president we put them in charge. [applause]. so next time when someone asks what is happening in san francisco, you tell them that. you tell them that this city will rise to meet our challenges day after day, relentless in our effort and unyielding in our values. that is who we are. we are san francisco! we are loud. we are proud. we are hopeful. we are resilient, san francisco. let's tell them that. thank you. [applause].

welcome everyone. we're so excited to have you here. what a beautiful day. happy international woman's day for a female-led nonprofit. this is the best day we could have picked for a ribbon cutting. hi, i am sharon lai. i'm the executive director. just a friendly reminder, the site is an active site meaning we have residents on the other side of the fence. please stay on this side and do not lean on the temporary railing back there. just a little bit of housekeeping. so welcome to the phase one opening of this amazing pilot project. we started this effort last year when i joined the dignity

move organization and when elizabeth and her friends at y.p.o. invited me to join their efforts to turn this kept into an operational real life project, i was super eager and excited to do this. the thought that we could use prefabrication, technology in order to add alternative new housing tools into our community was so exciting to me. and this is possible only made by all of our wonderful partners here. so dignity moves very quickly is a statewide effort. we are so excited to be bringing on our first pilot here in san francisco, but check us out. we're in santa barbara, sonoma county, and alameda county and many more as elizabeth works on our expansion plan. so we began the construction of

33 goff around the new year and we are so pleased with the support of our urban al can pea giving people the option to essentially transfer from the tent site that this was into the shelter, the structured buildings that you see on the other side of the fence where people can stand up straight in their own private space, where they have a door and furniture and they can keep their belongings dry. that is exactly why we're working hard to get this project online as quickly as possible. so i want to start the program off by celebrating our stellar team. we have such an amazing large people of partners. many of which i actually had to pay quite handsomely when i was on the private sector. but when we called to action, they were all so amazingly generous with their time and

resources and talents, they just got to work with us with basically not very much more than a vision and here we are a couple months later and people are already living in these units. to start this off, bear with me. winnerton builders, they are the amazing people on this job. they have worked really hard to coordinate with us and with the city departments in order to move people in as early and as quickly as possible. also a wonderful group of folks who have an amazing sense of humor. so it's always fun to come on the job site. p.a.e. who is our engineer. thank you so much. paul knight, our wonderful attorney. thank you for covering all of our attorney needs up and down the state. structural engineer, we could have not made sure that this project was stable and safe and secure without your assistance.

frayer electric and electrical industry. thank you so much for stepping up and being a partner in this prefab project. we're definitely making history. center thank you for sending your apprentices. we're so glad to be able to work with you on this work force training effort. this is a wonderful way to elevate our youth. our project support team. the manufacturer of these amazing units. this is the first time in history that we've ever used these units, ever. so we're excited to show case them and, of course, a very special thank you to our architecture team at gensler. without their countless hours, we would not be able to bring this project to life. so most importantly is our pilot partnership with the city, with san francisco, with h.s.h., the partners.

thank you so much for providing the land and the operating dollars for this site. the tipping point community on thank you so much for being our cornerstone funder. you guys stepped up first. you will always have the bragging rights. of course, urban alkamine. daily, building trust through a trauma informed lens. thank you so much. in home for services, thank you, andria. thank you for being here. with the implementation support of many city departments and i mean many including d.b.i., d.p.w., fire. we certainly are very glad to be working with you on this first of its kind project. we hassled a lot of people primarily d.p.w. and chuck buckly. thank you for your assistance. innovation is hard and

innovation with so many cross sector partners is even more challenging, but we are showing up as a community and i believe this is a strong commitment from our community to state that we are willing to work hard together to address our unhoused needs and so thank you and welcome again for coming and, with that, i'm going to hand this over to our visionary and our founder, elizabeth fung. thank you so much for bringing me on to this project and here you are hearing your story. >> thank you, sharon. and i'm going to echo all of her thanks to all of these incredible partners. it's been so heartwarming to see these companies and volunteers and everybody to be so eager and part of something new and this new pilot. this has been such a dream. we started on this 18 months ago trying to think about how we can address the unsheltered

