this is the third event we've done this year and the other two, the bristol and the abigail are some of the best in the country. and at a time when people all around the country are complaining about homelessness and saying what are the solutions. we're acquiring permanent supportive housing and that's the only answer because people need housing, they need a roof over their heads and this particular project as i said earlier, tenants from the baldwin hotel will be moving here and they've been in very tiny rooms on 6th street with no private baths.' this is the first hotel ever acquired by the city that has not only all private baths, but

microkitchens in every room. they have microwaves, entire kitchens set up. a giant stove for people who really want to cook right around the corner and this is what i call s.r.o.2.0. this is what we want to see as the future. you know dpock and then cathy. cathy's late husband enrique used to team with d-pock and then they turned it over to the city for us to run. mary's done a great job here. no further adieu. we'll let you speak. [ applause ] >> well, so first of all, let me just say, i want to acknowledge many of the people who are outside and working in our various places around the tenderloin community from sciu

and many of the workers who even during the pandemic still showed up to work. thank you for your service. thank you for supporting the community in this neighborhood despite the challenges of a pandemic. we were able to still push for an expansion of many new hotels and affordable housing and i know it hasn't been easy. and so i hear your request and i am taking them very seriously and i just wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of the various employees of not just the garland, but many of the supportive service housing locations throughout the city because we couldn't do this work without you. we know this work is important. we know there are people who are getting back on their feet. you know, it could happen to anyone at any given time. anyone could fall unfortunately victim to challenges around behavioral health, around

substance use disorder, around poverty. and the ability to do what we're doing here today is so important. and d-pock, i just want to thank you so much because i feel like we continue to do these great partnerships, but most importantly, i appreciate how much care you take into making sure these places look good for the people that are going to be here. how you've gone out of your way in addition to another location that we've workeded together on and provided even a television in a congregate room where people can come and gather as a community and it means a lot. it's the little things that make a difference and so we appreciate you and your family and your work to help us get san francisco's most vulnerable population housed. and the thing is, we set out in 2018 or 2019 to increase the number of shelters in san francisco and what we set out a

goal to do was to add 1,500 new shelters to our portfolio. the fact is we're almost there and i'm really proud and excited. it's the largest expansion of shelter in san francisco in over 20 years, but in addition to shelter, what we've learned from this pandemic is people need their own space. people need their own bathrooms and their own food prep areas. i mean, these are things that many of us are so blessed to have in our lives. things we take for granted every single day when we walk through the doors of our home, it's what other people sadly don't have, the people who unfortunately are sleeping on the sidewalk, are sleeping in tents, are sleeping in some cases in many of our single room occupancy hotels where they have to share a bathroom and have no control over the whole cleaning situation that occurs in those locations. that's why this place is so

important. 80 new units where you have your own space where you have dignity. where you don't have to share your space with people that you may not even know and people that you may not even get along with. that is so important and this is direction that we need to be headed in. now, i know we built navigation centers and a number of other places to provide support for people living on the streets, but i want us as a city to move away from that model. to move towards those small homes, the cabins we just opened at 33 goff. i want us to move towards places like the garland and focus on places that will allow people to live in their own space and live their lives as i said with dignity. this is so important and we were able to do this because of federal support from h.u.d.

because of the state support through project home key and because of the resources we provided in our budget through the city and working with randy shaw and the tenderloin housing clinic and the work that they continue to do to manage these facilities to provide the supportive services, to work with the city and what we have available to make sure that we are not only getting people housed, but we're keeping them housed, and then we're thinking about the challenges that they might face with their mental health or their personal care or just basic hygiene. and let me tell you this quick story because many of you know that i grew up in the city and i remember there was this gentleman who i knew all my life. and he with the older guys would hang out in this

location. and we all lived in plaza east. this was public housing, and, yes, people didn't go there unless they lived there, but we didn't have people sleeping on the sidewalk. everybody had a place to go. and so just imagine you fast forward and this same gentleman who i'm not going to put his business out in the street, but he's sleeping near safeway at webster. and he was homeless we found out for five years. he lost his housing. he had challenges with his social security. he didn't know where to go or what to do because he did accept when plaza east was torn down. he accepted a section eight voucher and he just struggled from that point forward and he was homeless. fast forward, we built the willy b. apartments we used neighborhood preference and we were able to not only get him housed, but we were able to provide the services to ensure that he stays housed because it

