i'd like to invite our next guest linda mason and chief officer of the housing authority. [ applause ] >> hey, everyone. i just wanted to say our ceo tonya couldn't be here today. she sends her regards and congratulations to the grand opening today. i'd like to thank our residents. i have been here for quiet sometime and we would come here every year and we would have a meeting to hear concerns about the building and we would lead this to the executive director and figure out if we would have the funding that year to make repairs necessary. most years, we couldn't make all of the repairs and we couldn't meet the needs of the residents. i'd like to thank the residents on behalf of the housing authority all of the time to living in the housing they deserve to have. without this project and this conversion the funding would be have been available to allow them to live in these conditions. secondly, i'd like to make sure i take a moment to thank our partners. this wouldn't be happening without the department of housing development, including lydia that hosted the events along with helen

i'd like to invite our next guest, linda mason, general counsel and chief people officer of the housing authority. hi, everyone. i just wanted to start by saying that our ceo, tanya, could not be here today, and she does send her regards and congratulations for this grand opening today. um, i wanted to first just take a moment to thank our residents. i've been at the housing authority for quite some time and we would come every year at the invitation of randall, who's sitting to my right, and we would have a meeting with residents to hear all of the concerns about their building. and year after year, we'd leave this meeting with our executive director and really try to figure out whether we were going to have the funding that year to make the repairs that were necessary. and most years we couldn't make all of those repairs and we couldn't meet all the needs of the residents. so first and foremost, i want to thank the residents on behalf of the housing authority for their patience all of this time to get to where we are today, to live in the housing that they really deserve to have. and

i'd like to invite our next guest linda mason and chief officer of the housing authority. [ applause to say our ceo tonya couldn't be here today. she sends her regards and congratulations to the grand opening today. i'd like to thank our residents. i have been here for quiet sometime and we would come here every year and we would have a meeting to hear concerns about the building and we would lead this to the executive director and figure out if we would have the funding that year to make repairs necessary. most years, we couldn't make all of the repairs and we couldn't meet the needs of the residents. i'd like to thank the residents on behalf of the housing authority all of the time to living in the housing they deserve to have. without this project and this conversion the funding would be have been available to allow them to live in these conditions. secondly, i'd like to make sure i take a moment to thank our partners. this wouldn't be happening without the department of housing development, including lydia that hosted the events along with helen who lead our services efforts as w