Transcripts For SFGTV LAFCo 20240703

Moan through lasko. I thank the San Francisco port for partnering us with today. Lafco and the important work that we do is largely unknown outside of city hall. So we want to take this opportunity today during the San Francisco climate week to en gaming a wider audience about our work. Im really grateful for you to be with us and to see fashion and innovation that there is in our city to find solution to the climate crisis. I have to say for a long time, work of lafco was caught in a debate whether or not San Francisco should have a cleaner al na tiff. Thankfully the debate has been settled and what many enjoy today is run by the San Francisco Public Utilities commission, is now successfully serving over 400,000 customers are cleaner energy and affordable rate than pgne. To help clean power sf cleaner goals including clean banking that we will hear more about later today. Lafcos authority is to do these studies Municipal Service review and thats really a, you should know that lafco in San Francisco is unique where both city and county and San Francisco and like other jurisdiction its really a county jurisdiction. That is why lafco in San Francisco is limit today Service Review while other counties have a wider range of jurisdiction. Nonetheless lafco has a Critical Role to play because of independence to city and county of San Francisco. My colleagues on the board of supervisor sxz lafco supervisor dean preston has lead us to studies related to housing, which really if you think about it, not only is housing a human right, its a right that if we continue to push forward, help us build a momentum to Climate Change. To tackle Climate Change. Im excited to hear from our true panels because housing crisis are so closely inter connected. Im glad that San Francisco voters passed our housing bond in march, 300 million worth of it and im hopeful that the path area will pass a larger regional Affordable Housing bond in november, roughly about 20 billion dollars for all nine counties and in San Francisco about 1. 5 billion dollars. Im excited to look at opportunities for how these funds could be used through a green bank to produce Municipal Housing in San Francisco. So im really excited this is not just conversations on papers anymore, if we do this right this november many things that we deliver on, so if youre interested in these topics, i urge to you get involved in lafcos work. You can contact our lafco team to give us your feedback is the reason im so pleased that were participating in San Francisco climate week this year and explore what we can do and incorporate your ideas and our Work Together and to be innovative, not just for San Francisco but really for the bay area, that is the work that were embarking on in the coming months. So with that, it is really my pleasure and i just want to say a few words about this person that im about to introduce to you who really has been organizing this, former legislative a and city hall really knows how to works. How city hall works and im so grateful that he can now coming on board to join us and during the process when we having these conversation at sfpuc to really figure out what should be our future in San Francisco but so much more than just that, be it battery storage, be it a lot of technical studies around tackling climate crisis, im just so grateful that not only does he do his Due Diligence but conversation is also the reason why were here today because he has dedicated his energy and effort to see San Francisco and its future beyond clean power sf. With that, im going to pass this to our fearless leader and leader of lafco, jeremy. Thank you, [applause] thank you, very much, connie and thank you for coming out to join us on this beautiful friday. Im going to go through a quick few slides to introduce you to lafco and give a quick introduction to the work that lead to this panel on green banking. First question i get asked to people that i tell what i do, what is lafco, is it a comedy club or what . Everybody city has a lafco dealing with making sure as were building new developments that we have all the services that they need. Were unique in california, the only consolidated, when there was a proposed ballot measure because between brisbane and San Francisco to take over pg es service, and that lost 4951 at the ballot but that was a part of lafco as being kind of venue where supervisors pursued democratic, there was a lot of work of ticking over pg e equipment and that lead to Community Choice aggregation which lead to clean power sf, where they were able to buy 100 renewable power. And yeah, dha was largely the focus of lafcos the number of years. Weve broad end out into a few other topics in addition to electricity, we did a study on public bank anding Municipality Services and as connie said, we have taken on studies relate today services. So its made up with the board of supervisor sxz members of the public, that was connie chan, our chair her idea to have they vent to showcase some of the great and get our great commissioners and experts on these issues. So well be hearing from our public commissioners, hope and Municipal Housing paner he will and we have our resigned commissioner fielder who will be part of the commissioner. And if we have a vacant seat so if this is interesting to you, we there is a application on our website and were looking for somebody else to join us. We have a sort of duel role with clean power sf, we provide oversight and provide feedback and were also partner ening with them on a part of studies and, one of those is, the green bank studies that well be talking about more. And so, i have three slides to try to condense three to four years. Who is i work for as a legislative aid back in 2011 is the first time i heard of the concept and he passed on the baton on to sandy fewer who passed on the baton to connie chan and dean preston. That lead few years that was a state bill that created a i new banking licensing in california. So the reInvestment Group put together a plan and they have a business in governorance plan for public bank and as an initial step, the plan is to create a non depository, called finance corporation that essentially functions of like what a green bank is. Its a lending entity that combines to advance green initiatives and so, so yeah, those plans were delivered to the board of supervisors last year. And supervisor preston is currently working with the Treasurers Office and, let me im getting ahead of myself. So im going to talk a little bit about what a public bank is. Its a bank that can accept deposits that is held by a county. As i said we have this twostep plan here in San Francisco that were pursuing. That would not require all of the Regulatory Approvals of a full public bank. Its to build and be ready to go apply for the banking licensing and fdic insurance and at the bottom a couple of things that a public bank is not in this plan, would not be a retail plan. The idea is not to have individual credit acts at the public bank of San Francisco. It would be a bankers bank that would help out Credit Unions and cdfis to help advance the lending. And this is not to meant to take over thethat has a lot of, you know, 1217 billion dollars, i cannot keep up the size of the budget. To create this entity that would function at San Francisco green bank. And its further of planning for the operations of this entity and we have working group to talk about this, and a big focus weve had is around, the inauguration Greenhouse Reduction Fund which has two separate funds that total about 20 billion dollars that is intended for entities like green banks. Weve been in touch with the applicants for that and the awards has just been put out. And were hoping to make San Francisco eligible for that to get in that infusion of dollars to help jump start this entity. So were preparing an rfp to help us develop those plans and yeah, with that, im going to turn it over to our elustriuos panel. Hes going to lead us to a conversation into a great panel. Thank you all for coming. [applause] hello. Oh, no, its working. Thank you, jeremy. So, lets jump right into the panel on green banking. Just as a reminder to summarize what jeremy just said, the purpose of this panel is to discuss the work on municipal banking options, specifically the potential for San Francisco green bank and how it could help achieve the goal. Im going to start by allowing the panelest to introduce themselves and then ill have some questions for them afterwards. Thanks, colleague, thank you jeremy, thank you supervisor connie chan to initiative during climate week. Im jackie fielder, im a cofounder of former lafco commissioner and ill pass it to sylvia. Hi every one, happy to be here, thank you to lafco for inviting me, happy climate week every one. Im sylvia chi, im a city policy analyst with the funds collectives. Thats my day job and my non day job is working with the california banking