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.

>> i lived in the mission

neighborhood for seven years and before that the excel see your district. 20 years a resident of the city and county of san francisco. i am the executive director of a local art space nonprofit that showcases work that relate to the latino community and i have been in this building for seven years and some of my neighbors have been here 30 year. we were notified from the landlord he was going to sell the building. when we realized it was happening it was no longer a thought for the landlord and i sort of had a moment of panic. i heard about the small sites program through my work with the

mission economic agency and at met with folks from the mayor's housing program because they wanted to utilize the program. we are dealing with families with different needs and capacities. conversations were had early in the morning because that is the only time that all the tenants were in the building and finally when we realized that meda did have the resources to buy the building we went on a letter writing campaign to the landlord and said to him we understand you want to sell your building, we understand what you are asking for and you are entitled to it, it's your land, but please work with us. what i love about ber nell height it represents the

diversity that made me fall in love with san francisco. we have a lot of mom and pop shops and you can get all your resources within walking distance. my favorite area of my home is my little small patio where i can start my morning and have my coffee is a sweet spot for me and i [♪♪♪] >> i really believe that art should be available to people for free, and it should be part of our world, you shouldn't just be something in museums, and i love that the people can just go there and it is there for everyone. [♪♪♪]

>> i would say i am a multidimensional artist. i came out of painting, but have also really enjoyed tactile properties of artwork and tile work. i always have an interest in public art. i really believe that art should be available to people for free, and it should be part of our world. you shouldn't just be something in museums. i love that people can just go there, and it is there for everyone. public art is art with a job to do. it is a place where the architecture meets the public. where the artist takes the meaning of the site, and gives a voice to its. we commission culture, murals, mosaics, black pieces, cut to mental, different types of

material. it is not just downtown, or the big sculptures you see, we are in the neighborhood. those are some of the most beloved kinds of projects that really give our libraries and recreation centers a sense of uniqueness, and being specific to that neighborhood. colette test on a number of those projects for its. one of my favorites is the oceanview library, as well as several parks, and the steps. >> mosaics are created with tile that is either broken or cut in some way, and rearranged to make a pattern. you need to use a tool, nippers,

as they are called, to actually shape the tiles of it so you can get them to fit incorrectly. i glued them to mash, and then they are taken, now usually installed by someone who is not to me, and they put cement on the wall, and they pick up the mash with the tiles attached to it, and they stick it to the wall, and then they groped it afterwards. [♪♪♪] >> we had never really seen artwork done on a stairway of the kinds that we were thinking of because our idea was very just barely pictorial, and to have a picture broken up like that, we were not sure if it would visually work. so we just took paper that size and drew what our idea was, and cut it into strips, and took it down there and taped it to the steps, and stepped back and looked around, and walked up and down and figured out how it would really work visually.

[♪♪♪] >> my theme was chinese heights because i find them very beautiful. and also because mosaic is such a heavy, dens, static medium, and i always like to try and incorporate movement into its, and i work with the theme of water a lot, with wind, with clouds, just because i like movements and lightness, so i liked the contrast of making kites out of very heavy, hard material. so one side is a dragon kite, and then there are several different kites in the sky with the clouds, and a little girl below flying it. [♪♪♪]

>> there are pieces that are particularly meaningful to me. during the time that we were working on it, my son was a disaffected, unhappy high school student. there was a day where i was on the way to take them to school, and he was looking glum, as usual, and so halfway to school, i turned around and said, how about if i tell the school you are sick and you come make tiles with us, so there is a tile that he made to. it is a little bird. the relationship with a work of art is something that develops over time, and if you have memories connected with a place from when you are a child, and you come back and you see it again with the eyes of an adult, it is a different thing, and is

just part of what makes the city an exciting place. [♪♪♪] >> there is a lot of unique characteristics about visitation valley. it is a unique part of the city. >> we are off in a corner of the city against the san francisco county line 101 on one side. vis station valley is still one of the last blue color

neighborhoods in san francisco. a lot of working class families out here. it is unusual. not a lot of apartment buildings. a lot of single family homes. >> great business corridor. so much traffic coming through here and stopping off to grab coffee or sandwich or pick up food before going home. >> a lot of customers are from the neighborhood. they are painters or mechanics. they are like blue color workers, a lot of them. >> the community is lovely. multi-racial and hopefully we can look out for each other. >> there is a variety of businesses on the block. you think of buffalo kitchen, chinese food, pork buns, sandwich. library, bank of america with a parking lot. the market where you can grab anything. amazing food choices, nail

salons. basically everything you need is here. >> a lot of these businesses up and down leland are family owned. people running them are family. when you come here and you have an uncle and nephew and go across the street and have the guy and his dad. lisa and her daughter in the dog parlor and pam. it is very cool. >> is small businesses make the neighborhood unique. >> new businesses coming. in mission blue, gourmet chocolate manufacturing. the corridor has changed and is continuing to change. we hope to see more businesses coming in the near future. >> this is what is needed. first, stay home.

unless it is absoluteliness scary. social distancing is the most important step right now to limit spread of virus. cancel all nonessential gather everythings. >> when the pandemic litly land avenue suffered like other corridors. a few nail salons couldn't operate. they shut down. restaurants that had to adapt to more of a take out model. they haven't totally brought back indoor seating. >> it is heartbreaking to see the businesses that have closed down and shut because of the pandemic. >> when the pandemic first hit it got really slow. we had to change our hours. we never had to close, which is a blessing. thank god. we stayed open the whole time. >> we were kind of nervous and anxious to see what was going to come next hoping we will not have to close down.

>> during covid we would go outside and look on both sides of the street. it looked like old western town. nobody on the street. no cars. >> it was a hard eight or nine months. when they opened up half the people couldn't afford a haircut. >> during that time we kept saying the coffee shop was the living room of the valley. people would come to make sure they were okay. >> we checked on each other and patronized each other. i would get a cup of coffee, shirt, they would get a haircut. >> this is a generous and kind community. people would be like i am getting the toffee for the guy behind me and some days it went on and on. it was amazing to watch. we saw a perfect picture of community. we are all in this together.

>> since we began to reopen one year later, we will emerge stronger. we will emerge better as a city because we are still here and we stand in solidarity with one another. >> when we opened up august 1st. i will not say it was all good. we are still struggling due to covid. it affected a lot of people. >> we are still in the pandemic right now. things are opening up a little bit. it is great to have space to come together. i did a three painting series of visitation valley and the businesses on leland. it felt good to drop off the paintings and hung them. >> my business is picking up. the city is opening up. we have mask requirements. i check temperatures. i ask for vaccination card and/or recent test. the older folks they want to

feel safe here. >> i feel like there is a sense of unity happening. >> what got us through the pandemic was our customers. their dogs needed groomed, we have to cut their nails so they don't over grow. >> this is only going to push us forward. i sense a spirit of community and just belief in one another. >> we are trying to see if we can help all small businesses around here. there is a cannabis club lounge next to the dog parlor to bring foot traffic. my business is not going to work if the business across the street is not getting help. >> in hit us hard. i see a bright future to get the storefronts full. >> once people come here i think they really like it. >> if you are from san francisco visit visitation valley to see

how this side of the city is the same but different. .♪ ♪ >> welcome back to our mate 23rd 2022 meeting of the board of supervisors. would you call our 2:30 p.m. special order.>> the special order at 2:30 p.m. is a recognition of commendation todayfor meritorious service to the city and county of san francisco by members of the asian pacific american heritage month . >> thank you so much. colleaguod