know that this is going to change and save lives. housing has to be the priority. san francisco has not done the best job of moving forward as aggressively as it should in building more housing opportunities. i can't imagine my grandmother

who raised me -- i can't imagine what she would have to go through now in san francisco and what would happen and how difficult it would be for her to be able to raise her grandchildren and take care of her developmentally disabled daughter nowadays and the access to affordable housing. it would be almost virtually impossible. what we want to do in this city is to change that to make sure that people have safer, affordable places to call home. and i'm so grateful that we are partnering with mission housing and with bridge housing to create these incredible spaces that are not just about buildings -- they're about people -- and people's lives. and their ability to live in dignity and take care of their families and live in a place like san francisco. and to be able to come back and tell those stories about their families emigrating to san francisco, or their grandmothers raising them. to be able to tell those stories, because they will have a future in this incredible

city. and i'm so grateful that housing here will provide that opportunity. so, thank you, everyone, for being here. thank you for all of the folks that had a role -- the mayor's office of housing and the bank of america and our financers. so it took a village. it really did take a lot of people coming together, but more importantly -- more importantly -- it took this community rallying and demanding what they know that they deserve in order to live in dignity in the community that they call home. so, thank you all, so much for being here today. [applause] >> thank you, joan, for coming out. >> thank you, all. thank you for making this (indiscernible) i'm so grateful. [applause] >> these are the stories that we are very proud of, that we

should all be proud of. thank you, mayor london breed, and thank you so much for acknowledging and for being here and for the work, you know, that everyone was able to do to make this happen. our next speaker is our executive director at extension housing to say a few words. i'm sure many more words but just a few. come on over. >> thank you, everybody. joan got me crying up here. give me a sec. thank you all for coming and i feel that i get to do this now and after 10 years it's kind of hard to believe that we're having a ribbon cutting every few months in the mission. marcia and myself took over the housing 10 years ago, well, we didn't look like what we look like now. we had a lot of growing to do, and we couldn't have done that growing without the support of our community. without the support of the late mayor lee and then mayor breed

herself, and you know, most especially i'd like to thank bridge housing. we forced our way in the door and no one could get rid of us, and bridge housing is the one that opened that door up. so we wouldn't be able to grow the way we are and to provide the things that we provide on a daily basis, not just in these new buildings, but in all of our buildings, if we haven't had the trust and respect of bridge housing. so, thank you very much, for showing up. [applause] >> coming to these ribbon cuttings, as great as they are, it has me thinking about the past and how far we've come and just how important it is for us to stop right now. we've all just gone through a really hard ordeal and we're still going through it, and it's important to look forward. you know, it's important to come together and to say here we are at this point in time. and i know that these things happened in the past and i know this person said that, and this

person -- this company did that -- but here we are as a community together supporting each other. and we're standing on something tangible, on a physical structure that was erected with the blood and sweat and tears -- and i guess a little bit of money from the san francisco government, of course, but without all of that coming together, working together, we wouldn't be here right now. we'd still be talking about how many people are displaced in the city and we would still talked about what if we could have built that. and we're standing on something that we did -- that we accomplished. and i just really want everyone to take a moment and to pat yourself on the back because it wasn't easy. it was exhausting. it was emotionally trying. but we're here now and we're about to have some empanadas later and have a good old time. so from the bottom of my heart i just want to thank everyone. thank you very much.

>> thank you. right back at mission housing. really interesting story about this building and i want to talk about that and talk about relationships and how powerful and important they are to achieving what we're here to celebrate today. back in the day when we were just fighting to stand in justification, you know, people forced out of the mission and we weren't under the cloud of a global pandemic like today. mission housing and bridge housing had partnered a block away from here. and he came to my office and said we'd like to get back in the game and that was a momentous day. not only did that happen but a few months later, and the mayor's office of housing acquired some land that we're standing on, it was fully entitled for a market rate condominium project. they had drawings that were done, they were ready to break

ground. the mayor's office had the vision and the wherewithal at the time to acquire this shovel ready -- remember that term that we used to talk about? and the city took some grief at the time because they paid a lot. in hindsight it looks like a pretty good number, a pretty good deal by today's standards. so i want to thank the mayor's office and the leadership for making that happen. and then sam and i, i think that we decided we should get the band back together after what happened here in 1950, and fast forward, and here we are today. you know, as sam said, a lot of blood and sweat and a lot of hard work and a lot of talented people that, you know, we're not going to be able to thank everybody today, but i want to thank the relationships that we value most and, really, the mayor's office of housing -- mission housing, as sam said, bridge and mission got together and we might have helped mission on some things, but they certainly helped us to understand what the mission is

all about. and thank you for the blessing today. it's a complicated neighborhood, one that has been under a lot of pressure and, you know, if we can come here and to be a part of helping to stem that tide, that's part of our mission. so i thank mission housing for helping to educate us about the mission itself. and we're not done. we're going to be working with mission housing and we're busy trying to finance the infrastructure, but bridge is going to build there and mission is going to build there and we'll have a couple more of these ribbon cuttings. so i look forward to that. and i also need to thank a few of the key actors here, and from architects, who we're working with in portland and here in the san francisco bay area. and those who built this building, and thank you, bob, and your team. and nibe is building in berkeley, another very complex neighborhood and a complex project. and i want to thank some of the folks at bridge briefly. mitch, who couldn't be here but

