grand reopening and rededication ceremony for 1750 mcallister. i want to kick things off by introducing our chief executive officer, gail gilman. [applause] >> thank you. i want to thank all of you for being with us here today. today is a historic moment for community housing partnerships, as we have completed rehabilitation of the units here , and seventh -- at 1750 mcallister. so many people helped bring this project together. by the people i want to thank first and foremost are the residents of 1750 mcallister. [cheers and applause] >> for your patience, for your diligence for keeping us on our toes to make sure that we provided you a home that had your thoughts, your amenities, and what you thought would make a great home for you. i also want to thank the western edition community that welcomed community housing partnership into its arms. we have a property at frederick were -- roderick and scott that we have been operating for over nine minutes -- nine years. we are so happy to add this to our portfolio. want to thank a couple of other people before we get the program started. i want to thank all the staff at community housing partnership who worked on this, the mayor's housing of community development , the housing authority, bank of america who underwrote this poke -- program, the design partners, fine line construction, who worked very hard to mitigate construction, armando, i also want to thank david and amy, former staff of community housing partnership for all of their work. [applause] >> i will be speaking a little later about why today is also important for other reasons, but it is my great privilege and honor to introduce someone who everyone in this room knows, and i believe loves and two understands what the value of a safe and stable home can do for your life. it is my honor to introduce the honorable mayor london breed. [cheers and applause] >> thank you. i'm so excited to be here today and i'm excited because we are doing exactly what our late mayor talked about, fulfilling all promises made to members of our community for so many years. i grew up just down the street in plaza east. many of you knew i grew up in public housing under some of the most challenging of circumstances, but also some of the most terrible conditions. reverend brown, you remember, plaza east, reverend davis who baptized me, and reverend townsend from when you both were at first union baptist church. many of the people that i grew up with went to your churches in the community, where we were dealing with not just just worship services, boulevard too many funerals. from lives lost, from hopelessness, from frustration, from despair, so my life's work of working with the community for so many years had everything to do with changing what was normal for us, and opening the doors to opportunity. so when i had an opportunity to serve on the board of supervisors, and i met with mayor ed lee, and we talked about what my priorities would be as a supervisor, i said to him, he said what is your top three? and i said public housing, public housing, public housing. as we move the city forward in so many people enjoy the prosperity of what has developed over the years with the tech industry and all of these great things that san francisco has to offer, we can't continue to leave our residence behind. the conditions that have existed since i lived there, the mould, the busted pipes, the messed up bathroom, the roaches, when you have had to live like that for over 20 years of your life, there is nothing that will be more important to you then changing the conditions of people who still, unfortunately, have to live like that. i want to thank the mayor ed lee for supporting what i cared about, for helping to work with the mayor's office of housing housing at the time, under his direction and now under the direction of of kate harley to bring r.a.d. to the community. we all know it was not easy. we had many meetings in this exact room where people were not necessarily comfortable, and that is why i and supervisor vallie brown showed up to those meetings to talk to the community and to hear the concerns, and to make sure that you knew your rent would not be impacted. we temporarily had to do rehabilitation and you may be moved here or there, but ultimately, what happened to us in plaza east where they tore down 300 units and only built 200, there was no way we were going to let that happen to any other resident in san francisco, not as long as i had the ability to work in a leadership role, and to make that a reality. so i am so happy to be here today. ninety-seven units completely rehabilitated. [applause] >> thanks do not just working with the residence and working with community housing partnership in working with the san francisco housing authority and working with the mayor's office of housing, it was working with the entire western edition community because i wanted to make sure that they were actively engaged, whether they lived in public housing or not to, and people were actively engaged in this process. so we could protect one another, and we did just that. i can't even believe how great this room looks right now compared to what it looks like before. and i'm so happy about the courtyard and the chairs and the paint on the walls and this bookshelf thing over here. it is absolutely amazing. part of what we also have to do is support our community, especially our senior community. we have to make sure they have what they need in terms of services and support, so this partnership with r.a.d. is just amazing, and i'm so grateful for all of those involved, including bank of america for underwriting the expenses associated with this major undertaking. but also this was community, and it involved someone from the community who was just a blessing to our community. this building is dedicated in honor of the late rachel townsend, a community advocate, the daughter of reverend arnold