alliance. Hello. Can you all hear me . Im nick klein, im delighted to be here. Im not a if i affiliated with lafco i was asked to join because i worked for Connecticut Green Bank and capitol capital bank. So since then ive worked with many other cities on implementation and strategy of clean energy initiative. So delighted to be here. Thank you for introducing yourself and since were on the topic, do you mind telling us, what exactly is a green bank. Sure, so i can go pretty deep on this. I will try to keep it high level and if you have followup questions, we can do that in a q a, so starting on the bank side. A Bank Provides financial services. So this is, two end users, individuals, governments, might be a paradigm shift from many are thinking about in terms of supporting clean energy through incentives, a bank often uses Services Like loans and like credit enhancement to see drive the deployment of clean energy. And the rational there, like cars, like houses, clean energy has a big price tag that you might not have all the money for in your pocket, so you want to go to a bank and get a loan so you can pay for the big project and repay that overtime. Like you do with a mortgage and like you do with a bank loan wha. Is difference is being a quasi profit, profits can go back into the bank and then be relent out. And green banks focus on clean energy technology. What thats been, roof top solar, Transportation Technology and other technologies. And what is difference about this asset class is that these assets often create a cash flow whether you are selling, electricity into the grid and making money from that, or cash flow in the form of energy savings, Energy Monthly bill was 300 now its 350 so youre saving 150 each month. So these cash flows make this asset class easier to finance because assets that finance generate their own cash flows that are used to pay back the loans. Something else is that they primarily serve under served segments. There are private banks for the big companies, for the big utilities that want to do a big solar panel array, they already have access to capital, there are a lot of markets that dont have access. Whether its a technology thing, whether its a risk thing whether theyre just outside, so green banks provide this access to capitol that, that the market as is, doesnt have. Last comment to think about is green banks can be a big part of a larger puzzle when it comes to deploying energy. They provide the financing, information and help various partners come together. But the other partners really matter a lot when it comes to financing clean energy. They are the end users, the people pa ultimately benefit from the clean energy and also the installers ,z the contractors, the people that literally make the updates to the building or put the equipment into the ground or connected to the grid and then there are other actors like the community itself, or you know, insurance or operations and maintenance. Green banks are a piece of the puzzle but its very important that they work with the partners. Hopefully, that was not thaofp detail and i can answer more as needed. Green just that green bank is a type of municipal banking in San Francisco. And the next question is for you jackie, where did the idea come about . Well, im executive officer paul pointed, its been around since San Francisco for more than a decade. Supervisor john a va loss really look it around the movement around the no dakota pipeline that gave us the thrust and thats how i got into public thinking through this grass roots, moral base imperative that our citys money, we profess to be progressive city. But we have money in the banks while waiting for the Cash Management of our annual, our different departments on average at the time that i was looking at it, 7 years ago, on average per day, the city is has a cash flow in and out of 250 Million Dollars, something around there. So lots of money flowing around. But while were not using those funds, wall street as we know uses them for other means around the world, financing, private prison contractors, you name it, luxury developments. So the whole empatus was to align ourwith our money. Its a very simple concept and you know, back then, we had a lot of momentum and thought it would be much easier to simply move out of wall street into maybe the Credit Unions or pro social banks but it is much more difficult and at the same time, still felt that this imperative to move our money into alignment with our local values, our local mandates was still pretty important. We have an Affordable Housing crisis. We obviously have a, climate goals that we have to meet and we have Small Businesses that are closing down every year and especially more so since the pandemic. But we wanted create something that maybe has not been seen before. Movement and its in north dakota where the only public bank in the continental u. S. Exist. North dakota has been around for 105 years now. So we, ironically drew a lot of our interest and i object spir inspiration from there even though we would do things differently. So to sum it up, came from a Grass Roots Movement and paired with minds with the expertise like sylvia who is an coauthor of public bank bill 8557 we passds passed that with in alignment in l. A. With public bank l. A. We all came together lccr, sorry, Lawyers Committee for civil rights, lots of other organizations that have supported us over the years and have been involved. To push our movement and really hone it into making it not just pipe dream but a plan. And it had to evolve as we encountered new information and legal barriers, new constraints and in this world with the with the biden climate bill, new opportunities too. So thats the sum of it. Thank you, jackie. We know what the bank is and a public bank and, etched in stone with that. This question for you sylvia, what opportunities exist this year, right now for helping San Francisco start green banks . So it is going to get pretty wonky. As mentioned, you may have heard of the inflation reduction act, it is the largest most ambitious Action Congress has ever done. I can probably spend several hours talking about it to you but well focus on the Greenhouse Gas reduction fund. Its a 27 billion dollars program. Its the single mostdefense, and administered bit epa right now. Being administered by the epa right now. It, it is consist of three different programs. The first is solar for all, thats 7 billion dollars. Thats not a green. Sometimes called like the National Green bank, those are the two green finance programs. One is called the National Clean Investment Fund and thats 14 billion dollars and the other one is called the Clean Communities investment accelerater and thats six billion dollars. And those two programs together are meant to inject a ton of capital into Community Lenders, meaning Community Institution s and green bank to see catallize, its hard to understand if youre not a finance person, im not a finance person. But ccia is meant to increase the capacity of Community Lenders so theyre able to make loans in the green space. Doing community, they dont have a lot of insurance doing like solar and Energy Efficiency and those things. So they ed the extra capital. The other one in cif, is like a fire hose of money that is meant to go to the community leaneders and fund the programs. The program is also meant to attract private capital, so its Leverage Private investment as well so. When it comes to a municipal green bank or starting a new one in our case, the ccia funding can be used to help capitalize that, so its starting the final institution. And the money can be used to fund the actual lending activity. The program is very weird and complicated, its not like any other program. Its going to be the funding is going to be done bit inter mediates which is nonprofit organizations, or coalition organizations. So Community Lenders have going to have to apply to those intermediateries for the funding. We dont know any of the details yet. Epa Just Announced the awardee a couple of weeks ago and those awardees are negotiating with epa, theyre trying to finalize those contract negotiations. And that is a very fast timeline for the federal government to do that. Were trying to get San Francisco green bank to get funding to start spending. I have a question on that, can you talk about the greenhouse reduction . So we dont have a very good name for this group, but its like the ggr Equity Alliance is what im going to try it make it be. Our organizations solutions, we do Environmental Justice policy. And we came together with a bunch of allies, organizations including emerald citys collaborative. Americas for financial reform, green lighting institutions a few other ones. And basically after the inflation reduction passed we were all reading through it, i was not involved in advocating for the ira passage. And we saw thethere is not a lot of details in it. But the problem with that, is even when