portion of our problem. and this is hopefully a new tool in the city's vast tool kit for addressing unsheltered homelessness. and i want to be clear that even though dignity moves focuses on building these temporary interim type projects, it is one piece of a very complex set of solutions. and obviously we need more permanent housing. permanent supportive housing. permanent affordable housing and thankfully we have a city that's really focused on that and i want to commend our city partners who are tirelessly working to build more housing and there are lots of projects under way. i started my personal journey in addressing homelessness by joining the board of glide's housing initiative when we built two buildings over in the tenderloin. and so from personal experience, i know how complex and challenging and time consuming those permanent supportive housing units are. i commend those working on them

because it takes a lot to figure out these projects. people need a place to come now. they need an interim stop where they can feel safe and can be sheltered and unfortunately, for many people who have fallen into homelessness, there's trauma associated. i would go out to the encampments and tell somebody there's a evacuee cannot bed available. and you might be lucky to get one out of ten. it's an important tool that doesn't work for everyone. and we are thrilled to say 100% of people are thrilled to be offered one of these rooms. i want us to have this as one alternative and one tool in our tool kits. as i like to say, our streets can't be the waiting rooms. focus on building interim

housing, a place where people can come in off the streets and take a deep breath. my dad told me we should have named the organization "a deep breath." when you have a door that unlocks, all things unlock for you. when you're on the streets and you're worried about getting raped or where your next meal comes from, are you can't possibly think about other solutions. this is a place where people can come away from that trauma, take a deep breath and start working with supportive services to figure out what barriers are in their way to where they want to go. so using california's emergency building codes, we are able to build units that are two code, they are safe, but we can do them in really rapid time. our partner gensler partnered with boss homes to custom design this panel based system that can be assembled quickly and cost effectively. and then when our project is finished and the land needs to

be returned to the owner, we can pick them up with a forklift and move them to a new location. this project, the units themselves assembled are about $15,000 a room. but we're going to have two dining buildings. we're going to have a computer lab. we're going to have obviously bathrooms and showers and all sorts of amenities. lots of offices for the support staff. so all in, this project is about $30,000 per room. we are incredibly grateful to our city partner, h.s.h. who has paid for the land lease and is paying for the ongoing supportive services, but mostly for their willingness to be innovative and try something new because we need to bring silicon valley style innovative think to go this problem and it's going to mean experimenting and trying new things to see what works and what doesn't. so i want to make a special thank you to tipping point who very early on in this process came to me and said, let's do this, let's try something new

and they really had the vision and obviously trying something new is scary, it's hard to get philanthropy to invest in something that isn't proven and so tipping point's vision was so important in helping make this happen. i also want to thank dignity health who made a significant contribution to this and dignity health understands that housing is one of the most important determinents of health and it's important that our unhoused neighbors get inside where it's safe and start to work on any medical challenges as well as emotional challenges. i'll do a shout out to the ron con roy family. first republic bank, and so many others. i'm also going to say i have been so touched by the community rising up around this. i think we've all felt like homelessness is just insolvable and we've become so frustrated and we're quick to complain

about it and how much we hate seeing tents and how it inconveniences us, but people have a good heart and it has been incredible to see people so eager to jump in and try to help support a solution. we have artists who painted all these beautiful murals. we had families come, adopt a unit, so they're all custom designed and everybody's been so eager to be apart of trying to contribute. so give me optimism, unsheltered homelessness really can be resolved. if you get people to a place where you want them to go. if we all work together, we really can end the crisis of unsheltered homelessness on our streets. thank you for believing in us. thank you for being here. thank you for supporting this innovative new project. with that, i want to introduce sam cobb who has been his organization tipping point has been obviously incredibly

