Pelosi Remarks on Affordable Housing at St. Peter’s Place in San Francisco

Contact: Nadeam Elshami/Drew Hammill, 202-226-7616

San Francisco -- Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks the grand opening and ribbon cutting celebration of St. Peter’s Place, a complex of 19 affordable apartments for adults with developmental disabilities that was built to LEED and GreenPoint rated green standards. This development is the third project of its kind in the city and is a partnership with St. Peter’s Episcopal Church and Bernal Heights Housing Corporation.

“Thank you very much Rachel. What an honor it is to be here with members with the official family of San Francisco. Our great Mayor, Mayor Lee and Eric Mar, to be in your district and see you give official tribute to some of those who made this wonderful day possible. I am going to not thank everyone again. I am going to use the Congressional method which says I want to associate myself with the remarks of all of those who made today possible. But in doing that, I want to acknowledge of course, Mayor Lee, Eric Mar, Father Rickey, Rachel Ebora, William Ho, Jim Shorter, Laurence Fergison, and our very special guest of the day Serafina, who is here with her mother today, who is very proud and is recording all of this.

“It is appropriate that we are here at St. Peter’s Place. Here we are at the day after Easter. At the end of Christ’s life he said to St. Peter, ‘Do you love me?’ And he asked him three times. And every time St. Peter said yes, and every time Christ said ‘feed my lambs.’ Well, that is exactly what we are doing here today, implementing the Gospels to administer the needs of God’s flock of his creation. We believe in the many principles of work here. One is that we have a responsibility and a sense of community—and that wide range of names that the Mayor, Eric and others have acknowledged show a sense of community. And the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, building a just and equitable community for all, for all. How wonderful again, with the public, private, non-profit, some professional, so many people making this dream come true. And so a sense of community which we value in San Francisco, a sense of responsibility that we observe in this Easter holiday, whatever our faith. Also, the principle we always respect people for what they can do in the disabled community. Not judge them for what they cannot. We heard from Serafina the important respect that she deserves and I saw when we took the tour, the respect that St. Peters Place gives to people. Giving them the respect of a very lovely and dignified place to live. The Gospel of Matthew, the place that the Mayor has talked about and Mr. Fergison as well, a place where we meet the needs of God’s creation by protecting his environment and having a healthy place, in addition to a dignified place for people to live.

“That has all been mentioned. I won’t go into it. I want to take it to a little different place and that is— Mr. Fergison talked about section 811. He talked about 202/811. San Francisco is an example, is a model for the country. St. Peter’s Place is of national significance because it demonstrates when the community works together, we can produce a result that meets the needs of people. Our great president, President Obama said ‘we will judge our success by the progress being made by people’ and progress is being made here today. The fact that we have those laws and the HUD law really resulted from inspiration from San Francisco to begin with. This is a place where housing is expensive, right, Mr. Mayor?

And so, from the start—and Barney Frank representing Massachusetts, where housing is expensive—from the start, we had to insist that we have affordable housing and have policies that made that possible. And in this whether it was HOPWA housing opportunities to help people with AIDS, Section 8 for affordability. Whatever it happened to be, and today 811 talking about housing opportunities for people with disabilities. The success of St. Peter’s Place, again, shows the country that this is what should happen in the rest of the country. It argues for us to continue to fund at the appropriate level, initiatives like this. Some of this is at risk at this time but I won’t go into that now. Except to say that there is nothing more eloquent in our argument to the Congress with the work of the President to continue this work than the success of St. Peter’s Place.

“So I thank all of you who worked so hard to make this possible. It is a dream come true in every respect. It’s of national significance, it is a national model. And I wish the residents and Serafina, of course, she is our special guest, the person of the hour, because she is the one that so eloquently said what this meant to her. That’s our message to the Congress and to the country.

“Thank you, Serafina for your leadership. Thank you all for making this possible.”