Youre watching San Francisco rising. Todays special guest is monique gray. Hi. Im chris mannis and youre watching San Francisco rising. The our guest today is marquise gray. He runs out of the office of the mayor in the city and county of San Francisco. And hes with us today to talk about the recent progress of the sunnidale hope sf housing project. Welcome to the show. Good morning. Thank you for having me today. Lets start by talking about the existing residents of sunnydale and their history. So sunnydale was built in the 1940s for a workers. Its the largest Public HousingCommunity West of the mississippi. Its about 50 acres. Pretty huge. About 760 single story units one to four bedrooms. I understand its an ambitious rethinking of the residences. Can you briefly describe the scope of the program and hope sfs involvement . Yeah. The work of hope sf is this idea of more than housing. That acknowledging that our Public Housing community, the levels of violence and poverty that are in these communities are not by accident. You know, its our opportunity to address a system issue, you know, that people need more than housing. They need health services. Resources. Economic investment opportunities, jobs and things of that nature. And so hope sf strives to work with our city systems to better serve our Public Housing communities. So recently, mayor breed and Speaker Pelosi toured the site to both put focus on a National Housing initiative and also to highlight the completion of the first new building. How many units does it contain and when will people start moving in . Yeah. It was an amazing event. Honored to have the secretary here with us as well in our community. Its 167 units. Its about 75 going back to the original families that currently live on site. So the replacement. So i did forget to mention i want to say real quick, the beauty of hope sf is housing development, new Development Without displacements or antidisplacement initiatives. So, for example, the building is 167 units. 75 of those units going to families that have lived there in the community for generationings and the other 25 are tax credit units adding to the Affordable Housing stock here in San Francisco and those units are up and running now. Theyre leasing them as we speak. People are picking their units each week until theyre filled up. So was this particular building put on a new plot of land or did people have to move out so it could be constructed . Thats a good question. Our first building was vacant which you may have saw across the street from this building and then this plot of land is the way we kind of do it, we do it in phases. Once one goes in, were able to move families into the new unit and where they previously were occupying, able to demolish Old Buildings to build the new. So this area had some older units that were demolished. Its impressive that construction has been able to continue during the covid19 pandemic. Can you talk about some of the challenges that needed to be overcome and how the community has managed during the crisis . Thats a great question. You know, in San Francisco, if i understand it correctly, i could be wrong, i believe housing was an essential service. The mayor made a strong commitment early on in the pandemic that we would continue to build housing as housing has been a critical issue in our city. So the housing part hasnt impacted us too much. 67 units have been going on its current time line. The bigger challenge for us was showing the families in our communities, low income families had the resources we need to survive the pandemic. Many of our families didnt have the luxury of working from home, working in the zone and things of that nature. Making sure they had access to covid testing and things of that nature. So i want to give a big shout out to our resident leaders, our Service Providers across all four sites. For those that dont know, hope sf is four sites. Sunnydale is one of the four sites. And so across those four sites, the most critical thing was making sure folks in these neighborhoods which have historically have been disconnected from resources have the things that they need to remain healthy, to, you know, survive the pandemic as we all had to survive the pandemic and we did pretty well. We were able to bring back scenes and covid testing on site. Food distribution was happening all throughout the week. Wellness services and things of that nature were all happening on site thanks to our resident leaders and our Service Providers across the sites. So, finally, when could we expect the next set of residents to be ready . Despite i guess we just said covid doesnt have an impact on the schedule. When will the next residences be ready . Yeah. Things are rolling. We have block a3 and block b3 to the building we were referring to earlier. And things are on pace. Things are going really well. So were looking at starting construction spring of 2022 and that will be 170 units and the goal is to have that lease up around 2024. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on the show, mr. Gray. Thank you for giving us the time today. Thank you, chris, and i really appreciate your time as well. And thats it with this episode. Youve been watching San Francisco rising for sfgov tv im chris manners. Thanks so much for watching. The tenderloin is home to families, immigrants, seniors, merchants, workers and the housed and unhoused who all deserve a thriving neighborhood to call home. The tenderloin initiative was launched to improve safety, reduce crime, connect people to services and increase investments in the neighborhood. As city and communitybased partners, we work daily to make these changes a reality. We invite you to the tenderloin history, inclusivity make this neighborhood special. Were all citizens of San Francisco and we deserve food, water, shelter, all of those things that any system would. What i find the most fulfilling about being in the tenderloin is that its really basically a big family here and i love working and living here. [speaking foreign language] my hopes and dreams for the tenderloin are what any other Community Organizer would want