instrumental in making this happen. so thank you, sam. >> thank you, elizabeth. i have the privilege today of introducing mayor london breed. before i officially bring her up, i just want to say that projects like this are the reason that tipping point exists and the reason why we believe that you need philanthropy dollars. that's what my partner mayor breed does. after the tipping point, they showed that they can be worked and so we wouldn't be able to do this work without the partnership of not only mayor breed who she would bring up later. without further adieu, i want to introduce the mayor of our city, the honorable london breed. [ applause ] >> thank you. and hi everyone. thank you so much for being here for this grand opening. and i've got to say, you know, i'm excited about what this will mean for peoples' lives, but i'm also hopeful that we as

a city can do a better job at getting more housing built in the first place and getting more people into housing in the first place than we are at getting things like this done. and even though this is needed all over san francisco, what i look forward to the most is when we finally build housing on this site, what i'm looking forward to the most is the people of this community that we can transition them into something permanent not just at this site, but anywhere in san francisco and that's why i'm so excited to be here with partners like tipping point. tipping point and the work that they're doing to help us get access to housing all over san francisco and i've got to say, sharon in particular left a very nice cushy job to join

elizabeth with dignity moves and partner because she wanted to be apart of the solution. she wanted to bring her skill set to a place that's very different. and i know what we have here is part of the work that she's doing with dignity moves and will continue to do throughout san francisco because it can't just be one-sided. it has to be how we think about doing things in san francisco and how we cut the bureaucratic red tape to get the work done. [ applause ] and this site initially we weren't talking about housing. we were talking about a temporary site when supervisor kim was on the board of supervisors pushing for housing development. then it was going to become a navigation center. then the pandemic hit and we opened it up and people who

unfortunately were living on our streets and sleeping in tents ended up on this site as and i worked with supervisor mandelman and supervisor haney to make that happen and here we are, the perfect site to try this program which allows people to be apart of the community that they want to be apart of. and i think that means something because, you know, being apart of a community matters. it matters when you have people who support each other, who look out for 1 another where you don't feel alone. and this will be a place where people will not feel alone. they'll be support not just from dignity moves and from tipping point, but on site one of my favorite organizations in san francisco that has really taken the tenderloin by storm, urban alkamie has been an incredible partner. i love you right back.

and we also have another extraordinary organization that's been working in the western edition and other places in the community to help people transition to real career opportunities and support and i see elizabeth and the folks of the success center. thank you all so much for being here. because it's not just about a roof over your head. it's about opportunity. it's about knowing that people care about your livelihood and your well being. it's about trying to help people become more self-sufficient. it's about a second chance. and this location at 33 goff street is a second chance. and so i really want to thank again dignity moves for their work and their partners and larry bear is here and aaron conway. when you ask people for support for projects like this, they don't hesitate to say yes and public private partnerships are

very important. this city is so generous in general in terms of when we bring initiatives to people in the city and the voters often times say yes. this city has committed a billion dollars to help address homelessness throughout san francisco and part of that resource is that we have with the city will be matched in some regards with philanthropy and so we really appreciate as i said dignity moves and tipping point and all of the work that they do from the city side. the person who's going to continue to work to help to implement these innovative ideas and make this happen and provide these places for folks is none other than sharine mcfadden who is the director to have of the office of

homelessness in the city and county of san francisco. sharine. >> good morning everyone. i want to start by saying how much i hate going after mayor breed. she's such a wonderful speaker. i feel like it's such a privilege to work for her. we hear about it all the time and she's always telling us, like figure out new ways to do things and be innovative and i think this is such a great example of how we can come together as san franciscans and make something happen for people who are our most vulnerable people in san francisco. so i want to thank dignity moves and home first and success center, tipping point, and everyone who's contributed to this effort including my colleagues in the city. there have been a number of people who've worked on this and my own staff at h.s.h.. this is a real opportunity for us to study something we haven't tried before and to