they put in, there is clearly like good intentions with this program. But the perennial is unintended consequences. So we need to make sure, my concern, is there is a lot of way thats this program can go side ways. And it didnt define how it had to benefit the communities on how to be there. And we know like the opportunity zones that place investing is not that simple so. If you just spend money somebody does not necessarily benefit the people who live there and in fact can cause gentrification. We saw this as an opportunity to try not just to engage gpa to try to interpret the statutes that would be most helpful to communities but also to engage with the applicants and now awardees to try to get them to voluntarily and publicly commit to kind of raising the base line in term of their equitable practices. So we put together, drawing on our experience working on various kind of programs at the state and local level. We put together a pledge which outlines how they put into practice, these equitable, equitable ways of working and making sure that they dont actually harm communities. And so, weve asked the awardees to publicly commit to that, and when we ask the applicant that and now that they have announced, over half of the applicant, over half of the awardees have committed to the pledge. So were going to be continuing to engage with them to make sure that they are held accountable trying to organize like the members of the coalition sxz their board members, their advisory councilmembers to keep them accountable and make sure its really accessible to the community that are meant to reach and benefits them. 24 next question is for you, nick, what would San Francisco be able to do with the green bank . Give us an example on how green banks have helped othered. Sure, again, i feel like this could be a big answer. So broadly, what a green bank can do is is make access to capitol money for projects, easier and more accessible for folks that have not had had access or dont currently have access. What that can look like is, lower prices of capitol or products and services that reach Market Segments that dont currently have access to them. One way to look at this, who has roof top solar or ev charger in their garage . Typically folks that are higher income. How would folks with the lower income have the benefits for the benefits when the price tag on those are high. It would be through a green banks. Green banks can do that, that is from the perspective of user. Thats one of the powers of finances is if there is no up front cost and if its cash flow positive for the end user. Another thing that it can do is crowd in private capitol. There is bunk of banks and lenders are the type that hide income individuals to do, to get a solar panel set up on the roof. Why are those folks. Why are those private lenders saying no to you know, riskier Market Segments. They can help them understand risk, help them lower the costs of capitol. So loans of clean energy, every bank offers them and theyre widely available and widely used. They help the bridge to help the private sector get to that activity. Another thing is, green banks because they get returns from their loans, are can be self sustaining, that means once you capitalize the green banks, the activity go back to the bank which pay for the costs but can be again lent out. Its self sustaining. And related to that, there is this idea of private sector leverage, where if a green bank is colending with private lenders, there is this idea where a green bank can provide some of the debt where half of or thirtd of it and other parts are supplied by private lenders. So there is this idea that for each dollar that is lent out, it can bring in 10 private dollars. From a strategic stand point, from the government stand point, you can drive a lot of investment and a lot of scale. There is a piece around green force where many bank right side partnered with workforce to instale efficiency, solar, so there is this local economic benefit that helps buildup local businesses. There is also a piece around trust and public government, were at this time in history where demographic institutions are really facing like a crisis in trust. And green banks have really proven like many other institutions, smud over there in sacramento, green banks around the country can help people understand wow government can really serve the public interest. And you know, i have a few example of specific greenbay projects, maybe ill quickly go through them because im eating up a lot of time. Of my favorite is community so laxer the community bank, they financed a single Solar Project nat neighborhood of 100 kilowatts about 10 times of the average roof top Solar Project fortial. And what they do is they sell description to see low to moderate income, so 28 households can have a share of the single Solar Projects. Its not on their roof but they have a share of it. And what it did for them, for each describer was 500 dollars a year. Sosubscriber was 500 a year. Tied in is ev chargers they wrapped up in other benefits. So its a way for these Community Members to get the benefits of solar without having to put their roof top up ordeal sw w some of the issues like credit checks. So thats really exciting. Another one that im familiar with, and i see worked with a multi Family Housing company and they did all nine of their buildings, i think it was hundreds of housing units, they fully retrofitted the whole building to be super energy efficient, like sealed the envelope and had heating, with thermostat, really helped the comfort of interior spaces and reduced energy bills, so there is an Energy Burden reduction there. Those are just some example, sorry to eat up so much time. Jackie this next question is for you, jeremy mentioned, there was an Investment Group and they talk about what that is . Yeah, so in 2021, supervisor dean preston introduced and got the board of supervisors to pass the San Francisco reinvest in sf ordinance. And this started a working group of finance experts and Community Experts in Affordable Housing, Renewable Energy and Environmental Justice to basically come up with the governorance structure and the Business Plans for a Municipal Finance Corporation msc. And the idea is to start an msc which is a non depository insolution and become a public bank. Of course public bank being a depository institutions, a lot of framework came from ab857 and we looked into a lot of different research, especially from dr. Thomas mariwa who has been studying banks around the world. And its through him that we were able to learn about governorance structures. One of them being popular in costa rica which is basically governed by a assembly of workers and it has representatives from the assembly thats is in the dos ons range to make the regular decisions at the highest level of the bank but the ultimate Decision Making body is the assembly. So that is probably on the most democratic part of the spectrum. And then of course there are other models such as the, the german banks that have a twotier structure around with representatives from different departments and also trade workforce representatives. And that is also a twotier structure so from different models, we got inspired to work with that kind of twotier structure model to try to prevent corruption as best as possible, because thats a big concern here in San Francisco its very real. And we want to make sure that the bank is insulated from as much as the decisions as possible. And of course it still has to have some kind of mission and principals to guide its Decision Making. And that in the San Francisco bank coalition, we came up with a set of principals over the years around public ownership, and around the different kind of mission principals for the bank, social, ecological and Environmental Justice. So grounding and the giving it a mission and having this twoyear governorance structure was our best attempt to stem the influencing but also provide enough transparency or accountability that were able to hold it accountable to its original principals. So the ultimate government structure for both the msc and the bank are inspired by the structure, include representatives from different agencies from the City Government and also draws from you know, a number of different areas in the city that the public bank has stakeholders in such as labor, such as Environmental Advocacy and Affordable Housing, workers rights and a number of other ones. But, the reInvestment Group finished its group last year and chair Kristen Evans was great help with that as well as couldcolid and fernando is going to be in the second panel here, and is sylvia chi, i hope im not for getting any others. But this work was hard and arduous, hours and hours going into it, not just meet ing, but work outside of it and we had some of the best minds in this field, in this work put their Heads Together to come up with the best plans. The Treasurers Office