this building, once it's opened will be named the vera hale building. for over 20 years vera has been a tireless advocate around senior issues, around economic security issues. she has worked at curry senior center and i have a list of the boards and commissions she has served on. i will read them to you because it's a longer list i heard many in my life. advisory council to aging and adult services, the mayor's long-term care coordinating council, the san francisco interim support task force and coalition of agencies serve the elders, and i'm sure will there are a hundred other that vera sat on. the list of things that she has worked on goes on and on. to me vera symbolized what san francisco is about. her work and the community she fought so tirelessly for and on top of the dining hall, this corner will forever be st. anthony's dining hall, but the same piece that is mercy housing will be known as vera hale housing. [ applause ] so close. i have a long list. i'm on page 3 there is only seven more. [ laughter ] i'm kidding. i'm kidding. it does seem th

this building, once it's opened will be named the vera hale building. for over 20 years vera has been a tireless advocate around senior issues, around economic security issues. she has worked at curry senior center and i have a list of the boards and commissions she has served on. i will read them to you because it's a longer list i heard many in my life. advisory council to aging and adult services, the mayor's long-term care coordinating council, the san francisco interim support task force and coalition of agencies serve the elders, and i'm sure will there are a hundred other that vera sat on. the list of things that she has worked on goes on and

anthony's dining hall, but the same piece that is mercy housing will be known as vera hale housing. [ applause ] so close. i have a long list. i'm on page 3 there is only seven more. [ laughter ] i'm kidding. i'm kidding. it does seem that way. i know. we want to thank our events sponsor, our general contractor. [ applause ] the hilton, citibank, banc of america, and barry will say more about them in a second. i'm sure i have forgotten something and i apologize in advance, but in the interest of time i will turn it over to barry. thank you. [ applause ] >> yes, to wrap this up here, two lendors on st. anthony's side, the low-income investment fund, nancy andrews is here and the bank of america elizabeth shooten, i believe is here and we want to thank them both. because st. anthony's helps the low-income housing fund get started back in the '90s, we were going to have nancy say just a word or two. nancy. [ applause ] >> thank you everyone and it's just fantastic to see so many san franciscans turn out for this groundbreaking. i am nancy andrews. i'm the president and ceo of the low-inc

i'm vera hale and i'm a member of the advisory council to the department of aging and adult services. and some of us became very concerned when we read that you were considering at some point eliminating age-based discounts. now we think the senior discount is very important and should be larger, but one of the things that we need to keep in mind is that if you do eliminate it, it would be a disaster for seniors. seniors, there are 155,000 seniors in san francisco. that is 19.2% of the population. and it's growing. as you know, baby-boomers are increasing. the older americans act considers people who are 60 to be seniors. and there are 44 nutrition sites in the city and about 2,000 people go everyday -- not everyday, but go to these 44 sites and most of them go on muni and sometimes they go on one, two or three buses. to start segregating people when they are not segregated at meal sites based on their income would create big problems. people have developed social relations, in a time when few social relations are there for older people. and to tear those up by saying, no you can't, t