understand how we can support to provide dignity and privacy for people but also provide services for them so they can move on out of here and let somebody else move in and they can get permanent housing and jobs and reunited with families and all of the other things that we ourselves expect for ourselves. and so thank you so much to all the partners. i'm really excited to see how this, works and continue some efforts like in other parts of the city. so thanks much. [ applause ] >> all right. so in my nerves i realized i forgot two things. first of all, i neglected to thank home first who we're a branding organization. we only got our 501.3c status in november. they have agreed to come and be apart of a project here in san francisco, their first one north of where they work in san jose. thank you very much for being apart of this and they're units. the other thing that stuck out

of my mind when mayor breed talked about cutting bureaucracy. i want to be very clear, this city rocks. literally all the departments came together in round table and gave us feedback on our permits in four days and we had these permits approved in less than three weeks. that's a historic first and that really shows the commitment this city has and it should not go unrecognized. so thank you very much to our city partners. >> i said i pestered them a lot, right. well, so it's going to get a little chaotic here. we're going to move this podium so this we can do the ceremony of ribbon cutting with the mayor. is it okay if i shift this over there. is it going to screw up anyone? no. okay. great. >> are we ready? get in there, supervisor.

wait, the supervisor needs some scissors. okay. are we ready? >> we're ready. >> okay. five, four, three, two, one! there we go. [cheers and applause]

you're watching san francisco rising. today's special guest is monique gray. >> hi. i'm chris mannis and you're

watching san francisco rising. the our guest today is marquise gray. he runs out of the office of the mayor in the city and county of san francisco. and he's with us today to talk about the recent progress of the sunnidale hope sf housing project. welcome to the show. >> good morning. thank you for having me today. >> let's start by talking about the existing residents of sunnydale and their history. >> so sunnydale was built in the 1940s for a workers. it's the largest public housing community west of the mississippi. it's about 50 acres. pretty huge. about 760 single story units one to four bedrooms. >> i understand it's an ambitious rethinking of the residences. can you briefly describe the

scope of the program and hope sf's involvement? >> yeah. the work of hope sf is this idea of more than housing. that acknowledging that our public housing community, the levels of violence and poverty that are in these communities are not by accident. you know, it's our opportunity to address a system issue, you know, that people need more than housing. they need health services. resources. economic investment opportunities, jobs and things of that nature. and so hope sf strives to work with our city systems to better serve our public housing communities. >> so recently, mayor breed and speaker pelosi toured the site to both put focus on a national housing initiative and also to highlight the completion of the first new building. how many units does it contain and when will people start moving in? >> yeah. it was an amazing event. honored to have the secretary

here with us as well in our community. it's 167 units. it's about 75% going back to the original families that currently live on site. so the replacement. so i did forget to mention i want to say real quick, the beauty of hope sf is housing development, new development without displacements or anti-displacement initiatives. so, for example, the building is 167 units. 75% of those units going to families that have lived there in the community for generationings and the other 25% are tax credit units adding to the affordable housing stock here in san francisco and those units are up and running now. they're leasing them as we speak. people are picking their units each week until they're filled up. >> so was this particular building put on a new plot of land or did people have to move out so it could be constructed? >> that's a good question.

our first building was vacant which you may have saw across the street from this building and then this plot of land is the way we kind of do it, we do it in phases. once one goes in, we're able to move families into the new unit and where they previously were occupying, able to demolish old buildings to build the new. so this area had some older units that were demolished. >> it's impressive that construction has been able to continue during the covid-19 pandemic. can you talk about some of the challenges that needed to be overcome and how the community has managed during the crisis? >> that's a great question. you know, in san francisco, if i understand it correctly, i could be wrong, i believe housing was an essential service. the mayor made a strong commitment early on in the pandemic that we would continue to build housing as housing has been a critical issue in our