was also involved, controller, and the plans were aoun unanimous lea dopted. The next if is the next question giving us time to city if we can stand something up to receive these funds. Thank you, jackie. Sylvia, the next question is for you, how can San Francisco ensure that impacted communities benefit from the bank. Can can she have a say on how its run . Yeah, i mean, i think the short answer for me would be to put into practice to operationize the best practices that are in our pledge and guide, and that has to do with really centering the voices of the low income disadvantage communities that this program is mraent to benefit. That is always a lot easier than done, a lot of institutions say theyre doing that but it they have a lost trouble when it comes to giving up that decisionmaking power or using their decisionmaking power in alignment with what the community wants. So thats definitely not trivial. I think that will be the major challenge. Other pieces are going to be around, making sure that were prioritizing direct benefits to the people that are trying to benefit and looking at the accountability and transparency and putting in safeguards to make sure that people are not harmed and the, the most concrete like, silliant is displacement, the one thing that people have, is green gentrification, if were upgrading housing, does that mean that people who live there now, will not continue to live there now. Thank you for that. So, banks are great, weve been doing them forever in this country. We have a plan that was approved bit board of supervisors and the federal government is trying to give us money to start one right now. So the everything is great and wonderful and so nick, last question for you. Are green banks subject to bank runs or any negative side affects that weve been seeing in the market . Insofar as a green bank is non depository, it will not be subject to a bank run. Most green banks im familiar with, there is a bit of distinction between the green bank term what people can mean by that and the public bank. The green bank thats have existed and call themselves are green bank are non depository and there have not been an issue. There is issue with political actors trying to claw back. If a green bank that primarily lends to Clean Energy Projects decided to be to also be depository, they could run a risk, there are things that you can do to reduce that risk. Keep higher percentage of the deposits cash on hand to insulate that. There is also a middle approach that the kentucky green bank has taken where you invite members of the public to invest in and capitalize a fund that is lent out to Clean Energy Projects by the bank. So its not a saving account, its not a saving account but its an investment that you would make that you get between 4 or 7 or 8 person return but there is a risk that you dont get it as the green banks lends out your 10,000 or 20,000 into projects in the local community. Thank you for that. And just as a reminder, the Municipal Corporation designed by the work, confirmed that green bank is nondeposit. [ inaudible ] can i get a time check. Wrap tup and take a couple of questions. All right, ill take a couple of questions from the audience about green bank. So since youve been in contact with the, i imagine youre probably talking about how they would do pass through a system obviously, finalize that and recommending to that and what conversation, regarding kind of. Im going repeat the question for the camera. So the question is, have you been in contact with these groups that are applying for the epas green bank and as they develop these terms that we will see in july, what advise have you been giving them . Is that summer . Okay. Do you want to answer . Insofar as ive been in touch with them, it has not been in respect to San Francisco. Well insofar that ive been talking about, its not been in respect to San Francisco either. So in general, would i say, weve been talking about there is a significant need for Technical Assistance. And for those who dont know, Technical Assistance is a broad term, i used to not work in this nonprofit policy context and i was confused by this term. But, basically, Technical Assistance it covers a lost things. But, helping institutions like create projects is one piece of it. Its also going to be Community Lenders learn how to give out the loans and design the products. Its a very broad term. I think the awardees who were selected all recognizes that there is significant need for Technical Assistance. They need to be part of that conversation and part of the have to receive some of that. Because Community Organizations need to be able to have the capacity to engage in the processes like these stakeholder processes and they often just dont have the money, they dont have the time, they need to hire and retain staff. I use today work for a Community Base organization no one has enough time to join these meetings and there is a very very deep need for these institutions to invest in them if theyre going to actually going to try to benefit these communities. Thats the biggest thing. Thank you for the question. Im going to take one more question. Yes, right here. So the question is, as this funding got, being rolled out, what projects are prioritized in the pipeline . Which of the ones that you see that are green banks that are emerging with the funding, are rolling out their programs, i guess in a way. Im sorry, so which of the entities coming out, which of the green banks will be rolling out the funding fastest . Ill take a shot at answering this. So the existing green banks most of them have a geographical mandate, theyre state and county municipal banks. That may help you figure out if youre project is sited in a state, does it have a green bank or not . The other way to look is look at the green banks website. Typically, they have a few standard. If your project fits xy andz. Not all green banks finance industrial kind of manufacturing projects, some do. So well check with the green banks. And also green banks have what is called open solicitation, so if you want to finance a project, but it does not fit, you basically send them a pitch, you say this is the project lets have a conversation about whether or not you can finance my project and they would have a meeting with you. Should we stop or take one more question . I think we need to stop. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you to the panelest. [applause] all right, i would like to invite our panelist. I know we have two conversations that we could have spent two hours on that were going to try to shoe in. Okay, so before i turn it over to our housing panel, we have two projects that were starting. One is specific and narrow and scope, the midtown apartments is the only city owned housing in San Francisco. The displacement was built in the city as a rent to own model. The residents there still did not own their home and did not have a say on how their homes are managed. And its how these residents wants their house imagined. Do they want a board of directors and working with them to figure that out. The other is what it would look like for the city to scale up, owning and operating Affordable Housing. That was pass thed with 73 of the vote. We have an rfp out for this. Their proposals are due june 22, this is a new housing study and not a lost experience within the United States so were looking for the smart housing brains. If thats you or if you know of any small housing, send them our way. With that, im going to turn it over to our moderator hope williams and also the board president of the San Francisco Community Land trust and she is going to lead a conversation on this. Hi, sorry, can every one hear me . Awesome, im hope. Its a pleasure to be here introducing these fabulous panelist which im going to let them do. Who are you . What do you want . What are you doing here . And well just go down the line. There we go. What am i doing . In my day job, i work at tenants together as a legislative director, were a coalition of 60 justice organizations across the city of california. When im not in my day job because i have no other hobbies, im with lafco with hope. And i chair the Housing Stability Fund Oversight Board with my vice chair fernando. Hello ryan ramos with the department. I work in residential building providing assistance to encourage adoption of decarbonization, so heat pumps and those sort of technologies. And i am fernando marty, im an artist, im not sure what im doing here. With you for the 20 years before that, i worked in the direct of Community Housing organizations working on Affordable Housing in the city of San Francisco and continue to work around Planning Issues when im not working on our work. Thank you so much for our panelist. I have this question for ryan, what are San Francisco climate goals related to housing . Its a very large topic that we have to handle, part of the climate team in the audience, so ill have