his namesake here, this caterpillar was named after mitch apparently. so for all of you who know mitch, really helped to get this off the ground and he was helped by anna and sarah and david from our team that worked with sam and michael and marcia and the folks from mission housing. so thank you all for helping to execute that initial vision and for being here today to help to celebrate. congratulations. >> i would like to introduce -- >> i would like to introduce -- god, you're tall -- even with heels. i would like to introduce the next speaker, supervisor hillary ronen. come right on over. [applause] >> supervisor ronen: thank you, everyone. it feels good, madam mayor, to keep coming to these ribbon cuttings. it's incredible. like sam said, after 10 years of not doing any of this, to be

able to celebrate every couple months with, you know, the opening -- the ribbon cutting of a new affordable housing complex. and like our mayor said, this isn't about buildings, it's about people. and talking to the incredible families that are living in this building we've got to remember where those families were coming from. there are so many families in the mission that are living in tiny s.r.o. hotel rooms -- four people, five people, to a room. and if that wasn't -- that's always been unacceptable, but after this year of pandemic when we weren't allowed to leave those rooms, when kids had to open up their computers and sit on their bunkbeds and be in a tiny space for 24 hours a day, and weren't allowed to hang out in the hallway because they could get sick -- that is cruel

it almost feels -- it makes your home feel like a jail. and those are the kind of conditions that families moved from to finally be in a proper home where their kids can run outside and be safe, where they can have their own bedroom and feel like they have that -- that privacy and that space to grow up and be kids. that's what projects like this make happen. and so thanks to the mayor's neighborhood preference -- thank you for that law, that was one of the best and the most important laws that we've ever passed in san francisco. making that happen, going to washington, and -- and not leaving and not taking no for an answer, it's one of your great legacies, mayor breed, because that is what made it possible for families that live in the s.r.o.s in the mission to move into proper, adequate housing for themselves and their families. and we can't stop -- like you said, we're going to keep on

going because while there remains one family improperly housed in an s.r.o., where there remains thousands of people living on streets of san francisco, we can't stop. we've got to keep this going. and thank you, mission housing, for resurrecting your housing development or we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't do all of these ribbon cuttings without you. thank you, marcia, and thank you, sam, and, bridge -- of course, you never stop. so thank you for partnering with our local community-based developers, because we need that local -- that local voice and that local commitment and those folks from the community that are doing this work, like sam, marcia and oscar and so many members of the mission housing team. thank you so much, this is a great day. congrats. [applause] >> i would like to introduce our next speaker, kevin blackburn, from the federal home loan bank

of san francisco. [applause] >> well, again, it's an honor to be here this morning and, sam, with your giant shirt there, and i am the last one to speak and i am feeling like the cleanup like willie mays right now. but i don't know if you have noticed but there's been a common theme that has gone through each speaker today and that is the stories. you know, i have some facts to share with you, but facts tell, but the reality is that stories sell. and the stories of the people whose lives have been impacted by having access to quality, affordable housing are the things that drive us to keep working hard to provide justice and equity for those who need it most. so i'm privileged that the

federal home loan bank of san francisco, this is, like, the best thing that i get to do. i spend a lot of times on planes, well, prior to the pandemic, anyway, a lot of time on planes going back and forth to d.c.. and that is hard work. but this is really where it all makes a difference. so, you know, the facts that i just want to share with you and i want to really congratulate mission housing development corporation and bridge housing for collaborating because to build affordable housing, it is the most difficult type of housing to build, period. and to do it and to see what you'd be able to create here, i think they deserve a big round of applause, don't you? [applause] of course it doesn't happen in a vacuum. you know, years ago i'd say, well, building affordable housing is like a seven-layer cake because you have so many layers of financing and expertise and, and now with the

cost of housing continuing to increase it's probably a 10-layer cake now. but there are three layers of that cake that i just want to talk about and one is the federal home loan of san francisco. we know what is going on in washington, and once upon a time there was an atmosphere where both sides of the aisle worked together for a common good. one of the things they created was the affordable housing program. and so the federal home loan bank of san francisco gives away 10% of its profits annually in the form of grants for affordable housing with. bridge as a partner, that has translated to about $33 million in grants to bridge. and the congressional district, speaker nancy pelosi, created 5,40 units of affordable housing and that's quality work. but we don't do it alone. we do it with community capital, and the members, the federal home loan bank that provided the

grant. and then it takes affordable housing developers to bring it all together. and so for the federal home loan bank of san francisco, we're honored to continue to be the legacy of building affordable housing in san francisco and we want to just acknowledge mayor breed and her vision to -- to be a fighter. you know, it's one thing to get in office and to kind of move things along. it's another thing to drive an agenda that really matters. and there's nothing that matters more than providing quality housing for people. so not only are we working to continue to support affordable housing, but right now with the legislation introduced in washington that would allow the home loan banks to support infrastructure, and that is important -- it is worth it. i was on the phone at 6:00 this morning back in d.c., because this legislation is really important and we want to be able as the infrastructure bill comes together to be another tool that banks can use to support