>> good morning everyone. [speaking spanish] act one, scene two. thank you so much, eric. i'm the ceo of tndc. it's great to be here with you to celebrate this ground breaking of 70 affordable homeses at 180 jones. today is a milestone for the tenderloin and for the community that came out to celebrate with us today. we're here because of the power of the community and the community voice. in the tenderloin for the last 40 years in this neighborhood developing, advocating and in community with all the residents, families, children, and individuals that call this

place home. in particular, we have a tremendous amount of activism and a tremendous amount of core families and children that really highlight our day and as you can see on this bright, sunny day, they really propel us forward to continue doing our work. and in community and in neighborhoods, we advocate for strong community and really represent the needs of all the families in this vibrant place. years ago, activists came together, several of which are here today. i've seen you, i see you, and the idea was to really look at this small lot and see what and imagine what type of housing and what type of services we can provide the community. luckily it was purchased and preserved for affordable housing. it's very important because the

tenderloin many times gets a bad wrap. it's understandable. communities and people are facing challenges and barriers to housing. we all know it. we all feel it. in many families, lack access to quality food and mental illness programs. but this is how a community comes together to address those challenges and strive through inspiration. and this is what makes me really proud to be with community as we celebrate occasions like today. more importantly, 180 jones is a reminder that community driven solutions work and they benefit all of us.

thank you, eric. because of the activism in the tenderloin community, we're going to be moving some dirt today and we're going to begin the construction process to celebrate the 70 homes for individuals and 35 of which are for people who are formerly unhoused. that's very important. and, with all good projects, this work is never done alone, it's done in partnership. i'd like to thank mayor london breed, eric shaw, and the mayor's office of housing and community development and this whole entire team which is here today. thank you. supervisor dean preston, please join us. [applause] former supervisor matt haney and jane kim who were pivotal in this work because of the year long -- years of work that took for us to be here today. the california department of

housing and community development and their huge support in this being one of the first projects using housing accelerator funds. silicon valley bank. kay hill contractors. [applause] architects vanmeter williams bullock. [applause] waypoint consulting california housing partnership. tndc staff. [cheers and applause] and, really, the countless others that have been in partnership with us to make today a success. thank you all for joining us. it is sunny. let's smile. i know have the privilege and honor to introduce supervisor dean preston. [applause]

>> supervisor preston: thank you. thanks so much. wonderful to be here with you all and really thrilled just to be here as part of this ground breaking ceremony for the 70 new affordable homes that will be built on this site, on this site that's in the newest part of my district. for those not paying attention, as of a month ago, i'm pleased to report that the tenderloin is now part of district five and it's thrilling to be here with you and representing the tenderloin today in city hall. i know there are a lot of folks and you've mentioned so many of them who came together to make this possible knew that i could name them all. i think you've done a good job of hitting on all of them. but i do want to remark on many of the community folks who helped push so hard over the years to make this happen. and i will say in my first few

weeks representing the tenderloin as my staff and i have done extensive outreach and had over a hundred meetings with community leaders, we have really been struck by the incredible level of community organizing here in the tenderloin. and what we see time and again as we meet with folks and learn about their work is that incredible love and commitment for this neighborhood and i think the project that we are here celebrating today is a product of that neighborhood commitment. it's made possible by an extended community benefits and negotiation related to another project in the neighborhood and for over a year, the 950 market street coalition led by nonprofit leaders and community advocates fought for in one significant community benefits

for the neighborhood including the funds to purchase and develop the vacant land here at 180 jones as well as seed money that would go on to facilitate the creation of the nation's only transgender cultural district. so i want to sincerely thank the community leaders who made this possible and that includes the many talented staff at tenderloin neighborhood development center, as well as the central city s.r.o. collaborative. it includes tenderloin residents too long a list to name them all, but david elliott lewis who i see with us today. it includes honey mahogany from the transgender cultural district. and i also really want to thank the prior district six supervisors jane kim and matt haney for their leadership and

their support of this project as well as the mayor's office, director shaw, and the mayor and their team for bringing this to fruition. so it is thrilling to be here today. i know you have many speakers so i won't go on, but i will ask you to join me in welcoming jacob goldstein, tndc project manager to speak now. welcome, jacob. >> good morning. thank you. thank you so much for joining on site today. my name is jacob goldstein and i'm a project manager on tndc's housing development team. i've had the honor of leading 180 jones for the last three years. it's been a long road responding to the city's initial request to develop this parcel of land to today's ground breaking event. even in an industry known for complexity, 180 jones has had a unique set of challenges.