townsend who is also an amazing community advocate, someone who worked her butt off for this community. i mean the june festival would not have even happens happened all of those years ago. [applause] >> all of those years, had it not been for rachel townsend. the work that she did to not only support the community, but when her father was sick, she was right there helping to care for him, and looking out for him and others in the community. she was one of the sweetest people you would ever want to meet, and the only problem was, she never said no to anybody. she never said no. can you do this, rachel? yes. >> can you do this, rachel? what time is it? she was there for so many of us in this community and it is such an honor to choose to name such an amazing place that represents fulfilling a promise to this community. it really means a lot to reverend townsend back to all of us here in the western edition community. especially many of us who have grown up here and worked here, to dedicate this building in her honor. so with that, i would like to say thank you to everyone involved. thank you to so many amazing people. thank you to the residents for your patience through this process, and for trusting us to do what we needed to do to make sure that your lives are better for it. this is an amazing community, and i'm honored that i had an opportunity to participate in a small part of making this possible. thank you everyone for being here. [applause] >> another speaker i would like to welcome is a district five supervisor, vallie brown. supervisor brown has a long history advocating for residents in affordable housing in san francisco. we are thrilled she could join us today and celebrate the rehabilitation in a building in her backyard. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, and thank you mayor breed. it reminds me when we met over 15 years ago what really made us bond was housing security, with how she groped us grew up and what happened to her family when they rebuilt plaza east, and people didn't have a place to come back to. and my experience of never really having a stable home growing up and being evicted and living in all kinds of alternatives, that you really think about stable housing, and stable housing for your loved ones, and your community, and i was here 11 years ago in a neighborhood and a resident meeting. people were talking about the things that they would like to see and their issues. i remember going into one of the units and there was some issues, but then i also -- when we came back with mayor breed, supervisor breed at the time, and talking to residents about what they would like to see, and they were very honest with us and sometimes brutally honest with us. which i personally love. and now to come back and see it like this back and talk to people like robert who had, if you don't mind, he was homeless for 25 years before you came in here. i mean, this is why we do this work. this is why we get up in the morning. we get beat up all the time for the things that we do. but we want to make sure that we have places for people like robert and others to come to and to live and to be stable. when you are a senior, you are disabled to, this city is cruel, and it is hard. and so we need places like this and other affordable housing, and i am dedicated to make sure that we have affordable housing, and preserve affordable housing so people can stay in place, and people like robert have a place. it is so important. i definitely want to talk about rachel townsend. 1212 words to describe rachel. both of them start with a.c. cowgirl, and community. those two words. if anyone knew rachel, she loved horses. she loved the community, and sometimes she was able to put those together. like when we had the black cowboys. it was amazing. and she would teach kids how to ride to. she would teach kids, city kids that had never been around a horse their whole life that they didn't have to be afraid. that these magnificent beasts could actually be their friend, and she was pretty amazing. i had worked with her for years, and believe me, ripped -- rachel and i would sometimes go out. yes, she always said yes, but she always stood her ground. because that's who she was. she knew herself. she knew her community, and i always respected her for that. the last conversation i had with rachel we were talking about housing. rachel -- this was her community but guess what? she didn't live here. she was pushed out of san francisco because she couldn't afford it. we talked about her getting into the affordable housing pipeline and how to do that. she did not make -- it cost -- you have to make, as a single person, $47,600 a year to qualify for our affordable housing. she worried about that because she worked all kinds of jobs to support herself. i remember having the biggest fight with her and saying, you need to apply, just applied. we will figure it out. and now that there is actually a place, a home named after her, it is kind of ironic that she didn't have a home here. yes. so today, in memory of rachel townsend his, i'm happy that we are dedicating this beautiful building for everybody else who is vulnerable just like rachel, and i want to thank dale gilman who came up and really said, hey , we have an idea. reverend townsend saying yes, i love your idea, and rachel's mother and her newfound sister that she never knew. thank you, everyone, for making this happen, and thank you for the community that would come here and take time out of your day. rachel would be so happy to look around and see all of you and that you came here. i know a lot of you came here today for what she stood for. she stood for community, and that was her number 1 thing. so thank you everyone. i will give it back to gail. [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone and thank you for being here today. my name is daniel potter and i'm the project manager and i have been