to hopefully get parts of the Climate Action correct. Im going do a brief overview on some of the goals. The Climate Action plan includes a goal to build at least 5 now new units every year. And onethird of those units, no fewer than one of those third of those should be affordable. Near schools and near transit as a key pillar for Climate Action. So we need to have housing that is accessible and some of the strategies that underline the goal of building 5,000 units include preserving and rehabilitating homes in under served communities and in other is basically just jum starting the production of housing. Having housing is absolutely crucial to meeting our housing goals. And lastly on top of that, the action plan states that San Francisco have all buildings including residential to be sheer o hezero emissions by 2040, that means getting emissions out. Thats a tall task we have a number of partners that were working with. The Mayors Office, Mayors Office of housing and homelessness and Supportive Housing were all working together. While providing access to housing. Thank you, i know you being part of it, we really appreciate your efforts. Im going to ask sauntty, what is Municipal Housing and how is it different from regular housing. Interesting, Affordable Housing means too many Different Things to too many different people. I feel like if you have 100 people in the room and asked what is Affordable Housing, you get 200 answers. I see it as social housing, any housing that is intend to be affordable. A lot of people like to talk about singapore and vienna, i love vienna and i loved it. I dont like to think about Municipal Housing or general housing like this far away idea that weve imported from other countries. People are trying to do Municipal Housing right now. There are models in county in chicago just passed a big bond, obviously were trying to do it. Especially when theyre trying to displace, they have a demand that times to ask the city by their housing, and also we have a long history of experimenting with Municipal Housing. Theyre always in the market when they occupied slum housing, you know the Labor Movement has a long history of building housing at the local level. I think we have not collectively decided what that means and sometimes that is used to import differences in policy that we need to bring to the service and talk about. But you know, municipal is a form of social housing and its important because we need federal investment housing, we needed it yesterday. Until we get that, we cant wait for them. What do you mean we cant all agree on what Affordable Housing is . Okay, this next one is for fernando. What is the next between housing, climate and equity justice and how is this related to a climate aparti . Okay, is that where i get to do my slide show. Thats the last question. Because my slide show sort of covers that. In the context of talking about Climate Change and what ryan said before, the need that we have to build how much housing in certain areas. Housing that regular people can afford to the extent that we have not done that sufficiently for the last 20 years, we are seeing a new resegregation of the bay area. And paul anthony who used to the run the project, i dont know if he coined the term but he would use that the idea of climate aparti, because of Climate Change, we are creating a new segregation within our cities and regions examine the only way to address that is through Public Investment, because that is what the market is creating, given the climate mandated move towards building more densely building in our cities and not creating more sprawl. Thank you, im going to ask the next question for ryan. What successes are you most proud of . And what challenges does sfe face in meeting our climate goals for housing, be honest . All right, the proudest moment i think it will be easier to describe the challenges, its a very long list but i would say the proudest moment was when San Francisco became a pioneer. Not very long ago, the cpu c commission which regulates Energy Programming under the investor owned utilities, such as pg e, was no allowance on what was called heat substitution to move away from gas appliances towards electric. That was at the table and there was no way to do that. Once the puc changed the rules, a program that we help run was one of the first to implement these changes to allow electrification. We started to work with affordable Property Management firms. To change their gas boilers over to heat pump water heaters, so we were very excited to do that, we continue to do that work with many operators in San Francisco. We v you know, dozens if not hundreds of building left to do. And that brings me to the next challenge that we have is, youll start, youll be having a positive cash flow with the electronickation and electricity rates that we have, we cant promise that and it makes it very hard to make it, to get these projects installed and motivate property owners. Our partner is pg e, theyre the ones that have a backlog, we are working through them with them. Were trying to get them to have that be a priority. Thats a big challenge. Another challenge is we dont have enough housing, if were back to the core of this conversation, there is a lack of affordable equitable housing is, probably the biggest thing, all the electrification of these buildings, is important consideration. That is a challenge. That is the nicest way to talk about pg e that ive heard. Good job. Kant how do the housing and climate goals need to align . We gave these questions to you beforehand. I know. But anyway, were a city primarily of renters. So im going to start with the biggest question. Is how do we do decarbonization without displacement. We also dont want to incentivize them to use renovation. And we also have really tough laws like the ellis act which basically discourage the control tenants to flip a building. We really oh that will make climate aparti worse. Transit has to center them. But i think that, i mean i think that we can align. There is a lot of tremendous work being done by everybody here. There is a de carbonization working group. Were having even conversations outside of San Francisco like sort on the state level coming together to talk but Environmental Justice people to figure out how we do this together. And i also think that we can actually use this instead of a vehicle for displacement, right, and all the benefits of the inflation act that can come in and benefit rental housing, we can use this as an housing acquisition. We have missed several opportunities to take units at a low cost off the Housing Market because we refuse to invest. A number of landlords are defaulting, theyre selling properties at fire sale prices. Those units that we did not buy are 200 to 300 units and we could have used as an opportunity to not only keep people in place but improve the buildings and we didnt do that. Automobile, San Francisco cannot raise the level to take levels off the market and there are definitely challenges. But i do think that the more we center the residents in the work and the fact of the majority of the housing is rent control housing, and that tends to also be not just where the most vulnerable but the housing that needs the most improvements. I do think that we can come together with a Investment Strategy where were making these peoples homes healthier and building them and revenue positive Municipal Housing stock. Thank you so much. Fernando, i know i said i would keep this question to the end. But im curious how does the midtown apartments demonstrate the challenges of presefrk or existing housing in reducing its carbon emissions. So a few years ago. Yeah, we can do the slides. Its about 130 units, almost all town homes, it was originally built at back middle class housing, relate of struggle in the community in the face of urban renewal displacement. Next slide. This helps the first question and my answer to that is the community, if you dont have community preservation, our strategies around regional Climate Response really become kind of a regional resegregation, so that plan is from 2050, whatever the latest is, and the red is where the region, the mtc and a bag which are these regional agencies are responding to Climate Change and to state law sustainable communities initiatives in directing most developing to the areas. And what you see is poverty is moving, you see greater poverty. As people are displaced from the places wherefore good climate reasons, we want to dense fie. Densefy, so this is blackout migration, the green dots are the arrows going up is where the black population in the bay area has increased and the red is the inner ring around the bay including San Francisco where folks are being displaced, exactly those areas where we are saying, we need to defencefy. So how do we naoet our climate goals as we build in the city . And one of the important things to understand is not just the amount of carbon