fitting 70 homes on such a compact site has not been easy and i think 180 sgroens has had about as many financing plans as people gathered on site today. that said, for all of these challenges, 180 jones is also an example of incredible state and local investment in affordable housing. we were able to take advantage of the streamlined approval process under senate bill 35 as well as the state density bonus law to maximize the size and lay out of the building. 180 jones is funding through the california's new housing accelerator program and we're thrilled to be one of the first accelerator projects to break ground. [applause] on a personal level, standing here today is a real full circle moment. when i first moved to san francisco in 2010, one of the very first bars i went to was

none other than aunt charlie's. that first visit to aunt charlie's showed me there's so much more to the tenderloin than what you might read in a headline. it's a place of strength and diversity, of queerness. this was the block of the cafeteria riot in 1966 and today it is the site of the world's first transgender cultural district. [applause] this is the neighborhood that 180 jones will be part of and i can't wait to see the site transformed into 70 homes where residents will be able to thrive. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, jacob. i would now like to introduce monica hernandez, deputy director for housing community development. >> thank you. hi everyone. i love to see all these smiling

faces. on behalf of governor gavin newsome and the california department of housing and community development, it's my pleasure to congratulate all of you and be here in celebration. this is a momentous occasion. it's mott just historic. it is a testament to the city of san francisco. leaders across san francisco. tndc, the mayor's office, to it all of you and a testament to the love for this community. and, it's a testament to partnership. partnership with city and state and the california housing accelerator which jacob mentioned. i'm going to tell you a little bit about that. we have been facing four decades of housing crisis and we were looking at about $3 billion of backlog in permit and shovel ready projects just sitting there that would have left projects like 180 jones in limbo. gavin newsome responding to our

urgent need of $1.5 billion. and last september, we released our application process and developers up and down the state responded and we went from permit and approval to award in just 60 days. that is unprecedented. [applause] and, in february, we announced the first tier of 27 projects about $900 million in awards and today we are at number two ground breaking. just two out of 27 have broken ground in such a short amount of time. so congratulations again on that. all of us working together with the shared sense of urgency is what brings us here today. projects like 180 jones are complex. we heard about how difficult it is to get 70 units on a smaller parcel, but it also takes creativity and funding.

there's about almost $24 million in funding from the housing accelerator. another $15 million from acd's multi-family housing fund. and approximately $30 million from the mayor's office of housing and community development. [applause] as we're gathered here in the heart of the tenderloin, we are celebrating community, compassion, and collaboration. we're standing on opportunity. opportunity for residents here to not just survive but to have a place to grow and thrive. this project is ideally designed in a transit oriented area creating climate-friendly housing that benefits not just the residents, but the community at large and the planet. we look forward to holding this up as an example across the state of what beautiful, quality, affordable housing can and should look like. so thank you again.

congratulations and please invite us back for the ribbon cutting. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you monica. i would now like to introduce katie fischer, director of community development and finance at s.v.b. [applause] >> thank you very much. good morning. my name is katie fischer and i have the pleasure of representing silicon valley bank this morning. i want to give you some numbers to honor the challenge that we're up against here. about 12% of the country lives in california. however, 28% of all people experiencing homelessness live in california. 31% of all homeless veterans in the country live in california. 36% of the national population of unaccompanied homeless children live in california. as many here now, the