working on this building for the last year and a half. one of my favorite parts of my job is working with incredible funders who came together to make this project possible. and now i have the great pleasure of introducing heidi with bank of america kirk bank of america has been an incredible funding partner and we could not have done it without them. please welcome heidi. [applause] >> hello. good afternoon everyone. a tremendous thank you to all of our distinguished guests. mayor breed, supervisor brown, and the four most all of the residents of 1750 mcallister. i am honored to be here representing over 4,000 teammates in san francisco and the east bay and it means so much to us because this is where we started as a little pipsqueak bank, called bank of italy and founded by italian immigrants, and it really was about making sure we helped banks -- help bank the underserved. the minorities, the women, those who were not part of the mainstream. over 100 years, we have been with the city through good and bad. when we had a mayor and a supervisor who were this passionate about public housing, and came to us with this radical idea, and the bank stepped up big time because it was a passion project. it wasn't just about making the numbers work. it was about truly investing in the community. what i'm so proud to share with all of you is everybody here knows that west coast is the best coast and san francisco is its crown jewel. but for us a bank of america, investing in our community development banking. 4.5 billion across the country. but wait, 2.2 billion here in san francisco. so i am proud to share that. with all of you. but those are ultimately just numbers and it is really about the people here at 1750 mcallister, at over 29 properties across the state -- across the city through s.f. r.a.d. and what it means to us to be part of the community in partnership with the mayor touch office of housing and community development, all of our partners , but ultimately we are proud of who we are and who we had the opportunity to be in partnership with the city and the county of san francisco. thank you and congratulations. i got to hear from several of the residence. one complaint about noise, too many dogs, too many music that i said you know what? that is a great problem to have when it is in urine new community. congratulations to everybody and thank you for being -- allowing us to be part of it today. [applause] >> okay. one of my other favorite parts of working on this project has been building relationships with the amazing residents in this building, and today we are lucky -- lucky enough to have one of those residents with us. robert matheson has been in the building for the last 11 years, and i have really enjoyed getting to work with him and the other residents. they have really taught me so much. i would like to welcome up robert to say a few words about the transformation the building has undergone. [applause] >> mayor breed, and other honored guests, welcome to our newly renovated home. i can't speak for other residents of 1750 mcallister, however, i can articulate the importance of a clean, safe living environment. as a disabled man who pulled himself out of the gutter of over 25 years of chronic homelessness, i can say that community housing partnership proved to me that if you have hope, you are never a lost cause community housing partnership, and in particular, the staff of 1750 mcallister, replaced fear of the san francisco housing authority with respecting -- respect and kindness that everyone deserves no matter how low our society -- on society's totem pole you are. i have come from the dangerous halls of new york city's seltzer -- shelter system where predators roam, to a home that uplifted my formerly low self self-esteem to a new beginning where i can strive to achieve a high school diploma as a student at the adult wording editorial centre on community college of cisco. [cheers and applause] >> thank you community housing partnership for letting me know i was never a lost cause because you gave me hope for a brighter future in my wonderfully renovated home on the tenth floor of 1750 mcallister. [applause] thank you. [applause] [cheers and applause] >> so we have one speaker left who i have the honor to introduce. before i do that, i want to actually, the community has been spoken about a lot today. we are all interconnected. where i was born and lived the first ten years of my life, in the bronx, i played at the same part that robert walked his dog. that to me is interconnectedness. as most of you know, i grew up in affordable housing in new york city and finding stable places to live, and even when i moved here in 1994 give me the opportunity to go to college and go to school and have this incredible honor to lead this organization that is changing the lives of so many people. one person to change my life when i first got here, and who i've known over a decade was reverend arnold townsend. i am -- yes. [applause] i am actually deeply embarrassed to say that i actually never met rachel. my own interaction was through facebook posts from reverend townsend to, our lunches spoke of her, so i never had the honor by reverend townsend helps community housing partnership gain community acceptance for the first 100% supportive housing ever to be cited. we now call hayes vallie. dr raine and julian richardson of apartments which opened in 2011. he helped us with rents when we decided to bid on that project and he rallied the western addition community around this little nonprofit that was known to only mostly working in the tenderloin and building housing for formerly homeless individuals and families. he made me always come out to the fillmore street to see him and we would have lunch. i'm so deeply honored that i have the ability, the foresight, and have this opportunity to dedicate this building after reverend arnold townsend's daughter, rachel townsend. i