city. so the housing part hasn't impacted us too much. 67 units have been going on its current time line. the bigger challenge for us was showing the families in our communities, low income families had the resources we need to survive the pandemic. many of our families didn't have the luxury of working from home, working in the zone and things of that nature. making sure they had access to covid testing and things of that nature. so i want to give a big shout out to our resident leaders, our service providers across all four sites. for those that don't know, hope sf is four sites. sunnydale is one of the four sites. and so across those four sites, the most critical thing was making sure folks in these neighborhoods which have historically have been disconnected from resources

have the things that they need to remain healthy, to, you know, survive the pandemic as we all had to survive the pandemic and we did pretty well. we were able to bring back scenes and covid testing on site. food distribution was happening all throughout the week. wellness services and things of that nature were all happening on site thanks to our resident leaders and our service providers across the sites. >> so, finally, when could we expect the next set of residents to be ready? despite -- i guess we just said covid doesn't have an impact on the schedule. when will the next residences be ready? >> yeah. things are rolling. we have block a3 and block b3 to the building we were referring to earlier. and things are on pace. things are going really well. so we're looking at starting construction spring of 2022 and that will be 170 units and the goal is to have that lease up

around 2024. >> well, thank you so much. i really appreciate you coming on the show, mr. gray. thank you for giving us the time today. >> thank you, chris, and i really appreciate your time as well. >> and that's it with this episode. you've been watching san francisco rising for sfgov tv i'm chris manners. thanks so much for watching. madam mayor, commissioners, u.s. coast guard, chief scott, mission high school. [cheers and applause] welcome to the new home of the legendary phoenix the guardian, the st. francis, your new fireboat station 35. [cheers and applause] this is only one of two floating fire stations in the

entire world. it is a clear symbol of our enginuity and our importance we place on the resilience of this city. my name is carmen chiu and i serve as san francisco administrator. one of the responsibilities of my job is to make sure we continue to plan for the investments we need in our infrastructure. whether it is our public hospitals, our utilities, our fire stations or this station right behind you. we know that when the time calls when there is an emergency, we are better off as a city when we make these investments. and so i want to thank all of you for being here today to celebrate in this wonderful and momentus day. i want to thank all of the voters in san francisco who have made possible investments like this. we know we couldn't do it without them. and, of course, we could not do

it without our mayor, a person who formerly served as a commissioner of the fire commission and now our mayor, she understands firsthand the importance of supporting our first responders and public safety. mayor breed. >> thank you, carmen. and i've got to say it's great to be here with each and every one of you. this has been a long time coming, chief. in fact, when i served on the fire commission, i had a few specific goals and tom o'connor was the head of local 798 and he asked for a lot of stuff at the time. on a regular basis. but there were a few things that peaked my interest. number one, station 49 and we got it done. and number two, station 35. and we finally got it done. and i am so excited and happy

for the success of this project because the voters of san francisco, they understand that when we come to them and ask for financial support of the sea wall, those don't seem like they're really exciting topics to talk about when you start talking about utilities and under ground and all of these things, you don't always see the nuts and bolts of infrastructure, but the voters understand the need to invest in public safety because the former station as we know was built after the 1906 earthquake in 1915. the city we know in 1906 after the earthquake, neighborhoods burned to the ground and we didn't have sufficient support in terms of our infrastructure to help deal with those challenges and we didn't just shrink and say oh, well and

throw up our hands, we built. and we built that station in 1915 and it served its purpose well. but now, as our city begins to grow, there's a need for something new. because this fire station, in fact, the phoenix, the guardian, and what's the other one named? the st. francis. those boats are the ones when there is a fire like there was down at the pier at pier 45 i believe, our trucks couldn't necessarily get to every corner of that fire, but you know what, are the phoenix was there. and the fact is when there is an emergency on the water, yes, we are fortunate to be close to the coast guard, but we are usually the first on the scene to help save lives, to help protect the water. to protect our city along the