definition of homelessness is varied and it often includes individuals with temporary shelter. california accounts for more than half of all unsheltered people in the country. that's nearly nine times the number of unsheltered people in the next state, texas. i want to honor the connection between mental illness and homelessness. mental illness proceeds homelessness. and tndc has an award-winning phenomenal services arm that offers outreach, advocacy, conflict, resolution, addiction, reduction, harm reduction, translation -- [applause] it's a critical element in the housing first plan and it's the only way to sustain long term permanent supportive housing. this will have one full-time social worker and a second full-time worker. one other thing in terms of numbers, studies show it costs

about 100,000 people anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 to take care of somebody who's homeless. think of emts, police. it cost about $52,000 to permanently house this person per year. so it's about half the cost. when you add in resident services, this project will cost about $56,000 a year compared to $100,000. so it's quite cost effective to do this. as the bank of innovation, i want to applaud the accelerator program. it came out of a number of projects not receiving a tax allocation which have become further and farther in between from receiving. also, san francisco's a loss for local operating subsidy programs. starting in 2008, since then it has supported 1600 housing units with an additional 1200 in the works. that's a critical subsidy i want to pause in honor. senate bill 35 was opposed by

two east bay cities that i won't name, but it is the key to getting a lot of affordable housing, including this one. thank you tndc. thank you, jacob, lex, phenomenal project managers. honey, i see you. and meg mcgrau, may not be here, but the financial consultants are the huge projects and the glue that makes it happen. so thank you very much. >> thank you, katie. and, i'd like to introduce our very own curtis bradford. >> thanks, boss. i've been wanting to say that for a while. my name is curtis bradford and i'm co-chair of the tenderloin peoples congress and long time resident for over 15 years. i'm really excited about today because this is a long time coming. i was really fortunate to be part of a volunteer as a

resident leader with a group called 950 market street coalition. it was a group of residents that came together folks like david and cathy over here and steve and felicia and awesome gale seagraves and steve and others along with support from folks like rio and pertiba and alexandra from s.r.o. collaborative. with their support, us residents were able to enter into negotiations with 950 market street, the big development one block down here at the corner of turk and taylor and really worked on developing a benefits agreement that worked for the community. remember an entire block of the tenderloin of the community. full of rich history for our neighborhood. and we wanted to make sure the community got something in return for that loss. and the building of below market rate budget rate condos in the tenderloin wasn't going to house anybody from our community and we knew that. and so we wanted to find a way

to ensure that this project would actually build housing that works for our folks. and so that's where this came from and this is the result of that effort and that negotiation. and so i am so excited to see this actually happening. and, it's proof that when you empower residents, you empower community and you give them agency in their own lives, great things can happen. [applause] so we'll have 70 units right here for our community and i cannot wait until that day and i'm going to be excited for the ribbon cutting as well and i have to thank the mayor's office and the folks from the state and the bank and tndc's amazing staff and for all the work that it took since we signed that community benefit agreement because a lot of work has happened since then in order to break ground here today. and i want to thank them for making a resident-led vision

come to reality. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, curtis. now, i would like to introduce eric shaw. director shaw. please. [applause] >> good morning. my name is eric shaw, i'm the director of the san francisco mayor's office for housing and community development. i am happy and excited to speak on behalf of mayor breed. she is here in spirit. she is my boss. she is a visionary. and she has a deep commitment to making sure that we are creating affordable housing forrern and not just housing, but homes for people. i remember her walking through one of our projects. we were so excited about the unit count and the affordability. and she goes, we're the linen closet. how is someone going to grow up

here how is someone going to be able to lounge and enjoy themselves? we really are thinking about the idea of creating homes and running it within community. and so i know that in particular right now, the community of tenderloin, i want to thank them right now. i know that the office of community development part of the mayor's office of housing community development invests hundreds of millions of dollars to this community and to community organizing and to tenant protections and to really supporting lifting up, leveraging the community voice and putting the resources to realize the community vision and this project, 180 jones is the example of that. so i just want to applaud the community and the residents for really making this happen. also, we know this is actually bigger than housing in terms of the needs of this community and i was just on the call, my fellow department directors from the office of homelessness

