London Breed's Neighborhood Eagerly Anticipates Her Inauguration

This week, San Francisco native London Breed is set to ascend to the city's top job, becoming the city's first-ever African-American female mayor. A fact that is a delight to one of her previous campaign stops: the iconic Chicago's Barbershop, in the Fillmore neighborhood where London Breed grew up.

Upstairs, a man known to all as "Joe the Barber" is giving a kid a trendy cut.

"This is a combination of a fade and locks on top," Joe the Barber said.

This place has been a community hub for the past two decades, surviving even after its sister shop on Fillmore closed after 60 years. Joe said that places like this have a golden rule.

"You can talk about anything in the shop, except," Joe said. "There's one thing you're not supposed to talk about in the shop: religion and politics."

Wait a minute, what about that poster of Mayor-elect London Breed above the sink?

"Well, you know, times has changed," Joe said.

What's changed is someone from this neighborhood is headed toward the mayor's office.

Chicago's co-owner Kenneth El-Amin was a couple of years behind her in high school, and knew her brother well.

"I was there, I don't think she really paid any attention to the little love letters I used to slide under her locker," he laughed.

Breed grew up in nearby public housing. Until just last year, she lived in a rent-controlled apartment with a roommate.

El-Amin said he hopes that her insight — not just the color of her skin — will mean creative solutions to a housing crisis that's driven so many natives, especially black residents, from the neighborhood.

"I think as a community we are fully confident that she will be able to do that based on some of the things that she's had to overcome to get to that position anyway," El-Amin said.

Others hope Breed can address homelessness and mental health. Barbershop client Clintell Lewis hopes she can help create a bridge between the community and law enforcement when it comes to meaningful police reform.

"Right now, I think things are a little bit out of hand, and I think she's the right person to step in and get it done," Lewis said.

Breed is set to be sworn in on the steps of City Hall on Wednesday.