Aid to the Homeless Gets Personal in S.F.

When constituents demanded to know what Mayor Gavin Newsom was doing about the city’s homeless problem, he’d rattle off his projects and personal philosophies. Then he’d turn the tables: What are you doing, he’d ask?

More than a year later, the answer for many residents is “plenty.”

Eager to involve regular citizens in the homelessness quandary, Newsom launched Project Homeless Connect, a massive volunteer effort to bring to one place dozens of services for the city’s street dwellers. The bimonthly events draw as many as 2,000 volunteers -- students, nurses, tech workers, even tourists -- who shepherd the homeless into a cavernous auditorium for help and a dose of dignity.

Need eyeglasses? LensCrafters is there to help. Wheelchair broken? It is repaired on the spot. The city’s elite culinary school provides the eats. There are referrals to shelter, supportive housing and other government aid. Volunteers from one ministry even wash the feet of men and women accustomed to watching passersby recoil.

Encouraged by the Bush administration’s homelessness czar, Philip F. Mangano, who attended San Francisco’s event last summer, nearly two dozen cities Thursday sought to replicate the effort. Ten others will hold similar offerings soon. In Los Angeles, the nonprofit People Assisting the Homeless used national Connect Day to bring an array of services to the homeless in Hollywood and West Hollywood.

In San Francisco, volunteers served hundreds of homeless residents, with some people taking the day off work, rearranging their schedules or traveling to town from the suburbs to participate.

The outpouring surprised even Newsom.

“We wanted to restore a sense of hope, of passion and of purpose around this issue,” he said. “What happened after that I never anticipated. [City workers] said, ‘Can I bring my friend? Can I bring my daughter?’

FedEx allowed homeless customers to send mail anywhere in the world: Sprint PCS donated phone calls. Taxi companies dispatched drivers to transport homeless clients to shelters or detox centers.

The idea of one-stop shopping for homeless clients wasn’t born in San Francisco: People Assisting the Homeless operates a “mall” in Hollywood that is open daily and serves 1,800 people a month -- helping with haircuts, court cases, public assistance, even high school equivalency diplomas.

But the homelessness issue has numbed the collective conscience here.

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown declared the problem unsolvable. Voters were so fatigued by beggars and human waste in the streets that they approved a 2003 measure outlawing aggressive panhandling. The Visitors and Convention Bureau unveiled billboards imploring tourists not to give cash to the homeless and suggesting that such money would just be spent on booze or drugs. Against that backdrop, Project Homeless Connect has given people a positive way to participate.

After Newsom visited Los Angeles’ skid row last summer, getting down on his knees to wash the feet of the homeless with a Christian group, he demanded similar service in San Francisco.

Why, he wondered, couldn’t the city bring services to the homeless, instead of expecting them to make and keep multiple appointments at various city offices?

The first effort involved a walk through the troubled Tenderloin district with 278 volunteers, who surveyed the homeless to see what they needed and to link them with services.

On Thursday, hospice nurse Susan Miller washed the feet of homeless resident Dalibar Lorinc. As she worked, the two talked about books they’d read and why they liked living in San Francisco.

“I volunteered to wash feet,” said Miller. “It gives you a chance to talk to people. This kind of massage calms the nervous system. People leave here feeling better about themselves.”

Lorinc agreed: “On the street, I ignore my feet so badly. I’m embarrassed of myself. But she made me feel OK. She said my feet weren’t that bad. We talked about literature. And now I’m leaving with a clean pair of socks.”

The day offered some homeless the chance to reach out and call or write family members they had not contacted in years. The results were often poignant.

“One woman sat sobbing on the phone for the longest time,” said Stacey Simms, a volunteer from Sprint. “She had her head in her hands. It was hard to watch. Whatever was being said, it wasn’t good.”

Nearby, FedEx volunteers were helping the homeless send cards and letters to family for the holidays. For those who had forgotten addresses, the workers tried to help locate them via computer.

One card read simply: “Hi Mom and Dad. I love you. I apologize.”

Mangano, executive director of the federal Interagency Council on Homelessness, worked with San Francisco to develop its “10-year plan to end homelessness” -- an administration requirement for cities that seek grant funding.

He returned in June to witness the city’s fifth Project Homeless Connect day and began to believe that a national movement could result.

On that Homeless Connect day, consulting firm Deloitte & Touche sent 700 employees to the auditorium to help.

Thirteen hundred other volunteers filled out the ranks. Mangano returned to Washington and promptly began promoting the effort, encouraging officials from other cities to visit and see for themselves.

October’s event brought many of them on a pilgrimage of sorts. Mangano’s office then decided to urge all interested cities to hold a similar event Thursday.

Miami, Chicago, Denver, St. Louis, Atlanta, San Diego, San Jose, Philadelphia and Knoxville, Tenn., joined in. Portland, Ore., plans to follow suit soon.

Bringing Project Homeless Connect to bigger cities or counties such as Los Angeles will be challenging, advocates concede: While San Francisco counts 15,000 homeless, L.A. County estimates 91,000.

Newsom still has critics. Religious Witness With Homeless People, a coalition of religious and lay leaders, held an event last week to point out contradictions in Newsom’s policy on the homeless.

San Francisco’s Care Not Cash program, which seeks to radically pare welfare checks for the homeless and instead funnel the money into supportive housing, has gotten about 1,000 people off the streets.

But, critics say, Newsom’s administration at the same time has accelerated criminal citations against the homeless for sleeping outdoors. In the 22 months since Newsom took office, 1,860 citations were issued, compared with just 718 in the preceding 22 months, they say.

The mayor said he never ordered more ticketing.

However, he added that people cannot be permitted to camp in parks and on sidewalks or relieve themselves in public without some consequence.

On Thursday, as she waited to get her blood pressure checked, Charlene Ayers could not criticize Newsom or his policies.

“I offer my heartfelt thanks to these people,” said the 61-year-old, who is legally blind. “Putting these services together saves money and time. It’s more productive.”