and supportive housing to manage the safe sleeping site here. with the police chief, with the fire chief, with the office of planning and so i just really want to recognize it does take a whole infrastructure of very committed people that just mobilize both their expertise, their staff, and their resources to really bring together the mayor's vision to create safe, affordable homes for people. [applause] and, with that too, we also understand there are stages. so the mayor's plan focuses on safe sleeping sites. i want to focus on keeping us safe during covid and realize housing was one of the things to advance public health and safety at that moment. but we can't stop at giving people safe sleeping sites, but make sure we have a continuum of opportunity for people to

live and to thrive. so from safe sleeping to the services being needed to housing built to hopefully home ownership which we're investing in as well as our office. and finally on the city side, i just want to pat ourselves on the back a little bit. i just really want to recognize julia sabori and the team. i'm really excited we have pusheded over the past two years to integrate housing home ownership and the cultural district program together to make sure we're being responsive to the particular needs of the transgender community making sure that we're investing. we just invested $1 million in universal basic income for black transwomen this year. and really making sure that the systemic barriers that have impeded people being able to thrive and one of the most resource and abundant cities in the country that we are getting the most resources where people need it most to really make sure that they are -- they feel

like they're san franciscans and they feel loved in san francisco and they can thrive in san francisco. with that, i do also want to thank the state for the housing accelerator fund and i think monica knows this. it's pretty expensive to build in san francisco and there are a lot of cities that are catching up with san francisco around the idea of affordable housing. and so i really want to thank the leadership of h.c.d., monica, are gustavo, secretary castro ramirez, and the governor for allocating the funding for the accelerator program and it is imperative that we have state support and programs like the accelerator program to get our projects built. so the mayor is at sacramento as much as possible talking

with secretary -- with governor newsome, not secretary to make sure san francisco has the resources to vote to tax themselves. and, with that, i also want to thank them, but i'm going to ask for more. can we all ask the state for more? >> as you should. >> all right. and so, with that, we have four projects that are going to be breaking ground. we have eleven ground breakings this year with the support of the accelerator fund. i'm excited for that and finally, once again, i want to thank my friend and colleague morillio. we've been joking about that. but it's so amazing to have strong leadership. i want to thank don folk for his vision as well. and the team and my team. i want to thank the banks because they help fund things. i want to thank the community once again and, jacob talked about this as a project

manager. you know, the buck literally stops with them. the decisions that are made, the coordination and the stress, the community engagement and so i just really want to thank our project managers as well on this. on behalf of mayor breed. on behalf of my fellow directors, on behalf of our time i want to thank you so much and i'm excited to turn over some dirt. >> thank you, eric. and i see that this crowd and this community loves the shade. so, with that in mind, i just welcome you to -- we're going to move some dirt and get a few photo-ops. if you want to move dirt for you, you can. after we do the first photo. you're more than welcome to wear a hard hat and pick up a shovel. so thank you so much for coming out. we really appreciate it and we really appreciate the shade. thank you. >> on the count of three, one, two, three. [cheers and applause]

>> my apartment burned down 1.5 years ago in noba. my name is leslie mccray, and i am in outside beauty sales. i have lived in this neighborhood since august of this year. after my fire in my apartment and losing everything, the red cross gave us a list of agencies in the city to reach out to and find out about various programs that could

help us get back on our feet, and i signed up for the below market rate program, got my certificate, and started applying and won the housing lottery. this particular building was brand-new, and really, this is the one that i wanted out of everything i applied for. and i came to the open house here, and there were literally hundreds of people looking at the building. and i -- in my mind, i was, like, how am i ever going to possibly win this? and i did. and when you get that notice that you want, it's surreal, and you don't really believe it, and then it sinks in, yeah, i can have it, and i'm finally good to go; i can stay. my favorite thing about my home, although i miss the charm about the old victorian is everything is brand-new. it's beautiful. my kitchen is amazing. i've really started to enjoy

cooking. i really love that we have a gym on-site. i work out four days a week, and it's beautiful working outlooking out over the courtyard that i get to look at. it was hard work to get to the other side, but it's well worth it. i'm super grateful to the mayor's office of housing for having this for us.