for their community, safe, clean streets for everyone and good operating conditions for small businesses. Everything in the tenderloin is very good. The food is very good. If you go to any restaurant in San Francisco, you will feel like oh, wow, the food is great. The people are nice. It is a place where it embraces all walks of life and different cultures. So this is the soul of the tenderloin. Its really welcoming. The. The tenderloin is so full of color and so full of people. So with all of us being together and making it feel very safe is challenging, but we are working on it and we are getting there. You are watching San Francisco rising. A special guest today. I am chris and you are watching San Francisco rising. Focused on rebuilding and reimagining our city. Our guest is the director of financial justice in the San Francisco office of treasure to talk about how the city has taken a National Lead in this effort and how the program is comlishing the goals. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you for being here. Can we start by talking about the financial Justice Project in a broad sense. When did the Initiative Start and what is the intent . Sure. It launched in 2016. Since then we take a hard look at fines, fees, tickets, financial penalties hitting people with low incomes and especially people of color really hard. It is our job to assess and reform these fines and fees. Do you have any comments for people financially stressed . Yes. The financial Justice Project was started in response Pop Community outcry about the heavy toll of fines and fees. When people struggling face an unexpected penalty beyond ability to pay they face a bigger punishment than originally intended. A spiral of consequences set in. A small problem grows bigger. For example the traffic ticket this is california are hundreds of dollars, most expensive in the nation. A few years back we heard tens of thousands in San Francisco had drivers licenses suspended not for dangerous driving but because they couldnt afford to pay traffic tickets or miss Traffic Court date. If they lose the license they have a hard time keeping their job and lose it. That is confirmed by research. We make it much harder for people to pay or meet financial obligations. It is way too extreme of penalty for the crime of not being able to pay. We were also hearing about thousands of people who were getting cars towed. They couldnt pay 500 to get them back and were losing their cars. At the time we hand people a bill when they got out of jail to pay thousands in fees we charged up to 35 per day to rent electronic ankle monitor, 1,800 upfront to pay for three years of monthly 50 probation fees. People getting out of jail cant pay these. They need to get back on their feet. We werent collecting much on them. It wasnt clear what we were accomplishing other than a world of pain on people. We were charging mothers and grandmothers hundreds of dollars in phone call fee to accept calls from the San Francisco jail. We heard from black and brown women struggling to make terrible choices do. I pay rent or accept this call from my incarcerated son. The list goes on and on. So much of this looked like loselose for government and people. These penalties were high pain, hitting people hard, low gain. Not bringing in much revenue. There had to be a better way. It is important not to punish people financially there. Are issues to address. Sure. There are three Core Principles that drive our work. First, we believe we should be able to hold people accountable without putting them in financial distress. Second you should not pay a bigger penalty because your wallet is thinner. 300 hits doctors and daycare workers differently. They can get in a tailspin, they lose the license. We dig them in a hole they cant get out of. These need to be proportioned to peoples incomes. Third. We should not balance the budget on the backs of the poorest people in the city. Financial Justice Project was launched in 2016. Can you talk about the accomplishments . Sure sometimes it is to base a fine on the ability to pay. Consequences proportional to the offense and the person. Other times if the fees job is to recoupe costs primarily on lowincome people. We recommend elimination. Other times we recommend a different accountability that does not require a money payment. Here are a few examples. We have implemented many sliding scale discounts for lowincome people who get towed or have parking tickets they cannot afford. You pay a penalty according to income. People with low incomes pay less. We also became the first city in the nation to stop suspending peoples licenses when they could not pay traffic tickets. We focused on ways to make it easier for people to pay through payment plans, sliding discounts and eliminating add on fees to jack up prices of tickets. This reform is the law of the land in california. It has spread to 23 other states. We also stopped handing people a bill when they get out of jail and eliminated fees charged to people in criminal justice system. They have been punished in a lot of ways. Gone to jail, under supervision, the collection rate on the fees was so low we werent bringing in much revenue. The probation fee collection rate was 9 . This reform has become law from california and is spreading to other states. We made all calls from jail free. The more incarcerated people are in touch with families the better they do when they get out. It was penny wise and pound foolish. Now phone calls are free. Incarcerated people spend 80 more time in touch where families. That means they will do better when they get out. We eliminated fines for Overdue Library books. Research shows were locking low income and people of color out of libraries. There are better ways to get people to return books, email reminders or automatically renew if there is no one in line for it. This has spread to other cities that eliminated Overdue Library fines. These hold people accountable but not in financial distress can work better for government. Local government can spend more to collect the fees than they bring in. When you proportion the fine with income they pay more readily. This impact can go down and revenues can go up. I know there is an initial group that joined the project. They had a boot camp to introduce the program to large audience. Is this gaining traction across the country . Yes 10 cities were selected to launch the fines for fee justice. They adopted various reforms like we did in San Francisco. As you mentioned we just hosted a boot camp in phoenix, arizona. Teams of judges and mayors came from 50 cities to learn how to implement reforms like we have in San Francisco. There is a growing realization the penalties are blunt instruments with all kinds of unintended consequences. It is the job of every Public Servant to find a better way. Governance should equalize opportunity not drive inequality. Quite right. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you for your time today. Thank you, chris. That is it for this episode. We will be back shortly. You are watching San Francisco rising. Thanks for watching. I dont want to be involved in the process after it happens. I want to be there at the front end to help people with something in my mind from a very early age. Our community is the important way to look at things, even now. George floyd was huge. It opened up wounds and a discussion on something festering for a long time. Before rodney king. You can look at all the instances where there are calls for change. I think we are involved in change right now in this moment that is going to be long lasting. It is very challenging. I was the victim of a crime when i was in middle school. Some kids at recess came around at pe class and came to the locker room and tried to steal my watch and physically assaulted me. The officer that helped afterwards went out of his way to check the time to see how i was. That is the kind of work, the kind of perspective i like to have in our Sheriffs Office regardless of circumstance. That influenced me a lot. Some of the storefronts have changed. What is mys is that i still see some things that trigger memories. The barbershop and the shoe store is another one that i remember buying shoestrings and getting my dads old army boots fixed. We would see movies after the first run. My brother and i would go there. It is nice. If you keep walking down sacramento. The nice think about the city it takes you to japan town. That is where my grandparents were brought up. That is the traditional foods or movies. They were able to celebrate the culture in that community. My family also had a drycleaning business. Very hard work. The family grew up with apartments above the business. We have a builtin work force. 19 had 1 as 1941 as soon as that happened the entire community was fixed. Determined to do the job as democracy should with real consideration for the people involved. The decision to take every one of japan niece american o japanese from their homes. My family went to the mountains and experienced winter and summer and springs. They tried to make their home a home. The Community Came together to share. They tried to infuse each home are little things. They created things. I remember my grand mother saying they were very scared. They were worried. They also felt the great sense of pride. Japanese americans. My granduncle joined the 442nd. When the opportunity came when the time that was not right. They were in the campaign in italy. They were there every step of the way. President truman pays tribute. That was the most decorated unit in the history of the United States army. Commitment and loyal to to the country despite that their families were in the camp at that time. They chose to come back to San Francisco even after all of that. My father was a Civil Servant as well and served the state of California Workers compensation attorney and judge and appellate board. My parents influenced me to look at Civil Service s. I applied to police, and Sheriffs Department at the same time. The Sheriffs Department grabbed me first. It was unique. It was not just me in that moment it was everyone. It wasnt me looking at the crowd. It was all of us being together. I was standing there alone. I felt everyone standing next to me. The only way to describe it. It is not about me. It is from my father. My father couldnt be there. He was sick. The first person i saw was him. I still sometimes am surprised by the fact i see my name as the sheriff. I am happy to be in the position i am in to honor their memory doing what i am doing now to help the larger comment. When i say that we want to be especially focused on marginalized communities that have been wronged. Coming from my background and my family experienced what they did. That didnt happen in a vacuum. It was a decision made by the government. Nobody raised their voice. Now, i think we are in a better place as country and community. When we see something wrong we have change agents step up to help the community affected. That is a important thing to continue to do. You talk about change and being a leader in change and not knowing whether you have successes or results. The fact of the matter is by choosing to push for change you have already changed things. Through inspiration for others, take up the matter or whether it is through actual functional change as a result of your voice being heard. I think you have already started on a path to change by choosing that path. In doing that in april of itself creates change. I continue in that type of service for my family. Something i hope to see in my children. I have a pretty good chance with five children one will go into some sort of Civil Service. I hope that happens to continue that legacy. I am paul, sheriff of San Francisco. [ music ] welcome. Im cheryl davis the director of the San FranciscoHuman Rights Commission and i like to welcome you all to city hall, and i want to give a shout out because i will never remember at the end probably. If i can ask Sarah Williams and Danielle Glover and all the other folks who have helped opportunities for all to come up so we can give them a round of applause for their work and support. [applause] who else am i forgetting . Terry. inaudible where are your terry jones