bay. that's why this is so significant. this is going to be a game-changer for public safety and i can't be more proud and grateful to the men and women of the fire department who 24/7 at station 35 continue to put their lives on the line. yes, it's cool to be on the boat all day having a good time and being out here in the water, but let me tell you, when it's windy, it's nothing to play with. when it's a need out there on the waters, it is really challenging the would, that they do and so i appreciate not just the fire department, but the department of public works for being the lead on finally getting this project done and it was not easy, carla. it was not easy. chief, but we got it done. i'm looking at these two ladies and the third lady here elaine

forbes and her port commissioners kim brandon and others, they were like well, we don't know if we want to give you guys this property or not for free. they didn't want to give it to us for free, but we got it done. and here we are because we all work together. we worked together because we understood the bigger picture and the significance of what this means not just for the city but for the port and everything that exists here. and on top of that, an art installation to remind us of our history of what's important because we can't forget the past, we can't forget the challenges of what existed in the city along the bay, we have to remind people of that so they understand the importance of this infrastructure and the need to continue to build in san francisco. we have a growing population,

but at the end of the day, we know chief scott, chief nicholson, our firefighters, our police officers and our other safety personnel, our paramedics, we know that they will be there for us. and as we begin to re-open after two very challenging years of a global pandemic that none of us saw coming, i'm hopeful, i'm hopeful that the next generation, the folks from mission high school that we are doing the work to lay the foundation so that these young people growing up in our city, learning about what it means to serve and protect the residents of san francisco. i am hopeful that we do our jobs in building a pipeline so that they become the men and the women that you see here today. that's what san francisco is

all about. opening the doors to opportunity building, evolving, and making things stronger and today as we celebrate the opening of station 35, we are reminded of that hope more than ever. so we appreciate you all coming here today and we look forward to cutting the ribbon and getting this station open. thank you all so much. >> thank you, mayor breed. you're always a tough act to follow. and thank you sister m.c. car men chiu. i want to say a special thank you to the voters again who voted for this bond but we couldn't do it without you, but greetings and salutations to everyone here. elected and department heads, our fire commission, port commission, i am your fire chief, jeanine nicholson.

now, we love our old fire house, don't we? we love that old fire house and the history and the memories it contains. all of us have at least one story about working there. some of us many more. but she's been so good to us over the years, but she's tired. she is tired. so she's still going to be in service with our fire engine, but we are really excited to be making new memories and new history with our new floating fire station. our members live in our building we want to ensure there is the proper environment for them so they can do their jobs to the best of their ability. i want to say thank you to everyone who worked on this

project from and contractors on down to every person swinging a hammer, putting in a floor, putting in electrical. thank you for your diligence and your care in getting this done. much appreciated. also to walter hood for the incredible artwork that brings our history forward. i also want to give a quick shout out to the man with the hair, tony rivera who had a big part of this back in the day. thanks for being here, tony. so in our history from well before loma prietta, our fire boats have been really important is and now we've seen a call for services in the bay whether it be fire or people in the water.

and this station will enable our members to continue to bring the best service to the people in san francisco because that's what the san francisco fire department does. that's what we're here for. we are here for you. so this station will serve the bay, the water, as well as the streets because we have our fire engine here, engine 35. so as always, we stand ready to help wherever we are needed. i know that about all of you. every single one of you in uniform over there and thank you. to the members of great station 305 this is your baby now and i know you will take care of her. thank you again everyone and if you have not been inside, it is pretty amazing. you need to get a tour.

it wants me to quit my job as a chief and demote myself back down to the caption and have my last year through there. not going anywhere right now all right. and now i would like to introduce my sister partner at public works. it's all you know. >> thank you, sister chief nicholson. good morning everyone. i too want to take a moment to thank the voters as everyone has said, we could not do these projects without your support. we have the ferry building, the bay bridge, the beautiful bay, and now we have a new iconic image to add to that postcard,

