Edgar Tapia works on the Homeless Outreach Team of San Francisco, California. He goes to places where people are living in the streets and tells them there is space for them in city shelters. He recently went into one San Francisco neighborhood on that mission.
He came to a group of tents, calling out greetings and offers of food and water bottles. He asked if anyone was interested in moving indoors. He had eight available beds in city shelters, he told them.
He reminded them that city street cleaners would be coming soon to clear the sidewalk.
One woman in a tent asked for health care kits and clothing. "Can we get some socks?" she asked.
Finding people to enter the city shelter is not an easy job. There are more shelter beds than ever before. San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, has said she will no longer permit people living outdoors when they know there is a place to stay indoors.
Reasons to stay on the street
Sometimes a person wants to move inside, but there are no beds. Other times, a bed is open but the person refuses the offer. Reasons include use of drugs and alcohol.
But outreach workers keep trying.
Jose Torres is a Homeless Outreach Team manager. He said that people on the street sometimes want to stay with their friends or dislike the shelter.
"Sometimes we get lucky and they accept the one thing we have available, and if that doesn't work, we try something else," he said. "It's that 'try again, try again' system."
Tapia was happy because a man he had been talking to for two months said he may be ready to accept a place in a shelter. The first time they talked, Tapia said, the man asked no questions and showed little interest. But the next time, the man asked what the shelters were like.
Tapia said, "I want to see these people off the streets. I want to see them do good."
The 41-year-old woman who asked for socks said her name was Mellie M. She said her group wants hotel rooms or an apartment. She wants a secure place to stay because she was raped while homeless.
"In order for us not to live in tents anymore," she said, "they need to give us a place that we can call home."
When Torres, the manager, arrived in one neighborhood, he got good news from other outreach workers. They told him that a client was moving into his own small apartment. That client is 71-year-old Larry James Bell.
Outreach worker Ventrell Johnson got emotional thinking about Bell. Just eight months ago, Bell was living under a plastic sheet. Johnson had gotten Bell a bed in a homeless shelter. Now, Bell was ready for his own place.
"I'd like to have a house one day," Bell said.
When Bell leaves the shelter, another bed becomes available for someone else. Johnson noted that people are a little more likely to accept shelter beds; now the city is pushing to remove the tents and temporary shelters from the streets.
By the end of their workday, outreach workers had found seven people for seven shelter beds.
I’m Jill Robbins.