am so honored that this man is in my life. let's welcome reverend townsend. [cheers and applause] >> thank you first of all, let me apologize. i thought i would be better and look tougher today, and would not be shutting so many tears. don't misunderstand, i'm still tough. [laughter] don't be trying to take liberties when we get out of here. but this is just overwhelming. it is amazing to me. let me do this right first of all. to our honorable and esteemed manner, i don't think i need to do for her going into what i feel about her, number 1 is a person, and as my friend. let me tell you, if you don't know, everything she says about caring for people, she absolutely means. i'm sorry. let me put it this way. when our former mayor, willie brown received a metal, i was in san antonio. one of the high points of my year every year is i go to the naacp convention, and i would recommend everyone in this room, no matter what color you are a, religion or anything else, you ought to see one of those conventions before you die. if you do if you haven't seen much like it here thousands of african-american folk are there and it is a working convention. they get things done. and prepare for the work in the coming years. please think about that. but i was there in san antonio when he got the award. former president clinton introduced him, and then the mayor spoke as he does. after he got through, and he delivered was the entertainment, and in his performance, he said i know it is hard for me, i will try to make it quick as possible , because you are last on the program, i know that all of you really want me to do is hurry up. so i will try my best to hurry up. so eddie does his set of his music, and as he was getting ready to go into that, he explained how both of his sons passed within 18 months of each other, and he said something that helped me process of verbally what you are feeling in a situation with the loss of a child. he said, every time it comes up, whether it just comes in your mind, or people bring it up, and people can bring it up -- you can bring her up to me anytime you want to, i understand, we are all processing. but he said, every time it comes up, the wound reopens, and every time the wound opens, it bleeds. and that is the perfect description of what so many of us in this room are feeling. let me just make some real quick introductions. if i don't get to everybody, i know you were important to rachel, and you know you were. like i said, they want me to hurry up. the first of all, let me introduce rachel's mom. she is here. susan hayes smith. [applause] >> whatever i did to help make rachel who she was, she did more , because she put up with her every day, and when she wasn't with me. and mark, her oldest brother, mark hayes sitting next to his mom. [applause] >> he laughed because he knows what rachel was like. she wouldn't ask all of you all. [laughter] >> the rest of us in the family, i told a young man once he said he was interested in my daughter , i said well that's all i will tell you. if you are going to holler at rachel, i can tell you what they tell the boxers when the fight starts. protect yourself at all times. i love her, but i wouldn't date her. [laughter] >> that's just who she was. and then let me say, dell was here somewhere. another brother and there are others that couldn't make it today. some of rachel's dear friends, her pastor, reverend davis is here. our pastor is here. also, vallie brown already started it, let me introduce again rachel's sister that she never met, natalie douglas. [applause] >> whenever you are in new york or anywhere, checked the entertainment book or go on her page. she is quite a singer. she is professionally a jazz singer, but we found out on sunday she don't do bad with gospel either. [laughter] >> she sang at our church on sunday before our priest. my dear friend, in one of my best friends in the world, brenda jackson is here. [applause] >> billy joel, natalie's husband , wave your hand. i have a new son out of the process as well as a doctor. one of rachel's other brothers, corey jackson is also here. he has got my new grandbaby, emma rose in his hands. and nadia is down there on the floor. she is the big girl. and so many of you others who are here. i see friends go back. i saw tim and bill, thurman white, our friend thurman had to watch what boys. rachel was in between them age wise. they used to play together when they were little. there's just some wonderful associations here. i wish i had time to -- oh, i have to introduce a k. raise your hands. there used to be three girls -- when they were in oakland, they handled it. and it was rachel, a.k.a., and masako. she could not make it today because she could not get off work. those three have been together since the second grade, and they all calmly pops. they have all left me in taking care of me right after rachel passed. they picked me up and took me to dinner and just loved on me for a while. and the really exciting thing is when they were starting in second grade until the fifth, i was a designated field trip parent, if you can imagine that. everyone entrusted their kids with me, and i did grab a little boy by the neck one day and thought i was ready to get prosecuted but i'm old school. anyway, let me just do this real quick. when we did a summer program for london, we were supposed to have 35 children and we ended up with 150. that meant me and reverend davis had to be there every day. that was not how he planned to spend our summer. when they would asked me what i was teaching in the program, i would say, i teach boy, girl, sit down and hash 101. [laughter] >> let me say this. if you can't do it, find somebody who can, because children are children and they still need to be taught that. there is a time for them to sit down and hush, and learn something. you are not being mean, you are loving them. you love them enough to care, whether they don't