wasn't -- he had his social security, but he had trouble in terms of balancing things and making the right decisions because he used to have someone who helped him to do that and he no longer did and that's why he ended up homeless and that is the tragedy. we can't just take for granted everyone knows what to do and how to do it especially in an expensive complex city like san francisco and that's why services are so important and that's why it's so expensive. people are wondering why you're spending so much money and we don't see changes on the streets. john will disagree with you because there's a change in his life right now and it's a blessing. it's a blessing that he is here and our goal is to try and do everything we can in this city to make sure that people like

john and his friends are not ending up on the streets. we have a lot of work to do in this city, but we're also committed to doing everything we can to make sure places like the garland become the norm and not the exception. thank you all for joining us here today as we really celebrate this milestone. so much more work to be done. as you can see with all the folks that are here today, we are committed to that work and we're not going to give up. thank you. >> i want to thank the mayor for acknowledging our workers because one of the problems we have is that this proceeded mayor breed by years is that the salary levels for the workers in these hotels have not kept up. so all our jobs in the tenderloin housing clinic and all these jobs are in-person

jobs, can't work at home. we've got to get the salaries raised in the next budget to make sure we can hire people and staff the hotels. i also want to mention, i was talking to a reporter and they said, well, you know, we have so many homeless people. is 80 units going to make a difference? some people have that attitude, but that's how you solve a problem by doing it building by building and that's what this mayor is doing and the mayor made another great decision when she named her ahead of h.s.h. and ever since shareem's team got in there she made it better. so why don't you give some talk as well. [ applause ] >> so, thank you, randy, and thanks so much for inviting us today. this is really exciting. and i want to just start by thanking mayor breed for her leadership and i think you can

tell from what she just said that this is a deeply personal issue for her and that she cares very much about san franciscans being housed and the garland is exactly what she said. this is the wave of the future for us. it's really nice to be in a building where people have their own bathrooms. where people have kitchens. i got to talk to john a little bit about how exciting it is to be moving in here from the baldwin and he got to see his room this morning which is just amazing and so i'm just very excited. i want to also just welcome you, john, to your new home. yeah. and i also want to thank del semore who is the mayor of the tenderloin. love working with del. he's also a lead are on our local homeless coordinating board and is just everywhere and he pushes us to be a better

department. through his lived experience and his wisdom. i also just want to say this building which is master leased and operated by t.h.c. will have on site staff and critically on site support services for people exiting chronic homelessness. and, yes, we absolutely need to support the work force. the lease of this building is part of the mayor's historic homeless recovery plan and a demonstration of the department of homelessness and the housing mission to make homelessness rare, brief, and one time. currently, there are 1,490 active units and an additional little over a 1,000 extra units in the city's pipeline of new supportive housing. this puts the mayor's recovery plan at 99% of the goal today, but we are on track to reach 170% of our goal by the end of the fiscal year, which is only a few months away. permanent supportive housing such as the garland provides stability and hopefully a path

out of homelessness permanently. we believe strongly that housing is a solution to homelessness and this property is the newest home we can provide for the community. i'm going to now turn the event back over to randy shaw and randy will move us into q&a. [ applause ] >> i know the mayor's schedule is tight but do you want to look a room. >> okay.

the tenderloin is home to families, immigrants, seniors,

merchants, workers and the housed and unhoused who all deserve a thriving neighborhood to call home. the tenderloin initiative was launched to improve safety, reduce crime, connect people to services and increase investments in the neighborhood. as city and community-based partners, we work daily to make these changes a reality. we invite you to the tenderloin history, inclusivity make this neighborhood special. >> we're all citizens of san francisco and we deserve food, water, shelter, all of those things that any system would. >> what i find the most fulfilling about being in the tenderloin is that it's really basically a big family here and i love working and living here. >> [speaking foreign language]

>> my hopes and dreams for the tenderloin are what any other community organizer would want for their community, safe, clean streets for everyone and good operating conditions for small businesses. >> everything in the tenderloin is very good. the food is very good. if you go to any restaurant in san francisco, you will feel like oh, wow, the food is great. the people are nice. >> it is a place where it embraces all walks of life and different cultures. so this is the soul of the tenderloin. it's really welcoming. the. >> the tenderloin is so full of color and so full of people. so with all of us being together and making it feel very safe is challenging, but we are working on it and we are getting there.