emission thats come from building and construction. So the energy that went into building something and the stuff that were talking about right now, the operational costs, the decarbonizational responses. How you run your building, but there is the up front and as were building denser, were going from our four story to concrete and steal. The amount of increases inspaes, so our response, lets save what weve got. The next slide. So the midtown apartments about ten years ago finished off their hud home. Create new dense building, there was confusion of whether they wanted to tear down the two buildings or one of the buildings. The item is were going to move you out, or at least that is the impression that the tenants were given no opportunity to voice their wishes and their desires and their community phase. So this is a picture from the buildings were newly constructed, next slide. Buildings are the most beautiful, theyre 1960s buildings but you can look at the balconies, people have plants, people have really put their life into their community. So ive been work through lafco with the tenants there for the last year or so. We do meetings where the average number of years that residents have lived there is about 30 to 35 years, some families have been there for 50 years. There is been some turnover but people are really committed to their place and i think when we talk about climate resilience, it is not just about kind of the Technological Solutions but also the Community Solutions and the Community Resilience and commitment to place. And maybe there are a couple more slides. So now were facing, these buildings were built in 1962 so how are we going to bring the buildings to meet the needs that the residents have. Talking about preservation, mean thating we preserve something exactly the way it is but its got to evolve and meet our climate goals but in particular in the case of midtown goals around aging and folks have gotten older at the time. I think thats it. Thanks fernando and the work that youre doing with that community with the western editions and its absolutely incredible, its yeah, i can say about that. So, so shaunty, musical housing, how would that help us achieve our climate . The easiest answer is a form of, we cannot rely on market cycles for Housing Production or acquisition but definitely Housing Production, if were series about our climate goals and to ryans point, there is not enough housing. So we need, we need some sort of Counter Cyclical program for housing reduction, we just do. And again, i understand its hard for any city to do this alone. I think they recognize this, right . We have very ambitious production goals particularly for low income people in our regional needs assessment. I think its, and when we talk about also the history of San Francisco in the bay area, we talk a lot about the low income but we dont talk about that low income jobs are created in the same quantity. So yeah, i mean, were going to why we need Municipal Housing, right . I mean thats why we need it. And we also need, we need the government to get back in the business of buying housing or building housing or investing inhousing and that can look different in terms of what we want them do. Obviously, there is a fraud history of public housing. Although, i would add that there is a forgotten, much like the tenants of midtown saying that i know my housing has problem but i dont want to you tear it down, i want you to fix it. I did go to vienna and i had the honor and we went to like the big beautiful complex, and so still very well maintained. And i was with them, that said, okay this would be our housing. So its not necessarily, i think we have to, and its going to be tough because its so ingrained in peoples minds. I dont think we have any other choice because you know, we have a housing crisis, we have a climate crisis, there is simply not enough housing and this is the only way that we can build it. Santi i just want to time check, i know were at 3 30, do you want to tell me how its going . Okay, that sounds good. All right, this is for you, ryan, how are you . Im well, thank you. Okay, how could low interest loans from a green bank be combined with the current rebates from bayare not on and other financial programs. Great question, i think, as you know, a lost these rebate programs and tax credits from the ira, the reduction act, require one on the case of bayron projects incentives, those are provide once construction is complete. The tax credits are provide depending on the tax share so sometimes youre looking at, you know, a year to close to two years before you see that money. And as of building operator, just carrying that is not an option. So you know, there are commercial loans available for that but i think a lot of these operators dont have, either they dont have good credit or they dont have loans to take. I think a green bank can provide that access to capital lowering the barrier to getting that and kind of increase the through put make projects happen sooner, rather than having to bank. They can provide that kind of like a bridge loan but better terms. Thank you. I appreciate that. One more question and then we can take it to the audience. How do San Francisco house hading and climate goals need to align . And what is the best Housing Solution to housing in San Francisco . Ooh, okay, let me tackle the first one. I think that, today, between the public banking conversation Municipal Housing conversation, there is sort of, these two pieces that are integral to both our Climate Solutions and our Housing Solution. And one is, a deep Public Investment that we need. And then matched with the lending that is not the kind of thing that were dependent on the profit banking system. And, you know, for folks who have been in the climate transition, space that idea of deep Public Investment in is something that were very familiar with. In the housing world its sort of for a lot of people, still the market is going to solve this. Its kind of where, i think a lot of, early kind of climate discussion may have been in the 90s, were thinking about what is the role of a, were going to have a whole bunch of solar panels and a lot of people will make a lot of money and somehow that is going to be equitable, so i think thats where the things come together is that thinking about, the depths of the Public Investment that is needed but also the system structures that need to be created. All right, can we get a big hand for our panelist in [applause]. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the contributions. I would like to open it up for the audience for q a, ooh eager beaver, but i do have one request, my hearing is not that great, can i hand you the mic. Hi there besinger as individual native now working in tech, i do believe that the low income people do need this housing. I think the housing is when its only targeted at low housing, it does not get. What your feelings about mixed housing. . Great question. All right, okay. That is a great question, that is the Million Dollars question, or trillion dollar question in terms of, there is a lot of. I think that this is the number one thing that people are struggling with. Its not affordable. Its tricky because when we talk about mixed income t means different words to different people. And vienna, does they have this idea of cross subsidy, but they also have Public Investment, only 40 percent of the systems revenue south side coming from the cross subsidy. 60 is coming from the tax. So its an either or there, but its hard, compare, they have much less income than equities than we do. Theyre far more racially hamogenous, you know, because its all about segregation in the United States. It really is, weve come up with a fancy phrase to talk about this which is targeted universalism where you want it to be accessible to all, that is the goal. But you cant, if you start the process without thinking about how you deliver the housing to the people that you need it most, you will definitely leave those people behind. So yeah, i think there is been there is been a lot of debate that i think is fortunate about not, either youre saying that but treating Public Investment is mute cally inclusive facilities, its both, not just seenia. And also facing significant challenges, there was an article that i read a few days ago, about how a lot of the Affordable Housing subsidized housing for those middle income because they want to use that, they need that to process the rents of a lower mi Affordable Housing. And about 80 percent of that housing is vacant right now. Either some decided, the process is too hard. I think we cannot rely, too much on just across the city because like, i think that will not necessarily work and also, youll run into the same problem thats were having with the tax credit housing where you end up really leaving out the people who need it most. And thats not a small segment of the population. Its like a quarter