like you are not for the moment. anyway, i am at the chinatown dinner with my good friend, it is a dinner with my good friend norman fong and his boys, and i'm at the dinner and i walking across the floor and going to the washroom, because when you are my age you go a lot, and gail gilman, who i enjoy as a human being, they are just amazing. i called them to see if somebody could give a tour. they did not build it like they were building housing for the chronically homeless, they built it like they were building for human beings to live in, thrive, prosper and grow. [cheers and applause] >> just because people are poor when you do something for them, you don't have to make them feel like it. just do it. and so i'm walking across the floor and dale grabs my hand. she says, reverent, can we talk for a minute? i want to ask you something. we just fifth -- finished 1750, and we want to name it for somebody in the community in the fillmore, not thinking about what gentrification means, it is still the fillmore. and she said, we want to name it after and we thought you could help us figure it out. i said sure. let's get together and next week and i will talk to a few other folks and we will come up with something no problem. >> she said really, we would like to know, if we can name it after your daughter. and i did then what i'm doing now. i was so honored, and so touched that it was hard for me to respond. i said that is wonderful, but i do, i will make the call. i said i have to talk to her mom and the rest of the folks. i called mark and james. one of her nephews, another grandson, if you are ever in fresno, eat lunch or dinner at khakis, is a wonderful place. i have to put the plug-in or else he might have to borrow some money from me to help them out. help all of them out. help all of them out. and so everybody thought it was a great idea and we did it. and that someone would be so carrying and so concerned, and believe so much in understanding the community they are working in, they don't just come plan a building and now they're gone and they get the rents off of it and build their company, but they stay with you once the construction is over. they are as involved, if not more involved day today as they were when they were building it. and those are the kinds of people that we need, and i will just tell this real quick, when they came to us, i was the president of this c.a.c. during the redevelopment process at that time. when they were going to build that, we kind of went back and forth a little bit. we said no because we didn't -- the director of the time brought it to us and we liked it, but they didn't bring it back to us for final approval before she put it on the agenda. the names will go unmentioned, but if you count back, those of you in the city can figure out who it was. so we went off and mare breed was on the commission at the time. we went off, and you can see that the commission was already leaning in our direction, but the director kept fighting to try and get it through. and jeff who was there at the time said, mr rosen, thank you for supporting us, but we are not that kind of organization. we don't impose ourselves and people's communities. if the community doesn't want us and they aren't ready for us, we don't want to go forward until they're comfortable. people don't do that when they are looking at multimillion dollar opportunity. but they said no, we will wait. put it back out to bid. and then he turned around and said, reverend, we will be added again. i just want you to know that. he and i went to lunch and we talked, and then when they got ready to go again, they brought in their staff, much of their staff, and their staff had to be seven or 70 or 80% black folk -- folk. there son worked on the project. and a couple of other people that we knew from the neighborhoods. i told jeff or you, i don't know who, why are you doing this -- why didn't you do this in the first place and we didn't have to go through all of this? we didn't know. we knew exactly what kind of organization they were. we built it. they did a magnificent job. c.h.p., community housing partnership, not the highway patrol. [laughter] >> remember them. get a load of jeff buckley. one of the mirror's persons who does housing. doctor brown who has already been mentioned, who is a friend, a brother, and mentor, my president. he is president of the naacp. i have a privilege of serving as his vice president. which was probably not the smartest decision i ever made. [laughter] >> if you work with amos, the operative -- uppity word is work amen. and one of the most insightful human beings i have ever known in my life. we will be in a meeting, you know i'm telling the truth, the meeting is going well, we finish the meeting, everybody is in agreement, we are ready to go, and dr brown says, weighed a minute. everyone says oh, no,. and amos says very simply, and this is mississippi stuff, reverent davis, you might know about this, if everybody in the room agrees, somebody ain't thinking. we have to sit down and go over it again, and by the time to get through it, he was right. there was some things left undone. so it has been a privilege and the fact that he is here shows the kind of support that he gives. the greens who run the african-american art and culture complex do such a wonderful job. i see you all. you all do such a good job. i was always amazed at how many of my friends that rachel was friends with that i didn't know. they did not meet through me but they became friends on their own so we are grateful. our family thanks you so much and c.h.p., since you are in this for the duration, i just want you to know that this family is in this thing for the duration. our human rights head, cheryl davis, i just saw her, she is here somewhere. so many of you that i know and love so dearly, you are once again expressing your love for me and my family, and i cannot thank you enough for the kindness that has been shown to us through this process. i love you all so much. thank you. danielle, thank you so much. they worked together, ran together, and did all kinds of stuff together. i thank you all so much. god bless you. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> community housing partnership wants to present this. this is what we will be hanging here at the property. this is for you reverend townsend. i don't know anything, my staff knows absolutely everything. >> how wonderful. thank you so much. [applause] >> do you want to come up while okay. in memory of rachel townsend to herb -- for devotion and to provide a voice to the voiceless , we dedicate the rachel townsend apartments in her honor on december 19th, 2018. [cheers and applause] >> let me say one other thing. i did not quite say enough, and somebody just said really? [laughter] >> i want to do another real quick thank you to susan, rachel 's mother. not only did we share in this wonderful and amazing daughter, i was always amazed at the kind of stuff that she could do, and a lot of it was absolutely must be from her mother's side or my parents because it skipped me. one of the most organized individuals i've ever known. rachel used to work with us in the naacp gala every year, and we had 600 people there, and somebody could walk up, if it is somebody you know and that she knew, that was different. but somebody she didn't know walked up and gave them her name they wanted to know where they were sitting in the other people would look on the thing. and they would walk up and look at their name and they was a kate hartley, at your table 26. somebody said, how did she do that? >> how the hell am i supposed to know, i can't do it. she could do it. not only did she help put a major part in raising a wonderful daughter, but she also shared her entire large family with me. to all of her kids, i am pops back to all of the grandkids, i am pops or grandpa, and it has been absolutely fulfilling, and has helped create so much purpose in our lives, and i just want to thank you again, and make sure that it is said publicly again, thank you so much, susan, i love you. [cheers and applause] >> i came to san francisco in 1969. i fell in love with this city and and this is where i raised my family at. my name is bobbie cochran. i've been a holly court resident for 32 years. i wouldn't give up this neighborhood for nothing. i moved into this apartment one year ago. my favorite thing is my kitchen. i love these clean walls. before the remodeling came along, the condition of these apartments had gotten pretty bad, you know, with all the mildew, the repairs. i mean you haven't seen the apartment for the program come along. you wouldn't have believed it. so i appreciate everything they did. i was here at one point. i was. because i didn't know what the outcome of holly court was going to be. you know, it really got -- was it going to get to the point where we have to be displaced because they would have to demolish this place? if they had, we wouldn't have been brought back. we wouldn't have been able to live in burn. by the program coming along, i welcome it. they had to hire a company and they came in and cleaned up all the walls. they didn't paint the whole apartment, they just cleaned up the mildew part, cleaned up and straighted it and primed it. that is impressive. i was a house painter. i used to go and paint other people's apartments and then come back home to mine and i would say why couldn't i live in a place like that. and now i do.. >> my name is angela wilson and i'm an owner of the market i worked at a butcher for about 10 years and became a butcher you i was a restaurant cook started in sxos and went to uc; isn't that so and opened a cafe we have produce from small farms without small butcher shops hard for small farms to survive we have a been a butcher shop since 1901 in the heights floor and the case are about from 1955 and it is only been a butcher shot not a lot of businesses if san francisco that have only been one thing. >> i'm all for vegetarians if you eat meat eat meat for quality and if we care of we're in a losing battle we need to support butcher shops eat less we sell the chickens with the head and feet open somebody has to make money when you pay $25 for a chicken i guarantee if you go to save way half of the chicken goes in the enlarge but we started affordable housing depends on it occurred to us this is a male field people said good job even for a girl the interesting thing it is a women's field in most of world just here in united states it is that pay a man's job i'm an encountered woman and raise a son and teach i am who respect woman i consider all women's who work here to be impoverished and strong in san francisco labor is high our cost of good ideas we seal the best good ideas the profit margin that low but everything that is a laboring and that's a challenge in the town so many people chasing money and not i can guarantee everybody this is their passion. >> i'm the - i've been cooking mile whole life this is a really, really strong presence of women heading up kitchens in the bay area it is really why i moved out here i think that we are really strong in the destroy and really off the pages kind of thing i feel like women befrp helps us to get back up i'm definitely the only female here i fell in love i love setting up and love knowing were any food comes from i do the lamb and that's how i got here today something special to have a female here a male dominated field so i think that it is very special to have women and especially like it is going at it you know i'm a tiny girl but makes me feel good for sure. >> the sad thing the building is sold i'm renegotiating my lease the neighborhood wants us to be here with that said, this is a very difficult business it is a constant struggle to maintain freshness and deal with what we have to everyday it is