>> when i look at an old neon sign that's working or not working, i feel the family business that was in there. >> since 2009, citywide, sf shines, has supported businesses and sites like the ones that receive new neon signs. >> you know, sf shines is doing an amazing job to bring back the lighting and the neon glow of san francisco. >> sf shines is such an amazing program, and i can't think of another program in another city that gives matching gunned funds to store owners, mom and pop owners, and if they've got a neon sign, they've really got

a great way to advertise their business. >> this is a continuation of the sf shines program. >> focusing other neon signs is relatively new to us. of the seven neon signs, we've invested about $145,000. >> a good quality sign costs more, but it lasts infinitily longer. as opposed to lasting five years, a good neon sign will last 15 to 20 years. >> in san francisco, the majority of neon signs are for mom-and-pop businesses. in order to be able to restore these signs, i think it gives back to your community. >> part of the project has to do with prioritizing certain

signs in the neighborhood based on their aesthetics, based on their current signs, and base on the history. in the time that we've been here, we've seen a number of signs restored just on eddy street. >> there are a number of signs in the tenderloin and many more that are waiting or wanting to be restored. i have worked with randall and al, and we've mapped out every single one of them and rated them as to how much work they would need to get restored. that information is passed onto sf shines, and they are going to rank it. so if they have x budget for a year, they can say all right, we're going to pick these five, and they're putting together clusters, so they build on top of what's already there. >> a cluster of neon signs is sort of, i guess, like a cluster of grapes. when you see them on a corner or on a block, it lights up the neighborhood and creates an

ambient glow. if you havy got two of three of them, you've created an atmosphere that's almost like a movie set. >> some of the hotel, we've already invested in to get those neon signs for people to enjoy at night include the elk hotel, jefferson hotel, the verona, not to mention some we've done in chinatown, as well as the city's portal neighborhood. >> we got the fund to restore it. it took five months, and the biggest challenge was it was completely infested with pigeons. once we got it clean, it came out beautiful. >> neon signs are often equated with film noir, and the noir genre as seen through the hollywood lens basically depicted despair and

concentration. >> you would go downtown and see the most recent humphrey bogart film filled with neon in the background. and you'd see that on market street, and as market street got seedier and seedier and fewer people continued to go down, that was what happened to all the neon strips of light. >> the film nori might start with the light filled with neon signs, and end with a scene with a single neon sign blinking and missing a few letters. >> one of my favorite scenes, orson welles is chasing

rita hayworth with neon signs in the background. >> i think what the office of economic and workforce development is very excited with is that we'll be able to see more neon signs in a concentrated way lit up at night for visitors and most especially residents. the first coin laundry, the elm hotel, the western hotel are ones that we want to focus on in the year ahead. >> neon signs are so iconic to certain neighborhoods like the hara, like the nightcap. we want to save as many historic and legacy neon signs in san francisco, and so do they. we bring the expertise, and they bring the means to actually get the job done. >> people in tenderloin get really excited as they see the

signs relit. as you're driving through the tenderloin or the city, it pretty much tells you something exciting is happening here. >> knee an was created to make the night more friendly and advertise businesses. it's a great way of supporting and helping local businesses. >> there's so many ways to improve public safety. the standard way is having more eyes on the street, but there's other culturally significant ways to do that, and one those ways is lighting up the streets. but what better way and special way to do that is by having old, historic neon signs lighting up our streets at night and casting away our shadows. >> when i see things coming back to life, it's like remembering how things were. it's remembering the hotel or the market that went to work seven days a week to raise their money or to provide a service, and it just -- it just -- it just

the time is 5 o'clock. this person. this meeting is held in person and remote i have video and teleconferencing. the meet suggest held by web ex governor's executive order and it is mayor proclamations declaring the local emergency. during the coronavirus disease, emergency the first fire commission regular meeting room at city hall. i'm sorry. >> we are in city hall in room 400 to which join the meeting use the upon link that is on the posted agenda. and you mayment to watch live.