of them are extremelynot like a neech consistency. Thank you so much, shanti. Lets take two more questions in the audience. Ooh, yeah, okay. How about you . How are you . Im well thank you. Im santiago, i work in Sustainable Design and construction. So enabling faster and better Municipal Housing, we talked about i policy and financing and there is the construction piece which is where i come in. Im curious, there is a trend a lot of, prefabricating things onsite, it allows you to design and build with higher toll anses, making High Energy Efficient buildings, reducing by 50 , reducing costs im curious if the construction has been part of the strategy on how youre all thinking about Municipal Housing. Thank you, i dont want to talk over there so youve got to use the other ones. Or not, here. Here you go. I would be interested how the department has selected that. I believe it is a trend that is really important to explore and understand in the Affordable Housing sector, we recently build three buildings with prefabricated construction. I know at least one of them went south really big and that developer will probably never try to do it again. Part of it, is that there are those, well a, there is the exactness and in, of building things off site and under a roof. So youve got, so youre able to do, a lot more precision, but the inspect or are federal inspect or who look at this, so youve got this whole process of what happens when that unit gets transferred into San Francisco and then youve got to keep it tightly sealed so what happened in this project is the units were being stacked and then it rained. And mold started growing inside, whatever. Horror story. Which is all just to say that were still in very much a learning process of how to do it right and how to avoid those things. So there is a lot of environment technologies. There is a lot of selling, this is really great. This is the technological solution thats is going to get us there. And it is that and still a cross, were still figuring it out and there is going to be Horror Stories on our way to Getting Better technologies. I dont have a lot to stay, thats a building inspection kind of question. Okay, just wanted to give you a chance. Okay, one more question in the back, here you go. Thats okay. Thanks for providing this wonderful conversation. I work for a company that offering the ownership, you mention the affordability, Housing Affordability and the housing shortage. And our model is a little bit unique approach that balance the supply just wanted to know, how you guys think about fraction ownership whether it applies to investment home, first a home and then a senior home will that, going to affect, the long term making Lasting Impact such as, if we be able to allow more senior home allocate them in more, lets say senior home, maybe we can match them up offer them fraction ownership to leave living in a very nice t a aho home, then you have more supplies that provide you the first time buyer. Just wanted to have you, get your feedback and see how you have, think about this sector and see if this Practical Organization making strategy site. Oh er company is called cohome. Yeah, im still learning a lot on cohome ownership. As somebody who does a lot of tenants rights and tenant policy work, my first concern is always, what if lets say that your landlord is a fractional loner, anowner, do you need ten people to get things fixed. Thats the question. Sxl then there is fractional ownership, im loosely defining fractionalship. But also, for example, hope would know this better than i can, there is a real estate cooperative, on the board but president of the east bay cooperative and those are models and there is people talking about what a pack would look like in San Francisco where you have people individuals being like investors that they have some kind of voting power and thats what funds acquisition funding. I dont know if that helps but thats how that is working. Fraction al ownership. I think that was a great summation, i dont think i would have said it any better. Every one take out our phone with google cooperative homes, i think its brilliant and wonderful extension on what cooperative can be. Reimagined through the voices of community, and one right now happening in oakland, east Bay Real Estate cooperative bipoc lead, fantastic, really amazing folks and the work that theyre doing there. All right, im going to rap this up, quite gracefully. It was such a pleasure having you all here today and thank you so much for your engagement, wonderful audience, really appreciate you. [applause] all right, quickly want it say thank you very much for all of you coming. It was nice to see the rsvp list. Im sorry we dont have anymore time for questions. Ill be sending out the slide deck to the list, if you feel like contacting me, my name is jeremy and i could welcome any other feedback that you have on these projects to pass on the panelist. And if youre interested, youre going to walk across for a little more discussion, ill be happy to talk to you more. Thank you for the San Francisco port for having us and our lafco chair connie chan for the opening welcome and thank you. [applause] i dont think you need to be an expert to look around and see the increasing frequency of fires throughout california. They are continuing at an everincreasing rate every summer, and as we all know, the drought continues and huge shortages of water right now. I dont think you have to be an expert to see the impact. When people create Greenhouse Gases, we are doing so by different activities like burning fossil fuels and letting off Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere and we also do this with food waste. When we waste solid food and leave it in the landfill, it puts methane gas into the atmosphere and that accelerates the rate at which we are warming our planet and makes all the effects of Climate Change worse. The good news is there are a lot of things that you can be doing, particularly composting and the added benefit is when the compost is actually applied to the soil, it has the ability to reverse Climate Change by pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and into the soil and the t radios. And there is huge amount of science that is breaking right now around that. In the early 90s, San Francisco hired some engineers to analyze the material San Francisco was sending to landfill. They did a Waste Characterization study, and that showed that most of the material San Francisco was sending to landfill could be composted. It was things like food scraps, coffee grounds and egg shells and sticks and leaves from gardening. Together reecology in San Francisco started this Curbside Composting Program and we were the first city in the country to collect food scraps separately from other trash and turn them into compost. It turns out it was one of the best things we ever did. It kept 2. 5 million tons of material out of the landfill, produced a beautiful nutrient rich compost that has gone on to hundreds of farms, orchards and vineyards. So in that way you can manage your food scraps and produce far less methane. That is part of the solution. That gives people hope that were doing something to slow down Climate Change. I have been into organic farming my whole life. When we started planting trees, it was natural to have compost from reecology. Compost is how i work and the soil biology or the microbes feed the plant and our job as regenerative farmers is to feed the microbes with compost and they will feed the plant. It is very much like in business where you say take care of your employees and your employees will take carolinas of your customers. The same thing. Take care of the soil microbes and soil life and that will feed and take care of the plants. They love compost because it is a nutrient rich soil amendment. It is food for the soil. That is photosynthesis. Pulling carbon from the atmosphere. Pushing it back into the soil where it belongs. And the roots exude carbon into the soil. You are helping turn a farm into a carbon sink. It is an international model. Delegations from 135 countries have come to study this program. And it actually helped inspire a new law in california, senate bill 1383. Which requires cities in california to reduce the amount of compostable materials they send to landfills by 75 by 2025. And San Francisco helped inspire this and this is a nationleading policy. Because we have such an immature relationship with nature and the Natural Cycles and the carbon cycles, government does have to step in and protect the commons, which is soil, ocean, foryes, sir, and so forth. Forest, and so fors. We know that our largest corporations are a significant percentage of carbon emission, and that the Corporate Community has significant role to play in reducing carbon emissions. Unfortunately, we have no idea and no requirement that they disclose anything about the carbon footprint, the core operation