a very high labor of business but something i'm proud of if you want to get a job at affordable housing done nasal you need a good attitude and the jobs on the bottom you take care of all the produce and the fish and computer ferry terminal and work your way up employing people with a passion for this and empowering them to learn >> when i look at an old neon sign that's working or not working, i feel the family business that was in there. >> since 2009, citywide, sf shines, has supported businesses and sites like the ones that receive new neon signs. >> you know, sf shines is doing an amazing job to bring back the lighting and the neon glow of san francisco. >> sf shines is such an amazing program, and i can't think of another program in another city that gives matching gunned funds to store owners, mom and pop owners, and if they've got a neon sign, they've really got a great way to advertise their business. >> this is a continuation of the sf shines program. >> focusing other neon signs is relatively new to us. of the seven neon signs, we've invested about $145,000. >> a good quality sign costs more, but it lasts infinitily longer. as opposed to lasting five years, a good neon sign will last 15 to 20 years. >> in san francisco, the majority of neon signs are for mom-and-pop businesses. in order to be able to restore these signs, i think it gives back to your community. >> part of the project has to do with prioritizing certain signs in the neighborhood based on their aesthetics, based on their current signs, and base on the history. in the time that we've been here, we've seen a number of signs restored just on eddy street. >> there are a number of signs in the tenderloin and many more that are waiting or wanting to be restored. i have worked with randall and al, and we've mapped out every single one of them and rated them as to how much work they would need to get restored. that information is passed onto sf shines, and they are going to rank it. so if they have x budget for a year, they can say all right, we're going to pick these five, and they're putting together clusters, so they build on top of what's already there. >> a cluster of neon signs is sort of, i guess, like a cluster of grapes. when you see them on a corner or on a block, it lights up the neighborhood and creates an ambient glow. if you havy got two of three of them, you've created an atmosphere that's almost like a movie set. >> some of the hotel, we've already invested in to get those neon signs for people to enjoy at night include the elk hotel, jefferson hotel, the verona, not to mention some we've done in chinatown, as well as the city's portal neighborhood. >> we got the fund to restore it. it took five months, and the biggest challenge was it was completely infested with pigeons. once we got it clean, it came out beautiful. >> neon signs are often equated with film noir, and the noir genre as seen through the hollywood lens basically depicted despair and concentration. >> you would go downtown and see the most recent humphrey bogart film filled with neon in the background. and you'd see that on market street, and as market street got seedier and seedier and fewer people continued to go down, that was what happened to all the neon strips of light. >> the film nori might start with the light filled with neon signs, and end with a scene with a single neon sign blinking and missing a few letters. >> one of my favorite scenes, orson welles is chasing ririt rita hayworth with neon signs in the background. >> i think what the office of economic and workforce development is very excited with is that we'll be able to see more neon signs in a concentrated way lit up at night for visitors and most especially residents. the first coin laundry, the elm hotel, the western hotel are ones that we want to focus on in the year ahead. >> neon signs are so iconic to certain neighborhoods like the hara, like the nightcap. we want to save as many historic and legacy neon signs in san francisco, and so do they. we bring the expertise, and they bring the means to actually get the job done. >> people in tenderloin get really excited as they see the signs relit. as you're driving through the tenderloin or the city, it pretty much tells you something exciting is happening here. >> knee an was created to make the night more friendly and advertise businesses. it's a great way of supporting and helping local businesses. >> there's so many ways to improve public safety. the standard way is having more eyes on the street, but there's other culturally significant ways to do that, and one those ways is lighting up the streets. but what better way and special way to do that is by having old, historic neon signs lighting up our streets at night and casting away our shadows. >> when i see things coming back to life, it's like remembering how things were. it's remembering the hotel or the market that went to work seven days a week to raise their money or to provide a service, and it just -- it just -- it just . >> happy holidays, san francisco. hundreds of festive lights are illuminating san francisco streets using 100% greenhouse gas free hydroelectric power. this year, the city is celebrating 100 years of providing this power from hetch hetchy system which powers muni, our schools and libraries, street lights, san francisco international airport, city government buildings, private developments, and more. look for holiday bell lights along third street, and illuminated snowflakes on market street. the san francisco public utilities commission and the san francisco public works welcome all to enjoy the magic of the education. [inaudible] >>. >> commissioner walton: glad you're here. this is the regular meeting of the board of education for the san francisco unified school district. it is december 11, 2018. miss casco, roll call, please. >> clerk: thank you. [roll

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