the new fireboat floating behind us. as carmen said, this fireboat is what makes san francisco a world class city. our ongoing strategic commitment to strengthen our resiliency. you have all heard this project was no easy under taking. it needed the approval of no fewer than nine regulatory agencies. anyone who has worked with a regulatory agency knows that's not easy. at the local state and federal level. it was built on two different continents and constructed during the peak of a pandemic that affected both supply chains and labor. and yet despite these challenges, here we are today to celebrate this tremendous achievement. i do want to take a moment to publicly acknowledge the team from public works that helped deliver this beautiful project. our city architect run alameda,

charles, project manager, pona ray, sean o'brien, kelly griffin. their dedication was crucial to ushering this project through to the end. and this was a designed build project with private partners. so a quick thank you to ska, swinerton, power engineering, lift tech and ghd and all the men and women in the construction trade who built it. i also want to thank mayor breed, city administrator chiu and our partners at the fire department. sister chief nicholson. together, we are one city working collaboratively to create a better stronger city to serve san francisco today and into the future. one last plug for the beautiful piece of artwork, it is so amazing. it has the history. it's shaped like the bow of a

ship and i want to acknowledge ralph remmington here from the art commission and allow me to introduce our executive director of the port, elaine forbes. thank you. >> thank you, carla. i am elaine forbes, the port breshgt and the first thing i want to say to the mayor is we didn't do it for free. it wasn't exactly a free agreement. yes. but we so enjoyed working with the fire department to see this through. the phoenix actually was the port of san francisco's vessel. our state harbor of engineers saw importance to bring fire protection from the water way back when the fire department took over. we gave the phoenix for $1. so that was a very kind and since that point we've had an excellent relationship with the fire department protecting our piers and commissioner brandon is here with me today and she

will remember we've had many fires. pier 45, pier 29, and pier 48 and that's just in recent memory and these fireboats were here to protect us. and now i'd like to say a few words to the students at mission high. we have an existential threat of sea level rise and your generation is going to deal with it even more than we are. the leaders here today are being innovative. so she'll be here to stand the test of time and we at the port under the leadership of march breed are working on our seawall and city assessor carmen chiu is going to make sure that we get it done over time, but it's a generational investment and i want you all to hear that today because we are preparing you to take it on and this harbor will be changing and will be resilient and strong. all the thank yous were given already. i don't want to repeat them because you know them. but i do want to say thank you

again, we're honored to be here and get us to the ribbon cutting and the tour of the facility. thank you so much. [ applause ] and i turn it over to assessor carmen chiu. >> thank you very much, elaine. with that, i want to thank all of our honored guests for being here today. i think all of us are ready to go cut the ribbon, right? that doesn't sound enthusiastic. are we ready? all right. i want to make sure, of course, to recognize the folks who are here before we head over. of course, commissioners thank you for being here. chief scott thank you for being here. remmington, director of arts commission. why don't we head over to the port.

>> can you help me count? >> five, four, three, two, one. [cheers and applause]

>> i have been living in san francisco since 1957. i live in this area for 42 years. my name is shirley jackson, and i am a retirement teacher for san francisco unified school district, and i work with early childhood education and after school programs. i have light upstairs and down stairs. it's been remodelled and i like it. some of my floors upstairs was there from the time i built the place, so they were very horrible and dark. but we've got lighting. the room seems lighter.

they painted the place, they cemented my back yard, so i won't be worried about landscaping too much. we have central heating, and i like the new countertops they put in. up to date -- oh, and we have venetian blinds. we never had venetian blinds before, and it's just cozy for me. it meant a lot to me because i didn't drive, and i wanted to be in the area where i can do my shopping, go to work, take the kids to school. i like the way they introduced the move-in. i went to quite a bit of the meetings. they showed us blueprints of the materials that they were going to use in here, and they gave us the opportunity to choose where we would like to

stay while they was renovating. it means a lot. it's just that i've been here so long. most people that enjoyed their life would love to always retain that life and keep that lifestyle, so it was a peaceful neighborhood. the park was always peaceful, and -- i don't know. i just loved it. i wanted to be here, and i stayed.

>> we also have