and sp360 stands for the basic notion that large corporations should be transparent about the carbon footprint. It makes all the sense in the world and very common sense but is controversial. Any time you are proposing a policy that is going to make real change and that will change behavior because we know that when corporations have to disclose and be transparent and have that kind of accountability, there is going to be opposition. We have to provide Technical Assistance to comply with the state legislation sb1383 which requires them to have a food donation program. We keep the edible food local. And we are not composting it because we dont want to compost edible food. We want that food to get eaten within San Francisco and feed folks in need. It is very unique in San Francisco we have such a broad and expansive Education Program for the city. But also that we have partners in government and nonprofit that are dedicated to this work. At San Francisco unified school district, we have a Sustainability Office and educators throughout the Science Department that are building it into the curriculum. Making it easy for teachers to teach about this. We Work Together to build a pipeline for students so that when they are really young in prek, they are just learning about the awe and wonder and beauty of nature and they are connecting to animals and things they would naturally find love and affinity towards. As they get older, concepts that keep them engaged like society and people and economics. California is experiencing many years of drought. Dry periods. That is really hard on farms and is really challenging. Compost helps farms get through these difficult times. How is that . Compost is a natural sponge that attracts and retains water. And so when we put compost around the roots of plants, it holds any moisture there from rainfall or irrigation. It helps farms make that corner and that helps them grow for food. You can grow 30 more food in times of drought in you farm naturally with compost. Farms and cities in california are very hip now to this fact that creating compost, providing compost to farms helps communities survive and get through those dry periods. Here is the thing. Soil health, climate health, human health, one conversation. If we grow our food differently, we can capture all that excess carbon in the atmosphere and store it in unlimited quantities in the soil, that will create Nutrient Dense Foods that will take care of most of our civilized diseases. So its one conversation. People have to understand that they are nature. They cant separate. We started prowling the high plains in the 1870s and by the 1930s, 60 year, we turned it into a dust bowl. That is what ignorance looks like when you dont Pay Attention to nature. Nature bats last. So people have to wake up. Wake up. Compost. It is really easy to get frustrated because we have this belief that you have to be completely sustainable 24 7 in all aspects of your life. It is not about being perfect. It is about making a change here, a change there in your life. Maybe saying, you know what . I dont have to drive to that particular place today. Today i am going to take the bus or im going to walk. It is about having us is stainable in mind. That is it is about having sustainability in mind. That is how we move the dial. You dont have to be perfect all the time. San francisco has been and will continue to be one of the greener cities because there are communities who care about protecting a special ecosystem and habitat. Thinking about the history of the ohlone and the native and Indigenous People who are stewards of this land from that history to now with the ambitious Climate Action plan we just passed and the goals we have, i think we have a dedicated group of people who see the importance of this place. And who put effort into building an infrastructure that actually makes it possible. We have a long history starting with the gold rush and the antiwar activism and that is also part of the Environmental Movement in the 60s and 70s. And of course, earth day in 1970 which is huge. And i feel very privileged to work for the city because we are on such a forefront of environmental issues, and we get calls from all over the world really to get information. How do cities create waste programs like they do in San Francisco. We are looking into the few which you are and we want innovation. We want solutions. Government television. My name is kevin roger tang one live owners and at a 2 owe 50 thats it avenue in the sunset so the bayview original hip hop store we have music so every purchase counts for either the charts and the tri work chart that is acquired by 3 best friends we love k pop and why not share that and would the community here in the bay. And originally supposed to open up an eco but unfortunately, the covid hit by the we got creative with the social media and engaged and bring in people within the being sure like pop and the Instagram Live or hip hope to bring that connection with the bayview k Pop Community and we grow. And hello were a collective store so the cc around us within us has the cards people like to collect and try to collect limited edition mr. Sincroy manufacturers like a State University or memorial and we have which is a venue for people to kind of make new friends and open up theyre a goods and invite people to stay and oftentimes see the context were very, very fortunate and everyone is super sweet and loveable to sum up i guess two words is a second home background noise and a lot of people visit. And connect this place even if it is really cool. San francisco is a city known for music and art and we at the pop store we to go show the k love and added to the diversity of music and the way of the community. It is safe place it is a great way to dmrofr new things and any friends and it is saying hello 2050 carville from 1 00 p. M. To 6 00 p. M. And followup on the [music] art withelders exhibiting senior art work across the bay for 30 years as part of our traveling exhibits program. For this exhibits we partnered with the San Francisco Arts Commission galleries and excited show case the array of artist in historic San Francisco city hall. [inaudible]. Call me temperature is unique when we get to do we, meaning myself and the 20 other professional instructors we are working with elders we create longterm reps i cant think of another situation academically where we learn about each other. And the art part i believe is a launching pad for the Relationship Building see myself well. And if i dont try when my mom again. She may beat the hell out of mow if i dont try seniors, the population encounters the problem of loneliness and isolation even in a Residential Community there hen a loss of a spouse. Leaving their original home. May be not driving anymore and so for us to be ail to bring the classes and art to those people where hay are and we work with people in all walks of life and circumstances but want to finds the people that are isolated and you know bring the warmth there as much as art skill its personal connection. Men their family cant be well for them. I can be their fell and feel it. I dont have nobody. People say, hi, hi. Hello but i dont know who they are. But i come here like on a wednesday, thursday and friday. And i enjoy. We do annual surveys asking students what our program does for them. 90 plus say they feel less alone, they feel more engaged. They feel more socially connected the things you hope for in general as we age. Right . And see when i do this. I am very quiet. I dont have anybody here talking to me or telling me something because im concentrating on had im doing and im not talking to them. Not just one, many students were saying the program had absolutely transformational for them. In said it had saved their lives. I think it is person to support the program. Because i think ida elder communities dont get a lot of space in disability. We want to support this program that is doing incredible work and giving disability and making this program what supports the art and health in different way bunkham art as a way of expression. A way of like socializing and giving artists the opportunity also to make art for the first time, sometimes and we are excited that we can support this stories and honor their stories through art. We hope the people will feel inspired by the variety and the quality of the creative expressions here and that viewers come, way with a greater appreciation of the richness what elders have to share with us. [music] good morning. I called the San Francisco department of disability and aging searchses Commission Meeting of wednesday april third, 2024 to order. I am the daus president jabbet spears this is conducted pursuant to provisions of brown act. Members of the public may bench via sfgov. Org or sfgovtv channel 78 and offer Public Comment calling the published phone number. I like to welcome the public and staff who are watching on sfgovtv. All